RPGs where the protagonist fails

[rusty_shackleford]

list 'em

[Tweed]

Life.

[Dorateen]

In Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant, the party fails to stop the Dark Savant. Hence necessitating the sequel ten years later.

[Oyster Sauce]

ME3 has a couple failure endings.

[Acrux]

In the Interplay version of Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo can refuse the quest during Elrond's Council meeting and the game immediately ends.

[rusty_shackleford]

Not really looking for fail states, but where the protagonists utterly fail at their mission and everyone suffers due to it.

[rusty_shackleford]

I think Dragon Age 2 qualifies but I'll need to find the single person who finished the game to confirm. I recall a series of the main character ******* everything up.
Honestly, DA2 had the bones for a good game, too bad it was so poorly executed.

[Emphyrio]

ultima vii and viii

[rusty_shackleford]

Diablo.

The warrior defeats Diablo, but was corrupted into believing he was strong enough to contain him. A very fitting end for the game.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Trails to Azure: The protagonist's country of Crossbell - which sits between two superpowers locked in a cold war - launches an unprovoked attack on both countries and escalates the cold war to a hot one, and is about to get invaded. At the end of the game, the protagonist, Lloyd Bannings, is given almighty power to remake the timeline. The antagonists - Lloyd's countrymen and friends - urge Lloyd to use this power to remake the timeline so that Crossbell was always a secure, independent nation and there is no cold war, or at the very least revert the last month of disastrous events to prevent a world war from breaking out. Lloyd refuses. "No, you can't use magic to fix your problems!" (selectively ignoring all the other times Lloyd and other franchise heroes used magic to fix their problems). Game ends with Crossbell being annexed and low level war between the two superpowers kicking off, Lloyd has to flee his home and becomes a fugitive being hunted by the empire, and his friends become hostages. Good job hero! Probably the most infuriating video game protagonist I've ever had the displeasure of playing as. Unfortunately this dimwit makes another damning decision at the end of Trails into Reverie: refusing a free offer of information from a lone survivor who came from the future about an imminent apocalypse within the next three years, because "muh power of friendship will get us through anything". . Who knows how many countless people died to due his inaction.

Trails of Cold Steel I: A civil war happens and you lose to the final boss (one of the coup leaders) and have to flee and leave your party behind. Fortunately you and the antagonist are friends so nothing bad happens to your party members, they just get placed on house arrest.

Trails of Cold Steel II: you unintentionally helped an expansionist demagogue depose his enemies, steal their wealth, and consolidate his power before going on to conquer more countries. There is no organized resistance left against him since you defeated them during the game. By the end, the protagonist is blackmailed into becoming an agent for a man he hates. Also, you spent the whole game trying to reunite with your best friend only for him to die.

Trails of Cold Steel III: Several franchise heroes fail to stop a world war from kicking off (the two superpowers were skirmishing and bombing small village but now it's time for mass scale mobilization and firebombings of whole cities), not just the current protagonists but past protagonists and party members who had the power and numerous opportunities to act over the prior 7 games, but didn't. You leap into an enemy stronghold to save your friend from being human sacrificed, but fail. You're now outmatched 4 to 1 and get curbstomped and thrown into chains. Roll credits. Also, unlike the CS1 ending, there were consequences for the other people who followed you as some of them didn't manage to escape and got captured and brainwashed.

Warcraft: canon ending is that the orcs win and destroy the Azeroth (later renamed the kingdom of Stormwind). Warcraft 2 is about the other surviving countries pushing back against the orcs.

Final Fantasy VI: you killed the final boss, but still failed the save the world from being destroyed halfway through the game. There are survivors but it will never be what it once was.

Final Fantasy VII: you killed the final boss, but the apocalypse is still happening. The ending cutscene is vague and a common interpretation was that humanity was wiped out.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: You kill the bad guy (if you spare him he grabs your blade and plunges it into his heart anyway), which then results in an evil god breaking free, the heroine dying, and an apocalypse kicking off.

[maidenhaver]

"No, you can't use magic to fix your problems!" (selectively ignoring all the other times Lloyd and other franchise heroes used magic to fix their problems).

Based.

refusing a free offer of information from a lone survivor who came from the future about an imminent apocalypse within the next three years, because "muh power of friendship will get us through anything". . Who knows how many countless people died to due his inaction.

