Press X to Die



The player is given the option to perform an action that can only ever result in failure or otherwise hinder progress. Rather than simply disabling the action, the developers instead let the player try it, and then punish them for it. Most of the time it's just Schmuck Bait included as a joke, but some especially sadistic developers add such things with no, or little, warning in games where Continuing Is Painful.

Some games provide such a command as a suicide command for fun, quick level resets or when the current level is left in an unsolvable state.

Overlaps when No Fair Cheating in cases where X used to be a cheat code in an earlier game.

Sometimes results from a Leap of Faith, and often results in Yet Another Stupid Death. When you're instead rewarded for taking an obviously stupid action, that's a Violation of Common Sense. If the stupid action is required in order to solve a puzzle or advance the plot, then Stupidity Is the Only Option. See Press Start to Game Over for when the Trolling Creator puts a suicidal option right at the beginning of the game. Contrast Press X to Not Die.

Sub trope of Forbidden Chekhov's Gun.

Anime and Manga

 * In Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night, Masters have Command Seals (3 per contract) that force their Servants to do exactly what the Masters say, even if the only possible outcome of said action is losing the Holy Grail War. In Fate/Zero, force his Servant  to commit suicide, as part of the deal to let him walk away unmolested from the war after he's crippled.
 * Later,

Live Action TV

 * Wheel of Fortune is perfectly happy to let players pick a letter that's already been picked. They can even buy a vowel that's already been picked. Under no circumstances can this be beneficial; it's just an easy slip-up that wastes a turn and sometimes money. It's not even an attempt to get the players to pay attention; there's a board just offscreen that tells them the letters that have already been called.
 * However, they avert this with vowels. If every vowel in the puzzle is revealed, the host informs the players that there are no more vowels left, even if the puzzle doesn't have all five vowels in it. (They are also dimmed on the used-letter board at this point.)
 * As seen on The Colbert Report: The Machine That Turns Itself Off.
 * A more literal example.

Video Games
"The Angry Video Game Nerd: There's a SUICIDE BUTTON in this game?!"
 * In the game Kindergarten, when getting beat up Buggs after the teacher tells you to provoke him, you have the option to "Accept your fate".
 * One Minecraft mod allows you to make machines powered by electricity. You could use copper cables to route the power to these machines. Not using rubber to insulate the cables would cause you to get an electric shock.
 * The Amazing Spider-Man on Game Boy featured a level in which you needed to press a button at the very end to get into a window. Everywhere else, though...

