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{{trope}}{{featured article}}
{{quote|''...[[Averted Trope|we're not]] [[Killed Off for Real|killing off any of the companions]] because [[Player Preferred Pattern|everybody did]]. [[My God, What Have I Done?|And then everybody cried]]... People test as they're playing the system and they go... '[[Tempting Fate|I wonder if they're going to let me do this.]] [[Oh Crap|Oh no]]! My healer is gone forever'!''
|[[Word of God|Daniel Erickson]] [http://darthhater.com/2011/09/24/egxp-interview-with-daniel-erickson/page/2 on] why ''[[Star Wars: The Old Republic]]'' is going to [[Averted Trope|Avert]] this.}}
Also frequently referred to as being "missable," the dreaded '''Lost Forever''' is a game play component (such as an item, weapon, [[Sidequest]], [[Secret Character|character]], or plot event) that can become permanently inaccessible after a certain point in the game, therefore being "lost forever" if you miss them during the period in which they are available. A close relative and often an example of [[Guide Dang It]]. The bane of gamers everywhere, especially those shooting for [[
Lost Forevers frequently appear in areas that can only be accessed once, or are rendered unavailable after a certain plot event occurs. [[Doomed Hometown|The early town that is destroyed]], the mountainous area that caves in once you leave it, the village that you're banished from, the [[Load-Bearing Boss]]'s [[Collapsing Lair|hideout that goes boom]] after you beat it, the one-shot place that you're never given the option to return to, and so forth.
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More rarely, things are completely random and arbitrary. For example, perhaps once you finish disc two and [[Global Airship|acquire the airship]], the random shopkeeper you needed to talk to in order to acquire the [[Infinity+1 Sword]] suddenly closes up shop and disappears without explanation. Surprise! [[Guide Dang It]].
Forgiving developers will sometimes provide an alternative means to reach what would otherwise be Lost Forever. However, reaching it with this second-chance method is usually much more time-consuming or difficult than if you had just gotten it the first time around. If a player knows such an item is coming, a common tactic is to [[Save Scumming|save immediately beforehand, and restore repeatedly from that save]] [[Trial and Error Gameplay|until they manage to get it]]. This is often true when getting the Lost Forever is [[Luck
This is infamously present in [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]]'s or any other game with online connectivity, due to one-time events, irreplaceable quest reward items (such as consumables that become [[Too Awesome to Use]]) distributed from an online source. While you can simply restart an offline game for another shot at the content, online Lost Forevers really can be lost ''forever''. (When it comes to patch updates, however, players who still have the old items are usually allowed to keep them, and the items are often displayed as a badge of honor.)
Due to their tendency to induce great frustration, smart developers tend to avoid implementing these, and allow players to collect items or do [[
Occasionally, a Lost Forever is ''intended'' to be just that: you get a one-shot item or spell that would [[Disc One Nuke|completely unbalance the game]] if used elsewhere. [[Awesome but Temporary|You're not supposed to hang on to it]], and the game either takes it away immediately or kills you if you try to run away with it. For some, the challenge then becomes cheating or glitching your way out of this restriction. Also see [[Guest Star Party Member]].
Conversely, while most Lost Forevers are defined by the limited opportunity to ''acquire'' one, sometimes a particular item is acquired readily during a game's progress, but is irreplaceable once it is used
This trope is not to be confused with [[Final Death]], where a character permanently dies and cannot be resurrected. If it's an item deliberately taken away from you, it may be [[Awesome but Temporary]]. If something vital to the plot becomes
Not to be confused with [[Ruined FOREVER]]!!!, although it can generate degrees of it.
----
{{examples}}
== Comic Books ==▼
* ''[[Y:
== Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends ==
* ''[[The Bible]]'' teaches that most ''human beings'' are this. People are "lost" when they sin, in which case they must be "found" (saved) before they die. If they are not, they are [[Hell|permanently lost]], with no hope of ever being retrieved.▼
=== Card Games ===▼
* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'': Not exactly
=== Choose Your Own Adventure-type books ===▼
* Absolutely endemic.{{context}}<!--If it's that common, you can give us at least one example, right? -->
* ''[[Fighting Fantasy]]'' could be particularly bad about this. In "Black Vein Prophecy" and "Creature of Havoc", you could miss useful items or powers ''on a dice roll''. ("Black Vein Prophecy" was particularly grim, since the dice roll in question was failing a [[Luck Stat]] roll.)▼
=== Tabletop RPG ===
* ''[[Dungeons
==
* The freeware game ''[[
** To elaborate on getting the best ending: You'd naturally assume that you would want to {{spoiler|save Professor Booster when he falls to the bottom of a pit in the Labyrinth}}. However, if you do that, two items necessary to get the best ending (and one necessary to {{spoiler|save Curly's life}}) are lost. Also, a little bit after that, there's a rest point that can easily be missed, as you are flying past it in a high-pressure stream of water. Even if you followed all of the other steps, if you don't {{spoiler|go into that room, sleep in the bed, read the computer monitor, read the bookshelf, read the computer monitor again, talk to Curly, then talk to her again ''and'' choose to take her with you, she will die and}} you'll miss out on the best ending.
* Not only can you not revisit the first two continents of ''[[Illusion of Gaia]]'' after you've left them, but you can miss some of the collectible red gems just by mildly progressing through the game a few steps - they just aren't there any more!
** Also, one of the red jewels is accessible only in the first town, which isn't that bad except that it's randomly generated, and even then, still hidden making it a pain to find. ''If you're lucky'', you may only have to enter and leave the seaside cave where you meet your friends a few times. Often, however, you have to do it close to 100 times before the fisherman appears at the other end of the dock with the bottle (containing the Red Jewel). Most people, naturally, never even know it's there.
** And this doesn't even begin to describe the rare and easy-to-miss herbs. There are only a small number of them in the whole game, and you naturally use them when you get low on health. '''Don't'''. You'll need them to fight the [[Bonus Boss]].
* One of the most fun side quests in ''[[Terranigma]]'' is expanding the towns, but watch out! [[Decided
** In it you can also lose {{spoiler|the town of Neotokio after you revive Beruga,}} potentially costing you... well not much really, just a Majirock and an easter egg.
** Furthermore, there are two islands in the game (Polynesia and Mu), which only appear if you've completed two entirely optional and missable side-areas in the first chapter of the game. If you never completed said area's objectives before the game's first chapter is finished, the islands will never appear on the World Map, and whatever items and treasures were waiting for you on said islands will never be accessible.
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' games are by and large aversions of this
** A glitch causes one opportunity to upgrade Deku Nuts in [[Ocarina of Time]]'s Lost Woods to be rendered Lost Forever once the player obtains the Poacher's Saw, an item in the future era's [[Chain of Deals|trading sequence]]. This glitch is removed in the 3DS remake.
** Meanwhile, in [[The Legend of Zelda (
*** Similarly, the [[Nintendo Hard]] second quest has rooms in certain dungeons that require you to leave 50 Rupees or one of your Heart Containers to proceed. If you don't have the cash, one of your Hearts is gone for good.
** Although ''[[The Wind Waker]]'' didn't have any permanently missable items that ''mattered'', if you wanted to achieve [[
** ''[[The Minish Cap]]'' features this trope for the Light Arrows, which can only be found if the player "kinfuses" with a [[Guide Dang It|seemingly random, arbitrary person]] to unlock a teleporter that leads to a location later in the game, where they must {{spoiler|save an NPC named Gregal from an evil spirit by using the Gust Jar}}, who gives you the arrows. Otherwise, by the time you can reach said location normally {{spoiler|Gregal is dead}} and the item is lost.
** In ''[[Twilight Princess]]'', you must collect the wooden Ordon Shield before Midna will take you back into the Twilight-covered Faron Woods. Should the shield gets burned up by fire, you can only replace it with the plain Wooden Shield from shops, which is functionally identical but lacks the Ordon Shield's unique goat-horns design.
** Didn't have a [[D Si]] or [[Nintendo 3DS|3DS]] to download ''[[
* ''[[Beyond Good
** This game actually goes out of its way to ''avert''
** Also, if you don't get Pey'j's boots while in the factory, you have no way of knowing {{spoiler|the code on the boot's underside that gives you access to the secret spaceship Pey'j built with Jade's father. Without it you have no way of getting to the moon, and thus cannot fight the final boss or complete the game }}.
* In ''[[Okami]]'', in order to achieve 100% completion, you must find and feed every animal (or cluster thereof) in Nippon. Of the hundred or so animals that litter the game, one is missable, which is found during a [[Portal to
** Any clover in the Moon Cave, Oni Island, The Emperor's Palace or through the Spirit Gate, although their only rewards are Praise.
** The unripened fruit on the sapling in North Ryoshima must be gotten with the help of the archer who will permanently leave the area after a certain point. It only contains Praise though, making it effectively just another clover.
** Fire and Ice Doom Mirrors inhabit one specific room in the one-time Emperor's Palace. Unlike most enemies, the Doom Mirror family is exclusive to this area, so if you prefer to avoid demon battles then these bestiary entries are Lost Forever. Thankfully they can be gotten in the [[New Game
** Thankfully averted with the Fishing minigame. If you progress far enough, the Agata forest fishing spot becomes unavailable, but it is replaced by a new fishing spot near the Imperial Palace in Sei-an City, which contains the same species of fish.
* ''[[Castlevania]]: [[Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow|Dawn of Sorrow]]'' has the Chaos Ring, which increases your [[Mana Meter|MP]] regeneration rate so much that it effectively gives you unlimited magic. To get it, you need to possess every soul in the game, including one-of-a-kind boss souls. This wouldn't be so bad (as said bosses are guaranteed to drop their souls), but if you use these unique souls to synthesize more powerful weapons, the Chaos Ring cannot be collected. Thank God for [[New Game
** The same ring is a pain in ''[[Aria of Sorrow]]'', but for a different reason. You can't miss a boss soul in ''Dawn'', but in ''Aria'', there's exactly one you can
** ''[[Portrait of Ruin]]'' has the same item, and the same problem. To got the ring, you must complete all of Eric's quests. However, many of them require you to gather specific items of which there are only one in the game. Thankfully, there is a new game + option. But really, who would have guessed that that Longsword you probably sold within an hour of getting would be necessary to complete a quest later on? Or that that there is only ''one'' Longsword in the entire game?
*** There's also the ability to buy items from other players via Wifi. It's telling that you are more likely to find a store selling thick glasses, amanita mushrooms and nun's clothing than a store selling the best weapons and armor in the game.
** And ''[[Order of Ecclesia]]'' maintains the dubious tradition! This time you're collecting glyphs (basically the same as souls), and two of them come from bosses. The Globus glyph can be grabbed from a regular enemy later, but if you fail to grab Acerbatus in the battle with Albus, you'll never get another shot.
** In ''[[Castlevania: Circle of the Moon|Circle of the Moon]]'', there's a secret item crush accessed by using the DSS technique with no subweapon equipped and at least 100 Hearts in reserve. Since you can't unequip subweapons after the first time you pick one up, this technique is easily
* The PSX version of ''[[Harry Potter]] and the Philosopher's Stone'' is downright brutal to anyone trying to get 100% completion. Certain wizard cards can only be obtained by getting a perfect score on a [[Scrappy Level|certain minigame]]. But you have to try again and again until you get the card, without stopping, or else the door locks itself as you exit. So much for that card, eh? Luckily, the PSX version of ''Chamber of Secrets'' averts this entirely by letting you go back to places once you lose access to them.
** Actually, the Knockback Jinx upgrade in ''Chamber of Secrets'' can only be obtained near the end of the game, but go too far and it's
** This is also true of the PC version of ''Philosopher's Stone''; treasure chests containing certain cards or other items are available only at certain times and cannot be recovered later. ''Chamber of Secrets'' was much more forgiving in this regard.
*** The PC version of ''Philosopher's Stone'' primarily had this as a symptom of its extreme linearity; the game progressed one-way in levels, and you couldn't go back to previous levels (in many cases, you couldn't even go back one room within the same level) leaving absolutely no margin for error regarding things like house points or wizard cards. The cards you care about; the points don't even do anything in-game. Chamber of Secrets allowed you to replay any spell challenges for more house points or to obtain wizard cards, and essentially had much of the game take place in a massive hub, where most wizard cards were in the hub itself; quidditch matches were also replayable to increase house points gained, and any time you went through an area you couldn't go back to, any wizard cards you missed went into shopkeeper circulation, allowing you to purchase them at your leisure. Granted, quidditch matches were more fun in Philosopher's Stone, when you could fly anywhere you wanted to on the pitch; Chamber of Secrets stuck you on a rail where you had to maintain speed while smacking around the opposing Seeker.
* In the NSTC version of ''[[Sphinx and
* In ''[[Brave Fencer Musashi]]'', a longevity berry can be missed if you didn't talk to the mayor after saving Steamwood. You won't receive the berry from the mayor after chapter 2 preventing you from getting max hp.
* You are given only one shot at obtaining either of the two whip upgrades in ''[[La-Mulana]]''. The upgrade in the Inferno Cavern can be sealed off by two rising stone pillars, and the entrance to the upgrade in the Tower of the Goddess permanently seals off behind you once you enter it. Additionally, the penultimate area, the Shrine of the Mother, will disappear forever along with any items you missed in there (most notably the final life upgrade) after all eight bosses are defeated.
