Taking You With Me / Video Games

Examples of Taking You with Me in Video Games. As a reminder, with this being a Death Trope, all spoilers are unmarked. You have been warned.

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A - E

• In Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception, after you finish attacking the flying fortress "Gleipnir", destroying it's air-to-air weaponry, the Gleipnir's captain flips the plane upside down to try and use it's air-to ground weaponry, telling the crew trying to physically restrain him "we're gonna die anyway!" Then when you destroy the Shock Cannon, he steers it into Santa Elva, a civilian city, while Mission Control pleads with him not to.
  Captain: I will deliver one final blow to the enemy, as commander of the Gleipnir. AM I TO BE DENIED EVEN THAT?!!!
• In Assassin's Creed II, Checco Orsi stabs Ezio in the stomach when he is fatally wounded by the latter. Also in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Leonidas is stabbed by a Persian soldier after falling to his knees, but then he stabs this soldier himself before succumbing to his own wounds.
• Banjo-Tooie's Targitzan attempts this after his defeat, complete with him calling it his "Sacred Self-Destruct". (Seeing as he's the boss of the first world, it's very easy to dodge.)
• In Batman: Arkham City, after having all of his plans dashed, a dying Hugo Strange initiates Protocol 11, which detonates his base of operations at the top of Wonder Tower, in an attempt to kill Batman and Ra's al Ghul. Batman ends up throwing himself and Ra's out before it explodes.
• In Bayonetta, the Final Boss Jubileus gets her soul punched into the sun, but even though beaten she still sends her body to crash into the earth to presumably destroy it. In Bayonetta 2, our first scene shows Balder beside some of Jubileus's remains holding a blue apparition within him until the moment he dies, thanking Bayonetta for killing him. We learn that the Masked Lumen is really a younger Balder, and when Loptr, the evil half of Aesir is destroyed and tries to go to the spirit realm to be reincarnated, Balder stops him by absorbing him into his body and keeping him from leaving. He does make Bayonetta promise to kill him, and she accomplished that in the first game. This somewhat makes Balder's death a form of this.
• In Besiege, the flamethrower is one of the most effective weapons in the game, with the drawback being that enemies lit on fire will continue to run at you and most build blocks are very flammable — if you're not careful, those soldiers or those harmless sheep you lit on fire will light your contraption ablaze.
• The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth adds the Plan C item in its Afterbirth+ expansion, which is basically this trope. It inflicts enough damage to kill any enemy or boss in the room (unless they have another health bar left, in which case they immediately switch to it), but kills you three seconds later. Unlike most examples, however, there are a number of items that can cause Isaac to survive, either by giving him more lives, escaping down the trapdoor to the next floor immediately upon killing the boss in question, or being outright immune to damage that targets his body (which all items do).
• The bosses in Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon do that as a desperation attack. While the last-ditch attempt doesn't outright kill you, it does rob you of the extra life you would get at the end of the stage.
  • In the sequel, this is averted for the first three bosses in Chapter 1, as they start to charge up a desperation attack but gets struck down by the ally that will join Zangetsu at the end of the level before it can do so.
• Krieg of Borderlands 2 has two variations of this. The Pull the Pin skill lets him drop a grenade when he dies, gaining double XP if it scores a kill. Light the Fuses turns him into a Suicide Psycho when his HP reaches zero, where he'll start running around tossing dynamite as well as being able to suicide-bomb enemies. However, if he scores a kill in this mode he'll actually get a Second Wind.
• Wilhelm in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! has "Termination Protocols", which puts him in an emergency state when he runs out of health where he slowly walks towards the enemy while emitting electricity. Like Krieg, he can self-destruct, only to revive himself if he scores a kill.
• This is the purpose of the Dark Knight skill See You in Hell in Bravely Default. All enemies suffer damage equal to four times the Dark Knight's standard attack.
• Brink! has this as a gameplay mechanic. Operatives can use a bomb inside their heads, called a Cortex Bomb, to blow themselves up when they are incapacitated.
• In Burnout 3: Takedown onwards, after your car crashes, you can activate a slow-motion cam and try to steer your wreck before it comes to a stop. If you manage to cause another competitor to crash, you'll earn an "Aftertouch Takedown" bonus.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops has a villain version. After you finally find and mortally wound Kravchenko, he reveals that he is wearing a suicide grenade belt and pulls the pin, intending to take you down with him. Woods then makes a Heroic Sacrifice and tackles Kravchecko through a window just before the grenades go off, saving Mason.
  • It’s actually a subversion; in Black Ops II, it’s revealed that both Woods and Kravchenko survived the explosion and both of them reappear during the campaign, though only Woods is alive in the present day of 2025.
  • In Black Ops II, Raul Menendez attempts one of these during his first encounter with Alex Mason, pulling the pin on a grenade and attempting to kill Mason and several other soldiers in the room. It quickly turns into a life-or-death struggle between the two when Mason makes Menendez drop the grenade, leading to a couple of soldiers pulling a Heroic Sacrifice by throwing themselves on top of the grenade to try and contain the explosion.
    • There’s an attempted example, though a rather unusual one: after Admiral Briggs is taken hostage by Menendez, he tells his soldiers to shoot through him to kill Menendez. It doesn’t work out like he wanted.
• Most bosses in Castlevania: Rondo of Blood do this, although their efforts aren't usually instantly lethal unless you have little HP remaining to begin with and aren't sure how to dodge their final attack.
• City of Heroes offers an Expansion Pack which includes the ability for any character to obtain a self-destruction power. Although intended to be used as this trope or a Suicide Attack, in game it is more frequently used as a kind of Rocket Jump in order to quickly travel across the zone (to the hospital) or to the character's supergroup base.
  • That's mostly because it's not an example if the blast misses half it's targets and barely dents the HP of the rest.
    • Those it does hit tend to take rather devastating amounts of damage (500+ at level 50, enough to wipe out any minions unfortunate enough to be caught in the blast and severely wound any Lieutenants similarly caught)
  • Circle of Thorns mages will blow themselves up when their hit points get too low. Only the host body is destroyed; the possessing Oranbegan spirit is merely left without a host until it can claim a new one.
• Combat Instinct 3: After you destroy all of the Final Boss' weapons, he starts to self-destruct for an instant kill.
• In Dangerous Dave, colliding with an enemy not only kills you, but them too. This can be useful in a few cases if you don't mind losing a life to do it.
• In Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, a lot of the races are notoriously poor losers when you beat their home province. The Orks spring a massive series of explosions all over their base. The Imperial Guard overload the core of the weapon they were defending. The Space Marines shoot their own home base from orbit, and (though the bomb was your idea) the bomb that collapses the Necrons' home base also kills every one of your units that was deployed... except your commander. Frankly, given all the do-or-die orders that get issued in this universe, it's probably simpler to list aversions.
  • Shown in Dawn of War II with a skill on Dreadnought Thule that blows it up violently whenever it gets incapacitated. Also using Cyrus' Proximity Mines without the skill that lets him plant bombs without breaking infiltration. In fact, any time a friend-or-foe indiscriminate area of effect attack is used anywhere near your own units.
  • If Jonah Orion is the traitor in Chaos Rising, the daemon possessing Jonah will try to repair his body, but Jonah makes one last ditch effort to stop the daemon from healing him.
• In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, this is how the boss fight against Barrett ends — he pulls the pins on the grenades still strapped to his body while trying to pull Jensen close enough to take him out, too.
  • This is also an option to end the game. Instead of telling the world the truth (well, one of them) about the events of the game, you can opt to kill all the leaders of involved parties, including yourself, and leave the rest of the world to figure out everything for themselves.
• Devil May Cry and Devil May Cry 4 have the Shadows and the Blitzes, respectively (going by designer notes, the latter was modeled intentionally on the former, and it shows). Once you hurt a Shadow enough, it turns red and uses its last few seconds of life in an attempt to do this to you. And a Blitz is almost the same way. That, plus how powerful both of these enemies were puts them somewhere between Demonic Spiders and That One Boss (That One Miniboss, maybe?)
  • Though for skilled enough players with built-up characters, "Shadow hunting" could become something like a fun hobby in the original Devil May Cry.
• The unique monsters in Diablo II that are Cold and/or Fire Enchanted. Nasty cold nova and fire+physical damage effect upon monster death.
  • Undead Fetishes. One of the game's more infamous Demonic Spiders that reward you with a face full of shrapnel if they die in close proximity to you.
  • Enforced with the Suicide Minions of Act 5.
  • Also, some Uniques have a trait that makes them explode upon dying, and some undead emit a cloud of poison when downed.
• Diablo III also has certain elite enemies that explode upon death.
• Dirty Bomb:
  • Players who lose all their health need to either be slashed with a melee weapon or gunned down even more to be put down for good. Nader can drop a live grenade on her body in this state if an enemy tries to slash her.