"Jolmi: "Somewhat disappointing, I must admit. Ah, well... coin well-spent, nonetheless. Farewell.""
 * Quest for Glory III introduced a new spell called Thermonuclear Blast, basically as a joke. The description for the spell read something along the lines of: "Everything in a ten mile radius dies instantly. This includes your character, but at least you'll go out with a bang!" The spell would actually develop some limited use in the fifth game, where it could be used to initiate a Nonstandard Game Over in a certain scene.
 * This spell wasn't a joke. If you waited too long at the end before destroying the Big Bad and closing the portal,.
 * Scribblenauts allows you to summon a nuclear bomb at any time, with pretty much the same results. Although it does have limited use on certain levels with some creativity. For instance, on a level that requires you to clean up trash, if you stand your character where the Starite will spawn, then nuke the place, your dead corpse will successfully win the stage.
 * "METEOR", "TSUNAMI" and "EPIC FAIL" will also do the same thing. Sadly, EPIC FAIL summons the same thing as "NUKE". Also, you have to drop the meteor from a few feet up for it to kill everything.
 * In the sequel, the Black Hole just grows until everything is destroyed. It can't be deleted either.
 * In Adventures of Lolo, press Select to die.
 * The Death Gate adventure-game. Among the spells you learned along the way was 'Self-Immolate', which does Exactly What It Says on the Tin - using the spell would instantly kill you. It did, however, turn out useful when fighting a mirror image of yourself. Just scribe a mirrored version of the spell's runes - which does nothing - and your copy would dutifully flip it and kill himself.
 * Don't Shoot the Puppy is a parody of these: once you've started a level, any action (including moving the mouse by ANY amount) results in failure—the only way to not shoot the puppy is to leave your computer alone.
 * There is a similar game called Execution by Jesse Venbrux. The only way to "win" is to quit.
 * In Fallout, you can set the timer on a nuclear warhead to 30 seconds. Try to outrun that fireball.
 * In the sequel, you can try to manually arm a nuclear warhead. While a high science skill character will succeed at this, a character without... Won't.
 * In the third game, when you obtain the GECK there is an option to activate it. Should you try, the device will helpfully inform you that, when activated, it will destroy everything in a large radius for materials. You can then turn it on anyway.
 * In the Mothership Zeta DLC, try
 * Fallout: New Vegas has one implemented for plotline reasons when playing through the Dead Money expansion. You are warned that if you  you will become permanently trapped. If you do so anyway, it will lead to a Nonstandard Game Over wherein you starve to death and your likeness becomes a hologram in the Madre.
 * In the Half Life expansion Opposing Force, you can get an electricity-firing weapon called the shock rifle. You're fully capable of firing it underwater, despite the fact that doing so kills you immediately.
 * In Half-Life 2, at some points, killing yourself in a way that couldn't possibly be unintentional will net you a special failure message: "Subject demonstrated extremely poor judgment."
 * Quake has the Thunderbolt weapon, which kills you when fired underwater, and it also electrocutes anything in a radius that depends on the amount of ammo you have for it. This is (kinda) useful in multiplayer if a bunch of people are in the water with you, or if you're invincible.
 * In the Full Motion Video game based on the Johnny Mnemonic film, you try to access the internet, you die instantly. Note that there's an internet access port on nearly every screen of the game.
 * In Leisure Suit Larry 6 you could attempt to open an underwater door from the inside. Larry does not survive the following increase in air humidity.
 * If you flush the toilet in the restroom of Lefty's Bar in the original, it overflows and causes you to drown. Other easy ways to die are shoplifting, neglecting to pay the taxi driver, or wandering into a dark alley.
 * In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door you can choose to read a ghost's diary after promising not to (although you have to dig through enough "are you sure"s to rival Windows Vista) or, later, accept the Big Bad's We Can Rule Together. Both result in a Nonstandard Game Over.
 * Super Paper Mario
 * You can die before the game even officially starts. Just tell the character telling you about the rift in the world that you don't want to do anything about it. He will ask if you're sure and tell you the world will end without your help. Say yes and he asks if you are REALLY sure. Say yes again and he then says something like "Well... I guess there is nothing to be done about it then. This world and all who live in it will be destroyed." And you get a Game Over, even before you can officially control your character.
 * The first Golden Sun game did something very similar after the prologue dungeon. When asked by Mister Exposition if you are willing to take on this dangerous quest to save the world, you can just say no and walk out of the house, resulting in a Nonstandard Game Over where the game tells you that the world began drifting towards its end due to your choice.
 * When you enter level 4-1, which is set in outer space, you can choose not to put on your air helmet. Do that 3 times and after Tippi mocks your ineptitude, BOOM- game over.
 * Another We Can Rule Together happens in the next-to-last chapter. Cue another 10 Windows Vista "Are you sure"'s from the same character from the previous example before leaving you at the Big Bad's mercy.
 * In New Super Mario Bros. Wii's multiplayer coop mode, you can press the A button to go into a bubble and let your friend(s) continue the level, then have one of them pop the bubble to bring you back into the game. This can save you a life or two when going through tight spots, as only one player needs to surmount the challenge. BUT... the A button is not disabled when everyone else is in a bubble (or out of lives), so if you press it then, you'll be stuck in a bubble with no way to pop it, and you'll have to restart the level!
 * This can actually come in handy sometimes—if you're on your last life, everybody else is out of lives, and you're plunging to your doom, letting yourself die causes a Game Over and you have to reload your last save. But going into a bubble will only make you restart the level and bring back the other players.
 * Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword. Go on, attack Fargus. I dare you.
 * In Pathways into Darkness, you can set the timer on your nuke too short, set it too long, or oversleep. The formermost results in burning atomic death, the latter two in a Fate Worse Than Death by way of Eldritch Abomination.
 * Phantom 2040: Near the end of the game is a level where the player is running on the outside of a moving train. Pressing down+ jump allows the player to drop down to a lower part of it, even when on the lowermost part of the train. Dropping from there (and thus onto the tracks) can only ever result in instantaneous death.
 * The above is a common occurrence in any oldschool platformer, as the devs simply didn't think people would be crazy enough to even accidentally do such a thing and didn't code the very bottom-most platform as being 'solid.' Therefore all terrain with a similar appearance could be fallen through, even if it was at the very bottom of the screen. Kid Icarus was an especially large offender since it usually scrolled vertically, yet also made the space below you into a Bottomless Pit, even if you just advanced a single pixel too high.
 * This is inverted in Planescape: Torment - as the point of the game is to more or less figure out why you're immortal, and find a way to die.
 * To get a Nonstandard Game Over you can kill the only source of information on how to save yourself from everlasting reincarnation. You can also anger a being of godlike power twice in a row. Or accept a position with a lifetime term. Or annoy a Medusa.
 * You may also receive  This comes in handy during the endgame...
 * Or, if you have Wisdom
 * Then there's the throne of the Silent King, which is inescapable once sat in, and by all evidence has killed the last person to sit on it. Nameless can choose to take the throne himself, with predictable results.
 * Planescape: Torment also subverts this trope in that willingly taking mortal damage can prove beneficial:
 * A woman who wants to know what murdering another person feels like offers The Nameless One a thousand coins to allow her to stab him in the heart.
 * A woman who wants to know what murdering another person feels like offers The Nameless One a thousand coins to allow her to stab him in the heart.

"Narrator: "You now have terrific second-degree burns on your hands." Narrator: "You hold the torch close enough to cause second and third-degree burns." Narrator: "You finally set your hair on fire. The rest of your body soon follows!!""
 * The Nameless One can talk someone out of committing suicide by snapping his own neck, coming back to life, and telling the unsure person what's on the other side.
 * The Nameless One can also humiliate an evangelist talking about the wonders the afterlife holds by challenging him to die - he'll agree if you die first. After snapping your own neck and coming back to life, you can ask him to hold up his end of the bargain, which he'll backpedal on. You can then draw a dagger and stop just short of killing him, causing him to audibly soil himself.
 * To get through, The Nameless One has to repeatedly die.
 * And of course, there's the easiest way for The Nameless One to sneak back into the Mortuary...
 * All that said, this part of the trope is eventually played straight when it becomes apparent
 * The Prince of Persia series features enemies that will always counter certain moves. Rather than just having the attack blocked, you always take damage for attempting it against that opponent, usually getting knocked down as well.
 * The Omega Stone lets you "use" an electric fence, press the big red button on what turns out to be an explosive device, and so on.
 * This follows the precedent of the preceding Riddle of the Sphinx, in which you could die by choosing the wrong one of six pairs of slabs, trying to pass an uncharmed cobra, etc.
 * Shadowgate. Just about everything you can do is either necessary to progress, or immediately fatal. One notable exception makes you press X three times to die. Using the torch on yourself:

"Narrator: "...Well, that's one way to go out with a bang. So much for your dreams and aspirations.""
 * Deja Vu
 * The game will let you "use Gun on Self":

"Narrator: "Well, what do you know. It's a giant spider.""
 * In addition, you can walk into the local police station at any time. However, unless you, you're immediately arrested and given at least ten years in prison.
 * Walking to the right of the police station will cause Ace to fall into a pit in an open construction site and die, with no warning.
 * And to fill out the trilogy, Uninvited plays with it by giving you many, many, many warnings that leaping into the den of the resident Giant Spider is a bad idea. Ignoring these leads to your well deserved death.