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** [[Brutal Bonus Level|Hell Temple]] is also permanently sealed off if you screw up the unlocking process, which is quite easy to do. Given the general nature of [[Platform Hell|Hell Temple]], though, this is probably something of an act of mercy.
* ''[[The Tower of Druaga]]'' is really evil about this. [[Guide Dang It]] if you don't know how to get the treasure on a floor (while paying mind to the [[Timed Mission|time limit]]), but if you don't you might not be able to get some later, necessary treasure.
* Prior to version 1.3 of ''[[Project Starfighter]]'', selling your secondary weapon caused you to have no secondary weapon at all. Since the plain rocket weapon cannot be bought, this meant you couldn't get it back once you got a new secondary weapon to replace it.
* Should you find yourself at the very beginning of the old [[Infocom]] ''[[The
▲== [[Adventure Game]] ==
▲* Should you find yourself at the very beginning of the old [[Infocom]] ''[[The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy (Video Game)|The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'' game, you will want to get the toothbrush. It's not the only thing you'll need from that first stage, either. Once Earth's destroyed, of course, you're sunk.
** ">get all" is your friend.
** Similarly, when you're in the Vogon ship, if you don't manage to get the Babel Fish before the Guard drags you away, you might as well quit and restart now, all that happens next is a lengthy lead up to Game Over.
*** Sadly, many people don't realize the * reason* you need the Babel Fish is to get the atomic vector plotter. You only have a few turns to grab it, too, and in a particular twist of evil the thing your aunt gave you that you don't know what it is is likely to have reappeared in your inventory, making your load too heavy to pick it up, forcing you to waste a turn dropping the thing.
** Really, every Infocom game ever embodies this trope pretty much.
* ''[[
** There is a kind-of new game plus mode after completing the game with an extra puzzle and ending, but the scavenger hunt item you get out of the machine changes, making the original Lost Forever unless you start a clean game. In addition, the original scavenger hunt vending item can be given to two different characters, but the only way to give it to one of them is to randomly guess the vending machine number, because there is no opportunity to give it to her after legitimately completing the scavenger hunt.
* The text-based game of ''[[
* ''[[
** Likewise, the earlier text game ''Spellbreaker'' had a plant that you needed to dig up rather than cut to solve a puzzle. And just to make sure as many people as possible found that out too late, the game placed a [[Red Herring]] pair of shears near the plant.
* In ''[[Maniac Mansion]]'', pouring film developer on the [[Man-Eating Plant]] will kill it, preventing you from climbing into the observatory for the rest of the game. If a character is up there when the plant keels over:
{{quote|
* ''[[
* In ''[[King's Quest V]]'', there is moment where you MUST throw a boot at a cat chasing a rat, so that when your character is trapped later, the grateful rat will free you. The cat-and-rat chase moment happens quickly, and the game gives no obvious cues that you must throw the boot. If you don't, your character will not be freed, thus culminating in a game over.
** All of the old Sierra adventures had this feature. Forget to get the rabbit before leaving the first scene in ''[[Space Quest|Space Quest IV]]''? It's a shame you won't need it until the end of the game. Didn't notice the oil-eating bacteria at the start of ''[[
* ''[[
** It also has a plant in the Bone Yard that can be watered after every chapter. Miss it once, and the plant dies, meaning you lose the chance to get one of the giant diamonds worth a lot of money, and a huge amount of assorted coins and bank notes.
* ''[[Myst]]'' and ''[[Riven]]'' are very hard to make [[Unwinnable]]. But ''Myst 3: Exile
=== [[Card Battle Game]] ===
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!|Nightmare Troubadour]]'' for the DS features an accidental example due to a glitch in some versions of the game: after beating Marik, the chance to duel Pegasus is lost forever, along with the chance to trade with him for the one-of-a-kind Imperial Order card. At one point there was a giveaway that would put the card on your game, and the game had online trades, but
* In ''[[Digimon World|Digimon: Digital Card Battle]]'' for the PSX, you get to choose a partner Digimon at the very start of the game, and you get two more later in the story. What nobody told you is that you have to choose them from a pool of 6, and that the decisions are permanent; the three partners you didn't choose are lost forever unless you cheat. That means that if you chose V-mon, Patamon and Tailmon/Gatomon (depending on the localization) and you were later aiming to get Wormmon, well, sucks to be you. At least the programmers had the courtesy of letting the player use "Borrowed decks" from people to get a chance of getting the card data of the partner Digimon you didn't choose, and their respective Armor Evolution data. [[Guide Dang It|Not that it's explicitly stated by anybody on the game, though]]...
=== [[Driving Game]] ===
* Anything related to Norahike in ''[[Choro Q|Choro Q HG4]]'' after {{spoiler|you beat Otto's grand prix.}} This includes loads of synthesis parts obtained from him which require you to spam on entering his house until you get everything.
=== [[Edutainment Game]] ===
* In the bizarre spinoff to ''[[Oregon Trail]]'' called ''[[The Amazon Trail]]'', you can catch a pirarucu, a fish that's as long as a bus in the [[Fishing Minigame]]. It only swims by once, but it takes up half the screen and if you don't catch it, that's your problem.
=== [[Fighting Game]] ===
* ''[[Mortal Kombat: Deception]]'' has a chest with one of its unlockable fighters, Kenshi, in the small village where your character begins the game as a child. Leaving the village causes your character to grow older, so the game prevents temporal anomalies by locking you out once you've left. If you leave before finding the chest containing the Kenshi unlock, it will be Lost Forever - the only way to get it is to start a new save file.
=== [[First-Person Shooter]] ===
* ''[[
** An interesting point of note is that the flavor text of the gun is a subtle hint regarding the giant Rakk Hive you have to kill in order to pick up the Vault Key piece. {{spoiler|Shoot it in the eyes for a critical hit.}}
* In ''[[Metroid Prime]]'', many of the scans become unavailable after a certain point. The two most notable examples are anything on the wrecked ship at the game's beginning, and the Ice Shriekbats ([[Regional Bonus|fixed in the PAL version]]), the one type of enemy that doesn't respawn (and that has the tendency to kamikaze into you, just to raise the frustration factor). In addition, all bosses must be scanned during the
** ''[[Metroid Prime]] 2: Echoes'' continues this dubious tradition. A particularly nasty scan is the special door lock that appears during only one fight; you have to take your attention off the enemy to even notice it. One boss has five separate scans. Even Samus's ship is a missable
** Naturally ''Metroid Prime 3: Corruption'' changes none of this. And hey, look! Another limited-scan Shriekbat! At least that game allows you to carry over your scans into a [[New Game
*** How about your three fellow bounty hunters ({{spoiler|Before they get corrupted, that is}})? You get a total of two attempts at scanning Ghor, and a single shot at scanning the other two. Naturally, the only time you can scan all three other hunters at the same time is during the first [[Timed Mission]], and if you flub this chance, then your options are to either [[Save Scumming|reload your game]] or soldier on through for that [[New Game
*** Concerning a [[New Game
** All three games feature the ability to keep your logs with the [[New Game
** In ''[[Metroid Prime]]: Hunters'' there is a type of voldrun that is missable. It only shows up in one room, and is the only type of voldrun that does ''not'' respawn when you reenter the room. There's also the fact that it looks almost exactly the same as every other voldrun in the game.
* In ''[[
** The gnome later appeared in the Dark Carnival campaign for ''[[Left 4 Dead 2]]''. You also got an achievement when you brought it to the end. [[Running Gag|Noticing a pattern here...]] It also leads to some funny moments, as you have to win a shooting gallery while being attacked by hordes of zombies to get it, and whoever's carrying it is mostly defenseless. It leads to some funny voice-chat comms, too. "Protect the holy gnomecarrier!"
*** Brought up again in two mutation modes, Last Gnome on Earth and Healing Gnome. Both modes require you to carry the gnome from start to finish (on any map, not just Dark Carnival this time) and you can't advance to the next level without the gnome in your hands. If the gnome gets tossed over a fence or left behind a [[Point of No Return]], the game is then [[Unwinnable]]
** This might be a shout out to ''[[System Shock 2]]''. In the training mission (before you pick your class etc.) you can find a basketball. If you pick it up, it will stay with in your inventory to the actual game (in between of which there is a three year training period, mind you :)). If you keep it with you all the way up to the recreational sector of the ship (very far into the game), you can throw it into a hoop. You then recieve a secret prize.
* There are five audio diaries in ''[[
** ''Bioshock 2'' has you collecting research information on enemies in exchange for unique character abilities. The early [[Mook]] enemies [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil|stop spawning once you're strong enough]], so if you haven't maxed out their Research Track, say goodbye to their bonus and the [[One Hundred Percent Completion]] achievement for Research.
** Given the finite amount of ADAM one can receive in any given playthrough, certain Plasmids, Gene Tonics and Upgrades can be Lost Forever if you did not purchase them before your ADAM ran out. Likewise, there are only a limited number of Power to the People Vending Machines in the game, which is less than how many times you can upgrade each weapon in total (each Power to the People will be permanently deactivated when you use them). On top of that, if you Kill Sander Cohen, one of these limited machines will also be Lost Forever, further limiting your upgrades.
** Considering you can't backtrack between levels at all in ''[[
* In ''[[Quake]]'', it's a given that you can't backtrack to previous levels. However, maps E4M4 and E4M5 have a message saying you forgot something important if you didn't pickup a certain weapon on that level. This would imply that it would be lost forever, but the following levels contains the weapons you skipped past. To trigger those message, you're likely going out of your way to skip them.
* ''[[
** A give-away for unique medals for the Soldier class was held on a first-come first-serve basis. If you missed the giveaway there is no other way to get a medal for your Soldier.
** Valve rewarded all player who didn't use external idling programmes to gain unlockables with a halo that no one who used an idling progamme or didn't already have the game when this was given out can get.
** Somewhat subverted with the Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask and the Ghastly Gibus. The former was only attainable during the Halloween event by picking up 20 treat drops from dead players, but there is a high chance that said event will be an annual event, making the hat attainable once again next year. The Ghastly Gibus on the other hand was attainable the same way as the Gentle Manne's Service Medal, through a secret page. However, it can be attained by gaining an achievement which involved dominating a player that has said hat equipped at the domination. Unlike the Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask, it can also be attained even when the Halloween event is not active.
*** The Gibus has become a weird moving-target example of this; it can still be obtained in its basic form at any time by dominating a player who's wearing it, but each Halloween, the existing Gibuses get "upgraded" in name and appearance. Currently there are 3 levels of Gibus: Ghastly (1), Ghastlier (2), and the highly confusing "Ghastlierest" (3). Newborn Gibuses start at the first level and will reach the third level two Halloweens later, but by then the level 3 ones will be level 5; the highest-level Gibuses, whatever they are currently called, will always be
** Valve also likes to give away items based on when you buy OTHER games. For example, the only way to get Bill's Hat was to pre-order ''[[
** Introduced in the lead-up to the Engineer Update was the Golden Wrench. Basically, in order to get it, you had to [[Timed Mission|wait for a specific time for the opportunity to open]], and then [[Luck
* ''[[Doom]] II'' has a level (''[[MAP 27]]: Monster Condo'') with an area which sneakily seals itself off 30 seconds after the level starts, and is thereafter totally inaccessible (it can be opened only from the inside). It's not too far away from the start point, but unless you know about this sector beforehand there's absolutely no way you'd find it in a normal play through the level. What's worse is that it's a marked Secret Area, so it affects the score on the intermission screen; if you get to the area too slow, you're not getting 100% secrets.
* In ''[[Descent]] II'', some secrets are only accessible by one-shot timed doors or become blocked off by [[Mobile Maze]] barriers. If the door closes, fugeddaboudit.
* In ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)|Call of Cthulhu]]: [[Dark Corners of the Earth]]'', the refinery contains a sniper rifle, but it's hidden behind a door in an office you pass through. If you do not close the door behind yourself and take the rifle when you first enter the room, it will be
* In ''[[Red Faction]]: Guerrilla'', the most useful vehicles are the Walker mechs. Because they're so perfect for destroying things, you will almost never see them outside of the specific missions where you use one. There are a few places where you can find a Walker, unless you destroyed the building that was there. In the unlikely event that you either just happened not to destroy the building where one of the Walkers might spawn, or you knew beforehand not to destroy that building, you could very well see a Walker there. Most of these buildings are EDF property which you are encouraged to demolish, and if the building is gone, you can't get a Walker from there anymore.
* ''[[
* In ''[[Strangers Wrath|Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath]]'', we have the Binoculars, which are ''only'' available at the General Store in Gizzard's Gulch (right at the ''start of the game''), and said General Store gets destroyed in the battle with Boilz Booty. Didn't buy the Binoculars? Well then, you won't be able to use the game's [[Sniper Rifle]] equivalent, the [[One-Hit Kill|Sniper Wasps]], as they can only be accessed/used through the Binoculars. [[Guide Dang It|This is mentioned nowhere.]]
