Examples of The Poorly Chosen One in Video Games.
- Technically, one could argue that this trope applies to any video game where you play as The Chosen One: if you die, then your character has failed to fulfill their destiny, and the world is at the mercy of whatever fate your character was meant to avert.
- The Elder Scrolls
- During the main quest in Morrowind, the Player Character visits the Cave of the Nerevarine, where they can meet the shades of several Dunmer who previously attempted to fulfill the Nerevarine Prophecy, but failed and died. (It's implied that there isn't one true Chosen One Nerevarine, but that anyone who fits the initial criteria could become the Nerevarine. These people fit the initial criteria, but died before they could fulfill the prophecy.)
- The Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim reveals that the initial chosen one to defeat Alduin was Miraak (the title character and the very first dragonborn), but instead of actually doing his job, he tried to build an empire of his own, and was eventually defeated by a fellow Dragon Priest. Three Nordic heroes had to step up to defeat Alduin in his place- and since they weren't Dragonborn themselves and couldn't kill Alduin, their work was only temporary and Alduin eventually returned in time for you to deal with him.
- You never knew it for about three quarters of the game, but you, the Sole Survivor were actually chosen by the Director of the Institute in Fallout 4 to become his successor. He thawed you out and let you escape a cryo-vault just to see how you would respond to a post-apocalyptic wasteland and how far you’d go to rescue the son who’s been stolen from you. The Director hoped you’d eventually find your way to the Institute and he hoped you’d have acquired a disgust for the wasteland and its denizens. It's entirely possible for you to do exactly that and become the next leader of the Institute... or you could have made friends in the Wasteland, join any one of the other three factions, and found some way to destroy the Institute entirely.
- All over the backstory of The Last Sovereign where the whole concept of The Chosen One gets the living crap kicked out of it. The game starts off with you controlling Kai, the chosen of the Goddess Ivala and his companions, Altina the elven sorceress and Simon the grizzled old veteran on their quest to save the world from the Incubus King. 10 minutes in Kai gets killed and Altina captured, because the actual protagonist of the game is Simon. Turns out Simon has been futilely escorting dozens of the little losers over the past few years, none of which have been worth a damn (at least one of which died after running off a cliff in his first battle) and he's getting tired of it. It doesn't help that while the "blessing of the Goddess" grants those who receive it a considerable boost in combat effectiveness, it also causes increased selfishness, drastically enhanced libido and severely reduced mental capacity, not helped by the fact that for some reason the goddess tends to favour nasty little self-centered shits to start with. When the next level 1 brat who gets assigned to him takes sexual advantage of one of their new companions and rudely brushes Simon off when he tries to stop him, Simon decides enough is enough and kills the wannabe-hero himself, deciding to take the fate of the world into his own hands.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- Impa expresses this opinion of Link in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword after he is too late to rescue Zelda in the Earth Temple, forcing Impa to do it herself.
Impa: It took you far too long to get here. Looking at you, I fear the goddess is mistaken in her choice of agents. If this failure is any indication, you have no hope of defending Her Grace from those who would seek to assail her.- It should be noted in Hyrule Historia that one of the potential timelines hinges on the Link of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time being one of these and falling in battle, leading to most of the pre-Ocarina video games.
- Manafinder: King Vikar was originally granted power by the gods to lead humanity, but in the present, they seek a new champion to replace him, since he is now abusing his power against his lower class subjects.
- Mass Effect 3 reveals the asari race were this to the Protheans, who gave them their advantages over the other races thanks to genetic engineering and a Prothean Beacon, believing they would use it to lead the galaxy to oppose the Reapers. Instead, they became complacent with merely using the Beacons knowledge to maintain their superiority, keeping it secret until the Reapers have overrun their homeworld, by which time humanity was leading the war effort.