""We warned you not to bang on the Change Machine, but did you listen?""
 * Metal Gear Solid 3 has a suicide pill that you can take to fake your death and throw off an enemy pursuit. You can take a revival pill to return to action once the coast is clear...or not, wait a while, and watch Snake die for real.
 * After the cutscene where you knock out Ocelot for the first time, you can shoot him. However, this results in a "time paradox", a Nonstandard Game Over.
 * There's quite a few of these in the series, like shooting a bomb in Metal Gear Solid 2, or pumping a few SOCOM rounds into Meryl while she lies bleeding under Wolf's line of fire in Metal Gear Solid (you even get a few bonus Codec conversations for doing this). You can also shoot Baker through the hole in the wall before encountering Ocelot.
 * You can also touch the wires binding Baker to the beam (which sets off the C4) in MGS, take a brief dip in the water in Vamp's boss room (brief as in you drown) in MGS2, screw with the Marines in the holds (causing you to be caught in most cases) in MGS2, and many more things. The Metal Gear Solid series has a lot of these.
 * Shinobi games feature a self-destruct ninjitsu, which kills or greatly damages everything on the screen and reduces a life from your total stock, while also giving you another use for a ninjitsu. There's nothing to stop you from using it while on your very last life.
 * Space Quest had quite a few of these.
 * Roger could blow up his ship, though it turns out to be useful function later.
 * In one scene, Roger could walk through an array of destructive lasers with no apparent harm, only to fall into pieces seconds later. At which point, at least in the VGA remake, the developers would mock you with an instant replay. And then there's the pool of corrosive acid which can be reached into. You also have the option of smelling or even tasting the acid, which also proves fatal in a hurry.
 * The escape pod in Space Quest has a big red button marked "Do Not Press". If you press it, the pod is sent through a dimension warp into King's Quest I (or Conquests of the Longbow in the remake), where you either drown in the moat or die in a fiery crash.
 * In Space Quest IV, you have the option near the beginning to pick up a piece of "unstable ordinance". If you do, it later explodes and kills you. Picking up the unstable ordinance gives you points, putting it back costs you some, but it is still a net gain. It serves no other purpose, GUIDE DANG IT!
 * Space Quest IV also featured a software store where you could pick up items and take them to the counter - or try and leave the store. The first three times you try to leave, you'll be told to pay the clerk or you'll be sorry - the fourth time you walk out of the store and get blasted by the anti-theft system.
 * In the same game, attempting to lick a forcefield generator in Ulence Flats has mortal results. Ditto for banging on the change machine in the arcade, though at least the change machine gives you the warning "Banging on the Change Machine will only activate its self-defense measures."

"Bomb: "Now this is going to be a fairly large explosion, so everybody should stand back...oh, about twenty-two miles.""
 * Police Quest had one part where you could give the jail bondsman your keys, badge, gun or even UNIFORM. All of these result in a Have a Nice Death message, even though you don't die.
 * In the second installment of the series, you could fail to put ear protectors on when using the firing range. Shoot twice, and Have a Nice Death.
 * Open Season: Try to leave the convenience store without paying? The owner shoots you. Shoot anyone? You die too. Fail to use the mirror on a stick before entering the door? You get fatally mauled by the Big Bad's dog.
 * In the early 1980s FORTRAN ASCII graphics Star Trek game the player can activate the Enterprise's Self-Destruct Mechanism. Which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
 * In some ports of this game, when the Enterprise explodes, it will destroy any nearby Klingon ships. Depending on the port, this can result in a net increase in the player's final score, making it, if nothing else, a reasonable thing to do when all other options have been exhausted. One Commodore 64 port, titled "Space: The Ultimate Frontier" plays it out as a sort of cut scene, evoking Star Trek III the Search For Spock.
 * Similarly, Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force lets you activate Voyager's self-destruct system. While it gets disabled immediately so nobody dies, it does result in your character's incarceration and a game over. (Ironically, Captain Janeway is notorious for her auto-destruct habit—she uses it three times in Season 2 alone.)
 * In Streets of Rage 3, throws cannot be performed on the "big ben" type of enemy. However, rather than just disallowing throws on them, the game instead has these enemies crush the player any time they try a throw, doing a fairly large chunk of damage. And just to mock you further, the fat bastards will laugh at you if they squash you... or pretty much taking damage from anything in their sight.
 * Which is a bit of an annoyance for people who have played Streets of Rage 2, where the "Big Ben" type enemies were throwable with no ill effects.
 * And a Continuity Nod for people who played Streets of Rage 1, where they did.
 * System Shock: Firing the Kill Sat aimed at Earth. Whoops.
 * In Tobal No. 1, the robot character had a move where he touches the button on his back and shuts himself off, thus losing the round. It had no purpose other than suicide, though sometimes if you're fighting him, he'll do it himself, letting you win.
 * Karoshi 2.0 has a room entitled "Press Q to quit."
 * Super Karoshi has "exit" doors in several early levels. Touching them displays the message "Exiting" and some elipses before dumping you to the menu.
 * In Starship Titanic, you come across a button that says "Press to Disarm Bomb" - which arms it.

