Non Standard Game Over / First-Person Shooter

Examples of Non-Standard Game Over in first person shooters.

• America's Army:
  • If you shoot an instructor, the screen goes black and then transports your character to a prison cell in Leavenworth.
  • If you shoot people on your own team too many times in online play, the game will kick you out of the server and give you the Leavenworth scene as well.
• Batman Doom: During the final fight with Bane, if you try to switch to a different weapon instead of fighting him in melee, you become unable to attack at all. A taunting message ("You failed to fight Bane with your fists") is prominently displayed on the screen. You can still run around, so it's not precisely a game over, but the fight becomes Unwinnable.
• Call of Duty:
  • Call of Duty: "You are a traitor to the motherland!" if you kill a Commissar in the Russian campaign, "Friendly fire will not be tolerated", if you shoot a friendly elsewhere, or "You were killed by a grenade, exploding vehicle, lethal pocket of radiation, etc."
  • In Call of Duty 2, there are two instances, one in "Red Army Training", and one (appropriately enough) in "Prisoners of War", where the game will display the message "Killing prisoners of war will not be tolerated" if the player attacks captured German soldiers.
  • If you fail the helicopter jump in Modern Warfare, you get "Nobody makes their first Jump…". If you miss your shot in the flashback level "One Shot, One Kill", "Zakhaev escaped unharmed". The Updated Re-release adds another one to "One Shot, One Kill". If you shoot Zakhaev and then also shoot Yuri, you fail the mission for "friendly fire" despite it taking place decades before Price and Yuri actually meet.
  • In Modern Warfare 2, in the early mission "Team Player", if the player chooses to run in on foot rather than go into the convoy, you are promptly taken down by sniper fire with the notice "It would probably be safer to ride in the convoy."
  • Failing to move past certain events in recent installments will replace the quotes with whatever you are supposed to do. One is reminded to "Hold on for dear life" after falling to death while ice climbing.
  • Dying to an attack dog in Modern Warfare or a Banzai charger in World at War has the game tell you when to press the melee button/key to save yourself.
• Far Cry:
  • Far Cry 4 has one right at the start of the game. If you do what the horrifying, Affably Evil psychopath Pagan Min says and simply wait around until he comes back, he returns and starts up a pleasant conversation about Ajay's mother, revealing several key plot points in the process, then puts Ajay on a helicopter and takes him to Lakshmana so he can honour his mother's dying wish, then rounds up by asking Ajay if he wants to go do something fun before the credits roll. Probably one of the most egregious, anti-climatic, and humorous examples of "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot in modern fiction.
  Pagan Min: Maybe now we can finally shoot some goddamn guns.
  • Far Cry 5 also has one by doing nothing in the beginning: If you don't arrest Joseph Seed when the game tells you to, Sheriff Whitehorse calls everything off and orders you and the other deputies to walk away (likely with the intention of getting more men).
  • Far Cry 6 has a far less secret additional ending. Your character follows through on their desire to leave the island of Yara in the boat your allies promised you for helping them. Dani simply drives the boat far enough offshore and you get a cutscene of them in America.
• Half-Life:
  • Half-Life has several of these, usually taking the form of a black screen with white text:
    • When using the Displacer Cannon in Opposing Force, there are places where you can translocate into nothingness, giving you an unusual Game Over screen.
    • And if you try to chase Freeman to Xen, or if you kill him before he enters the portal, you will lose due to creating a Temporal Paradox.
    • You can attack/kill an instructor during the tutorial and get yourself court-martialed.
    • In the Opposing Force Chapter "Friendly Fire", you can damage the rocket the nuke that will eventually blow up Black Mesa came in, to the point where it explodes!
    • Similar to the Opposing Force tutorial example mentioned above, this can also occur at the start of Blue Shift before you officially report for duty. You're given a pistol at the practice-firing range, loads of fellow security guards are around; no need to guess what happens if you decide to shoot someone.
    • Refusing the G-Man's offer at the end of Half-Life might be a case of this, or a case of Multiple Endings. He expresses his regrets, and then it's not pretty.