- NEO: The World Ends with You: Rindo makes his way through the story only by virtue of possessing unique Time Travel powers, as he's all but completely incompetent at actually winning the Reaper's Game; his indecisiveness and lack of drive cause him to fail virtually every task he's given no matter how simple, forcing him to repeat the day again. However, this was the Big Good outplaying the Big Bad by deliberately choosing someone who would obviously be this trope, causing the villain to give Rindo the power of time travel out of sheer sadistic desire to see the hero be the one who destroyed the city when its side effects kicked in, and in the process introducing the only flaw into a plan that was completely unbeatable otherwise.
- Puppeteer (2013): Before Kutaro, Ezma chose other children kidnapped by the Moon Bear King to seize the magical battle scissors, retrieve the shards of light, and defeat the Thirteen Zodiac... and they never made it to the scissors.
- Shovel Knight: King Knight is this in his prequel story, King Of Cards. Lauded as a hero who will save the land by the people he meets, they somehow miss the fact that at his core, King Knight is a vain brute whose only goal is to become a king. Naturally, the moment the opportunity presents itself via the Enchantress's offer, King Knight kicks all his allies and admirers to the proverbial curb, helping to kick off the conquest of the valley.
- King Knight also pulls a Refusal of the Call on top of this when he declines on Cardia's offer to be her planet's savior after proving to be the worthy Joustus player she was searching for, because she wouldn't let him be ruler of the planet in exchange and it would be too much trouble for him to rule over a second kingdom anyway.
- The Swords of Ditto: Let's just say you'll go through MANY Chosen Heroes...
- In Tales of Symphonia, there were many Chosen Ones of Sylvarant before Colette, but they died at some point in their journeys. This is true, but the Chosen Ones who succeeded in their pilgrimages ultimately failed in their actual goal — bringing peace to Sylvarant — because the Big Bad uses their efforts to bring suffering to another world called Tethe'alla. And then Tethe'alla performs their own pilgrimage to alleviate their world's suffering by forking it back to Sylvarant. The Chosen Ones are used as test subjects for body-swapping, but none succeed until Colette shows up. And all of this was a plan by the Big Bad to revive his sister Martel; he couldn't care less about the fate of both worlds or the suffering of the people inside of them. Lloyd, The Unchosen One, is the person who ultimately stops this plan, with the Chosen Ones of both Sylvarant and Tethe'alla by his side, both defying what was expected of a Chosen One to do it.
- Vampyr (2018) reveals that King Arthur was a vampire sired by Merlin to protect Britain from the Morrigan's wrath. Unfortunately he failed in his mission and died prematurely, with the country suffering for his defeat for many years.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 2: While he's seen as one of the greatest heroes of Alrest in the present-day for his role in the Aegis War 500 years ago and shown to be loved by everyone of his home Titan of Torna (save for his jealous and insecure uncle) in the DLC prequel expansion set during the time period, the famed hero and former Driver of the Aegis Addam was ultimately this. Though he was a far more skilled and experienced Driver than Rex as well as having just as good a heart, he was never able to draw upon and handle Mythra's true power the way Rex would, his buried ego caused the newly-awakened Mythra to act as a Smug Super and practically a Bratty Teenage Daughter, and he could never get over his hidden fear of Mythra's world-ending power and that she might someday end up just like the other Aegis and their foe Malos. These faults all culminated into the Final Battle of the Aegis War when Mythra ends up going into a berserker rage due to Malos firing an attack on Torna's capital of Auresco where Milton was with Addam unable to stop it, and the resulting clash ends up killing the Toran Titan despite taking down Malos though not killing him, resulting in Addam's comrade and best friend Hugo sacrificing himself to save Addam, most of the Toran population dying as they evacuate the Titan and many more being killed by Amalthus' forces which results in Jin becoming a Fallen Hero with the death of his Driver and love Lora, and Mythra creating Pyra out of sheer guilt for all the destruction. After this, Addam sealed Pyra away with her consent believing The World Is Not Ready to accept her and completely vanishes from the public eye. When his spirit finally encounters Rex in the present-day, he tests him both in battle and questioning what he truly wants out of life to confirm that he is indeed the one Pyra and Mythra have been waiting for to handle their terrible burden and do what he could not.