  • If Stoker is killed while priming his grenade, he drops it onto his body. The resulting flame would kill him and any enemy unlucky enough to be close by.
• In the high-chaos ending of Dishonored, Havelock will attempt this with Emily. Whether Corvo is quick enough to react changes how the end of the game plays out.
• A guide book for Doom II noted that a rocket launcher should only be used in close quarters if it was "your last great act of defiance."
• In Dragon Age: Origins, this is revealed to be the only way the Grey Wardens can defeat an Archdemon. If slain by anyone else, it will simply possess the nearest soulless Darkspawn in the vicinity, rendering it effectively immortal. Being slain by a Grey Warden on the other hand, will force it to possess them instead, which because of their already present soul, ends up destroying them both.
• In Dragon Quest II, the final spell learned by the Prince of Cannock is called Sacrifice, which instantly kills both him and the entire enemy party with a 100% success rate. Since he's the only party member with a revive spell, it's mostly a last resort. Unfortunately, there are also enemies who know this spell, and it works just as well for them. Instant, unavoidable, Total Party Kill from a Random Encounter = Nintendo Hard.
• DRL: Invoking this trope on the final boss by blowing it and yourself up with a thermonuclear bomb nets you a "partial win", the worst of the game's three endings. It is a win, you did kill the Spider Mastermind (or Cyberdemon, in older versions), but it's not as good as living to tell the tale. Subverting the trope by doing that while invincible opens up the path to the True Final Boss and the best ending.
• The Harkonnen Devastator in Dune II is a large nuclear powered tank which can be ordered to self destruct, potentially taking out nearby enemies. It will also do so automatically once critically damaged. However, one of the other factions has a unit that has temporary mind control, which then turns out very badly for Harkonnen.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • One from the series' primary Creation Myth: Anu and Padomay are the anthropomorphized primordial forces of "stasis/order/light" and "change/chaos/darkness", respectively. Their interplay in the great "void" of pre-creation led to creation itself. Creation, sometimes anthropomorphized as the female entity "Nir", favored Anu, which angered Padomay. Padomay killed Nir and shattered the twelve worlds she gave birth to. Anu then wounded Padomay, presuming him dead. Anu salvaged the pieces of the twelve worlds to create one world: Nirn. Padomay returned and wounded Anu, seeking to destroy Nirn. Anu then pulled Padomay and himself outside of time, ending Padomay's threat to creation "forever".
  • In the series' backstory, this is one of the explanations of why Yokuda, a continent to the west of Tamriel and original home of the Redguards, sank beneath the sea in the 1st Era. According to this explanation, the destruction of Yokuda was a result of the actions of the Hiradirge, a defeated band of Ansei. Ansei, or "Sword Saints," were an ancient Yokudan order of warriors who follow "The Way of the Sword," a martial philosophy on blade mastery. So great was their mastery of the blade that they could manifest a sword from their very soul, known as a Shehai or "Spirit Sword." Using their Shehai, the Ansei could perform the "Pankratosword" technique, in which they could "split the atomos". In revenge for their defeat, the Hiradirge used the Pankratosword technique to destroy Yokuda and caused it to sink beneath the sea. The Pankratosword was then considered a Dangerous Forbidden Technique, and likely lost to history as a result.
  • Also from the backstory, Wulfharth Ash-King, the legendary ancient King of the Nords and noted Shezarrine who has died and come back to life at least three times, became the Mysterious Backer known as the "Underking" to Tiber Septim after he was Refused by the Call in favor of Septim. The Underking would continue to aid Septim in his conquests, until Septim agreed to the peaceful vassalization of Morrowind. The Underking considered this a betrayal that legitimized the Dunmeri Tribunal, so he left Septim. As part of the Armistice with Morrowind, Septim acquired the Dwemer-constructed Numidium. Requiring an immensely powerful power source, Septim's Imperial Battlemage, Zurin Arctus, lured the Underking into a trap. When Arctus ambushed and soul-trapped Wulfharth in the Mantella in order to power the Numidium, Wulfharth killed Arctus with his "dying breath" and as a result of his final actions, possibly merged the two into the same "Underking" being.
  • Oblivion:
    • The final battle between Martin and Mehrunes Dagon could be considered this, although Dagon doesn't die — he is only sent back to his own realm.
    • The Shambles from The Shivering Isles expansion, which upon defeat releases a burst of frost magic in an attempt to kill the player.
  • In Skyrim, Flame Atronachs explode in a fiery blast upon death. Being lesser Daedra, they don't actually die, rather, their physical body is destroyed and their spirit returns to Oblivion to reform. Any mortals they take down with them are not so lucky... They also have this power in Online.
• The End Times: Vermintide and Vermintide II: Globadiers normally lob Deadly Gas grenades from a distance, but if they take heavy damage, they'll try to run up to the heroes and detonate all their gas at once.
• Eternal Darkness reveals at the end of the game that your three playthroughs, each against a different ancient, have allowed Mantorok to drag all three of the elder gods it guards against into a temporal web that lets it destroy all three of them. Mantorok is already dying — in each timeline, Pious Augustus performs a lethal ritual on it — but it's managed to take out all the gods it was supposed to keep in check as it dies.
• In Eternal Sonata, after the party beats Tuba, he leaps up in the air and crashes his massive mace to collapse a bridge and sending everyone tumbling into a rushing river. The party is split but survives, Tuba, however, is never seen again and presumably dead; most likely he just sank given his massively overweight state.
• Eternal Twilight: When the party chases Azael down for the Final Boss battle, he tricks them into entering his soul, which means if they kill him, they die too. The party turns this trope back on him by stating that this is a price worth paying if it means ridding the world of his evil. Fortunately, the Supremes teleport the party out before Azael's dying soul can collapse on them.
• In Evolva, Flame Parasites catch fire, and explode after a few seconds, when they're killed.

F - H

• Fallout:
  • In Fallout, upon death the Master self-destructs and activates a nuclear bomb.
  • Frank Horrigan in Fallout 2 attempts to stall the player from escaping an oil rig about to go down in a nuclear explosion.
  • In Fallout: New Vegas, a delayed detonation in the form of a bloodbath that engulfs New Vegas if Caesar dies and his successor rules...
    • In the Dead Money DLC, the Nightkin Dog attempts to kill himself along with his Split Personality God. Unfortunately, his method of doing so involves opening the Sierra Madre's gas mains and igniting the gas, which would kill everyone else in the building, so the player must quickly get to him and talk him down before he can go through with it.
  • In Fallout 4, should the Minutemen destroy the Prydwen with their artillery, the Brotherhood will know exactly who's responsible and attempt to swarm the Castle with every remaining knight and Vertibird rather than attempt to retreat back to DC.
  • The series never reveals how exactly the Great War happened, but some of the backstory states the U.S., having taken back Alaska from the Chinese, were now invading China itself and getting rather close to Beijing. It's possible that the Chinese leadership, faced with imminent defeat, did the unthinkable and decided to make America and the rest of the world burn with them.
• In The Feeble Files, When Feeble and Dolores steal a ship to escape from Cygnus Alpha (a max security prison colony), one of the guards that was thrown into outer space ends up landing on their windshield. He takes this opportunity to shoot one of their engines before being thrown back into space again. It results in the ship being forced to crash land on the nearby planet.
• Final Fantasy franchise in general have monsters with the "Self Destruct" ability.
  • High level Behemoth-type monsters tend to have final attacks involving Comet or Meteor spells, meaning that when you kill them, you had better have enough health to survive or its game-over anyways.
  • Final Fantasy VII even had the "Final Attack" materia that cast whatever spell it was linked to when that character hit 0 hp. It could be used to immediately revive them (and any other fallen allies) with the right materia combo, but it could also be used to launch any of dozens of devastating attacks to invoke this trope.
  • It's also just as common as not in Final Fantasy VII for boss monsters to use one last final move, generally a skill they've used throughout the battle, before dying.
• In Final Fantasy II, Count Borghen attempts this on the party, knowing the Emperor will have him killed for letting the Rebels get the Goddess's Bell. His attempts at doing so are quite ineffectual. The boulder trap he triggers as he dies, however, is much more effective, forcing Josef to make a Heroic Sacrifice to save the others.
• In Final Fantasy IV, Tellah's short battle against Golbez, which he tops off with Meteor despite Cecil's and Yang's objections. Tellah dies while Golbez walks away.
  • Two Elemental Fiends do this. Scarmiglione comes back from the dead for a second (and harder) round of the boss battle. Cagnazzo uses his last power in attempt to squish you to death by trapping you in a small room with moving walls.
• In Final Fantasy IX, when you win the battle against Kuja he casts Ultima to kill off your party, but that leaves him drained off and almost dead — something he probably knows. He didn't succeed, but hey, it's the thought that counts.
  • Kuja's ultimate motivation is that, having discovered that his lifespan is limited and he's going to die soon, he decides to take two whole worlds with him and erase all of existence if he can last long enough.