"Nethack: Go to Nowhere. Are you sure? [ynq] (q) y Nethack: You scream in agony as your body begins to warp...--More-- Nethack: You cease to exist.--More-- Nethack: Your possessions land on the floor with a thud.--More-- Nethack: Do you want your possessions identified? [ynq] (n) Score List: Player, committed suicide."
 * Subverted in that if you actually wait long enough for the entire countdown from 1000 to expire,  Oddly enough, even though the bomb
 * I Wanna Be the Guy: "This is the safest room in the game. Only "Q" can kill you." Of course, "Q" still kills you anywhere else.
 * In the PC game The Neverhood you cannot die. However, once you drain the lake, you will see a Bottomless Pit. It is clearly marked "Do Not Jump In. You Will Die!". Jumping in gives you a Nonstandard Game Over where you continue to fall forever.
 * Aaah, Nethack.
 * Among many, many other ways to die, the game allows you to teleport to a negative level; and immediately fall thousands of feet to your death. Unless you can fly. If you go to level -10 or above, you go to Heaven instead. Though it won't save you from death by teleporting to level 0:

"Nethack: "Do Not Pass Go. Do not collect 200 zorkmids.""
 * Throwing rocks at the ceiling and taking damage when they hit you on the head.
 * Hurting your leg when you kick something immobile.
 * Falling down staircases because you're carrying too much.
 * Getting stoned because you tried to go down stairs while wielding a cockatrice corpse and carrying too much.
 * Choking by trying to eat a boulder made of meat.
 * Shooting yourself with a wand of death. There's a reason the game coined the term Yet Another Stupid Death.
 * There are no less than forty-five ways to get yourself killed by a cockatrice - and only a few are from enemies.
 * It's even possible to attempt to mount your horse, slip off, and kill yourself... on the very first turn!