    • There's also a much earlier Half-Life non-standard game over during the Questionable Ethics level where you need to bring one of the three hiding scientists to the eye scanner to unlock the front door of the building. If you decide to kill all three of the scientists, get them killed by the malfunctioning surgery saws, or otherwise let them die before the door is unlocked, you end up trapping yourself. The game will then Fade Out like the G-Man endings after the last remaining scientist dies.
  • In Half-Life 2, crashing a vehicle into a location that the player will not be able to recover will result in you getting terminated for "failure to preserve mission-critical resources". This also happens if a key ally like Alyx Vance dies (which is rare since they have Regenerating Health and are Friendly Fireproof).
    • Jumping off the cliffs on Highway 17 will fade to black with the note that you "demonstrated exceedingly poor judgement".
    • In Episode Two, the G-Man's endgame reports have been replaced with Vortessent messages, the most amusing of which comments that "the Magnusson's misgivings about the Freeman were completely justified" if the player fails to protect the base.
  • Dying in the final segment of Hunt Down the Freeman will trigger one of two hallucinations from Mitchell: One where he sees his brother Adrian Shephard, and one where he's on a train with several Gordon Freeman clones who motion at him to sit with them.
• Halo: Combat Evolved:
  • If Captain Keyes dies in the mission "Truth and Reconciliation", where you have to rescue him, the a cutscene will play of his body falling below.
  Cortana: No! Without the Captain, the Covenant have already won!
  • If you run out of time during the Escape Sequence on the final level, the game displays a cutscene of the Pillar of Autumn exploding with you still onboard.
  • Typically, one can friendly fire your fellow marines and still complete the level even if they turn on you and try to kill you. The ONE exception to this is if you kill one of the bridge crew on the first level, "The Pillar of Autumn". Doing this causes the room exit to be locked and invincible marines to attack you. You can't complete the level and you will die eventually.
• If you die in Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, you will usually just watch Kyle die in a slow motion sequence. However on one level, you are required to be stealthy. If an enemy raises the alarm, you will see a cutscene of Kyle in prison just before being tortured.
• Left 4 Dead has a non-standard game over in the finale of The Sacrifice. There has to be a minimum of 2 survivors alive to perform the sacrifice; one survivor has to jump off the bridge and restart the generator to get the bridge up and the other survivor has to be on the bridge to get away from the zombies once it is raised. If 3 survivors are killed or are incapacitated on the bridge and the survivor sacrificing themselves is off the bridge, it counts as a failure and you will have to redo the finale. This is coming from a game where the only way to lose is everyone dying.
• In the Marathon game mod Gemini Station, if you kill Jack Melville in the penultimate level, you are charged with his murder and sent to an Oubliette, where the only way out is suicide by crushing trap.
• In Medal of Honor: Frontline, if for some reason you decide to stick around after marking the bunker for bombardment in the opening D-Day mission, you get killed instantly for your trouble as the bombing proves to be a success. Who knew?
• Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi: If you get killed by the Count or Malachi, you get a special cutscene saying that you were the last sacrifice needed to restore Malachi's powers, and now you will be absorbed into him as he is released to destroy the world.
• Operation Wolf: Aside from "sustaining a lethal injury", the game will also end if you run out of bullets and grenades ("Since you have no ammunition left, you must join the hostages."). Strangely enough, you still have to run out of health before that happens.
• Usually in PAYDAY 3, the only way to fail a heist is for all players to be downed or in custody. In Road Rage, however, failing to complete the beginning objective within the time limit will result in an immediate heist failure, either due to the driver changing his route due to civilians sounding the alarm, or simply reversing out of the ambush since the EMP hasn't been activated.
• In Prey (2017) following December's objective and leaving Talos I in Alex's escape pod results in a game over where you can hear someone saying "We failed. This isn't the one", and another voice responds with "Start over". It hints towards the game's Twist Ending; the voices you hear are from outside the simulation you're in, where Alex decides you are a failed experiment, because you've chosen your own survival over helping anyone, and presumably he kills you before starting anew with another Typhoon.
• Quake IV has a Nonstandard Game Over that can be activated at two distinct points, both of those points happening when an ally you're supposed to protect is killed.
• Red Faction:
  • If Griffin dies, you will get a special message saying "Your failure to protect Griffin doomed the rebellion, etc'', followed by just "Game Over" instead of "You Have Died". A similar thing happens if Capek kills Eos during his boss battle.