  • Several other enemies in the series have a tradition of casting that one last spell or ability just before they expire. The Brachiosaurs and the Magi-Master in Final Fantasy VI also cast Ultima when they're defeated.
    • In the Final Battle of Final Fantasy VI, all of the individual components of Kefka's demonic melange perform a dangerous, if not outright lethal attack upon defeat. For instance, defeating Rest at the top tier of the monstrosity will make him doublecast the unblockable (but dodgeable) instant kill spell "Repose."
    • There's also this one monster called Humbaba in X-2, which is blocking off the Thunder Plains for the concert or trying to eat Cid or something. Anyway, upon killing it, it got off a Meteor spell and flattened everyone except the Dark Knight.
    • This is the signature ability of the Bomb-class enemies (Bombs, Grenades, Balloons, et al.) They tend to Self-Destruct when damaged, usually with enough force to kill at least one party member. In recent entries, each physical strike that connects with them will cause them to swell up, and swell up, and swell up, until they're gigantic and on the verge of bursting violently, forcing you to kill them in as few hits as possible or use magic.
  • One example is Gilgamesh from Final Fantasy V, the one man Goldfish Poop Gang (with awesome theme music) who redeems himself of both villainy and goofiness by switching sides and self-destructing to take out the second to last boss, Necrophobe, if you take too long in your fight with him.
    • He somehow survives the Forbidden Dangerous Technique.
  • There is also a rather special case with Geosgaeno Bonus Boss in Final Fantasy X. During the fight the monster can swallow one of your party members, and if you kill it with someone in its stomach, before kicking the bucket it spits them out for party-wide lower-damage cap, which is a Total Party Kill if someone does not have Auto-Revive casted on them or Break HP Limit on their armor (which most likely doesn't, as this is the easiest of optional bosses). As a kicker the game will go through full animation of the boss dying before throwing Game Over screen at you. You can simply avoid it by not killing it in this moment though.
  • Zack charges at an army and takes most of them down before being shot to death in Crisis Core.
  • This is also the way Cloud kills Sephiroth the first time, at least in Crisis Core—specifically, he grabs the sword sticking through him, shoves it further to get a good grip, and throws its wielder into the reactor by it. Sephiroth is too startled to let go.
  • From Final Fantasy XII, a fatally-wounded Vayne is so poisoned with the power of his own Nethicite that he laments not being able to fulfill Venat's goals. Unwilling to let him suffer alone, after all they've been through, Venat surrenders its power to Vayne: even if he can't realize his ultimate ambition anymore, he will inflict as much suffering as possible on those responsible.
  • Its implied that Kefka intended to do this in the ending of Final Fantasy VI with Terra Branford, most specifically, after he was defeated, given that he had absorbed the essence of magic and killing him would make Espers cease to exist, which would have included those with Esper heritage. That's also not getting into Kefka's tower threatening to collapse on the Returners as they escape.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV, this is the big threat with the Endwalker expansion. Fandaniel seeks to release Zodiark, the big threat that's been looming over our heads since the start of the game. When he's finally free, Fandaniel takes it over and forces the Warrior of Light to defeat him, in which he kills himself and kickstarts the Final Days, intending on the world falling into the same despair and misery he suffered through ages ago.
• In Fire Emblem Fates, Saizo's personal skill Pyrotechnics involve him and his enemies losing life points if he initiates battle and he already has less than half his own life points.
• In FreeSpace, that kind of stuff happens alot, especially with capital ships. In a general way, they tend to explode in a mega-blast when dying — which can be considered as a way to take the fighters/bombers down.
  • Canonically, the Colossus. It takes down the Sathanas then get ambushed by a second — and try to take it down as almost all hope of survival is lost. Seems more like a Last Stand though.
  • In "Feint, Parry, Ripost!" — Admiral Koth, the NTD Repulse commanding officer, Attempts to crash his ship into the Colossus. "I have no intention of escaping, Colossus, nor will I surrender. Even if I send my crew to hell with you, this monstruosity will be destroyed! [...] The tyranny of your regime is finished! Admiral Koth Out!"
  • During FreeSpace, the Hammer of Light tend to kamikaze countless times, either fighters or capital ships. Not like this had any effect most of times.
  • In Blue Planet War In Heaven — the opening cutscene — the UEFg Nelson orders other ships to clear a path to one of the enemy capital ships, in order to ram it. This is part of You Shall Not Pass — as they have to defend Artemis Station while evacuated.
    • Another variation, in the last mission, Delenda Est. In the end, the UEFg Yangtze get hit badly and cannot withdraw. They then turn back and attack from front.... obviously getting destroyed in a few seconds.
• Both the Galaxy Angel and the Galaxy Angel II trilogies have at least one instance of this in almost every game:
  • In the original game, Sherry Bristol, Eonia's second in command, attempts to ram her damaged battleship into the Elsior to take it down with her. She fails as her ship explodes before reaching the blast radius thanks to the Angel Wing damaging it.
  • In Moonlit Lovers, Rezom Mea Zom becomes an unwilling example when Nefuria takes control of his ship and sends him in a collission course against the Elsior. Like the above example, it fails to do any significant damage.
  • The final battle of Eternal Lovers has Gern, the leader of the Valfask, reveal that the Chrono Quake Bomb attached to his flagship is actually connected to his brain directly, and set to activate should he die so as to force the heroes into a surrender-or-die scenario. Fortunately, Tact and his choosen Angel manage to contain the blast at the cost of being trapped into Another Space until they're finally rescued by their friends.
  • Mugen Kairo no Kagi has two instances. One from the Three Marquis, who after being defeated decide to try and bombard Planet Seldar to at least take down a few lives just to spite the heroes. The second is performed by Roselle in the finale, who rams the Holy Blood against Parfait's ship and self-detonates the Chrono String Engines to destroy it (the following game reveals he survived this, though).
  • Lastly, in Eigou Kaiki no Toki, after being defeated, Sorbet fires his ship's main cannon to crash backwards against the Luxiole's lower half, which is currently being piloted by Tapio. While the lower half ends up damaged beyond repair, thankfully nobody ends up critically hurt other than Tapio himself, who recovers very quickly anyway.
• Gears of War 2: In the multiplayer, if you have your grenades equipped, and you are downed — by pulling the right trigger you can try to take them with you. Great against players who try to perform executions, want a body shield, or an objective. Unfortunately rather unavoidable if a person holding a grenade was downed in a match using Execution rules (downed players may stand back up after some time if not finished off in close-range, though may only stand up again twice).
• The climax of The Getaway centers around this after the Big Bad has a Villainous Breakdown.
• Golden Sun:
  • Seen at the end, as the final bosses merge together after defeated into a giant dragon, even though they know that they'll be unable to live for a long time after the battle due to the massive amount of energy.
  • This is also what Tret the Holy Tree intended. Because he was dying and blinded with uncontrollable anger, he wanted to turn as many people into trees as possible; thus taking them down with him when he'd die. Fortunately, this didn't come to pass; Isaac and his friends make Tret regain his senses, then heal him to make him undo the curse he cast.
• Grim Fandango: As his last act, Salvador uses a Cyanide Pill hidden in a false tooth to sprout both him and Olivia, who had betrayed him and the LSA for Hector.
• Gundam 0079: The War for Earth: The Gouf pilot attempts to catch the Gundam in their mobile suit's explosion. Responding to the quick time event in time will cause the Gundam to throw the Gouf over the edge and into the Thor Cannon.
• In Half-Life 2, City Scanners will try to kamikaze enemies with a dive bomb attack if they are at low health. However, this is rarely seen because of how little health Scanners have, as often they will be killed before they can execute the move.
• Halo:
  • Plasma grenades are the main source of this in-game. Sometimes, a desperate Grunt will light up two plasma grenades and then run at you; you need to kill them before they get to you, as they will not explode unless they get near you. If you stick an Elite or Brute with a plasma grenade, it'll charge and try to take you down with it. In multiplayer, people who get stuck with a grenade will charge at the closest foe, and some will even stick it to themselves in order to take down a large group in a situation where bullets are too slow.
  • Halo: Reach has several heroic versions:
    • Most notable is Emile, who after being stabbed from behind by an Elite Zealot whips out his knife and jams it in the Elite's throat, taking the Elite down with him. His last words, "I'm ready! HOW BOUT YOU!", are a great example of what one might say in a Taking You With Me situation or a The Last Dance situation.
    • Noble Six has a similar experience. During his/her Last Stand on Reach, you fight against a small army of Covenant forces; when you finally fail, he/she kills at least half of the dozen or so Elites that finally bring him/her down.
    • Carter also deserves a mention. With his Pelican about to fall apart, he deliberately rams his ship into a Covenant mobile assault platform. This tactic is also present in Halo Wars for the Covenant Banshees.