"Ilya: You... (executes a 203-hit combo on Shirou) ...fuckin' chicken grill!"
 * Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia: Equip, press Up+ X to die. Ironically, however, you are required to use this exact technique to  and it's the one instance where you don't die
 * One of the items you can find is the "Death Ring", which drastically raises all your attributes with the description "One hit kills instantly." As it turns out, the description is referring to Shanoa - taking a single hit will instantly kill her.
 * Commander Keen: In Episode 2, "The Earth Explodes", your goal is to disable the numerous Wave Motion Guns on the alien mothership. Each of these guns has an "on" switch on them. Guess what happens if you press it.
 * In Maniac Mansion, you can blow up Ed's beloved hamster in the microwave. And then give it back to him. He reacts poorly. And you can nuke the mansion, by draining the swimming pool, pushing the Big Red Button, or setting off the security system.
 * Knights of the Old Republic
 * You can try to talk to Calo Nord after watching him effortlessly kill three gangsters. He reacts to you in precisely the same manner. If you don't back off before he counts to three, you get a Hopeless Boss Fight.
 * Pleading guilty to your attempt to break into the Sith base on Manaan will get you executed.
 * There are several computer terminals throughout the game that let you hack into various security systems. Most of them offer the ability to activate security systems or overload terminals in various rooms, eliminating any enemies in the area. There's nothing to stop you doing this to the room you're currently standing in.
 * Picking a fight with an Adamantoise in Final Fantasy XIII. (Unless you're REALLY overleveled, or you taught Vanille 'Death')
 * In Duke Nukem: Zero Hour it's really not a good idea to start firing off weapons inside the support structure for the blimp. Boom indeed.
 * Return to Castle Wolfenstein has a Cyanide Pill key that kills Blazkowitz.
 * PixieMUD had a Line of Death. "Do not cross this line or you will die." When someone invariably did—and did—it announced their folly to all other connected players.
 * In ThunderDome MUD, drinking gasoline was instant death. Since the most convenient way to carry it was in one of the larger canteens, and drinking water is also often necessary, it wasn't an infrequent death. The Implementors themselves would laugh on the gossip line when reading the death logs.
 * Shadow Madness includes the item "Pandora's Caudron". Its in-game description is "Do not use. EVER!" Using it shows a FMV that ends in an Earthshattering Kaboom, followed by a Game Over screen.
 * The original Ultima Underworld has a spell called "Armageddon." It pretty much does Exactly What It Says on the Tin. When used, it destroys every item (both in your inventory and on the ground), monster, door, and staircase, and sets all your abilities at zero, making it impossible to win. Just doing the first would be enough for that.
 * The sixth and seventh Ultimas also have the Armageddon spell. Casting it kills every living thing in the game except for the Avatar and Lord British. (And in Ultima VII, )
 * In Ultima VI, there are certain circumstances where the spell's effects can be undone, allowing it to be used strategically to bypass certain obstacles.
 * Warcraft 2 and 3 have a cheat code that results in an immediate Game Over.
 * In one area of Red Faction, you are required to go under cover to get past security. There are several big red buttons on the walls and supports. When you press one (just like you would press any other button), an alarm is immediately activated. You are soon attacked by an endless number of guards. Did I mention that you were forced to disarm in order to go under cover?
 * Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay allows you (and encourages you with flashing) to try to pick up the dna-encoded guns. ZZZAP. Although the damage is extremely minor.
 * La-Mulana, PC version: Equip . Take any damage. Makes one serving of dead Lemeza. Equipping them in the reverse order rapidly eats Lemeza's health before your very eyes. Either way, good night sweet prince.
 * The One-Hit-Point Wonder ability is a clear callback to Contra. As for F1 Spirit, the developers just really hated the game.
 * The Impossible Quiz insidiously disguises a Press X to Die as a Press X to Not Die.
 * One level in the Futurama game contains a working Suicide Booth. Step inside and press the interact button.
 * In Mech Assault, in the multiplayer Grinder mode if you play with a friend you are able to walk around as a regular human. Press a certain button? Ludicrous Gibs!
 * Mother 3: While playing as Duster in Osohe Castle in Chapter 2. In order to get inside the castle, you must open a hole to get to the floor below. Fortunately, there's a conveniently placed statue holding a large iron ball. Dash into it, and it'll drop the ball, which crashes through the floor. Dash into it from the right, and it'll drop the ball which crashes through you.
 * The Lord of the Rings parody adventure game Kingdom 'O Magic contains a Thermal Detonator as a collectible item. Using it anywhere plays a cutscene of a nuclear explosion followed by the standard death sequence.
 * In the adventure game KGB, you can use your gun on yourself. The game even asks you if you really want to do it. Of course, if you do, you die.
 * The game Wax Works has, in the Egyptian level, the option to knock down a supporting pillar. This is required; however, the game makes no effort to dissuade you from standing beside said pillar while knocking it down. Oops.
 * Also, when finding a trip wire that activates deadly blades to descend upon you, you can choose to either "avoid" or "activate" it.Guess what doing the latter results into.
 * Sierra's game Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist has all means of offing oneself with unnecessary medications, noxious gasses and horse poo. The best one though is trying to use the guns on yourself, which.
 * An old book on how to write computer games featured a spy-themed text adventure written in BASIC. The main text pointed out that any valid "eat" or "chew" command would result in death, since the only two edible objects in the game were capsules with a faint aroma of Bitter Almonds and a plastic explosive disguised as chewing gum.
 * In Zone of the Enders, you get a mission to protect one of the structural support pillars of the colony.
 * In the "bonus level" in Modern Warfare 2, An Evening with Infinity Ward (aka the Museum level), there are two object that, when you aim at them at close range, display DO NOT press X (in the 360 version, the other versions change the use button, and as such, the line). Doing so will bring every exhibit to life, and set them on you.
 * Just to clarify, this means that the various total badasses you just finished fighting through the toughest opposition in the world with, as well as all of the previously mentioned toughest opposition in the world, come to life in a small, confined space, fully armed and ready for action... And each and every one of them is trying as hard as possible to murder you. Good luck with that!
 * Perfect Dark had this in one of its multiplayer modes. One player plays through the mission, while the other plays as a Mook, trying to impede Player 1. When changing weapons, the mook player could select "Cyanide Pill" which would instantly kill you. However, this actually served a purpose; you would respawn at a different point on the level, so it was helpful for letting you catch up to the player.
 * An attempt to use the God Mode cheat from Doom in Heretic results in instant death. Also, using the infinite weapons cheat results in instant depletion of all weapons.
 * In the first Postal game, you can literally press X to commit suicide. Your avatar will then get on its knees, point a handgun under its chin, and pull the trigger, blowing off its own head. Good for a level start-over. In the sequel, you go out with a grenade and a shrug. Great for crowded dancefloors!
 * In Tekken 5 (and possibly other Tekken games), Yoshimitsu has a button combo that allows him to stab himself with his own sword. Sure, you can damage another guy behind you, if there is a guy behind you, but after you stab the other character and yourself at the same time, you can stab yourself again and take away the rest of your health. Still pretty funny, though.
 * Same with Soul Calibur's Yoshimitsu (at least Soul Calibur 2.) It's fun to pull it off right after winning a match.
 * If you're crippled in Bushido Blade, you can press the Select button to surrender honourably, allowing your opponent to finish you off.
 * In Mass Effect 2, you meet Morinth, an asari with a rare genetic defect that kills anyone she has sex with. You have the option to have sex with her. The result is what you expect.
 * Worms
 * Most of the games have an item called the Surrender. When used, the player's team will be removed from the match, although its members remain on the landscape waving white flags and can be knocked around by the remaining teams.
 * And let us not not forgot KAMIKAZE!
 * Heck, all weapons can be used to to kill yourself (or your teammates), and it regularly turns out that having one or two worms sacrificing themselves for the greater good is a good idea. Or you just want to show your opponent that you can use your team as a suicide squad and still kick his ass.
 * Many Death Is a Slap on The Wrist multiplayer games have a Slash Command for this, like Unreal's "siucide", which broadcasts the message "[player] had an aneurysm."
 * Homestar Runner's Peasant's Quest lets you simply type "die". The game insults your intelligence, then carries out the command. So does Thy Dungeonman.
 * In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind you can get a scroll that boosts your acrobatics to insane levels. For three seconds. This means you jump like Supes. And then die once you hit the ground. Oh, and did I mention you get the scroll from the corpse of the guy who was testing it out, crashing-and dying!- right in front of you?