[Vergil]

Diablo.

The warrior defeats Diablo, but was corrupted into believing he was strong enough to contain him. A very fitting end for the game.

Always thought that was funny as hell. Just shoves the rock directly into his ******* forehead hoping for the best.

[rusty_shackleford]

Diablo.

The warrior defeats Diablo, but was corrupted into believing he was strong enough to contain him. A very fitting end for the game.

Always thought that was funny as hell. Just shoves the rock directly into his ******* forehead hoping for the best.

He was wholly corrupted by Diablo at that point, perhaps Diablo losing was even part of his plan.
It was. It was all a trap to lure the strongest adventurers for a more suitable host.

[The_Mask]

Septerra Core: Maya actually fails to stop Doskias. Fails to prevent the lands to be raised to Shell 1. And then even fails to stay alive, as she needs to be brought back as a Watcher.

The only reason the story ends in a positive note is because her journey, and her "party of misfits", persuades Doskias to see the error of his ways.

[rusty_shackleford]

Anachronox ends on a failure cliffhanger that was never resolved.

[Vergil]

Diablo losing was even part of his plan.

He's a big guy.

[Nooneatall]

Diablo losing was even part of his plan.

He's a big guy.

For you

[J1M]

Diablo.

The warrior defeats Diablo, but was corrupted into believing he was strong enough to contain him. A very fitting end for the game.

This is an RPG?

[wndrbr]

I think Dragon Age 2 qualifies but I'll need to find the single person who finished the game to confirm. I recall a series of the main character ******* everything up.

the main character really has no say in the events of the game, he has no agency. Stuff happens by itself, and then the game just sort of ends.

The plot is basically:
- your character lives in the city and doesn't really have any plans or goals;
- templars try to contain the mages because mages are weak-willed and dangerous, they tend to practice blood magic and get possessed by the evil spirits from other dimensions;
- mages act all offended and try their damnest to prove that they are not dangerous;
- gay BLM activist mage (who is also your party member btw) stages a terrorist attack and blows up the church, killing hundreds of people;
- you can't call him out, you can't prevent this thing from happening and you can't kill the ******, the game treats him as morally grey cuz "church bad";
- templars get mad and punish the mages;
- main mage basically proves that all mages are dangerous and uses the blood magic, turning himself into a giant flesh demon;
- the main templar also turns into a demon for some reason, cuz "church bad" and we need the final boss.

The protagonist never fails because he never had the mission to begin with. He just lives there and sees the events unfolding.

[pokafox]

I think Dragon Age 2 qualifies but I'll need to find the single person who finished the game to confirm. I recall a series of the main character ******* everything up.

the main character really has no say in the events of the game, he has no agency. Stuff happens by itself, and then the game just sort of ends.

The plot is basically:
- your character lives in the city and doesn't really have any plans or goals;
- templars try to contain the mages because mages are weak-willed and dangerous, they tend to practice blood magic and get possessed by the evil spirits from other dimensions;
- mages act all offended and try their damnest to prove that they are not dangerous;
- gay BLM activist mage (who is also your party member btw) stages a terrorist attack and blows up the church, killing hundreds of people;
- you can't call him out, you can't prevent this thing from happening and you can't kill the ******, the game treats him as morally grey cuz "church bad";
- templars get mad and punish the mages;
- main mage basically proves that all mages are dangerous and uses the blood magic, turning himself into a giant flesh demon;
- the main templar also turns into a demon for some reason, cuz "church bad" and we need the final boss.

The protagonist never fails because he never had the mission to begin with. He just lives there and sees the events unfolding.

Thanks for removing any hesitation I still had to try and give the DA series another try. Could never go through DA1 despite liking it quite a bit. Was the first game that felt like it actually tried to subvert settings and themes I love by providing a seemingly traditional framework with characters straight out of a modern sitcom. Something that increasingly became the norm after that and led us straight to BG3.

[SoLong]

I think Dragon Age 2 qualifies but I'll need to find the single person who finished the game to confirm. I recall a series of the main character ******* everything up.
Honestly, DA2 had the bones for a good game, too bad it was so poorly executed.

Define "failure" for DA2. I still remember plenty of the game but you need to tell me what you're looking for.