• Henry Stickmin Series:
  • Fleeing the Complex has a hilarious example. If you choose the grenade and crossbow combo, the guard with the grenade attached to his face leaps towards Henry. Even the Fail Screen lampshades this.
    "If he goes down, he's taking you with him!"
  • Surprisingly played straight in the Revenged ending of Completing the Mission, in which Reginald Copperbottom shoots Henry in a crashing airship in order to ensure Henry dies there with him. In a failing option in the Revenged route, instead of picking the correct Staple option, if Henry picks the Airship option, he will trap Reginald in a Neck Lift before flying out of the airship to the rocket, landing on it... And holding Reginald out to be struck by the crashing airship, as the crash and resulting explosion takes the two out. All the game has to offer to say on the Fail Screen is Pogchamps.
• In Heroes of the Storm, Tyrael attempts this when he's killed, becoming an invincible bomb for a few seconds. When talented, each hero hit reduces his respawn timer.
• In Hexen: Beyond Heretic, defeating the Heresiarch will activate a Kaizo Trap, causing it to drop its mana cubes — which will explode and hurt like hell, potentially being fatal. Another example of the dual Kaizo Trap/Taking You with Me dual trope is when you defeat the final boss, Korax: he will release several evil spirits from his body which WILL rip you apart if you are too close to him.
• In The House of the Dead 4, James Taylor defeats The World by setting his PDA to self-destruct and throwing it up at The World, killing both of them.

J - M

• Jade Empire:
  • Sagacious Zu makes his Heroic Sacrifice against Death's Hand, using the pillars supporting the room to make the roof collapse on both of them while buying the Player Character and companion time to escape.
  • Horse Demons also explode upon death. This is a particularly annoying one, since they explode immediately upon death; unless you're using one of the few ranged styles you will be hit by this.
• Conversed in Jak X: Combat Racing. During a TV interview Jak is asked if the death threats he's receiving bother him. He replies that he's probably dead already, "But that doesn't mean I can't take a few scumbags with me."
• When she was alive, Hisako of Killer Instinct managed to perform this on her murderer (the leader of a group of bandits) with a ring blade, his screams of pain being the last thing she heard before her consciousness faded.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • In the original GBA version of Chain of Memories, Lexaeus does this after being defeated by Riku. Averted in Re:Chain of Memories, where the post-fight cutscene has very different results.
  • In Kingdom Hearts II, Axel does this when he, Sora, Donald and Goofy are about to get swamped by Nobodies. Later on, the final battle with Xemnas has shades of this. The heroes have wiped out all his underlings and ruined his plans, and he seems to care less about his own survival than dragging Sora and Riku down with him. Even after beating him, they're nearly trapped in another dimension until Sora and Kairi's connection opens a portal.
    Xemnas: We shall go together.
  • In Birth by Sleep, the final boss of Ventus' story is Vanitas, within Ventus' heart. Ven intends to destroy the χ-blade, and Vanitas with it. Vanitas informs him that destroying the χ-blade will shatter his heart forever... and Ven goes on with it regardless, because that means Vanitas won't be able to hurt his friends.
• The King of Fighters has a number of bosses who try this.
  • Rugal loves to pull this off and has attempted it at least three times: once in '94, again in '98 and yet again in 2002: Unlimited Match.
  • In 2000, Clone Zero attempts to blow up his hideout (where you are) with his Zero Cannon. Shame it got busted earlier.
  • 2001 has Igniz combine this trope with Colony Drop. The Colony Drop part fails miserably, but your allies are saved by an unknown group.
• Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards:
  • Bomb + Rock results in a stick of dynamite that hurts Kirby if he doesn't cover himself with his helmet.
  • Snow + Bomb turns Kirby into a walking snowman suicide bomber (though in that case, the explosion doesn't hurt Kirby).
• Knights of the Old Republic: Calo Nord tried this unsuccessfully, in a Shout-Out to the scene in Return of the Jedi with Bouush's thermal detonator.
• La-Mulana, in the remake:
  • Palenque will jump out to make one last-ditch self-destruct attack upon its apparent defeat. If you don't hit Palenque back into the vessel in time, the screen goes white and it's a Game Over.
  • Baphomet will attempt a final fire pillar attack when you kill her. If you stand to the extreme left or right sides, you'll avoid it.
• In Activision's Laser Blast for the Atari 2600, if your attack saucer craft is hit by an enemy laser, you can steer it as it falls out of the sky onto one of the laser cannons on the surface to destroy it.
• A few champions in League of Legends have abilities that lend themselves to this:
  • Karthus remains able to cast spells in place for a few seconds after he dies, thanks to his passive "Death Defied". This allows him to blast nearby enemies, or channel his ultimate (which damages all enemy champions on the field) without risk of interruption.
  • Kog'Maw's passive "Icathian Surprise" allows him to keep living for a few seconds after he dies and increases his movement speed, so he can get close enough to enemies before he explodes for massive damage.
  • Sion's passive "Glory in Death" causes him to enter into a rage upon death, wherein all of his abilities are replaced with an ability that increases his movement speed and his health refills before rapidly decaying. This extends to his backstory as well. Where after being mortally wounded by King Jarvan I, he used his last burst of strength to choke the life out of him.
• The Legend of Dragoon:
  • In a flashback showing the final moments of first great war between the humans and winglies, Kanzas confronts an enormous Virage and latches himself on to his head with the quote "Not bad! I'm taking you with me!" Before blowing himself up, and taking the Virage, and a good chunk of a Wingly city with him.
  • Precedes two other examples of this trope by seconds, in which Shirley dies to kill the Virage that killed Belzac, and Melbu Frahma petrifies Zieg as he "dies."
  • Used by Melbu Frahma again at the end of the game, when he self-destructs to try and kill your party. While Rose and Zieg are ready to embrace death, this attack fails to kill anyone else.
• Legend of Legaia has the Delilas family, mortally wounded from combat with the heroes, voluntarily merge with Koru — the Seru keeping the nearby town frozen - and invert its power using their own ("Is life really that important to you?"). You then have five rounds of combat before it self-destructs and nukes everything from there to Sol.
• At the end of the default normal ending of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV, Rean makes the decision to fly beyond the atmosphere and detonate him and Valimar in the hopes of destroying Ishmelga for good. Crow and Millium join him since their "lives" are tied to the Great One and since Rean is about to sacrifice himself, they might as well join him. Unfortunately, as revealed in The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie, it turns out that the Normal Ending version of Rean did survive but ends up in a never ending fight against Ishmelga for control while at the same time attempting to pull off a Fusion Dance that always ended in failure.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf does this to you: once you defeat him at the top of his castle, he attempts to use the last of his strength to destroy the castle and crush you and Princess Zelda under it, and you have three minutes to escape. All three of you, including Ganondorf, survive.
  • He does it again in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. After being screwed out of his wish on the Triforce, and as the ruins of Hyrule are being washed away and destroyed all around him, he scoffs at the supposed hope of Link and Zelda's future, attempting to slaughter them both to ensure that they drown with him.
  • Ganondorf uses a variant in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: once it becomes clear that Link is about to defeat him (even in his Super Mode), Ganondorf decides that he would rather die than suffer defeat and swallows his Secret Stone, turning himself into a colossal dragon driven by nothing but malice and instinct in the hopes that his new form will wipe Link off the face of the earth.
    Ganondorf: My body... My mind... Everything! I'll sacrifice it all to destroy you... AND CAST THIS WORLD INTO ETERNAL NIGHT!
• Lie of Caelum: The Arc Villain of Episode 1, Gigarths Alkazen, attempts to detonate his Bioslayer Frame in order to take kill the party along with himself, but Elysion sacrifices herself to protect them.
• Lufia:
  • Done twice in a row by Daos at the end of Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals; first using the last of the energy of the Four Man Band bad guy squad to attempt to destroy the world, then by using the last of his own enmity to crash the floating island in which the last battle takes place on Maxim and Selan's hometown.
  • In Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals, Idura also tries this after he's defeated for the last time. Dekar stops him the same way.
• In Luftrausers, one of the ship options is the Nuke body, which detonates when the player's rauser dies.
• Luminous Plume: At least two of Raven's enemies attempt to kill him along with themselves when victory looks uncertain.
  • After Raven defeats Jade, the latter collapses the cave they're in rather than be apprehended. Raven survives, but Jade doesn't.
  • Emilia teleports Raven to another dimension for the Final Boss battle. After her defeat, she reveals that with her power drained, there is no way to escape the dimension, which will result in the two eventually starving to death. Fortunately, Valerie breaks them out of that dimension.
• Marathon 2 has Durandal in his single stolen Pfhor corvette, vs Admiral T'Fear's entire battlegroup, one of the most feared branches of the Pfhor military. Not even Durandal can beat those odds, and he knows it — so he makes sure to go down fighting, and manages to take half the enemy fleet with him. Durandal being Durandal, though, he finds a way to survive and turn the tables.