=== General ===▼
* In games featuring a magic system that involves getting enemies' skills (such as ''[[Final Fantasy]]'''s Blue Magic), there will often be spells that can only be learned from bosses. Kill them without learning the spell, and it's
▲== General ==
▲* In games featuring a magic system that involves getting enemies' skills (such as ''[[Final Fantasy]]'''s Blue Magic), there will often be spells that can only be learned from bosses. Kill them without learning the spell, and it's [[Lost Forever]].
* Arguably, games that use achievements that are tied to online play can fall under this. Game servers are not kept up forever and if you didn't get any achievements based on an online action when the severs are shut down for good, the achievement will never be unlocked. This gets worse if the achievement requires an action from another player and they keep doing things to prevent you from getting the achievement. For example, ''[[Left 4 Dead]] 2'' has Strength in Numbers, which is unlocked by starting a Team VS/Scavenge game and winning. Since the game is known for having people [[Rage Quit]] all the time, many people will probably never get this achievement.
=== [[Hack and Slash]] ===
* The developers of ''[[Diablo]] III'' are considering introducing a setpiece revolving around a collapsing dungeon full of treasure that players have to make a decision on whether to run and save themselves or collect the loot and potentially die. Given the random nature of the game, whatever items are in the dungeon will probably be lost if not picked up then. Please, somebody stop them.
** Considering that all loot in the Diablo series is randomly generated, any items that get lost when the tomb collapses could probably be found anywhere else. Based on experience with the actual dungeon at Blizzcon, the true value was that the tomb was extremely abundant in Resplendant Chests (like, 2 in every room), which are guaranteed to drop a rare item and 2-5 magic items. Plus everything resets when you quit and come back, so you have a chance to go again if the entrance randomly appears.
** In the majority of [[Hack and Slash]] games with a [[Random Number God]], '''any''' piece of gear with a specific combination of stats can be considered
=== [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPGs]] ===
▲== [[MMORP Gs]] ==
* Many [[Free to Play]] [[
* A ''[[
** ''[[
* The MMORPG ''[[City of Heroes]]'' has the anniversary badges. If the character wasn't around for the anniversaries, there's no possible way to get the badge.
** There is also the "Efficiency Expert" badge in ''[[City of Villains]]''. To get it you must successfully complete all but one of Pither's [[Timed Mission|timed missions]], if you fail more than one then you'll never get the badge. Not even if you have a friend get the missions and do them with him. None of the missions are available via the flashback system either.
*** If you fail any number of missions, you can still get the badge by ''abandoning the completed mission''. When you abandon a mission (not to be confused with auto-completing it), it drops from your list of missions, and talking to the contact gives the mission you just abandoned for another try. But of course, you can't abandon a completed mission... ''unless you're a Rogue and go to any of the Paragon City zones'', which will automatically abandon all your missions, no matter what state they're in.
* The Gold Magnate ship in MMORPG ''[[
** While the Gold Magnate is the only ''unique'' ship in ''[[
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has a variation of this: Some specific quest rewards are items that you can only get this one way. Use it or sell it, and it's
** And of course, when you choose a reward for a non-repeatable quest the other possible rewards for that quest are Lost Forever for the character.
** After the expansion came out, a certain world boss moved to a new location, got a level upgrade, and dropped new loot. Unfortunately, this caused all of his old loot to disappear, save for one item that could also rarely be found on more common enemies.
*** And the next expansion did it again, relocating and retuning an old dungeon.. sans one [[Infinity+1 Sword|Infinity Plus One Staff]]. Also, many mounts and titles are
*** Players who acquired these items when available received the corresponding Feat of Strength achievement.
** Another of ''WoW'''s many examples of this are the classic PvP ranks. Originally, players could gain (and lose) one of 14 ranks, ranging from Private/Scout to Grand Marshall/High Warlord, based on their [[
*** These will be returning in ''Cataclysm'' as part of the rated BG feature, making it possible other lost items/additions can return at some point too.
** In addition, the game's [[Cosmetic Award|achievement system]] has a tendency to award titles/vanity pets/mounts/etc. with the completion of its harder and/or obnoxious requests. The most significant examples of this are the prestige mounts awarded for being within a certain upper percentile of the [[
** Probably the most infamous example would be the unarmored epic ground mounts. Patch 1.4, released a few months after the game was released, replaced the original epic ground mounts with the new, armored models. For a player to have an unarmored model today, they have to have earned 1000 gold before the patch replaced them, a very difficult feat. Pity, too, because Ivory Raptor is one of the coolest mounts in the game.
** With the Cataclysm expansion, many NPCs and landmarks from the original [[WoW]] were wiped off the map by the expansion's [[Big Bad]], along with their associated quests. In a variation of this trope, new quests dealing with the aftermath were added.
* ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' has many items and rewards that cannot be acquired anymore. It's not a game for completists.
** It's also notable that they give consolation prizes constantly to the most dedicated completists, if only because they frequently give away special items to extremely helpful players or members of the dev team as well. Two such members dismantled their Completist status by DESTROYING their unique items to find out what they became, as the prize for doing so to ultra-rares is an Ultimate Wad, an instant level up. They became useless powders instead. Furthermore, when a third player who currently had the pulverize ability was awarded a special unique reward item (for being the first to pulverize an ultra-rare), they lampshaded and averted this by making said item pulverize...right back into its original state. Yes, that's right, the urge to break things actually wins out over [[
* In the original ''[[Guild Wars]]'', the beautiful tutorial area is irreversibly destroyed in an event called the Searing, turning it into a desolate wasteland. Thus, once your character goes through the searing, you can never return to the tutorial (which has become known as presearing, and the rise of "permapre" characters who choose never to sear). Getting to max level in presearing awards a special title.
** Another fun thing from the tutorial was a special item that the little girl Gwen gave you. It didn't do anything. Even if you finished the game, there was no use for it, as Gwen was never found, and it was taking up space in your inventory. After some 3 real-life years, the 3rd expansion came out, and Gwen was there. Anyone who had saved the item could now use it for a bonus quest/item. For everyone else: Make a new character.
** Then there're the lost riches of the duping scandal. In 2007, a bunch of players figured out how to manipulate a new mechanic in order to dupe items. Naturally, they started producing mass quantities of Armbraces of Truth (a high-end item that could be traded in to collector NPCs for rare items, which were commonly used as high-denomination currency. [[Arena Net]] shut them down, but not before they were able to buy pretty much everything they wanted. The community is still trying to figure out how many ultrarare, limited-edition minipets were lost when the dupers' accounts were deleted. (The wave of bot-related account bannings in 2010 probably didn't help either, judging by the wails of some of the banned).
*** Most [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]] service providers will conduct massive wipe-a-thons and server rollbacks when they confirm that a wave of duping has occurred. Items that were unique or virtually impossible to get before the dupes will naturally fall under this trope afterwards. Occasionally any in-game items that were used to trigger the duping will be removed outright rather than being fixed.
* [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]] ''[[Mabinogi (
** Some of the main story quests have the option to skip them. Doing so loses a few good items or titles forever, or eliminates the ability to convert from [[An Adventurer Is You|Paladin to Dark Knight]]. It also makes some of the later story quests more difficult; though they're still available.
** Special titles are available to players who "break the seal" on newly-released zones and dungeons by matching a particular set of conditions. Since each seal can only be broken once per server, they are unique, and unavailable to other players once the seal is broken. If the player character is deleted (by the player, or by the [[Game Master
* Speaking of Nexon (at least in North America) ''[[Dungeon Fighter Online]]'' has special titles that grant players with all kinds of nifty abilities and stat bonuses. The title of Trailblazer was given to players who participated in the closed beta and is in ''no way'' obtainable at present time, making it royalty amongst all other entries in this trope. Lost Forever, indeed.
* The ''[[Neopets]]'' Advent Calendar. Oh boy. If you miss out on a day's worth of free items, who knows what you can do...
** You can buy them from another user's shop, most Advent Calender items are valueless until the next year because so many people have them.
** A real example of this trope on that site is the fact that apparently there are a few very old retired items that no longer exist in the game at all because every copy was ate/discarded/destroyed by a random event/ or left on an account that was frozen or deleted due to inactivity, the fact that there are items like this was proven in an editorial, but they refused to say which ones...
* In ''[[
** Also, some items like the Half Jug of Wine, Santa Hats, or Party Hats can no longer be obtained, and unlike the above items, are tradeable. This has made them extremely valuable as only a few exist. If a player were to drop one and no one picks it up, then it would be lost forever and that item would grow even more rare.
** How valuable, you ask? Party Hats (colorful paper crowns that were a holiday drop during Runescape's very first Christmas), go for around 700 million gold!
=== [[Platform Game]] ===
* ''[[Metroid
* ''[[Metroid Fusion]]'' has a couple of upgrades that become inaccessible after you get the Screw Attack. Most of them are in the section where you get the Morph Ball, which is sealed off during the fight with {{spoiler|the SA-X}}. There's a total of four power ups here that you can't get to.
* In ''[[Mega Man X]] 6'', Zero is
** In the various stages, there are Reploids for you to save. If a Nightmare Virus gets to them first, they're
*** X7 also has rescuable reploids, problem is they're apparently made of paper, They die from the smallest amount of enemy contact, Sad part is you need 64 of the 128 reploids to unlock X. Its especially frustrating because your characters have a tendency to fall over when shot in Mid-air (Where most of these reploids are in some stages) and they just sit there, slowly getting up. When they do get up chances are the reploid you wanted to save is dead.
* In ''[[Mega Man Zero]] 2'', you collect Forms by performing certain tasks during missions. However, the game only gives you one Form per mission, and there are a limited number of missions, so it's possible to miss some Forms. Fortunately, there are more missions than Forms, and the [[New Game
** In ''[[Mega Man Zero]] 2'' and ''3'', collecting EX Skills requires maintaining an "A" rank or higher on almost every mission. Each EX Skill is specific to a boss, so you get precisely one chance to get each one per playthrough. And using Cyber-Elves gets points deducted from your score on every mission afterwards, ''even into a [[New Game
** ''[[Mega Man Zero]] 3'' had a a special feature where you could activate Ciel's supercomputer and link up to another Gameboy Advance with a ''[[
** In ''[[Mega Man Zero]] 4'', you could [[Item Crafting|make items]] out of parts obtained from defeated enemies. Some items require parts from Moloids, an enemy that only appears during one mission that can't be repeated. If you didn't stock up on their parts during that one mission, you'll just have to wait until the [[New Game
** Also, in the original ''[[Mega Man Zero]]'', entire missions are lost forever if you get a game over and choose to continue instead of restart. And did we mention the game has barely any 1-Ups?
*** The original game also has the abandoned laboratory that serves as the introduction stage, which has a few Cyber-Elves and nice opportunities to grind crystals. An early mission that sends you back there ends with the lab self-destructing. You'll be forced to wait for the [[New Game
*** The first game also has mission-specific Cyber-Elves that ''only'' appear if you defeat certain enemies ''during'' a mission. Fortunately, [[New Game
*** Lastly, the first game has a door to Ciel's room that will only open if your rank is A or S. Inside is a Cyber-Elf. Screwed up the ranking to the point of no return- well, then- that Elf's LOST FOREVER!!
* A glitch in the first few copies of ''[[Spyro the Dragon]]: Year of the Dragon'' makes the second egg for the first world's speedway level
* By definition, any game with a [[Point of No Return]] is going to have some items end up being
** You are however warned explicitly when you reach the point of no return and given the option to turn back.
** You also face this problem in Basic Braining. If you don't complete all six rounds of the punch game the first time you meet the level the game will disappear and you'll never get that PSI Cadet Rank, which makes it impossible to make the [[
*** 100% yes, but Level 100 no. It's worth pointing out that the game's bonus level is actually the secret 101st level. There's no reward for getting to level 101, as opposed to 100, so the only real payoff beyond completionism is an early start.
** Actually, there is a Steam achievement for reaching level 101. There's also an achievement for several other things that can be missed. For example, immediately after completing Sasha's Shooting Gallery, you ''can'' go to the parking lot and look in the corners for Maloof, to have a conversation that results in an achievement. Or you could do what the story tells you to do, which is go back to the Brain Tumbler, not leaving Sasha's room. This is one of many conversations that ''can'' be had after receiving each badge, but require you to track down everyone else.
* One of the secret items in ''[[
** [[Fridge Brilliance]], actually. It was intended that players would miss the item on the first playthrough. Once they found out, only restarting the game would let them get it. The developers ''make the Player use the game's time rewinding mechanic in real life.''
*** More [[Fridge Brilliance]]: the game's theme is about obsession and the dangers therein [[Mind Screw|(maybe)]]. The only way to recover that secret item? [[Completely Missing the Point|Start a completely new game to satisfy your obsession with]] [[One Hundred Percent Completion]]. Not only that, but the reward for [[One Hundred Percent Completion]] is the {{spoiler|[[Bad Ending]]}} [[Mind Screw|(probably)]].
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** The Jolly's Jukebox song "Sad Jinjo Houses" can only be unlocked by walking into a Jinjo house ''before'' the family is reunited. However, if you have saved all the Jinjos, the track is Lost Forever. Strangely, the tracks "In The Hall of the Zombie King" (heard in the Zombified Throne Room) and "Party at Bottles'" (heard by approaching Bottles' house after beating Tower of Tragedy but before beating the final boss) can be unlocked in the jukebox without even having to hear them.