 * Of course they are called the "scrolls of Icarian Flight."
 * Not a perfect example, since it is quite possible to find a use for it - Slowfall, at any power, removes all falling damage (and synergises well in other respects), and a spell of levitate halts the fall in favour of, well, levitation.
 * Almost all Infocom games let you kill yourself just by requesting it ("kill self" or "die"). Unfortunately, some Infocom games default the player as the noun when one isn't given; what that means is never type "kill" because the game will fill your name right there on the form...
 * Uplink after the Evil Corporation hands you The Virus.
 * Although creative players can use it as a cheap (free!) alternative to a Self Destruct Device (which otherwise costs a signifigant amount of money and a hardware slot).
 * Screwed yourself over in N? Press "K" to die. In the "sequel" N, you literally Press X to Die.
 * In the original Dragon Warrior, when the Dragonlord tells you We Can Rule Together, you actually can take him up on his offer.
 * In Star Control 2, using the Utwig Bomb (a tool designed to destroy small planets for easy mining) is not wise.
 * The Journeyman Project has lots of these:
 * Going to the wrong destination in the transporter, resulting in you being Ret-Gone by the temporal distortion wave.
 * Walking off the cliff in the Prehistoric era.
 * Walking up the maintenance transport tunnel and getting run over.
 * Turning the wrong way when the Mars robot tells you "out of my way, human, or die!"
 * Going into the Mars Maze before disarming the bomb.
 * Going to NORAD VI or the airless parts of Mars without the oxygen mask.
 * Attempting to remove the shield generator bomb before disarming it.
 * Walking into areas with humans and getting captured.
 * Taking the gas canister in Norad VI.
 * Selecting the "manual" option for the loading arm when the Norad robot is trying to break through the sub dock window.
 * Riven: Trapping yourself in the prison book, going to Gehn's age before you have the book, or opening the fissure without trapping Gehn first.
 * Subverted in the first game
 * Impossible Mission II has "Press C (or Alt+ F1) to Die", if the player character is caught in a no-win situation.
 * The Armageddon button in Lemmings and its sequels changes all Lemmings to Bombers. This helps end the level quickly.
 * In Oregon Trail, trying to ford the Green River nearly always results in the death of your entire party. Considering how deep it is and how tall a wagon is, this is not surprising.
 * In Oregon Trail II, the Green River is only about 5 feet deep (still too deep to ford), but the Mississippi and Missouri are about 20 feet deep, like the Green is in the first game. The treatment options for diseases usually have an option that increases the likelihood of death for the patient. Venturing through the desert without water containers or through winter weather without appropriate garb also pretty much guarantees a TPK. And don't try to climb a steep hill without using ropes or double teaming. And hit 5 or so rocks on the Columbia and your leader WILL drown (oddly, everyone else usually survives), no ifs ands or buts about it.
 * In the fifth edition, don't try crossing a desert by day, or everyone will die of thirst, even if you have water kegs.
 * Pickory contains a suicide key, which appears to be entirely useless. However, it is actually required to progress in the game at one point.
 * Soul Nomad and The World Eaters includes options like these, though it helpfully labels anything that will result in an immediate game over with a little skull-and-crossbones in the option list.
 * Except one of these options, which . To be fair, you can't select this option at all until after you beat the game anyways, and it's near the beginning of the game, so anyone paying even a little bit of attention may notice it.
 * Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem features a room with a large switch on the floor that, when stood on, causes a large stone slab to crash down on the switch. There is nothing to stop the player character from standing on the button.
 * In Banshiryuu, the third game of the Seihou Bullet Hell series, the stage 2 boss can summon several nuclear warheads to the battlefield. If you damage them too much with your shots, they'll detonate, instantly taking you to the Game Over screen regardless of how many lives or Continues you have left. Since the first reaction to anything suddenly appearing in a shooting game is to shoot at it, well...
 * Swan-diving off a ledge (without Soft Water below) in Tomb Raider is suicide. Saving while standing in spikes results in a Lara-kabob upon restoring. Don't jump in the Ganges River in 3, or you will be devoured by the pirahnas, if you don't drown first. Trying to swim in the rapids of Madubu Gorge results in instant drowning. Lara is highly flammable; if you're lucky you can jump in the water before you burn to death. In the glitchy Angel of Darkness, don't go in the alcove with the medkit near the beginning, or you will be mauled to death by invisible dogs. There are countless other instances where you can glitch-kill Lara.
 * For a more traditional example of this trope, try jumping onto the Midas hand in the original game (or the Anniversary Remake) and gawk at your solid-gold Lara.
 * In Oblivion you can eat poisoned apples which kill you near instantly. The reason is because you gain a permanent "Poison" enchantment. The poison never wears off. For non-vital NPCs, they will re-spawn with the buff, causing guards and civilians to spawn and die almost immediately. For vital NPCs, because they cannot die, they will fall from loss of HP, wake up, and fall unconscious again.
 * These can become a Game Breaker if used properly against people you really want dead.
 * Strictly speaking, any game that allows you to throw grenades or fire an RPG at your feet counts as this. Also any game that allows you to jump from great heights (or Bottomless Pit) and kill yourself. Inverted by games that don't include fall damage from any height.
 * In Homeworld, all of the player's ships have a scuttle function. Including the mothership.
 * Averted in the quasi-sequel Homeworld Cataclysm. Attempting to scuttle your mothership results in the voice of the captain replying in shocked, hushed tones, "I... will... NOT!"
 * Many of the WWE games include a 'Create A Wrestler' section, including the ability to assign moves. Some of the available moves are included as jokes, generally being 'failed' versions of normal moves. If you are cruel enough to assign these moves to your character you can literally force your wrestler to do things such as climbing the turnbuckle, walking out onto the ropes and losing balance, landing crotch-first on the hard ropes. What is more terrifying, Press X To Die or Press X To Crotch Yourself Into Oblivion?
 * Fate Worse Than Death
 * In Guild Wars, at the end of the Nightfall campaign players can use the /dance command to start dancing in front of the giant boss. Who then starts dancing back. Which immediately kills EVERYONE on your team. You got served indeed.
 * Most of the microgames in Wario Ware involve frantic button pressing, but occasionally you'll get one where you win by doing absolutely nothing. The only way to lose is by...you guessed it, pushing a button.
 * In the Map Room of Raiders of the Lost Ark, you use a key to walk from a narrow ledge to a spot below the map, then equip the headpiece of the Staff of Ra to do what Indy did in the movie. But while you're standing there, the slightest movement will send you plummeting to your death in the valley below. You have to equip the key again to leave.
 * Super Mario Bros. 2 (US) has a suicide code.
 * In the first Quest for Glory, thieves come equipped with a lockpick; their proficiency with which was denoted by the character's lockpick skill. Typing in the command "pick nose" results in the message "You delicately insert the lockpick in your left nostril." If your hero had a high enough skill (~40 or higher), the operation is a success. If not, "Unfortunately, you push it in too far, causing yourself a cerebral hemorrhage," and your death.
 * In Team Fortress 2: Select Soldier. Equip Equalizer. Press G (the default Taunt key). This has the "advantage" of taking out anyone close to you. Also, type "kill" or "explode" into the console.
 * In Left 4 Dead, the developers left in a suicide command for players who had gotten themselves stuck. The problem was, when players were boomers, that command caused them to explode instantly preventing the survivors from stun-locking them with the melee shove. This was quickly patched out.
 * You can intentionally trip car alarms to call a swarm of Infected upon yourself.
 * It is still possible to trigger suicide as an infected. However now this is only possible if the survivors are really, really far away. It's mainly done so you can catch up.
 * In Shenmue 2, Ryo Hazuki meets up with Zhangyu, a barber offering information on one of the four Wude, which any martial artist should know. He trims Ryo's hair, and suddenly asks you to stay calm. He puts a razor to Ryo's throat and a Quick Time Event appears. Pressing the button will cause Ryo to free himself. This is exactly the wrong thing to do, as the third Wude, DAN, means to "Be brave and stay calm to make the right decisions."
 * One brief puzzle in Metroid: Other M involves Samus cornered up an elevator shaft by a large chameleon-like creature. At the top is a busted elevator, which can be set loose with a missile to crush the foe. Simple! Small print: it will crush Samus as well. (Fortunately there's a small alcove in the wall to hide in.)
 * At one point in the Fate route of Fate/stay night, the main character Shirou is brutally mauled by one of the villains. Your choices at this point are either to stand up or not stand up. If you choose the latter, of course, you die, and the game's hint corner berates you for your complete lack of gaming savvy.