• Mario & Luigi:
  • Fawful attempts this in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. Ironically, his self-destruct ended up saving everyone by blasting them out of Bowser's belly. The Dark Star plays this straight, with its final attack being a black hole/vortex that Mario and Luigi have to quickly run from to dodge (does about 500 odd damage if they get sucked into it).
  • In Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, the Somnom Woods boss Pi'illodium starts a self destruct timer when it gets low on health, exploding and causing massive damage to Mario and Luigi if it hits zero. Interestingly, there's actually an on screen timer with the real time going down in seconds, despite the fact it's a turn-based game.
• Mass Effect: Upon discovery, an illegal A.I. decides to self-destruct and take some organics with it; even if Shepard tries to reason with it, anti-synthetic prejudice is so ingrained in society it refuses to believe them.
• Mass Effect 3:
  • Emily Wong rams her skyvan into a Reaper.
    Emily Wong: You want to see how a human dies? At ramming speed.
  • Rila detonates a bomb after a Banshee stabs her in the stomach.
    Rila: We are not your slaves.
  • If Wrex is still alive up to this point, he will invoke this if you go through with sabatoging a cure for the genophage, a bioweapon designed to steralize krogan fertility and results in potentially driving them into extinction. He will call off krogan support from the Final Battle against the Big Bad Reapers that are targetting Earth before attempting to kill you. After all, if a human decides to doom an entire species, why not do the same?
  • Shepard in the Destroy Ending, if your Effective Military Strength is low enough - otherwise Shepard is shown breathing in the rubble.
  • The Graal Spike Thrower shotgun was designed for this express purpose in the event that a krogan was Swallowed Whole by a thresher maw.
• In later MechWarrior games, the BattleMech's fusion reactor can go nuclear and deal extreme damage to anything near it when the 'Mech is destroyed. Cue players running at each other when their armor is gone, to try and kill the other player when they go nuclear. Exaggerated in the Crysis mod MechWarrior Living Legends where the explosion from a damaged reactor can cripple anything with 50 meters and temporarily blind anyone looking at the mushroom cloud, though whether a destroyed 'Mech goes critical is largely random; non-critical 'Mechs can still deal damage from ammunition explosions upon death, but with a significantly smaller area of effect and damage.
• Mega Man:
  • After defeating Sigma in Mega Man X3, he becomes his true form and tries to take over your body while lava is flooding the place. Also, in Mega Man X5, after you defeat his final form, he tries to take Zero down with him, which he does, in a way.
  • In Chapter 6 of Mega Man X: Command Mission, Incentas rigs his base with explosives and sets up a barrier so that the heroes can't escape. Before Incentas makes his own escape, Spider tackles him, drags him over to the barrier and uses an exploding card to destroy the barrier and kill himself and Incentas in one fell swoop, so that the others can escape.
  • Phantom does the Kaizo Trap variation the second time you defeat him in Mega Man Zero, radiating little explosions about halfway across the screen in both directions. It does moderate damage, but as long as you're attentive the bubbles can be avoided. It also won't hit you if he's killed in a corner and you stand on the opposite side. Copy X does the same thing (in the same level, no less), only his version is scripted for you to escape automatically.
  • At the end of Mega Man Zero 4, Dr. Weil fails to destroy the Area Zero settlement with his Ragnarok Kill Sat, so he decides to personally pilot it for a Colony Drop. Zero sacrifices his chance to escape and instead chooses to stay aboard and defeat Dr. Weil and detonate the satellite before impact.
  • In Mega Man Battle Network 3, after you beat Flash Man, he uses the "Shining Browser Crusher" on Mega Man. Sometime in the next chapter, Mega Man's connection to his Operator is suddenly cut by the delayed effects of the attack, robbing you of your ability to leave the Net immediately and limiting you to the pathetic default weapon. Ironically, you might be attacked by Flash Man's stronger, Random Encounter ghost on your way back to the exit point while in this weakened state should you stumble down the wrong dead end. However, at the end of the game, you find a suspiciously not-dead Flash Man (along with a few other "dead" navis) just in time for the Boss Rush.
• Metal Gear has this trope a few times.
  • In the original Metal Gear, Big Boss utters these words when he learns that his plans failed just before fighting Snake.
  • In Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Cunningham utters these words as he attempts to use the Soviet-made Davy Crockett to destroy Big Boss, just after being defeated by him.
  • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker:
    • The sphere like device on Peace Walker was a hydrogen bomb whose explosive yield surpasses even that of the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear bomb ever built. The reason why it has it is so that, if its mission requires it to go into a country, it can waltz in and blow the country away to kingdom come.
    • Kazuhira Miller, prior to the main story, almost did this to Big Boss when his mercenary unit was wiped out by Big Boss's Militaires Sans Frontières by drawing him close and attempting to blow them both up by using a grenade concealed in his hand. Big Boss quickly disarmed him before he could remove the pin, and instead suggested that Kaz join his unit.
  • In Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Metal Gear Sahelanthropus is revealed to have been designed with depleted uranium armor such that, if need be, the metallic archaea in its body could enrich the uranium and cause it to self-destruct, taking out the enemy with it.
• Throughout the Metroid Prime Trilogy, Space Pirates with jetpacks will kamikaze into you upon defeat. Complete with a scream of agony.
• In the climax of Metro: Last Light, as the Dirty Communist leader is gloating over the dead and dying defenders of the D6 base, Artyom triggers the bases self-destruct in the exact same instant the communist leader realizes what Artyom is holding. However, should you choose to help the Dark Ones, they intervene right as Artyom is about to press the detonator, whisking away the communists or driving them insane, allowing D6 to rebuild.
• Might and Magic V ends with a duel between the series' longstanding Big Good Corak and Big Bad Sheltem. Sheltem gains the upper hand...
  Sheltem: Admit your defeat, Corak!
  Corak: I do. Initiate self-destruct. Code 0-0-1.
  Sheltem: What? No... Noooo!!!
• Minecraft:
  • The Creepers explode if you get too close. Though experienced players can get around them with bows and arrows, the strength of their explosions drive beginners insane and make miners paranoid.
  • In the Bedrock edition, the Wither tries to pull this off when you kill it. Just don't get too close to it right after you kill it, okay?
• Modern Warfare:
  • Gameplay-wise, the series does it thrice: Once with the aptly-named Martyrdom perk, which makes you drop a live grenade upon death. Twice with the Last Stand perk, where you can use your side arm as you bleed out; the perk is upgradable in MW2 so that projectiles can be used in this state. And thricely with the "Misery Loves Company" challenge, which requires that you kill yourself and an enemy by cooking a grenade and keeping hold of it until it detonates.
  • A narrative example occurs in the campaign of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: During "Of Their Own Accord", the helicopter Ramirez's squad is riding in is hit by a missile launched from a SAM battery at the Department of Justice. The pilot calls out that he's slowly losing control of the chopper, at which Sergeant Foley tells him to increase altitude so that if they crash, they can take down the SAM launchers with them. Ultimately subverted, however, in that their helicopter comes crashing down in the streets instead.
• Mortal Kombat 9:
  • Nightwolf makes a last stand against Sindel, killing them both.
  • In a normal versus match that has nothing to do with the story, Cyber Sub-Zero's rather unique initial fatality involves him activating some kind of self-destruct mechanism on his arm, and then leaping onto his dazed opponent and exploding, with both him and his opponent immediately exploding into fragments of ice. He doesn't really need to do this, though, since you have to win the match completely to have the opportunity to do it at all, and there's no reason whatsoever at that point for him to self-destruct. But whether you do it or not, it still counts as a win.
• In the Mother series, some enemies will self-destruct upon defeat; the most well-known example being the notorious Territorial Oaks. However, damage works differently in this series starting from the second game onward; a character's HP, when reduced, slowly drops down instead of instantly taking up its new value. Additionally, from the second game onward, these self-destructs are often ridiculously powerful, to the point of being able to deal mortal blows to full-HP party members. So once the enemy self-destructs, it's a race to go through the remaining lines of text and finish the battle before your HP ticks down to zero... assuming you were wise enough to save the self-destructing enemy for last, that is.
  • In EarthBound Beginnings, the robot EVE is far more powerful than any of the standard party members can be and is able to easily wipe out every enemy in the second half of the final dungeon with a single attack... save for one, the third incarnation of a killer robot that wiped out the party not long before (and will wipe the party out again, this time with a Game Over, if EVE is not with the party). EVE is not able to deal significant damage to this enemy, but it will protect the party from tremendous blows in return. After a few turns, EVE will explode, but will take down the opponent along with it. In EVE's wreckage, the seventh melody can be found, confirming the musical prophecy that the player may have heard in Magicant that foretells EVE's necessary demise.
  • This is played with in Mother 3 with the Barrier Trio. You beat it and it goes in a death sequence that takes five turns to finish. On the second turn, it uses PK Starstorm.