Hawke fails at keeping his family together (sibling #1 is dead, sibling #2 is either dead or a warden, dad died before the game and mum dies during it). Keeping Kirwall from imploding succeeded twice but failed the third time because Anders started the mage vs templar war but depending on how you play Hawke preventing that might not have been a goal in the first place. End game result (canonically) is that you have to leave Kirkwall but in-game you can side with the anti-magic tincan faction and become ruler of the place.

[Bertram_Tung]

Most of the endings in VTMB involve you willingly becoming some other *******'s pawn, or dying. The only one that can be construed as "winning" is where you walk away, but you didn't make anything better, and you were still manipulated the whole time.

Edit: Come to think of it, VTM Redemption doesn't have any happy endings either. Even the Good ending ends with Christof's soul being eternally damned.

[SoLong]

- gay BLM activist mage (who is also your party member btw) stages a terrorist attack and blows up the church, killing hundreds of people;
- you can't call him out, you can't prevent this thing from happening and you can't kill the ******, the game treats him as morally grey cuz "church bad";

BLM? Anders isn't black though? Or did Bioware do something horrifying with his character lore?

Also, not to quibble but the church is legitimately bad. It's a matriarchy (which makes it badly run by default) and the two women you meet are a raving lunatic determined to start a war and a milquetoast leader trying to keep the status quo without actually fixing anything (and who may or may not count on things staying bad so both factions will still defer to her).

It's one of the problems I had with the game: Every single ******* authority figure in this game, and I do mean every single one is either evil, incompetent, stupid or a combination of all three.

[wndrbr]

BLM? Anders isn't black though? Or did Bioware do something horrifying with his character lore?

i wanted to type Antifa, but for some reason typed BLM.

Also, not to quibble but the church is legitimately bad. It's a matriarchy (which makes it badly run by default) and the two women you meet are a raving lunatic determined to start a war and a milquetoast leader trying to keep the status quo without actually fixing anything (and who may or may not count on things staying bad so both factions will still defer to her).

well yeah, no one would've bought into "church bad" if their authority figure wasn't a raving lunatic. Templars were fairly reasonable in DAO, and Bioware had to downgrade them into "morons ran by a cartoonishly evil woman" in order to force players into accepting the mages.

[rusty_shackleford]

well yeah, no one would've bought into "church bad" if their authority figure wasn't a raving lunatic. Templars were fairly reasonable in DAO, and Bioware had to downgrade them into "morons ran by a cartoonishly evil woman" in order to force players into accepting the mages.

Typical evolution of a character/faction that was intended to be bad but ended up making some very good points.
Mages are dangerous and templars are good.

[Roguey]

I think Dragon Age 2 qualifies but I'll need to find the single person who finished the game to confirm. I recall a series of the main character ******* everything up.

the main character really has no say in the events of the game, he has no agency. Stuff happens by itself, and then the game just sort of ends.

The plot is basically:
- your character lives in the city and doesn't really have any plans or goals;
- templars try to contain the mages because mages are weak-willed and dangerous, they tend to practice blood magic and get possessed by the evil spirits from other dimensions;
- mages act all offended and try their damnest to prove that they are not dangerous;
- gay BLM activist mage (who is also your party member btw) stages a terrorist attack and blows up the church, killing hundreds of people;
- you can't call him out, you can't prevent this thing from happening and you can't kill the ******, the game treats him as morally grey cuz "church bad";
- templars get mad and punish the mages;
- main mage basically proves that all mages are dangerous and uses the blood magic, turning himself into a giant flesh demon;
- the main templar also turns into a demon for some reason, cuz "church bad" and we need the final boss.

The protagonist never fails because he never had the mission to begin with. He just lives there and sees the events unfolding.

Your goal in act 1 is to get enough money from the deep roads expedition to get your house. In act 2 it's to get the Qunari to go away. In the third it's to manage mage/templar relations (the only one to fail).

You can kill Anders but only after his terrorist attack. The reason why the head mage and the main templar go full ****** at the end is because the lead gameplay designer wanted all players to experience both boss fights and not just one or the other, which is what Gaider wanted. Darrah sided with the gameplay-people, so they introduced red lyrium to make the templar go crazy no matter what you do.

[wndrbr]

Stop defending them, Infinitron! Bioware won't hire you, not after what you've done to those poor Gazans.