 * Similarly, you get a choice in Unlimited Blade Works that is essentially between 'kill yourself' (although you take the Big Bad down with you) or 'try to stay alive'. Predictably, if you pick the former, you die. The game's hint corner at that point assumes you picked that one out of perverse curiosity and gives you a hint about how to get the route's second ending instead of how you can avoid that death.
 * The Fate route has a possible bad end in which  in a terrible lapse of judgement if the player hasn’t raised enough affection points. Like before, the Have a Nice Death sequence blatantly calls you out on the fact that given how hard it is to fail that check, you probably went for that end on purpose.
 * LittleBigPlanet has a self-destruct option... mostly so you can get out of a deadend (and with the focus on user-created content, it's not uncommon for a level design to fail catastrophically, necessitating such a thing). It helps to ease the pain that Sackboy just holds his breath like a stubborn child and pops like a balloon.
 * Blowing up your own starbases in the Star Trek Text Game, possibly the Ur Example from 1971.
 * Something of a brilliant subversion in Yahtzee Croshaw's graphical adventure game, with text input, Trilby's Notes.
 * Guess what happens if you type "pick up phone booth" in the text adventure Pick Up The Phone Booth And Die?
 * You still need to pick up the die to finish the game?
 * Chrono Trigger has the Day of Lavos. The New Game+ lets you take on Lavos alone, or just with Marle.
 * Well, it's possible to win the battle (and get an alternative ending!)
 * The only time this sort-of qualifies is when you first hit the End of Time and get the chance to take on Lavos any time you want on your original run-though. When you first get this option, you're probably weaker as 3 people than Crono alone in a New Game+, and basically asking to be exterminated.
 * Chrono Cross also has the New Game+ one.
 * In Command & Conquer 3 you lose if you have no buildings. You can sell all your buildings, including last one.
 * This can be enabled as an option in Tiberian Sun. Problem is, in this game as well as Red Alert, when the computer doesn't have any production buildings left it will sell all its buildings to get some infantry and attempt a last-ditch rush with all remaining units...
 * The first game had a suicide command, at least the Win95 version. Just press 'R' and click Yes.
 * Dungeon Crawl:
 * Q (quit). Score list entry: "committed suicide"
 * Walking into deep water (unless the character is merfolk), "drowned".
 * Walking into lava, "burned".
 * Setting yourself to fire (walking onto magical fire, scroll of immolation), "burned".
 * Casting magic accidentally on yourself (by aiming *)...
 * The early Nancy Drew games had a lot of Press X To Game-Ending Screwup opportunities, although they've become less common as the series developed. These rarely resulted in death, but the game would tease you about the stupid move before offering a chance to return and try again.
 * In Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, all you need to do to get the Bad Ending is vote guilty when the game puts you in the role of a juror.
 * Portal 2 features two scenarios where doing this will earn achievements:
 * Following GLaDOS's advice about
 * Following Wheatley's advice about
 * In Sword of the Stars, there is a technology you can research called "Artificial Intelligence". It, and the technologies that come after it, promise huge boosts to your research, economy and industry, as well as a new ship section that makes your ships extra fast and accurate. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? It is. Every turn that you spend researching it or its associated techs, the robots have a chance of rebelling against you. In that turn, you lose half the planets and any AI ships in your empire to a new computer-controlled civilization that plays at a high difficulty level (even if you set the game on Easy) and starts with all of your best technologies, including the AI techs, which you lose. Frankly, it would be more merciful to just give you a Nonstandard Game Over.
 * An AI rebellion can easily be averted however, so long as you research the technology before you have colonized any planets or built any AI controlled ships. Then you can get all the benefits of the tech with none of the risk.
 * In World of Warcraft, during the Chimaeron encounter (one of the few cases in which you can walk up to the boss without pulling aggro), the raid must talk to Finkle Einhorn to activate the Bile-O-Tron, a device that enables players to survive Chimaeron's attacks. If you attack Chimaeron to pull him like most other bosses, the raid will not live past the first Massacre.
 * From The Bright in The Screen: "Red Buttons. They hurt you."
 * This may be more due to player incompetence, but: In some versions of the NCAA Football video game for Xbox, the X button caused your player to "dive". Usually it gets pressed accidentally while running in the open field, in which case it has the effect of "fall down" (thus killing the play). There was also a "throw ball away" button that invariably caused an intentional grounding penalty, and a "celebrate" feature that drew a flag for unsportsmanlike conduct.
 * The freeware Roguelike game Elona has the nuclear bomb. Detonating it result in a cutscene that shows a nuclear mushroom seen from outer space, and then back to the game field, NPCs are dying left and right, "cheerfully" saying "I hate this planet" and so on. This is in a game that allows you to keep a little girl as pet, complete with leash. But the nuke does have its use and you can cheat the death as well as the bad karma, if you know how.
 * In Blocks That Matter, you can hold down the W key to activate your Tetrobot's self-destruct sequence if you get stuck trying to solve a puzzle.
 * In Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited, you can type "/death" into the chat/command box to kill your character. This can be particularly useful if you need to get back to a tavern that's far away, as you can bind your spirit so you resurrect there. Of course, there are penalties to this to prevent abuse.
 * The second title of the Oddworld'' Series Abe's Exodus. One of the levels has a info station thing where a Slig (Enemy Guard) host an infomercial for the player. At the end he refers to a lever within the level should the player have any questions. If the player pulls the lever, a boulder drops and kills the player instantly. Thankfully this is done right at the start of the level so as not to undo progress. And considering the game so far, it should be obvious to players.
 * A literal example in the Escape Velocity series. Holding down Cmd-D (Ctrl-D on Windows) for ten seconds triggers your ship's self-destruct.
 * Even the old Game & Watch games with LCD screens and so on had this. In Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr., you had to leap for something hanging at the end of the course, either a crane hook or a key on a string. You had to jump for them by pressing the jump button. You could also walk off the platform you were supposed to jump from, which resulted in you falling to your death. This wouldn't count in a modern game, but Game & Watch games with their limited graphics capabilities typically didn't allow for a lot of freedom of movement...
 * Valve combines popular multilayer games with accessible dev consoles; tricking players into exiting through obscure console commands is par for the course. That is, after they'd already discovered that F10 closes the game instantly. (they 'fixed' that though)
 * Just about every version of Lode Runner has a suicide button in case you get stuck.
 * Europa Universalis, being based on history, has a number of events where one country can chose to merge with another (eg. Lithuania merging with Poland to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). If the player happens to be controlling the country in question, choosing to merge is an instant game-over.
 * In Resident Evil 4, you can kill yourself in a number of stupid ways, such as shooting fish in the lake and causing Del Lago to swallow you whole, dropping a boulder trap on yourself, pissing off Luis by shooting him, etc.
 * Kinnikuman: Muscle Fight
 * Terryman has a super where he stops a train to save a puppy. He loses the round if you use it, but it fills up Terry's super meter for the next round.
 * If Kinnikuman Zebra is low on HP if he performs the True Muscle Inferno, Mariquitaman shows up and kills Kinnikuman Zebra with a Mariquita Deadly Ride.