• In Myth II: Soulblighter, the eponymous villain attempts to shatter the Cloudspine (a gigantic mountain range) to kill everyone, presumably including himself. Alric stops him in the final mission.

N - R

• In some versions of NetHack, the player can "apply" a magic wand to break it. This results in an area-effect magic blast that inflicts the wand's effect on a 3x3 area centered on the player. Now, to apply this Wand of Death... (It is possible to survive the blast, though. At least if you have a cloak of magic resistance.)
• Pariah demons in Nexus Clash can deliberately blow themselves up with Explosive Murder in battle, but there's also a chance for it to go off if they're killed, spraying the would-be victorious enemy with Hellfire in hopes of a mutual kill.
• A double example occurs in the next-to-last scene of NieR. After defeating the Twins, Devola and Popola for a second and final time, Popola goes absolutely insane with grief at Devola's death, and, while dying, she immediately attempts to pull Nier and his friends into a field of dark magic and crush them within. The second one comes when Emil chooses to let her catch him so Nier and Kaine can escape. His magical force field withstands the horrible pressure for a while, but when it finally cracks and collapses, the so-called Ultimate Weapon lives up to his name by disintegrating everything in range in a Sphere of Destruction, Popola included. Shortly thereafter, Grimoire Weiss, who is already "dying" due to spending all his energy defeating Grimoire Noir, goes and sacrifices his very existence in order to seal the Shadowlord and pin him in place for Nier to attack.
• Enemies in Ninja Gaiden II who lose their legs to Ryu will attempt to crawl up, grab Ryu and pull out an explosive to blow themselves up with.
• Nintendo Wars: At the end of Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, Big Bad Sturm tries to pull this on the heroes. His second-in-command, Hawke, not wanting to die with his boss, shoots him before he can activate his doomsday device.
• Nuclear Throne likes doing this with its bosses.
  • Big Dog sets off a giant explosion when it dies. It can and probably will kill you if you can't get out of the way in time (or if there are cars around, because those get blown up too).
  • Li'l Hunter's jetpack malfunctions when he's defeated, causing him to go flying in random directions, bouncing off of walls. Wherever he stops, the jetpack explodes which hurts as much as Big Dog's.
• During Cornelius's epilogue in Odin Sphere, the Pooka prince's blade inflicts mortal injuries to the dragon Belial; releasing him from Urzur's control was a side-effect. When Urzur attempts to take control of the situation, Belial acts in full defiance before carrying him to the Netherworld... in his mouth.
• Overwatch:
  • Junkrat's passive ability is to drop a bunch of grenades upon death, thus potentially taking out whoever killed him.
  • In close quarters, Ashe can blow up some dynamite at her feet; potentially killing both her and her attacker.
• Pac-Guy: Atomic Edition has this attempted in the ending, with Pac-Guy using his spaceship to fire upon Kan’s, to which the latter responds by pressing his Self-Destruct Button, and like the character he's a parody of, uses the quote "From hell's heart I stab at thee". However, Pac-Guy uses an escape pod to leave before Kan's ship can explode, surviving the attack.
• Killian in Perfect Dark Zero attempts to crash his gunship into you after you defeat him.
• Persona:
  • In Persona 3, in the final night at the top of Tartarus, a wounded, but still alive Jin chooses to let you go, and instead faces the hordes of Shadows climbing up the tower with several grenades in his hands...
  • Some enemies in Persona 3 and 4 can do this with Last Resort, a powerful Almighty-elemental attack that they'll use if they're near-death or even if they are at anything but full health. Most of the time it only takes off a large chunk of your health and there's nothing a little healing won't cure, but on higher difficulties, it can easily result in a Total Party Kill unless you're high level and/or defending.
• Pokémon:
  • This is the entire point of the Destiny Bond (which is specifically called Michizure, or "Take Along With," in Japanese), Self-Destruct and Explosion moves. Fittingly, Self-Destruct and Explosion are the two most powerful attacks in the game, and that's before you factor in that, before the moves were nerfed in Pokémon Black and White, they halved the target's defense.
  • The ability Aftermath can work like this, as when a Pokémon with said ability is defeated, it damages its attacker for 1/4 of their total health.
  • It's also the point of the attack Perish Song, which KOs all Pokémon on the field in exactly three turns. Useful if used with a move or ability to stop the opponent Pokémon from switching out/running from battle. Annoying when it's used by a wild Pokémon you're trying to catch.
  • Black and White added a move called Final Gambit, which hits the user and the target for an amount of damage equal to the HP the user has left. Amusingly, it can be used by Shedinja, which is a One-Hit-Point Wonder.
  • Lysandre in Pokémon X and Y has a massive Villainous Breakdown upon being defeated and kills himself by blowing up his hideout with his Doomsday Device, screaming that he'll take the player with him as they narrowly escape.
  • Pokémon Sun and Moon adds the ability Innards Out, which damages the attacker of a defeated Pokémon for the same amount of damage as the hit that defeated said Pokémon. This is rather difficult to utilize in practice though — it's unique to Pyukumuku, whose moveset is not only very limited but has almost no damage dealing attacks (and the two that do are Counter and Mirror Coat). Pyukumuku also has subpar HP and high defenses, not really stats that would compliment an effect like Innards Out.
  • According to the Pokédex, if a Mega Metagross– a Determinator and Combat Pragmatist who will do anything to win– knows it can't win, it'll grab its opponent and initiate a self-destruct sequence.
• The state of Manhattan in [PROTOTYPE] was caused prior to the events of the game by the real Alex Mercer. When Blackwatch cornered him in Penn Station, he released the Blacklight virus into the busiest transit station in the U.S. before being shot to death. Since he designed that particular strain of Blacklight, he knew full well what would happen — and apparently considered his own sister (who lives in the city) an acceptable loss. It really says something about a guy when the Lovecraftian, man-eating viral mutant that replaces him is still not as much of a dick as the original.
• The third boss of Razing Storm is a Spider Tank that constantly pesters you throughout the level. When finally defeated, it fires out a TON of missiles into the air. The missiles ain't for you — rather, they're for the skyscraper connector you're precariously standing on in midair. If you fail to shoot enough of them down in time, your platform goes bye bye, and you and your squad fall to your deaths.
• Resident Evil:
  • In Resident Evil 2 and the remake, once the zombie outbreak happened, Chief Irons snapped and broke down mentally, believing himself to be infected. He proceeded to sabotage the surviving police officers, stashing well needed supplies and cutting off any escapes routes as a means to ensure the entire precinct and anyone else in the city dies with him. Eventually Irons decided to personally hunt down any survivors, including killing at least one officer.
  • There are many examples of this in Resident Evil 4 — however, many are involuntary. For instance, El Gigante will crush you as he falls over dead if you get too close, and Del Lago's corpse will drag you to the bottom of the lake via a rope that gets wrapped around your leg unless you act fast. A genuine example would be tricking an El Gigante into falling into a lava pit, who will grab and pull you into the lava if you get too close to the pit.
  • In Resident Evil 5, Wesker says this to Chris and Sheva as they make a three human chain dangling out the back of an assault bomber. It does him little good, because Sheva then shoots him in the face. Too bad he can heal. He also does it again when he falls into a lava pit, while mutating from Uroboros. He uses his Uroboros arms to pull the anti-bioterrorism team's chopper in close with the obvious intention of forcing them into a lavabath with him. Chris and Sheva managed to finish him off with two RPG-7s to the head before he could succeed.
  • The ending of the RE5 DLC Lost in Nightmares has Jill doing this to Wesker. Sadly, it fails.
• Return of the Obra Dinn: Winston Smith is speared by a monster, but before the wound can kill him, he grabs a hand mortar and blows it to Hell.
• Giacimo's Heroic Sacrifice in the climactic cutscene of the Rise of Legends campaign is preceded by the Cuotl boss trying to drag him into a random bottomless pit with him.
• Rise of the Third Power:
  • At Tarindor, Gage attempts to cave in the entire room just for a shot at killing Viktoriya. This puts him and the rest of the party at risk, so Rowan stops him, much to his annoyance.
  • After her second defeat, Selene attempts to light several barrels of gunpowder in her ship, all to take Rowan down with her. Rowan nearly talks her out of it, but Sparrow kills Selene anyways, not wanting to take a chance that she'll go through with it.
• At the climax of Robotech: Battlecry, Zeraal, forced into a corner in a derelict Zentradi carrier, activates the ship's fold drive, sending himself, Jack Archer, and most of the surrounding city into deep space. With Earth too far away to return to and the Zentradi carrier inoperable afterwards, both Archer and Zeraal are doomed to die — if not in battle, then from eventual oxygen deprivation.
• In Rockman 4 Minus ∞, Nearly every fortress boss on Hard preforms a last-ditch attack after you inflict the finishing blow, with their life bar now acting as a rapidly draining timer while they do it.