* In ''[[Prince of Persia]]: Warrior Within'' there are nine secret life upgrades. You must find all to get the [[Infinity+1 Sword|Water Sword]], which enables you to fight the [[Recurring Boss|Dahaka]] and get the [[Multiple Endings|alternate canon ending]]. Fortunately, the game allows for plenty of [[Door to Before|backtracking]] from the Central Hall, so most of the upgrades can be picked just before the [[True Final Boss]]. However, two of them are located in a [[One-Time Dungeon]]. Miss either and kiss the good ending goodbye.
** All Sands ot Time trilogy games contain missable life upgrades; however, you're only penalized with a different kind of ending in ''Warrior Within'' for missing any. The upgrades have no bearing on the plot of the preceding ''Sands of time'', nor in the third instalment, ''The Two Thrones''. This last game also packs missable Sand Credits. Miss enough and you won't be able to pay for all the unlockable artwork. Not a big deal, unless you're after [[
* In ''[[
* Due to [[Real Life]] getting in the way, World ''e'' in the GBA ''[[
* The ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' series, of course, has countless missable secrets. Taking the wrong path in a level will bypass certain secrets, and you can't go back for them. In the Lud's Gate level, you must kill a guard without being seen to access an underwater room, if he sees you, it closes up for good. In the High Security Compound, there are two switches that each open a secret room much earlier in the level. If you hit both switches, it closes again, forever. [[Guide Dang It]]...
* ''[[Jak and Daxter|Jak 2]]'' has a few one-time-only Precursor Orbs, most notably in the Strip Mine and Construction Site.
** Actually, only the seven orbs in the Metal Head Nest are lost forever if you miss them. All other locations can still be reached after beating the game. Some are just trickier to reach than others, which is probably why some people think they're lost forever if they miss them (the Strip Mine, for example, can still be accessed via the warp portal in the prison cells where you rescue Jak's friends at the beginning of the third act).
* In ''[[New Super Mario Bros
** ''[[
* ''[[Super Star Wars]]: The Empire Strikes Back'' has Force power ups for Luke to collect as part of his training with the Force. Most are in plain slight but others are somewhat hidden in the level. If the player beats the level boss and misses on a few Force powers, they are gone for good the player can be at a handicap later when they use Luke later on. The sequel adverts this by giving Luke all of his powers in the start and doesn't need to find them again.
* In [[Space Station Silicon Valley]] there is a trophy on one of the levels that you cannot pick up (you will only walk through it), and as such the bonus level is only accessible through cheats.
=== [[Puzzle Game]] ===
* In ''[[Puzzle Quest]]: Challenge Of The Warlords'', every enemy (and learnable spell) can be attained at leisure... except for the Imp spells (Burn, Taunt, and Zap). The Imps only appear on one spot of the map, which only unlocks after you've completed "The Marriage" subquest in Enmouth, and will disappear the moment you return to report to the Queen. You have to stay there and defeat three Imps in a row before capturing one, and the aforementioned spells turn them into [[Demonic Spiders]] if you're playing as a Fighter or Wizard.
* ''[[
=== [[Real Time Strategy]] ===
* In ''[[Total War|Medieval 2]]'', generals can sometimes gain Ancillaries, technically characters following them around but essentially a stat boost. Most of them are gained through specific but generic actions like winning battles or being in a town/castle when a given building is completed. However, some of the most powerful ancillaries are historical ones like William Wallace or Machiavelli, and those can only be gained in very specific circumstances, not known to the player unless he has peered through the game files. Joan of Arc, for example, can only be gained during a 20ish year span (1 turn being 6 months in the game), only for French players, only if France and England are at war late in the game (which is unlikely, since both countries are in each other's way, and one usually destroys the other in the early game) and only if the given general wins a battle against the English ''in which the odds were against him, but not too much''.
* [[Enemy Exchange Program|Salvaging]] in ''[[
* The first [[Pikmin]] game had Libra, a piece of the Dolphin found in the Forest Navel that hangs on a high platform separated from the rest of a map on a cliff. Although it is possible to get Libra down off the very top of the cliff without problem, the cliff is narrow and there's very little room to meneuver, which makes it possible that your pikmin will miss-step coming down, [[Bottomless Pit|falling down the bottomless pit around them and taking Libra down with the troop]]. Once lost, it is lost for good and won't respawn unless you restart the game, and because Libra is one of the Dolphin's 25 vital parts, [[Unwinnable By Mistake|you shot down any chance of winning the game if you lose it]].
* Quite a few in either ''[[Tomba]]'' game, but the most unpleasant is in the sequel. To complete "Hide and Seek", you have to get a girl out of a hole in a wall. To do this, you throw a snowball into the hole under her, which slingshots it into her and knocks her to you. Capture the Ice Evil Pig before you do this? The snow melts... and you can never get her out. Doing this prevents you from doing "Who's the Liar?", which prevents you from entering one of the Secret Towers, which keeps you from getting one of the best weapons in the game. A hat-trick of Lost Forevers from ''one'' misstep!
=== [[Rhythm Game]] ===
* ''[[DJMAX]] Technika'''s Weekly courses. [[Exactly What It Says
** And for that matter, ''Technika'''s Platinum Crew Service. In mid-July 2010, the Korean servers for Platinum Crew went offline, forcing arcades to upgrade to ''DJMAX Techinka 2'' if their customers wish to continue playing online content.
* ''[[Rock Band]]'':
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=== [[Roguelike]] ===
* In [[
** ''[[
* In ''[[Ancient Domains of Mystery|ADOM]]'', the Pyramid (which holds two awesome artifacts) is a prime example of this trope. It closes as soon as you reach level 17. Besides, it is a rather difficult place, which means that you want all the skill you can. So...
=== [[Role
* In ''[[
** The above only applies to later versions, as the original and the PSX version had a second Blood Sword in the Fynn Dungeon.
** In the PSP version, there's an Amano art gallery you can unlock as you play through that requires, among other things, 100% bestiary completion. Unfortunately for you, partway through the game all encounters on the overworld become harder--[[Guide Dang It|with absolutely no warning beforehand, incidentally]]
** Similarly, if you want more than one character to learn Osmose, you're going to have to grind either the Coliseum, Fynn Castle, the Cyclone, or Castle Palamecia while they're
* ''[[
** Of course, considering that there are some Augments that aren't all that good and are re-obtainable throughout the story, this just becomes a slightly tedious exercise.
* ''[[
* In ''[[
** The GBA version gives you a second chance to get this item.
** One of the characters in your party, the moogle Mog, can dance to change the terrain and cause various other effects in battle. At one point in the game (in the World of Balance section, before {{spoiler|Kefka tears the world apart}}), you have the choice to save Mog from falling off a cliff, causing him to join your party at that time, or getting an accessory that will halve the MP cost of spells. If you choose not to get Mog at that time, you can still get him to join again later in the game. However, one of his dances, the Water Rondo, can only be obtained when he's fighting in water. Since there is no area where you fight in water in the World of Ruin, if you choose to get the accessory, Mog's Water Rondo will be
*** The Game Boy Advance remake adds a fight against Leviathan in the World of Ruin, which takes place on a watery background, giving you ''one more chance'' to get the Water Harmony (as it's re-named), but after defeating Leviathan, the dance is, again,
** If you don't wait for Shadow on the Floating Continent, you lose him permanently as a party member.
** You can permanently miss out on the Ifrit Magicite... but that would require you to deliberately ignore the thing and move on without it.
** Some of Strago's Lores can only be obtained from bosses giving you only one opportunity to learn it.
*** However, Strago's ultimate Lore is an
** The Bahamut Esper can be missed entirely if you manage to use X-Zone on the boss Doomgaze. This can be achieved by using the Vanish spell on him first. The other "Instant death" combo, Vanish and Doom will work, but using X-Zone removes Bahamut from the game.
*** Actually, its not permanently missable in the original game. Vanish + X-zone just, for some really weird programming quirk, does the opposite and fully heals him, letting you still have a chance to refight him. Many just assume he's dead and figure they missed it for logical reasons. The GBA version, however, has it permenantly missable provided you have not defeated him on the Overworld but defeat him for the first time in the Soul Shrine.
* In ''[[
** Aeris's Level 4 [[Limit Break]] as well, to an extent. You can get it at any time, but after she [[It Was His Sled|dies]], what's the point of it?
** Ghost Hands, which drains MP from the enemy, are only obtainable before Shinra levels Sector 7.
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** As far as i can tell Vincent's Level 4 Limit Break and [[Infinity+1 Sword|ultimate weapon]] is unaccessable if you dont go to Lucrecia's cave early enough and enough times.
** While the Gelnika can be visited any time, the Turks are unavailable during disc three so the fight with them can potentially be missed. And speaking of the Turks, all of them carry unique pieces of equipment that must be stolen during the fights against them on disc two. Furthermore, if the player completed Wutai, they have the option of skipping the final showdown with them at Midgar, thus losing the aforementioned equipment.
* Many of the Guardian Forces in ''[[
** In addition, upon arrival to the 4th disc, [[Point of No Return|all of the towns in the game are locked off]], which also seals off quite a few sidequests and, by extension, unique rewards.
** The rare cards you can win by playing the in-game cardgame can also fall victim to this, since the rare cards are only held by one person, and you might very well lose the chance to speak to these people later.
*** Actually that isn't necessarily true. Whilst it's possible that Ellone is one of the cases where it can happen there is nevertheless hope for players that might have missed it. As long as the player completes the Card Quest then all of the Group Members will be available on the Ragnarok during Disc 4. One of the players actually plays virtually all the rare cards in the game meaning if the player missed out on any then it could be gotten there. The only card that is extremely rare and really fits this trope is the [[Pu Pu]] card.
* ''[[
** This game has more
*** Japanese players didn't even get the luxury of having a strategy guide at game launch to find all of said crap, due to Square's marketing approach ('hardcore' gamers who would find and reveal the secrets through word of mouth wouldn't need a jump start, apparently.)
** One particular big Lost Forever in ''[[
*** Disc 3-4 transition closes up Esto Gaza, the only place you get Scissor Fangs. The other one is synthetized with a one-shot (but thankfully unmissable) weapon, the Dragon's Claws, and the Tiger Claws, which can only be bought on Daguerreo, during the events of disc three. If you get to disc four without either Scissor Fangs or Tiger Claws, bye-bye Aura flair.
*** Scissor Fangs be damned, Esto Gaza is also the only place in the game that sells the Octagon Rod, which is the only item that teaches Vivi all 3 of his -aga spells, making him a lot less useful if you miss it since without them, he has no way to hit multple enemies late in the game without either wasting a ton of MP to do it, having a chance to miss enemies entirely or damaging the party members that don't have armor that absord Shadow-elemental attacks in the process.
* Perhaps because ''IX'' was so hellish, ''[[
** Of course if you're playing the International/PAL version after a certain point in the game certain areas can become blocked off by the insanely difficult if not nigh impossible (for the average player) dark aeons.
** A pair of oddball items that are a result of a programming mistake are missable; namely, the weapon with No Encounters (dropped by Geosgaeno) and the shield with Magic Counter (sold by the hovercraft on your first visit to the Calm Lands). However, these aren't exactly crucial to the game and merely serve as collector's items.
** A better example of this trope is the Master Sphere item. In the NA and original versions, you're limited to 10 (which can't be missed). In the International release, they are rare drops from the dark aeons and Penance (and his arms). This lets you get 99 (by killing Penance's arms and then running away), but once you kill Penance for good, this opportunity is gone.
* ''[[
* ''[[
** The chest holding the Demonsbane sword, obtained from the Tomb of Raithwall, will only appear if you defeat the ''first'' Demon Wall, --[[Guide Dang It|the one you're]] ''[[Guide Dang It|supposed]]'' [[Guide Dang It|to run away from]], since its stats and abilities are far beyond what [[Level Grinding|normal progression]] would allow your party. Even if you do defeat it, prepare to run back and forth from the entrance to the chamber where the chest appears, as there's a random chance of the chest containing Knots of Rust instead... and that's if the chest even ''appears at all''.
** It is possible to miss the Omega Badge and therefore screw yourself out of the [[Infinity+1 Sword|Wyrmhero Blade]]. Granted, you pretty much have to be doing it on purpose, because no gamer in his/her right mind wouldn't pick up loot dropped by a [[Bonus Boss]].
* In ''[[MARDEK]]'' RPG, once you enter Moric's battle-saucer in chapter 2, you've permanently sealed off the catacombs, lost your chance to unlock Cambria, and boosted the [[Hitchhiker Heroes|hire price]] of Zach by 1000%. Also, when you go into the throne room in chapter 3, EVERYTHING is closed off until the chapter 4 release, and some stuff will probably remain lost even then.
* In ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', finding and using multicolored marks called Trinities was one of the requirements for [[
** The Final Mix version moved the location of that trinity, preventing it from being lost forever. However, it introduces [[No Export for You|a different problem...]]
*** At least the game still has the treasure in a little ...um... thing where Oogie's manor used to be.
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* Remarkably, ''[[Lufia]] II: Rise of the Sinistrals'' averts a situation like this by including a shop late in the game where you can buy back any item you've ever sold. An interesting example of realism in an RPG...well, if you ignore the improbability of ''all'' of your items being resold to the ''same'' shop.