[Kalarion]

Trails to Azure: The protagonist's country of Crossbell - which sits between two superpowers locked in a cold war - launches an unprovoked attack on both countries and escalates the cold war to a hot one, and is about to get invaded. At the end of the game, the protagonist, Lloyd Bannings, is given almighty power to remake the timeline. The antagonists - Lloyd's countrymen and friends - urge Lloyd to use this power to remake the timeline so that Crossbell was always a secure, independent nation and there is no cold war, or at the very least revert the last month of disastrous events to prevent a world war from breaking out. Lloyd refuses. "No, you can't use magic to fix your problems!" (selectively ignoring all the other times Lloyd and other franchise heroes used magic to fix their problems). Game ends with Crossbell being annexed and low level war between the two superpowers kicking off, Lloyd has to flee his home and becomes a fugitive being hunted by the empire, and his friends become hostages. Good job hero! Probably the most infuriating video game protagonist I've ever had the displeasure of playing as. Unfortunately this dimwit makes another damning decision at the end of Trails into Reverie: refusing a free offer of information from a lone survivor who came from the future about an imminent apocalypse within the next three years, because "muh power of friendship will get us through anything". . Who knows how many countless people died to due his inaction.

Trails of Cold Steel I: A civil war happens and you lose to the final boss (one of the coup leaders) and have to flee and leave your party behind. Fortunately you and the antagonist are friends so nothing bad happens to your party members, they just get placed on house arrest.

Trails of Cold Steel II: you unintentionally helped an expansionist demagogue depose his enemies, steal their wealth, and consolidate his power before going on to conquer more countries. There is no organized resistance left against him since you defeated them during the game. By the end, the protagonist is blackmailed into becoming an agent for a man he hates. Also, you spent the whole game trying to reunite with your best friend only for him to die.

Trails of Cold Steel III: Several franchise heroes fail to stop a world war from kicking off (the two superpowers were skirmishing and bombing small village but now it's time for mass scale mobilization and firebombings of whole cities), not just the current protagonists but past protagonists and party members who had the power and numerous opportunities to act over the prior 7 games, but didn't. You leap into an enemy stronghold to save your friend from being human sacrificed, but fail. You're now outmatched 4 to 1 and get curbstomped and thrown into chains. Roll credits. Also, unlike the CS1 ending, there were consequences for the other people who followed you as some of them didn't manage to escape and got captured and brainwashed.

Warcraft: canon ending is that the orcs win and destroy the Azeroth (later renamed the kingdom of Stormwind). Warcraft 2 is about the other surviving countries pushing back against the orcs.

Final Fantasy VI: you killed the final boss, but still failed the save the world from being destroyed halfway through the game. There are survivors but it will never be what it once was.

Final Fantasy VII: you killed the final boss, but the apocalypse is still happening. The ending cutscene is vague and a common interpretation was that humanity was wiped out.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: You kill the bad guy (if you spare him he grabs your blade and plunges it into his heart anyway), which then results in an evil god breaking free, the heroine dying, and an apocalypse kicking off.

Surprised you didn't list FF IV.

[Roguey]

Some other examples

Divinity 2 ends with your character having been totally bamboozled, imprisoned, and having resurrected the main evil guy's evil girlfriend. In the expansion you kill her again.

In Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire the gods give you the task of finding and then stopping Eothas from destroying the Wheel, but you can't. With a DLC you can get another giant statue creature to kill Eothas, but the wheel still gets destroyed in the fight.

[SoLong]

Some other examples

Divinity 2 ends with your character having been totally bamboozled, imprisoned, and having resurrected the main evil guy's evil girlfriend. In the expansion you kill her again.

In Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire the gods give you the task of finding and then stopping Eothas from destroying the Wheel, but you can't. With a DLC you can get another giant statue creature to kill Eothas, but the wheel still gets destroyed in the fight.

Honestly the entire good solution to the Eothas debacle is to drive him to despair. I can't stand that idiotic green ****-goblin. The ************ goes rarara, mortals good but the entire PoE series shows that the mortal realm is an unending clownshow of corrupt and stupid people, with a small handful of competents barely managing to hold the thing together.

And Eothas wants to allow the inmates to run the asylum, killing gods know how many people in the process. Honestly, that ****** deserves to watch while everything in the world dies, all the while knowing he made it happen and the absurdly evil winter goat guy rubbing it in.

The underlying writing in that game really was dogshit.