• One interpretation of the finale of Rule of Rose focuses on this trope quite tragically: after losing everything to her own jealousy, Wendy brings the serial killer Stray Dog to the orphanage to kill everybody, herself included. She's the closest thing the game has for a villain and the act is incredibly spiteful and selfish, but somehow you still end up feeling sorry for her.
• RuneScape:
  • The game has a variation with the Retribution prayer: if you have it active as you are killed, you deal damage to all surrounding enemies (assuming there are any).
  • Nex will always activate Wrath, the curse version of Retribution, once her life points are depleted.
  • There are also some monsters in the Pest Control minigame whose entire gimmick is to walk up to the doors barring access to the Void Knight and self-destruct at them.
  • Upon being banished at 100% enrage or higher, Zamorak will drag the player to Infernus with him for a seventh phase.
• Ryse: Son of Rome: Towards the end of the game, General Marius Titus has received a lethal stabbing at the hands of Empero Nero, after foolishly entrusting the Emperor with his dagger so that he could fulfill the prophecy that he can only be killed by his own sword. As he fights his way through the Emperor's Praetorian Guard, he ends up receiving more stabbings, but he powers through them until he reaches Nero, who now stands on the edge of a platform. Discarding his sword and shield, Marius rushes the Emperor and tackles him off the platform, so that they fall towards a gigantic marble sculpture of Nero himself. Marius falls to the floor, but Nero lands on the upraised sword of his sculpture, impaling himself.
• Ryzom has a group of creatures called Yelks, which are like giant turtles with mushrooms for shells. If you kill one, it will release noxious vapours for a few seconds that do quite a bit of damage, so it's recommended that you kill them at range and wait a while to loot the corpse.

S - Y

• Shadowverse:
  • Averted between players — If both players take lethal damage at the same time, the turn player will always lose, instead of the game ending in a tie.
  • Played straight with Underworld Watchman Khawy. Upon death, he destroys one of the followers with the strongest attack stat then heals the leader based on the attack stat of the destroyed follower. He even quotes the trope verbatim when this happens.
• In Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, destroying the physical body of Mem Aleph reduces her to an embryonic, so-called "empty" state, in which she's nothing but raw, naked power. But since she can't take control of the Schwarzwelt in this form, nor create a new future for herself and the Schwarzwelt's demons, she turns on you and exhausts all that power into destroying you before vanishing.
• At the end of The Silent Age the protagonist, known to be infected with a virus that will inevitably destroy the humankind if is in contact, shuts himself and the virus in a cryogenic capsule. Qualifies as a sacrifice because he has no idea when he will be recovered, if ever. He's recovered in forty years though.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic Adventure:
    • After defeating the Egg Viper in Sonic's storyline, the player is given a few seconds' warning by Tikal before it makes one last attempt to blow up the player in a fiery kamikaze. Needless to say that if you survive, Dr. Eggman (Or Robotnik), who was controlling the machine, apparently survives the attack.
    • At the end of E-102 "Gamma"'s storyline, Gamma defeats E-101 "Beta" mk. II and makes the mistake of making sure he is defeated by approaching him. Beta's final act is to fire its arm cannons point blank at Gamma.
  • Sonic Battle:
    • Whenever Chaos Gamma is K.O.'d in a fight he promptly states "Initiating recovery mode.", and then explodes, sending anyone close to him flying, and knocking off a potentially-fatal chunk of health. Keep in mind that in a fight you usually have to K.O. Chaos Gamma at least five times.
    • The Guard Robo enemies are nearly identical to Chaos Gamma, aside from their color scheme (Guard Robos are grey while Chaos Gamma is red). To make matters worse, unlike Chaos Gamma, they don't say "Initiating recovery mode." before they explode, making it harder for the player to know when they are going to explode.
  • Sonic Rush duology:
    • The Egg King's desperation attack in the first game. Upon reducing it to its last hit point, Eggman/Nega would ram the giant robot into the stage. If you don't hit him quickly enough after he hits the stage a third time, the stage falls apart, leading you to fall to your death.
    • In the sequel, Captain Whisker's own mech, the Ghost Titan, will fire two lasers on both sides that slowly close in on you. This is clearly overpowering the machine (what with it exploding and being forced to lower itself). The lasers are impossible to dodge, and you have to hit the weak point when it's close enough to not get killed in the process. Obviously, it's debatable if Captain Whisker would have survived if he succeeded, but the machine probably would've blown up anyways.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Eggman pulls this again after you deal the final blow to his Death Egg Robot mech during Episode I's final boss fight.
• SOS: If Luke Haines escapes with Captain Ismay Carl Townsend but with less than 25 points of survivors, Luke realizes that he has to go back for more people, but the captain stops him, telling him that it's all over for him and that if the ship goes down, at least he will take Luke down with it, before fatally shooting him.
• Yoshimitsu from the Soul Series has some unblockable suicide moves that deal a lot of damage if he hits his opponent with one of these moves. The emphasis is on "if", however, as most of them have short reach. BTW, Yoshimitsu himself suffers about just as much damage from executing these moves, whether they connect with his opponent or not.
• In Star Control II, the Shofixti's preferred weapon is a self-destruct mechanism (called a "Glory Device", because of course it is). Moreover, when faced with overwhelming odds, they made their own star go supernova just to obliterate a part of enemy armada.
• StarCraft:
  • The Zerg love this trope so much, they evolved the Scourges and the Infested Terrans, which are suicide bombers. "Sacrifice me" indeed.
  • In the end of the first installment, Tassadar crashes his ship on Overmind, finishing it off — in a manner that probably wouldn't make it to shelves after September 11th...or would it?
• Andross in Star Fox 64, word for word. But only if you approach Venom from the hard direction — approaching it from the easy one leads to you fighting his robotic decoy instead. You still escape his exploding lair in a cutscene, but it's because the decoy is a Load-Bearing Boss rather than the real Andross trying to kill you in a last act of spite.
  Andross: If I go down, I'm taking you with me!
• Done by Captain Foster in Starlancer when the Reliant is cornered by the Coalition forces and is heavily damaged. After launching the fighters and evacuating the crew, Foster sets a collision course for the enemy flagship and engages full burn. The Coalition ship tries to get out of the way and shoot down the Reliant, but Foster still manages to hit it, taking out his rival in the process.
• Star Trek Online, as with the aforementioned Star Trek examples, lets you pull this off at high levels when your ship has very low health — one skill will let you ram an enemy ship, while another will blow your warp core to try to kill an enemy with the blast. If you survive the first, use the second. It helps that warp drives are powered by controlled matter/antimatter reactions, and the biggest threat to a ship's integrity is said reaction going out of control. A warp core going up can make a nuke look tame. Destroyed ships also have a post-death detonation as their warp core destabilizes normally. If you're too close, such a final death can take a fair chunk of your ship's health. Vessels like Borg cubes or their super-massive boss ships have a rather larger and more potent core breach radius, which can kill you after a hard fight.
• In Super Paper Mario, after being defeated by Mario, Peach, and Bowser, Dimentio's final act is to leave behind a shadow of his power to keep the Chaos Heart active long enough for The Void to destroy all worlds, in an attempt to ensure that everyone in all dimensions would die immediately after him. This would be foiled when Tippi and Bleck sacrifice themselves to destroy the Chaos Heart.
• It's possible to perform a Sacrificial KO in the Super Smash Bros. series in any of a number of ways. A method usable by any character is to jump off the stage in order to deliver a finishing blow to a returning opponent, even if it makes you plummet to your own demise afterward.
  • In the first game, DK can do this with his forward throw by simply jumping off a cliff while he's carrying an opponent and falling to a point where neither of you will be able to get back to the stage from. Kirby can also simply inhale someone while he's over a bottomless pit.
  • Kirby gets multiple additions to his suicide attack arsenal in Melee in the form of his forward, backward, and downwards throws, which will all send him and his opponent flying off a cliff if he's too close to the edge. He can also walk after he inhales a target, which makes the aforementioned "Kirbycide" technique easier to pull off.
  • Ganondorf and Bowser get suicide attacks of their own in Brawl with their new side specials, the former grabbing his opponent and diving off a cliff with them if it's performed in midair with no footing below, and the latter grabbing them and performing a flying body slam that can be directed off a cliff if you (or your opponent) desire it.
  • One option of Hero's Command Selection move is the spell Kamikazee. If selected, Hero will make himself explode, causing heavy damage and knockback to those within the attack's (fairly large) radius, at the cost of instantly KOing Hero.
  • In a non-gameplay example, Brawl's Subspace Emissary mode has Galleom attempt to do this to Lucas and Pokémon Trainer after their fight by grabbing the two and activating a Subspace Bomb inside his head, which has an incredibly short countdown. It doesn't work.
  • If both players are on their last stock, who wins and who loses varies from attack to attack and from game to game (notably, Ultimate has made it so the attacker will lose in all cases), though generally the attacker will lose. In tournaments, if the attacker isn't declared winner in-game (very possible in Brawl), the tournament rules override the in-game result.