** Less unrealistic than it sounds: the entire town in question has a rather unhealthy fixation on the heroes, and it's implied they go out of the way to ''find'' everything you've so much as breathed on and sell it as a collectors item. [[Nightmare Fuel|The entire thing is very creepy.]]
* While very hard, it's possible to make any and all digimon become
** The easiest to lose like this is Veemon, the only digimon which you cannot get in any of the starter packs and also arguably the best rookie in the game. The max level for recruiting him is freaking 30. And you only get Mega-Level Digimon on level 40. Fortunately, the fight for recruiting him is fairly easy.
* In ''[[
* ''[[
** Hell, you can lose an entire ''town''! If you don't resolve one of the towns' problems properly (which takes ''3'' times), the town's still ruined in the present.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Eternal Sonata]]'' has an old lady that can be spoken to in Chapter 4. Doing so will allow you to access a Score Piece later on. However, if you don't speak to her in Chapter 4, she will be sleeping for the rest of the game, making that particular Score Piece
* In the main series of ''[[Pokémon]]'' games, you have only one chance at capturing certain incredibly rare Legendary Pokémon (although you can trade for them with other cartridges). Of course, the fact that ''you'' usually challenge these Pokémon to battles, and can fight them at any time in the games, makes it unlikely that anyone actually will miss them, because most players just [[Save Scumming|save before the fight and reload until they capture them]].
** In ''Pokémon Diamond & Pearl'' and ''Pokémon Platinum'', there is a hidden HP Up at Lake Valor that can only be got while the lake is dried up by the Galactic Bomb. {{spoiler|The HP Up is located near the northwestern-most part of the dried-up lake with the dozen Magikarp}}. If you return to Lake Valor when the lake is filled with water again, you can't get it.
** Another kind of Lost Forever is the event-only Pokémon, such as Mew. Usually there will only be one event per generation of the game to get these in a particular area of the world. If you miss it, you have to either trade with someone who managed to get one to add it to your Pokédex, or else cheat for it. (There ''is'' a glitch in the original games that allows you to fight a wild Mew, but it requires you to have not fought a certain type of trainer.)
*** This
** ''[[Pokémon]]'' has occasionally done this with other things. In the Gen. I Red/Blue versions (and the FireRed/LeafGreen remakes), once you speak to the captain of the S.S. Anne, it leaves port and never returns, so you can't fight any of the trainers there or obtain any of the items. In the original Gen. III games (Ruby/Sapphire), Team Magma/Aqua's base was permanently sealed off after a certain point, so if you didn't already get the Master Ball, it was
** Averted in ''Pokémon XD'', where if you knock out the Shadow Pokémon during a battle that is not repeatable, you will have another chance to capture it. A trainer named Miror B. will have all the Pokémon that you lost the first time. You even get a radar to tell you when he is around to battle. Although after you have all of the Shadow Pokémon, he destroys the radar.
*** Speaking of Miror B., a minor trainer (with a unique model and a sped up version of Miror B's battle music) appears in his place after you beat him, but disappears eventually. Seeing as how [[Guide Dang It|you would never go through a now empty dungeon]], pretty much no one is going to see him without being told.
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** In another sense of the trope, if you're raising a certain Pokémon, it can lose certain attacks forever if you evolve it too early (or too late in the games without the Move Tutor).
** Get the event Celebi in HG/SS? Better make sure you play the Giovanni sidequest before you transfer your 'mon over to Black and White.
* ''[[
** In addition, a glitch in Chapter 3 can cause chests that contain Fruits of Eden, a valuable item that [[Rare Candy|increases your characters' maximum HP]], to be
** The {{spoiler|Moon Flower Palace}}, the Chapter 7 dungeon, goes away at the end of said chapter, taking its Medals and Invention Ideas with it if the player doesn't complete it by that deadline. You also lose {{spoiler|the ability to use time travel, so any missed treasures and photos from the future sections are gone for good}}.
** A way to get around the
* ''[[
** That's not all in ''Tales of Symphonia''. Several sidequests become lost later in the game... That is, until you see the very last cutscene before the final boss, in which not only will the lost sidequests re-open, but at least two new sidequests will open. Thanks a lot for freaking me out with Yuan's ring, ToS...
** Those looking to achieve [[One Hundred Percent Completion]] also need to use a Magic Lens once on each and every type of enemy in the game to complete the Monster List and get a reward. This includes bosses, whose Monster List entries are
*** Worse then that, Raine has to be the one to scan them or you don't get the full entry. The [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|exceptions]] are fights that she can't be in, such as various [[Duel Boss]] fights, and 2 unique enemies found before she joins the party, where everyone gets the full info.
**** You do not need to have Raine or anyone else scan the monsters to get credit for them in Symphonia. If you fight them, they go in your book, and it counts. The only difference is that not all the info will be in your book if you don't have Raine Magic Lens them. You can still "complete" the book and get the title even when it's full of question marks.
** Another ToS sidequest this trope applies to is one involving a set of three optional bosses, the "Sword Dancers." If you haven't beat one by a certain point in the story it disappears forever. Also they have to be beaten in order - if you miss one the ones after it won't ever appear... which screws you out of the prize for beating all three - the Kusanagi Blades, Lloyd's [[Penultimate Weapon]].
* Another ''[[Tales
** Along with this, an entire dungeon can be missed if you don't go to a certain random location before a key story event. At no other point can you go to this location and get the quest that opens the dungeon. What makes this especially bad is the fact that you have to go to this specific location, at a specific time, twice!
** Don't forget the Secret Missions: bonuses awarded for carrying out certain (unhinted) actions during certain (unhinted) boss battles. You have to complete them all for one of Yuri's Titles.
** Another fun example: the first two steps of a subquest that awards Judith's second-best weapon starts hours before you've even met her. Both steps involve immediately retracing your steps after you've been implictedly told to move forward, and ''must'' be done before entering Capua Nor.
* In yet another ''[[Tales
* ''[[
* The king of this trope, however, is likely the first ''[[Baten Kaitos]]'' game. As if getting [[
** Here's just one heinous example. To explain: in order to get 100% completion, you must take pictures of every character in your party. Every time you do so, there is a small chance that said character's photo will have a particular feature; this is called a rare shot, and naturally, you must also take rare shots of every character in your party. It so happens that in ONE particular boss battle, one character's appearance will notably change. Not only must you take a picture of that character in that state, but you must ALSO get the rare shot, and the only chance you have to get both of these pictures is in that one boss battle!
** Diadem. Within a relatively short time frame, you have four bosses to photograph, six Auras obtained during a plot event through [[Guide Dang It|counter-intuitive means]], each of which transforms 5 times over the course of the game and a merchant who sells a unique item and disappears after a plot event. Said merchant also [[Behind the Black|blends in]] to the [[Scenery Porn|stylised background]]. Thats 41 items total.
*** And about those transforming items? After the game's first big [[Wham! Episode]], [[Party Scattering|the party gets scattered]] across the five continents. If the characters have transforming magnus (particularly the Auras) in their decks and you don't get them back before they change twice, you'll miss a transformation. Also, to get back four of the five missing party members, you have to fight four minibosses, one which must be faced with nobody but Xelha in your party. If she doesn't have a camera, then that boss' photo is lost. And if you left an Aura in the deck of the final party member, you'd better start speedrunning to get that character back (doesn't help that you have to go through ''two'' [[That One Boss]] fights, as well as two ''long'' dungeons to get there).
** The Alfard Empire in general. The enemies you face there change every time the plot demands you go there, and then there's the Phantom Goldoba... Just to be on the safe side, visit the room in the front of the ship last. There are no items in there, and you have to visit every room before the boss appears, so make sure you get all the items before entering that room.
** On your first trip to Mira, you have to go through a portal, keeping up with a character who will later become a party member while enemies try to assault you. You can shoot them down to keep from getting into battles with them, and shooting down an entire formation will net you a reward. If you miss a reward you want early, you can just intentionally fall too far behind to start over, but the reward for the ''very final group'' is Secret Recipe 4, which can't be obtained anywhere else. (The reward for group 10 of 13 is also essential, as it is Lyude's Level IV special move and by the time it appears as a [[Random Drops|random drop]], it's probably no stronger than your ''regular'' attack magnus.) Just don't shoot down ''everything'', because you won't run into those enemies again and you need to add their photographs to the list.
* Perhaps because Eternal Wings was so horrible with this trope, ''[[Baten Kaitos]] Origins'' seemingly goes out of its way to avert it...though it isn't perfect. The "Tub-Time Greythorne" and "Warm Cheers" magnus (and by extension "Icy Jeers" which it ages into, and also by extension the sidequest that uses it) are missable after a certain plot event that occurs very late in the game. There are also four enemies that can be missed for your enemy list; one is the Ballet Dancer, the only random encounter in a one-time area that doesn't show up later in the Coliseum, but the really nasty ones are {{spoiler|Valara, Nasca, and Heughes}} - the player is offered an option for whether to fight them. Saying "no" robs you of a perfect enemy list, saying "yes" robs you of the best ending. Thankfully, the player's magnus and enemy listings can be carried over to a [[New Game
* ''[[
** Both ''[[Star Ocean 1]]'' and ''Star Ocean: The Second Story'' ''do'' contain plenty of Lost Forevers, mostly in the form of optional characters. Both games only allow certain characters to join the party if other characters are not present - enforced either through specific scripted events, or through the party size limit of eight characters (opportunities to remove characters from the party are very limited). Additionally, ''Star Ocean'' has a specific point where you can permanently lose the chance to gain a specific party member by ''leaving the room'' - without any indication, before or after, that this has any significant side effects.
** Another big one in ''Star Ocean: The Second Story'' is the Sharp Edge. It's a rather weak weapon for Claude that you can only get if you take second place in the fighting tournament, then speak to a specific NPC. Oh, wait, after the tournament was over, you left town BEFORE you spoke to that NPC? Guess what, the sword's
** Another interesting variance from ''Star Ocean: The Second Story''. There is a particular hidden witch you may talk to in an early town, which promptly becomes uninhabitable a few minutes of game play later, and then much later in another town. If spoken to in both locations, she unlocks Indalacio Limiter Off, an alternate form of the last boss. It's a variance due to the fact that most players ''don't'' want this to happen, as [[That One Boss|he will destroy you]].
* ''[[
** And while it's pretty good at not having quests
*** There's another guild merchant with a unique spell that only ''he'' sells. And he's killed as part of a quest. If you didn't buy the spell from him before he dies, it really is
*** Another example in the ''Knights of Nine'' expansion, in order to receive master level training from a trainer requires a recommendation from an advanced level trainer. It just so happens that advanced trainers in restoration get killed during the ''Knights of Nine'' story line and their replacements ''do not'' give you the recommendation.
** The main quest requires the player to sacrifice a Daedric artifact - those are one-of-a-kind items obtained through completing a quest. Once sacrificed for the quest, the artifact can never be recovered. To add insult to injury, most such artifacts are not very useful, of limited scope, or only good for entertainment value - but the main quest points the player towards the quest that gives Azura's Star, arguably the best Daedric artifact in the game...
** Also, upon completion of the game, {{spoiler|all of the random Oblivion gates in the world disappear, forever.}} To be fair, this makes perfect sense, but since the items you receive from in game drops and the enchantments you get from the Sigil Stones are based on player level, anyone who runs through the main quest quickly before doing any side quests will lose the best enchantments in the game.
** The player can invoke this trope deliberately with the Dark Brotherhood initiation quest. If you murder someone ingame (whether deliberately or not), the next time you sleep you'll be visited by Lucien Lachance of the game's assassins guild. He'll give you a dagger called the Blade of Woe and instruct you to kill a man named Rufio to be welcomed to the Dark Brotherhood. You don't have to do it, but the dagger he gives you counts as a quest item - meaning it's stuck in your inventory - until the end of the Dark Brotherhood questline. If you have no intention of joining the Brotherhood, and you don't want to carry the Blade of Woe around indefinitely, you can kill Lucien as soon as he gives you the quest. On the plus side, you can now drop the Blade. On the negative side, you can NEVER join the Dark Brotherhood at any point in the game, making the guild and all its related quests lost forever.
** Trope invoked in another offshoot Daedric prince quest where, in a realized case of having one's cake or eating it, [[Consummate Liar|Clavicus Vile]] offers to give you his amazing [[Vendor Trash|Masque of Clavicus Vile]]
** Most of the better quest rewards are levelled to your character (as well as gold rewards, but [[Money for Nothing|this isn't much of a problem]]), unfortunately these reward items ''do not scale'' with you as you level; the item you get is the one you're stuck with throughout the game. Higher-level versions of these items are completely unobtainable if you complete them at lower levels.
* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] III: [[Morrowind]]'', the unique artifact Spell Breaker can ''only'' be obtained if the player is a vampire, meaning that if the player was a vampire but has been cured OR has become immune to disease via the Main Quest, and has not yet obtained Spell Breaker, it's gone. You don't lose it just by getting cured of corprus in the main quest and being therefore immune to common disease, because you can make a custom spell with "weakness to common disease on self" effect and cast it.