Web Original

 * SCP Foundation-313. There's only a 1.5% chance of something going horribly wrong, but there's no chance of anything useful happening.

Real Life

 * If you're using Windows, hit "Win + r" to bring up the run dialog. Once you've done that, type "format C:". You can get a similar effect on *NIX systems by typing "sudo rm -rf /". (In case you couldn't tell, this advice will wipe your hard drive. Do not do it.)
 * Of course, this won't work, because in real life people build safeguards for this sort of thing. Telling people to hit ALT-F4 to save all their open tabs in Firefox was fun until Firefox started remembering open tabs.
 * In fact, Windows will tell you that your hard drive is in use and not allow you to format it; most Linux systems will give an error message if you type "sudo rm -rf /".
 * Bother. In that case, (don't) try "dd if=/dev/zero of=$(mount | grep 'on / ' | sed -e 's/ .*$//')"
 * The deletion of "c:/WINDOWS/system32", wrecks havoc on a computer, as it is vital for a PC to run. In an attempt to work around safeguarding, some trolls advise "typing @echo off del c:/WINDOWS/system32 into notepad, before saving it as a .bat and opening it" in help threads; the "@echo off" command functions to prevent safeguards, and the rest deletes the aforementioned file when the file is executed, essentially making it a "open file to break computer" example.
 * CTRL+SHIFT+W=all tabs gone...
 * What does this do? Is it some sort of Easter Egg? All it seems to do is make the light on the front of the computer flic#`%${%&`+'${`%&NO CARRIER")...
 * Taken to the most literal extreme possible by the Deliverance Machine, a euthanasia device which asks the user a series of questions, ending with "If you press this button, you will receive a lethal injection and die in 15 seconds – Do you wish to proceed?"