• In Super Robot Wars games, certain characters comes with the command skill "Self-Destruct", most notably the five main Gundam pilots of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, that allow them to destroy their own unit to cause a wave of explosions that can heavily damage or even destroy enemies. The Mazinkaiser versions of Boss Borot and Million Alpha also have single-unit attacks that do this.
• Team Fortress 2 gives the Soldier a suicidal grenade taunt that is apparently meant to evoke this, although like all fatal taunts it is unlikely to actually kill anyone unless you sneak up on them first, in which case you might as well just shoot them. It occasionally works — and evokes the trope more directly — during humiliation, though, if it's activated just before the victors rush in for their free kills.
  • Also a vital part of the Pyro—you even get an achievement for causing an enemy to burn to death after you yourself are already waiting to respawn. If you manage to ignite a large group of enemies before you die and no enemy Medics are present, expect most of them to go down pretty soon after you die if there are few medpacks in the area. Assuming you did a fair amount of damage to them before getting killed, that is.
  • It is fairly common for Soldiers and Demomen to blow themselves as well as the enemy up when they use their explosive weapons against enemies very close to them. In fact, the Demoman has a melee weapon — the Ullapool Caber — that's meant to be used either as this or to make him an Action Bomb.
  • This can be turned back around on launcher-wielding Soldiers and Demomen by players who are out of long-range ammo, by purposely rushing them. Many will keep on firing, too caught up in the moment to remember the dangers of aiming at such a close target.
  • Both Redmond and Blutarch Mann can randomly yell out how they're taking the mercs with them to Hell if either team should lose the Payload Race in Helltower.
• Metatronius from Tears to Tiara 2 tries to take Hamil with him. Instead, Tarte takes the Wave-Motion Gun.
• The Tiamat Sacrament: During the battle with Gyle at Fyradin, he's aware that if he loses, Ry'jin will fire the Vulcan Cannon at his location in order to take out the party. He spends his dying moments initially thinking he slowed down the party long enough to get them killed by the cannon, but Az'uar flies off with the rest of the party.
• Total Annihilation uses this to great extent. Every single thing in the game, buildings and units both, can self-destruct with a simple key command, allowing the player to surrender in epic form by causing his entire armada to explode. Exploding units also deal damage in a radius whenever they self-destruct or are destroyed-an exploding Commander can clear half a screen.
  • One particular third party unit had more hit points than the game had set for its Self Destruct self-damage. This unit was capable of pulling it off twice before it actually died.
  • Also the whole point of the first expansion's campaign in which the Core reveals that their plan if they were to lose the great war was to reach an alien artifact, and convert it into an implosion bomb that would destroy the galaxy
  • Both sides also had suicide bomber K-bots (Giant Mecha, but relatively small compared to most units in the game). This is their only form of attack, naturally.
• Town of Salem:
  • The point of the Bodyguard is to protect a role from getting killed because if they guard them, and a killing role tries to attack them, both the Bodyguard and the killer will die.
  • While back to back killings can happen between killing roles, the Medusa role can particularly evoke this if they stone gaze the same night that another killer visits them.
  • A Necromancer can animate a dead Pestilence if they choose to. While this will in turn kill the Necromancer themselves, it will ensure that their target is dead.
• Endtrails in Turok 2 blow themselves up when critically injured.
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: Harry Flynn. After finally getting his boss Lazarevic's men into Shambhalla by coercing Nate, Harry is finally deemed a liability by his Bad Boss, and Lazarevic beats him up and lethally shoots him, before leaving him with a grenade so he can decide the moment of his death. When Nate, Chloe and Elena find him, Elena offers to get him medical help, but Flynn is too proud to accept the help of his hated rival and that rival's loved ones after betraying them repeatedly, so instead, he throws that grenade at his feet and blows it up. But even when he's dying, Harry Flynn can't do anything right: the only hero he actually manages to hurt is Elena, and Nate and Chloe team up and successfully get her out of there and back to the Tibetan village to have her treated, saving her life.
• In Until Dawn This is how Mike takes out the Wendigos should Sam die in the ending.
• An Untitled Story has the Final Boss do this. In this final phase of the battle, instead of doing damage to him like every other boss of the game and every form of the boss before this, you simply have to survive his bullet and laser patterns for an arbitrary time limit (1 minute 15 seconds on Normal). Strangely enough, the main character could just as well do a heroic sacrifice and still succeed, but that would imply that he doesn't hook up with the pink female bird on the ending screen. You can't save after you beat the final boss.
• In Valkyria Chronicles, Brigadier General Selvaria Bles pulls one on the Gallian army after her capture, effectively taking out the majority of Gallia's army at Ghirlandaio with her 'Valkyria's Final Flame', an ability that allows a Valkyria to turn themselves into a nuclear bomb.
• Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: After he's defeated in his Boss Battle, the Vampire Hunter Grünfeld Bach has just enough life left to trigger a self-destruct mechanism on the cave network. Unfortunately for Bach, he only does so after dragging himself after the Player Character to deliver a Pre-Mortem One-Liner, giving them enough warning to flee the cave.
• War Thunder's "The Battle is ON!" trailer has several; the tailgunner of a doomed bomber plummeting towards the ground uses his last moments to blast the wing off of a German fighter, and a German tank driver slams his crippled, blazing inferno of a tank into an American Anti-Air half-track, flipping it and his own tank.
  "There is a beast deep inside you. It will not die; it will fight back!"
• Wild ARMs:
  • Mother attempts this the first time the heroes defeat her. The Photosphere crashes into the Inner Sea and gleefully claims they will all go down together and experience the "scattering of self." She does it again at the end of the game when she claims there is nothing to stop the darkness engulfing Filgaia and she gets to take one last world with her as she dies.
  • It seems to run in the family as Zeikfried also attempts this, twice. The first time is in the Gate Generator where he tries to have everyone sucked into a black hole in an attempt to destroy the heroes. The second time is in the dimensional gap between Ka Dingle and Malduke, due to fighting in subspace carrying with it the risk of explosion. He hopes that the battle will be fierce enough that it will blow them all away. He nearly succeeds.
• Wildermyth heroes defeated in battle may choose to die taking a piece out of the enemy that beat them. It's not guaranteed to be a Mutual Kill, but the damage dished out if you take this option is pretty substantial.
• Wing Commander: The Kilrathi Saga:
  • A rather important plot point of the second game is that Mariko Tanaka's decade-long-lost fiancé is held hostage on a space station. After her bomber is crippled, take a wild guess at what the Japanese pilot does.
  • The end of the losing mission path in Wing Commander III features this, courtesy of Eisen demonstrating that Ramming Always Works with the TCS Victory.
• Sho Minamimoto of The World Ends with You uses a self-destruct technique upon defeat. It's called something like "Level i Flare," with i being an imaginary number, meaning the blast obliterates everything in proximity. The trigger? Reciting pi. One hundred and fifty digits of it.
• Several creatures in World of Warcraft do this. The batriders in Zul'Gurub would explode when at low health, requiring anyone near them to back away or suffer massive damage. There's a specific variety of undead horror in Icecrown Citadel and the Pit of Saron that channel a "blight bomb" when at low health, and players must kill them before they finish casting. There are also a number of bosses that drop clouds of poisonous gas on death, causing careless players to kill themselves looting it.
  • Vanessa VanCleef does this at the end of Heroic Deadmines, utterng this phrase in the process. In the original version of the encounter, she would detonate one last set of explosives, forcing players to swing on ropes away from it, but a later patch had her detonating explosives on herself, forcing players to walk away from her.
  • Razorgore the Untamed in Blackwing Lair has this as a fight mechanic, in that if he is slain before someone can force him to destroy all of the black dragon eggs in the chamber the remaining eggs will detonate, killing everyone in the raid regardless of level and current health.
• World of Warships: Actually has an achievement for sinking a ship after yours is destroyed (Just A Flesh Wound). Ramming is a pretty certain way to do this. Ships that are about to be destroyed by fire, flooding or incoming shells/torpedoes can still attack. The attacks don't have to hit before the ship is sunk. The exception is that if a sinking wins the battle e.g. by sinking the last opponent, the battle ends immediately without this possibility.
• With primed explosives, this works great in XCOM.
  • Tentaculats in TFTD getting you down. Just make sure that all your soldiers always carry two primed grenades in their inventory. If a Tentaculat turns one of your soldiers into a zombie, he will drop the grenades, which will then immediately go off. The first grenade kills the attacking Tentaculat and the second one takes out the new Tentaculat which bursts out of the zombified soldier.
• In Ys: The Oath in Felghana, Garland performs a last-ditch move once his HP has been reduced to 1. He will fall to the ground, and then attempt to pull you towards him with a gravity well before exploding a few seconds later, causing heavy damage if you do not get away in time.

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