** The [[Expansion Pack|expansion]] ''Tribunal'' forces the player to do this for the main quest. You see, the head of the museum has part of an [[Infinity+1 Sword]] and she won't give it to you until you donate two artifacts. They can be any artifact (like ones not suited for your character), but they are still lost forever. Unless, of course, you're sneaky enough to swipe them off the museum's displays (and smart enough to not try to sell them back!)...
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] [[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
** Prior to the 1.4 patch, the Thalmor embassy was home to a rare gemstone called a Stone of Barenziah, and visiting the embassy without claiming the stone prevented you from completing a quest which required you to find all 24 of them. The 1.4 patch remedied this by moving the stone into the cave you use to escape the embassy, which can be revisited.
** Skuldafn Temple, a dungeon visited during the main questline, contains a word wall and a unque Dragon Priest mask, both of which can be lost since Skuldafn can only be visited once.
** The quest involving Potema the Wolf Queen is split into two parts; first you interrupt the ceremony where a gathering of necromancers attempt to resurrect her, then you have to kill her for good. The second part will only trigger when your character levels up, so its possible to lock yourself out of this quest if you hit max level (81) before finishing the first part.
* In ''[[
* The ''[[
** ''Xenosaga Episode I'' also had the e-mails, some of which were very unlikely to be found by playing the game normally, [[Guide Dang It]]!. Not only were many of them Lost Forever once you'd gone past them, but missing one would often make it impossible to get later e-mails, as well.
* In ''[[
** Likewise, Ness's [[Infinity+1 Sword]] (at least the one of the two that actually works), can only be found on one enemy. In one area. This enemy only appears in the immediate area before the final boss, making it almost useless, especially since you are past the [[Point of No Return]].
* ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Knights of the Old Republic (
** There are also smaller and more numerous examples such as a runaway girl found on your ship, that will eventually run away again and be left to her own fate if you don't finish the 'side-quest' within the time limit.
* Averted in ''[[
** Except for the Mini-Z-Yux, Mini-X-Yux, and at least two other entries forever, as they never appeared in battle due to the enemies being beaten too quickly.
** Played straight with the Whacka Bumps.
** Also played straight in the first game. There are a few Badges found in Peach's Castle. You can either collect these with Mario at the very end of the game, or nab them with Peach during her mid-chapter segments and place them in a treasure chest so that Mario can obtain them at a different location. However, if Peach grabs these Badges, but doesn't place them in the chest by the time her Chapter 6 segment is over, they are, of course,
** It's played straight with a few items in the Palace Of Shadow. If you defeat Gloomtail and then set off the next event without going behind him and blowing open the crack in the wall, the stuff in that secret chamber will be inaccessible due to the floor to his room dropping way to low to reach the door. Thankfully the only items that can be
* In ''[[
* ''[[
** ''[[
** Thankfully averted in ''[[
** In ''Shadow Hearts: From the New World'', no area ever vanishes, preventing you from losing access to the items within. However, there are Snaps - using Johnny's "Snap" ability on enemies to get their picture. For the most part, you can either trade for Snaps you miss or take their pictures in Lovecraft's Pit Fights. But if you fail to snap {{spoiler|Malice Killer, Malice Gilbert, Tirawa, Mudopkan, or a Malice Soaker}}, you'll never have the chance again.
* In ''[[Mega Man Battle Network
** While the main series normally averts it, there is one instance in the second game. If you don't buy gifts for your friends while you are overseas (easy to miss) you can't return and buy them (even though you can return to the location) but none of the thanks yous are unreplacable if you look enough.
** Other than the above, the main series itself goes out of its way to avert this. Every boss has a stronger version which you can rematch an unlimited number of times and can drop any Battle Chips its weaker versions can. From the 4th game onwards, weaker enemies in earlier areas are replaced with their stronger counterparts once you get far enough, but [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|a few select areas will retain the weaker enemies so that all variants of all enemies can still be found]].
** In Battle Network 4, the mystery data contain different items depending on what playthrough the player is on. Moving on to the next playthrough without picking up all the blue and purple mystery data can cause the player to miss a HP memory or Navi Customizer part forever. This also applied to green mystery data, which made certain chips such as Wideblade S and Longblade S more easily gettable on certain playthroughs, but virtually impossible on others.
* ''[[
* In ''[[Phantasy Star III]]'', there are stores in Cille and Shushoran that sell Star Mist and Moon Dew. But the player can only access the stores in the first generation. These stores are destroyed at the start of the second generation.
* This is averted in ''[[
** ''[[
* ''[[Valkyrie Profile 2]]'' has an interesting variation of this that also combines it with [[Level Grinding]] and [[Guest Star Party Member]]: several characters leave the party as the game progresses, but you also get various items when they do depending on their level, with the best rewards if you grind them to level 40 or 45 depending on the character, while you'd normally be around level 20 or so at that point of the story. Most of these items are unique and generally very powerful, effectively making the transition from [[Level Grinding]] to [[Disc One Nuke]].
* Anything in Zeal in ''[[
** Not to mention opening the sealed chests in the Middle Ages before opening them in the Present. {{spoiler|You also miss the opportunity to upgrade certain weapons and armor if you don't allow the pendant to react to the chests.}}
** You can take the Swallow or the Safe Helm, but not both. Same with the Prism Dress and Prism Helms.
*** Take the Swallow. Completing a side quest allows you to buy Safe Helms.
*** Actually, you can Charm a Safe Helm from the Lavos Spawn's shell aboard the Black Omen, and later on that same dungeon, you can grab one each of both Prism items by Charming {{spoiler|Queen Zeal's}} hands. As a bonus, if you do things right, you can fight the latter boss up to 3 times in the same file, meaning you can potentially have an almost-full set of Prism gear (you'll be short a Prism Helm if you got a certain optional character, but said character can get a slightly better helm anyway).
** You can get Magus to join your party, ONLY if you refuse to fight him at a certain point. If the question presented didn't already seem like a "[[But Thou Must!]]", his ''boss theme'' plays while you make the choice, basically telling any [[Genre Savvy]] player that there is no point in saying no... except that there ''is''. And in the DS version, you can only get his Bestiary entry for this fight if you ''do'' kill him... which, of course, means he can't join your party unless you do another NG+.
* This happens in ''[[
** It's VERY easy for Razzly's Level 7 ability to be
** Say yes to Kid when she first offers to join? Well you just lost Leena. Answer one or both of the questions she asked earlier wrong? Well, you just lost her best tech.
* In ''[[Fable
** This gets fixed in the expansion pack, as you can revisit the (rebuilt) Guild after the attack. Later in the game, you may encounter a demon door that demands all your keys to open, which would make all the contents of the chests you haven't opened yet
** Another demon door requires you to find three suits of armor, the first one being bright plate mail. Unfortunately, it's only sold in the Arena; and you can only visit the Arena once, at a specific point of the main quest. So if you didn't buy all its parts, at the one and only possible time, you can never open the demon door. (This is also fixed in the expansion, where you can buy the armor in one of the added locations.)
** Yet another door can only be opened if you had married the villainous Lady Grey. If you choose to expose her evil deeds instead (only possible in the expansion), you're out of luck.
*** Or if you become Mayor in the Fable: The Lost Chapters, by turning her in. Ideally though, one should court her, fight Thunder (it is an area off limits and only accessible if you fight Thunder for Lady Grey's favour), then turn her in (find her dead sister).
* ''[[
* It's fortunately only a small item that is perfectly fine to miss, but in near the beginning of ''[[
** Which in itself is kind of sadistic because the item only lets you know a hidden chest is in the room, it does nothing to help pinpoint the location. The room is rather large too so without using a guide, you'll be left jumping in every inch of that room looking for a hidden chest that is in a place you not only can't possibly reach any longer, but is in a place you have no idea you even CAN reach because you never do anything like that ever before or ever again.
** The game also features {{spoiler|[[Crossover]] [[Easter Egg
* Averted in ''[[Lost Odyssey]]'', thankfully. Items from areas that cannot be returned to become available in an auction house that exists for that sole purpose. Even if the player loses the auction for an item, it will reappear until the player wins it; winning items this way is sufficient for [[One Hundred Percent Completion]].
** Given that to get the 'all items' achievement requires nearly 700 items, literally hundreds of which are in items almost indistinguishable from mundane items and are usually overlooked, dozens hidden in inexplicable places or that require incredibly hard puzzles to get to, about 50 from sidequests ranging from easy to merciless, 24 from following vague clues to hidden items and 11 that are literally invisible with no indication that they're there, and something like 70 of these items can be missed, being able to buy what you miss is only fair.
** There are two spells which can only be purchased from two different vendors. One is in an area at the end of the second disc, the other is in an area near the beginning of the third disc. Each of these vendors are in areas that once you progress far enough, can NEVER be visited ever again. Granted, you get more powerful versions of these spells later (and they aren't permanently missable) but you could still miss out on an achievement this way.
* Once the four primary planets in ''[[Mass Effect
** Also in ''[[Mass Effect
*** Liara's Achivement is nearly a ''[[Guide Dang It]]'' in the way you're better off beelining to recruit her, avoiding any optional quests until she's part of your team. The precise amount of main and side quests completions required for the achievement is different for each party member, depending on which point of the game you can recruit them, but the margin of error is less for later characters.
** The {{spoiler|Feros colony}} also offers several sidequests which can be
** Several side quests and subplots are potentially continued on in the next two games. Lost Forever times three. Oh, and the skip dialogue button can also choose dialogue, so it's possible to accidentally choose something you didn't want by accident.
** In ''[[
*** Additionally, there are three separate mini fetch quests you can perform on Illium where you can find an item or information significant to a separate NPC. These can only be found during Miranda's loyalty mission, Samara's recruitment mission, and Thane's recruitment mission. if you don't find these items during their respective missions, you can't complete the fetch quests.
** In ''[[
*** Also in ''3'', you regularly find new weapons during missions. Most of them can be purchased at the Citadel if you miss them, but two weapons, the M-358 Talon and the M-99 Saber, have to be found during missions or else they become unobtainable. While none of them are mandatory to complete the game, it's always nice to add a new gun to your arsenal.
* In ''[[Kings Field]] II'', a certain merchant ({{spoiler|Lyn}}), sells a number of dead useful items, but at the time, they seem rather expensive. It's only until later one realized that a) many of her wares are otherwise unattainable, and b) her prices are actually quite low. Of course, by then {{spoiler|she's been killed}}.
* ''[[Marvel
* ''[[Breath of Fire 3]]'' has the Beast Spear, a weapon for Garr. It has far more attack power than any of his other weapons (his next closest weapon is a good 40 points weaker than the Beast Spear), though it also weighs a lot and drains a bit of his HP every turn, which for some makes it [[Awesome but Impractical]]. Anyway, it can only be obtained by examining the ashes of a [[Duel Boss]] before leaving the room where you fought him. Take one step outside, and the weapon is gone for good.
* ''[[Soul Blazer]]'' wants you to [[Gotta Catch Em All|find these 8 Emblems]]. If a Dolphin who would've cheerfully given you an Emblem when he was ''asleep'' had, regrettably, woken up, then good-bye, Magic Bell.
* Thanks to a glitch, the Mock species in ''[[Monster Rancher]] 2'' can become lost forever. You get the Mock by randomly receiving some seeds from the item store after getting a monster to Rank B. There's no guarantee of when you'll get the seeds; you have to keep visiting the store. However, if you get a monster to Rank A without getting the seeds, you'll never be able to get the Mock.
* Obscure Game Boy Color RPG ''[[Lil' Monster]]'' has the Dowser and Dragonscale ability gems, and their associated monsters, Gyro and Argon. These two monsters are fought as bosses. However, the bosses will only appear once, and if you lose to them, they'll vanish. You'll never be able to get their ability gems. Frustratingly, missing Gyro/Dowser ''also'' means you miss the [[Disc One Nuke]], Minhand, which doubles your attack power, as the monster that holds that particular gem only appears when you use the Dowser gem to summon a monster to fight.
* Near the beginning of ''[[Infinite Undiscovery]]'', Sigmund gives you his sword. It's nothing special and the [[Sorting Algorithm of Weapon Effectiveness]] makes it useless fast. As a further temptation, it does sell for a pretty high price for such an early item. If you sold it, say goodbye to the [[Infinity+1 Sword]].
* In ''[[
* Averted in ''[[Phantasy Star II]]'', if you accidently put the visiphone in{{spoiler|Nei's inventory when she dies}}, you can simply have Shir steal another one.
* The Flail of Many Heads from ''[[
** In the expansion pack your butler could put the Flail together for you, but since that required you to carry around three useless but valuable items (which took up three times as much space as a weapon which actually worked) for the entirety of the game- when you weren't even aware the possibility existed- not many players took advantage of this.
** Also, certain dungeons (The Planar Prison, the Sahaugin City, etc.) cannot be returned to once you leave them, and any items contained therein... well, you know.
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*** Also averted for the {{spoiler|Wasteland Survival Guide}} quest; if you {{spoiler|nuke Megaton, Moira Brown}} will survive, though {{spoiler|she's}} now a Ghoul.
*** Potential party members can be killed before you have the chance to let them join you. You can murder Butch within five minutes of getting a pistol, for instance.