  • In Red Faction: Guerilla. if you kill your brother during the tutorial, the Game Over screen will appear, saying "WTF, you killed your Brother!!!". Yes, with that wording.
• In Return to Castle Wolfenstein, in the Rocket Base mission, there is a German operator counting down the time left before the rocket you have to destroy will take off. If you fail to destroy the rocket in time, the game will fade to black as the rocket takes off and you will have to start again.
• In Rise of the Triad, failing to catch all of El Oscuro's (the final boss and villain of the series) spawn will give you a seemingly standard ending… but twenty years later, one of his spawn rises to power and explodes the Earth. But nice work, anyway. You then get a voice telling you that "Youuuuuuuuuuuuuu suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck."
• In the Xbox 360 version of Secret Service, shooting the President results in a game over… and unlocks a zero gamerscore achievement entitled 'The Exact Opposite Of Your Job'.
• The first Soldier of Fortune has a number of these for failed mission objectives, such as running out of time to stop the missile launch in Siberia.
• In the first Stealth-Based Mission of Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix, if a guard spots you, the mission is immediately failed with the message "Dr. Ivanovich has been captured". In the level where you are escorting a team of soldiers, disobeying orders or accidentally shooting one of them results in them executing you on the spot.
• In the "virtual Voyager" mode of Star Trek: Elite Force attacking any crew member will send ship's security after you, either sending you to the brig or getting you killed. You can also sit in the captain's chair and activate the ship's self destruct. The first mission also plays with this as your attempt to free a fellow crew member from the Borg by shooting a console appears to blow up the ship — but it was just a holodeck training simulation.
• Strife:
  • You are given a choice between trusting Macil or the Oracle. The former gives you the standard ending upon killing the Entity, and the latter nets you a non-standard Downer Ending. However, if you fail to defeat the Entity…
  • Completing or refusing certain missions results in an Unwinnable ending of being gunned down by a countless wave of Acolytes.
• Usually in SWAT 3 and SWAT 4, failing objectives does not end the entire mission in failure, with Mission Control instead asking if you want to continue and try to salvage what you can of the mission. A few missions, however, have objectives that, if failed, result in an immediate game over (i.e., letting the plane take off in SWAT 3's "Rapid Deployment, Airport" mission), complete with an FMV showing what happens afterwards.
• System Shock's normal game over is you serving SHODAN well, as a cyborg. You get a non-standard game over when you fire the mining laser into Earth. Otherwise, the game ends with a frantic Cyberspace battle where the player crashes an AI who in turn hacks the player's mind. The latter is represented by a storm of pixels slowly filling the screen. If the AI wins, the pixels fill the screen to form a picture of her empty, emotionless, Gigeresque face.
• In the final mission of Target Terror, if you directly shoot the final terrorist instead of the Dead Man's Switch he's holding, the plane blows up. If you run out of lives after the Point of No Continues, the plane is shown crashing into the White House.
• In TimeShift, if you block or otherwise interfere with certain movable objects while using your Time Reversal power, you get a non-standard Game Over due to Time Paradox.
• Failing any objective in the second TimeSplitters game will prompt a message telling you to restart the level, akin to Goldeneye 1997 or Perfect Dark. In the third however, this only ever can happen once; by killing the scientist cornered by monster worms near the start of "Mansion of Madness".
• In TRON 2.0:
  • If you kill any non-hostile and/or "Civilian" Programs (like Ma3a, Byte, or any character that you can talk to), you hear a voice say "Illegal program termination." Five seconds later, you get a screen with the same message.
  • If Ma3a is killed during her Protection Missions or a stray shot takes out Alan when you're running your Escort Mission with him in the latter part of the game, the message is "You failed to protect Ma3a / your father." Ma3a proves difficult to defend; Alan (being possibly the most rational character in that universe) has the good sense to duck when the discs start flying.
• In ULTRAKILL, In the level 5-2, on top of the starting tower, there is a cage with 'Jakito' inside of it and a plate in front of it. If you put Florp on the plate, (found on top of the first smokestack of the ferry) Jakito will " lay waste to this world, causing the game to crash itself.
• In Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, there's a chance for you to kill a senile Adolf Hitler by stomping his skull in in one level. It gets B.J. killed by Nazi guards immediately, but it's regarded by fans as immensely satisfying.

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