** When it comes to the 4 major DLC in ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' (''Dead Money'', ''Honest Hearts'', ''Old World Blues'', ''Lonesome Road''), you can return to any of their areas as often as you like upon their completion, with the exception of ''Dead Money's'' Sierra Madre. Once you leave, you can't return, unless you use console commands in the PC version.
** As in Fallout 3, potential companions can be killed in New Vegas. Unlike Fallout 3, though, some companions are found outside, where they're at the mercy of whatever may wander in. A particulary bad spot is Jacobstown, where you meet Lily, which happens to have a [[Demonic Spider|Cazadore]] spawn point near the front gate.
* Thankfully averted in ''[[Wild
** In ''[[Wild
* In ''[[Sword of Mana]]'', several
* In ''[[Dragon Age]]'' pretty much all of your party members except Alistair and Morrigan can be lost to the ravages of this trope if you are not prepared to do the new character quests at the earliest opportunity.
** You can even accidentally choose to kill a potential party member instead of recruiting him. D'oh!
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** Near the end of the Awakening expansion, the Darkspawn lead two seperate attacks against the player, one on the city on Amaranthine and one the Warden's base, Vigil's Keep. The player has to choose which to save, and if you choose Amaranthine any party members currently stationed at Vigil's Keep will die in the attack. It is possible to save both Amaranthine and your soldiers at Vigil's Keep (though the keep itself is still rendered unusable for the rest of the game) but doing so requires the player to complete a lengthy sidequest that involves, among other things, collecting ore deposits. Said deposits happen to be located in places you can't return to after leaving, which means if you don't get them the first time you're there you can't finish the sidequest (and by extension, save your party members).
* ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' is full of this. The game is split into three acts, and any quests, treasures, party members, etc. that you don't get in one act will be unobtainable in the next. It's also possible to miss or lose every party member except {{spoiler|Varric}}, depending on your choices. Finally, certain areas and dungeons are inaccessible as soon as you leave them.
* ''[[Golden Sun: Dark Dawn]]'' has this with permanently missable djinn and summons, the former having an incredible ''35'' potential missable spread over three different points of no return, out of 72 total djinn. Particularly irritating in that some of these djinn and summons have ''very'' small windows of opportunity to get them, and there wasn't anything like this in the first two games. The Ninja Sandals equipment is also lost forever [[Guide Dang It|if you don't talk to a certain NPC the first time you're in Kaocho.]] Additionally, some Encyclopedia terms can be lost forever [[Guide Dang It|if you don't talk to random NPCs in the Morgal region,]] frustrating those who consider filling it out as part of [[
* The female protagonist's route in ''[[Persona 3]] Portable'' has two Social Links that are only available for one month each. If you fail to complete the Moon link in September or the Fortune link in November, they (and the powerful Personas that they enable access to) are gone for good.
** Even back in FES, it's easy to forget to confirm that you've taken Elizabeth (or Theodore in Portable) out on a date to obtain key items to fuse certain Personas before the quest's deadline.
* There aren't a lot of these in ''[[Opoona]]''
* In ''[[Dark Souls]]'', you lose the ability to join the Darkwraith covenant if after getting the Lordvessel you speak with Frampt before joining it. Fortunately there's always the next playthrough.
* In [[Arcanum:
** Another significant thing that can easily be
=== [[Simulation Game]] ===
* In ''[[Freelancer]]'', there is a very good ship called the Anubis that you have exactly four opportunities to obtain: if you don't get it (which is frankly rather silly, as it's dirt cheap) within those four chances, or sell it afterwards, it's
* Many of the older ''[[Harvest Moon]]'' games have items and characters that will become unavailable after a certain amount of time. Most famously is HM64, where Cliff and Karen will leave town if you do not get their relationship levels high enough - depriving you of two potential rival marriages and 100% completion on your recipe list. The death of {{spoiler|Ellen}} is avoidable, if you know what to watch out for (If she's sitting on the side of her house, instead of the front, DO NOT APPROACH). But if she dies, she'll take her recipe with her and knock a good chunk of points off Elli's affection levels.
** Another particularly nasty one is the Hot Springs in ''DS/Cute'', which can only be found by befriending or partially wooing Flora (regardless of whether or not you intend to marry her), since finding it is one of her Heart Events. The problem? If Flora marries her partner Carter, you're locked out of the event forever. In the girl version, it's based on Friendship instead of Affection, but you're ''still'' locked out of the Hot Springs-discovering event if Flora ''or you'' marries Carter, for seemingly arbitrary reasons. What do you miss if you don't get the Hot Springs? A different Hot Spring in another area of town, a shippable item (the Spa-Boiled Egg), and a ''huge'' chunk of Harvest Sprites, making [[One Hundred Percent Completion]] of the Harvest Sprite teams impossible. On top of it all? The whole thing is a [[Guide Dang It]].
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=== [[Stealth Based Game]] ===
* The [[Metal Gear]] series often averts this. For instance, if the player misses the SOCOM pistol at the start of ''MGS1'', he will have one sitting in front of him during the first major firefight. In ''MGS3'', if the player fails to locate the [[Night Vision Goggles]] in the cavern, EVA will simply hand him a set in a later cutscene, etc.
** There ''are'' still some items that can be
** ''The Twin Snakes'' has a silenced, tranquilizer-shooting M9. On nearly all difficulty levels, it's hidden somewhere in the Cave area. The cargo elevator at the back of the Cave is a one-way trip.
** In ''Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions'', if the player completes all the training missions, the game will show a concept artwork of Metal Gear RAY from the then-upcoming ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]''. However, there's no way to view picture again once the data has been saved.
=== [[Survival Horror]] ===
* the ''[[Fatal Frame]]'' games contain quite a few ghosts that only appear once, for a very short period of time, and are often very difficult to capture on film unless you know exactly where and when they will appear and have a lightning-fast shutter finger.
* In ''[[Silent Hill]]'', there are many [[Point of No Return|points of no return]] that can render items and weapons missable, for example, during the fight with the Twinfeeler (caterpillar, which later becomes a moth) boss, there is a rifle (may be required for the [[Final Boss]]) in one of the corners of the fighting arena. If you didn't happen to notice it and pick it up, it will never be available again. Similarly, there is a sledgehammer in the Nightmare Hospital boiler room, which will be
** The first game will actually ''reward'' you for entering the final boss fight with no ammo.
** And if you didn't get the red liquid in the bottle in the hospital, kiss Cybil and the Good+ ending goodbye. If you didn't unlock the motorcycle gas tank in the motel before you traversed the [[Point of No Return]] into the nightmare resort area, say goodbye to the Good ending too.
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** ''[[Silent Hill 3]]'': if you missed the stungun in Heather's apartment or the submachine gun in the hospital basement, ya missed 'em for good.
** ''[[Silent Hill 4]]'' completely [[Averted Trope|averts]] this by supplying halfway into the game the 'Ever Downward' spiral staircase, which vertically connects all levels in the game, allowing for all the backtracking it takes to retrieve missing items such as the Swords of Obedience and all two Silver Bullets.
* In ''[[Resident Evil]]: [[Resident Evil Code: Veronica|Code Veronica]]'' there's a section of the building that is {{spoiler|initially}} only accessible through a functioning metal detector gate which essentially puts the area on lockdown if you don't get rid of any metal items from your inventory. Fortunately there's a sort of baggage check compartment built in. This container is ''not'' connected to the other chests throughout the game. Remember to take everything out when you're done with that part, because "leaving town" doesn't begin to cover it. Of [[Guide Dang It|surprising significance]]: {{spoiler|an empty fire extinguisher}}.
** Near the end of ''Code Veronica'', Claire becomes playable until you encounter Steve for the last time. Whatever items or weapons she's carrying will be lost forever when you switch back to Chris near the end of the game.
** ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'' features missable treasures in various parts of the game. While any treasure becomes lost forever if you move on to the next section of the game, the combine-able treasures (beer stein, crown, and golden lynx) in particular are likely to be missed as well as their smaller parts. While this doesn't make the game [[Unwinnable]] it does prevent you from making lots of money and thus delaying your weapons progression.
** ''[[Resident Evil Outbreak]]'' had an online mode hosted on Capcom servers. Because the game was a commercial flop, Capcom closed the servers and much of the game's features are
** In ''[[Resident Evil 2|RE 2]]'', any optional item before the Laboratory is missable, such as the Sparkshot(Claire) and Shotgun Parts (Leon), which are found on a corpse in an easily-missed dead end, the Weapon Box Key found by lighting an easily-ignored flare gun (with the Lighter that Claire doesn't automatically carry), and finally, the Sidepack and Submachine Gun(which you either find in the Weapons Room, or the Culture Experiment Room that you have to unlock with both characters).
* ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'' had runes et cetera that would not be necessary in one level, but would be needed in another, the
* ''[[Deadly Premonition]]'' has sidequests and collectible items that appear and disappear throughout the game, sometimes for what seems to be very little reason. It's extremely easy to check too early or late and thus miss out on a sidequest, which then never shows up again.
=== [[Turn
* In ''[[
** Doesn't help that they're two Lost Forevers in one - not only do they need to be captured so that Morphers can become them, but they also teach Blue Mage abilities - and they can't be learned from Morphers.
** Thanks to the limit of holding only 64 mission items, it is possible to keep throwing away extra mission items when you are full (most of them you can get again and again) and wind up accidentally tossing away an item that cannot be obtained again. What's that? Two missions need Black Thread and you tossed one of the two away? Can't complete all 300 missions and can't recruit Cid. Oops!
** Thanks to enemy thieves, mog knights, and snipers, you could potentially lose some of your exclusive equipment forever due to it being broken or stolen. The purple turtle enemies also had the ability to break your equipment by ''eating it''.
* ''[[
* One of the most insidious
* In every game of the ''[[Suikoden]]'' series, while most of the [[108]] recruitable characters either join automatically over the course of the story or can be recruited at any time, some have limited windows of opportunity, after which they're
** One particular example in ''[[Suikoden II]]'' is the Clive subquest. He's chasing after a woman. Easy enough, let's help him out. If your ''total play time'' is too high, then he loses the trail and will never find it again, giving him the "bad" ending for his character (he chases her for pretty much the rest of his life). The problem with this is two fold: first, there's no indication that this will happen at any point, meaning if you lose the trail, you'll have no idea why without a guide. Second, in order to fully complete his quest, you have to reach the last possible village in the game (which is, itself, optional) in less than twenty hours play time (not the easiest accomplishment even if you know from the start to try for it). For most gamers without a specific guide for recruiting characters and level building, this is all but impossible.
*** Thus, most players either don't bother with Clive's subquest (as it's immaterial to whether you get the best ending for the game as a whole), or they [[Game Shark|cheat]].
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** Another batch of potential things to Lose Forever was introduced in the GBA remake...cards. Some cards are tucked away in inconspicuous places; Anri's is in a bookcase, and most bookcases in the game simply call up useless flavor text when examined. Others, however, are nicknamed "Friendship Cards" in that you have to build rapport with certain party members to get them. How do you build this rapport? Simple: bring the character in question with you into battle ''and make sure they never get KO'd''; this unlocks more and more of their monologues in headquarters between missions, and eventually they say something to the effect of "take this; we're friends" and reward you with their card.
*** In the same vein as the above "Friendship Cards", certain enemies have to be finished off by certain characters. A particularly Egregrious example is Balzack, who has to be defeated by a knight named Earnest (who, it should be noted, you just recieved prior to the Balzack battle. Granted, this makes sense, since Earnest pretty much exists to Wangst over his beef with Balzack; on the other hand, [[Guide Dang It|the mission immediately before that asks you to eliminate a random Hellhound with Guntz.]] <s>God</s> Light help you if you didn't even recruit Guntz...
*** Well, at least you had as many [[New Game
** Several of the best (or [[Rule of Cool|coolest]]) characters (and one [[Joke Character]]) could be missed without ever being seen if you took the direct route over the [[Sidequest|scenic route]]. These included the [[Ninja]], [[Samurai]], [[Prestige Class|magic-wielding centaur]], [[Bare-Fisted Monk|healer/monk]], [[Easter Egg|mutant egg creature]], and a hamster.
* In ''[[Advance Wars]] 2'' and ''Advance Wars Dual Strike'', certain levels have cities that, when captured, unlock a bonus mission. If you clear said certain levels without capturing said certain cities, the bonus mission - and the prize for completing it - is
* Since you cannot replay missions in the ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' series, this goes for everything and almost everyone that is not automatically given to you. Often in ways of ''[[Guide Dang It]]''. Watch out for items hidden in deserts or for chests in stages with enemy thieves.
** In ''Genealogy of the Holy War,'' not pairing up the 'right' people in the first half of the game can result in certain weapons becoming unusable or downright lost.
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** To top it off certain items can only be acquired through various means. Many items require you to have fought and killed them with higher luck, others require you to steal it (your luck should not be high enough to force a drop), others still require you to have done something in previous maps and the oh so impossible to find Fanelia weapon which requires you to have acquired the Hyper drill by collecting 7 hard to find duds (and in the process missing out on certain equipment in the old game unless you saved and reloaded) and stepped on a space 3 times to having to kill an enemy with a specific card ability.
*** To make things even worse, in order to even equip Hyper drill(a requirement to get fanelia), Durant must be at the max level in the game(not an easy thing to do)
* ''[[Star Control]] 2'' is full of these. One of the most effective ships in the game is piloted by a race of abject cowards and if you fail to get a supply of them immediately when able, they all disappear under [[Sealed Good in
* Some of the dungeons in ''[[Eternal Eyes]]'' cannot be accessed after you defeat their respective bosses. While in some cases this doesn't seem so bad, some of those dungeons contain [[Randomly Drops|randomly dropped]] equipment that you might want. In particular, Villee Fort (which gets replaced in the tenth and final chapter) has the excellent Ninja Suit in it, which is one of the few equipment that can increase your Movement Points and let you travel farther.
* ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' loves this trope. Every secret in the game is missable, and you aren't ever really told about them... however, most of them are logical and there aren't a lot of variations on how to get secrets, so it usually becomes a matter of trial and error. Also, in the games with Skill Points, it generally becomes a matter of having really high or really low Skill Points.
** Shin Getter Robo's probably the best example of this. In ''Alpha'' and ''Alpha Gaiden'', fans had to choose between keeping Getter Robo G or Shin Getter Robo once Shin Getter appeared (it was the same for Mazinger-Z and Mazinkaiser, but only in ''Alpha''), ''Impact'' forced you to choose between Shin Getter Robo and normal Weissritter or Getter Robo G and Rein Weissritter and choosing a certain path in ''Compact 3'' would either net you an unupgraded Shin Getter Robo or an upgraded Getter Robo G.
* The Linear plotline of all [[Fire Emblem]] games tends to make this fairly common. The enemy killed off the only person capable of recruiting some powerful enemy to your side? TOO BAD! You missed out on the [[Guide Dang It|secret shop]]? No going back to it! Sometimes an enemy will drop a unique item. You know where this is going.
* In ''[[Warhammer 40
=== [[Turn Based Tactics]] ===
* In ''[[X-COM]]: Terror from the Deep'', the Sonic Pistol is phased out by the aliens after a few months. This can screw you over if a) none actually ever spawned during that time, or b) you sold all the ones that did because you didn't know about it. Researching the Sonic Pistol is tremendously important, because it's both the best assault weapon in the game, and a required prerequisite for the Sonic Oscillator, the best craft weapon. It is possible to win without these, so it isn't [[Unwinnable]], but it's a lot harder.
** This game has a couple of research tree bugs:
*** These two items, the MC Reader and the Sub Construction store item, are special in that they will only become available for research if and only if a sample is available in your general stores before completing research for their prerequisite technologies.
*** Live Deep One, which should only be researched after you have met the other prerequisites for Ion Armour. Without {{spoiler|Armours you won't get to research advanced subs; without advanced subs you can't reach T'leth and defeat the aliens once and for all.}}
* In ''[[Odium]]'', combats and exploration are done on separate maps. Sometimes, combat maps contain a [[Crate Expectations|crate]] with goodies or two. If you do not open and empty a crate before killing all the enemies, everything you failed to grab will be
* Cecille from ''[[Luminous Arc]]'' has a particularly plot-relevant Class Change that resets her [[Relationship Values]] and opens up a new set of related conversations. Any items you didn't get from raising her [[Relationship Values]] before her class change are Lost Forever, along with the special CG for maxing them. ''Really'' forever, since her class change is retained going into the [[New Game
=== Visual Novels ===
* In ''[[
=== [[Wide Open Sandbox]] ===
* Entire ''missions'' in ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' (and its ''GTA: London'' expansion packs) are
* In ''[[
** Additionally, missions where you work for {{spoiler|Kenji}} can be lost forever, if you don't complete them before {{spoiler|doing a mission for Donald Love where you kill Kenji to start a gang war.}} However, players surprised that {{spoiler|killing somebody makes it impossible to get missions from them}} should consider the possibility that they've been playing too much Grand Theft Auto III.
** Same with Salvatore Leone, whose missions that you didn't complete are lost forever after you assassinate him.
*** On top of that, there was a bug in the PC version that made 100% completion impossible forever on any new games you save. There is a mission on Shoreside Vale where you have to do a drive by on X amount of enemies. If you had completed all the missions for the guy at the phone and attempt to do this particular mission in a new game after saving, the enemies NEVER spawn!
** ''[[
*** "The Lost and Damned" expansion has an even more egregious example. {{spoiler|When Brian betrays you and shacks up in an abandoned house, Jim will suggest that you bring along Terry and Clay to help you kill his faction. If you do so, they will set up behind the house and tell you to throw a grenade through the front window. If you do this, you lose the option to spare Brian and play his later missions. You essentially have to ignore the game's directions in order to see this option.}}
* [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] in ''[[Bully (
* ''[[No More Heroes]]''. The collectible cards scattered around in each of the ranking matches are
* In ''[[The Godfather (
== [[Web Original]] ==▼
* Any website that doesn't allow the Internet Archive to search its old pages.▼
*
* All The Tropes has its own examples, thanks to the Orain hack and an earlier crash. For instance, the current version of the page for [[Lord Buckley]] is a reconstruction of one posted just before the hack.
▲== Card Games ==
▲* Not exactly [[Lost Forever]], but if you didn't get the [[Magic the Gathering|Power Nine]] when ''Beta'' came out, you'd better be a professional gamer, or you'll never see the point. Same with dual lands.
** A video by [[That Dude in
** Every single video that [[Unperson|Daniel "That Aussie Guy" Rizzo]] made for the site.▼
▲== Comic Books ==
* In the same vein as the above, many a [[YouTube]] video has become
▲* ''[[Y the Last Man (Comic Book)|Y the Last Man]]'': Done via [[Continuity Nod]]. During the ''One Small Step'' arc, [[Escape Artist]] main character Yorick is stuck in unpickable handcuffs designed by Mossad of Israel's Secret Service. A couple of arcs later, we see a flashback of a magic store owner offering him the only skeleton key that works on those cuffs. Yorick must have been kicking himself.
** Thankfully, this is becoming far less common with the increasing accessibility of software and browser plug-ins that allow fans to download videos. Any single video (or even a channel's entire video library) with even a modest amount of popularity will likely be downloaded by somebody somewhere along the way. And more often than not, when a popular channel ends up biting the dust, at least one fan will step up and repost one, some, or all of that dead channel's video library.▼
* Several writers of the ''original'' [[
* Fanfiction.net never lets any [[Fan Fiction]] remain on the site forever. Which is sad, since the Wayback Machine can't archive anything there...▼
* Public user photo site Fotopic went into administration in 2011, taking with it 8 years worth of images, websites, galleries... the lot. And with the Wayback Machine unable to save anything from it, it's all gone for good.▼
* At one time there was a [http://lostforeverwiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page wiki] for this trope, but as you might guess from the [[Wayback Machine]] link it itself is long gone, and it appears that in its short life it didn't manage to save much.
* The staff of [[tumblr]] tried to ''enforce'' this trope by banning volunteer teams who were frantically trying to rescue/archive content from "adult" pages that were going to be destroyed when it [[Think of the Advertisers!|purged itself of adult content to better appeal to advertisers]] in December 2018.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* The Honjo Masamune, probably the most famous sword made by the swordsmith Gorō Nyūdō Masamune, was by and large considered the single finest katana ever made and was a personal treasure of the Tokugawa Shogunate, as well as a Japanese National Treasure. In 1945, Prince Tokugawa Iemasa entrusted the Honjo Masamune and 14 other swords to a Police station in Mejiro, only for them to be given to a sergeant of the 7th Air Cavalry of the United States Military one month later. Since then, however, the whereabouts of the sword are completely unknown.
** 'The Greatest Generation' really got their hands on a lot of cool loot
* As of late 2023, there are [https://screenrant.com/doctor-who-missing-episodes-1960s/ 97] [[Missing Episode|missing episodes]] of ''[[Doctor Who]]'', the master copies of which were destroyed to make room in the BBC archives. But don't give up hope -- [https://thedoctorwhocompanion.com/2023/08/04/missing-episodes-of-doctor-who-are-definitely-out-there-and-will-eventually-be-recovered/ every once in a while one of these is rediscovered]. When this entry was originally written in the 2010s, there were ''106'' missing episodes.
* [
** And the earliest methods of copying the films for distribution actually ''degrades'' the strips that's being copied from.
** Not to mention that early filmstock is dangerously flammable, and entire archives have subsequently been lost to fire.
* In one of the ballsiest moves in the history of modern music (from a band that made their ''entire career'' on being ballsy), anti-establishment electronica duo [[The
** To clarify, the term "deleted" means no longer in print by request of the artist. This happens a lot, but the artist usually only "deletes" an album/single or two, not their entire discography. It's pretty easy to find their discography on the internet, minus a few releases that may or may not exist. Whether or not the master tapes still exist is up for debate.
* Averted by [[Tom Lehrer]], who put his entire catalogue into the public domain at the end of 2022, after which he had all his tracks packaged up and posted on the net for anyone who wanted them.
* Any time a species goes extinct.
* In early July 2019, every single eBook ever sold by Microsoft, including those that were free to download -- along with any personal annotations anyone ever made to their copies -- abruptly ceased to be available when Microsoft got out of the eBook business and decided that maintaining a skeleton DRM system so that its customers could keep their books was ''more trouble and more expensive'' than issuing refunds for every book they ever sold, along with a US$25 credit for the loss of annotations.
** Microsoft did something similar to ''[[w:AltspaceVR|AltspaceVR]]'' in 2023. As one of the earlier virtual environments on several VR devices, it had a good following that grew to thousands of users and "worlds", but it was free to use and unprofitable for its owners except as a source of ideas. Microsoft bought it in 2017, when the original developer ran out of money to run it. They used some of its features in their other products, [[Executive Meddling|messed about]] for a few years and then pulled the plug.
* ''[[Relatively Absent]]'' by Mark "Togashi Gaijin" Shurtleff, was an incomplete, [[Doorstopper|epic-length]] ''[[Ranma ½]]/[[Sailor Moon]]'' [[Crossover Fic]] of remarkable quality that at 11 large chapters was clearly still in the process of setting up its plot when Shurtleff abandoned fan fiction entirely in 2009. He took down his story archives and managed to purge ''Relatively Absent'' (and his other fan writing) entirely from the Web -- even from the [[Wayback Machine]]. He then spent the next ten years or so firing off take-down notices to every site that tried to repost it. Archives of this and his other stories exist and [[Keep Circulating the Tapes|are traded fan-to-fan]], but unless you know someone who has it, you're out of luck.
▲* ''[[The Bible]]'' teaches that most ''human beings'' are this. People are "lost" when they sin, in which case they must be "found" (saved) before they die. If they are not, they are [[Hell|permanently lost]], with no hope of ever being retrieved.
▲== Tabletop RPG ==
▲* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' adventure WG6 ''Isle of the Ape''. Near the end of the module six jewels worth a total of 300,000 gold pieces float to the ground. If the party doesn't pick them up within one round (1 minute) they vanish forever.
▲== Web Original ==
▲* Any website that doesn't allow the Internet Archive to search its old pages.
▲* In the [[TV Tropes Wiki]], due to [[The Great Crash]], certain examples and [[Made of Win]] articles were Lost... ''Forever''...
▲* From [[That Guy With the Glasses (Website)|That Guy With the Glasses]]:
▲** A video by [[That Dude in The Suede]] that ranted against Youtube's takedowns of [[The Nostalgia Critic (Web Video)|The Nostalgia Critic]] episodes which caught the interest of [[Doug Walker]] and in turn was responsible for That Guy With The Glasses/Channel Awesome becoming a showcase for more contributors other than Walker is lost and gone forever. The reason? Suede said he'd delete the video when the dispute between Walker and [[YouTube]] had run its course and Suede had saved the video on a now long-gone college computer.
▲** Every single video that [[Unperson|Daniel "That Aussie Guy" Rizzo]] made for the site.
▲** [[The Nostalgia Chick]]'s controversial ''[[Film/Dune|Dune]]'' review.
▲* In the same vein as the above, many a [[YouTube]] video has become [[Lost Forever]] due to the creator deleting their account, or, more often, the video being taken down due to copyright infringement.
▲** Thankfully, this is becoming far less common with the increasing accessibility of software and browser plug-ins that allow fans to download videos. Any single video (or even a channel's entire video library) with even a modest amount of popularity will likely be downloaded by somebody somewhere along the way. And more often than not, when a popular channel ends up biting the dust, at least one fan will step up and repost one, some, or all of that dead channel's video library.
▲* Several writers of the ''original'' [[Darwins Soldiers]] RP on Furtopia played out scenes via private messaging. Those scenes were never released... not even to the GM.
▲* Fanfiction.net never lets any [[Fan Fiction]] remain on the site forever. Which is sad, since the Wayback Machine can't archive anything there...
▲* Public user photo site Fotopic went into administration in 2011, taking with it 8 years worth of images, websites, galleries... the lot. And with the Wayback Machine unable to save anything from it, it's all gone for good.
▲== Choose Your Own Adventure-type books ==
▲* ''[[Fighting Fantasy]]'' could be particularly bad about this. In "Black Vein Prophecy" and "Creature of Havoc", you could miss useful items or powers ''on a dice roll''. ("Black Vein Prophecy" was particularly grim, since the dice roll in question was failing a [[Luck Stat]] roll.)
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