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Player Punch (view source)

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== Video Games ==
=== [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPGs]] ===
* In the [[Alien Invasion|Rikti War]] [[Remilitarized Zone|Zone]] arcs of ''[[City of Heroes]]'', Lt. Sefu Tendaji, the Longbow agent who's generally friendly toward you regardless of whatever other issues Longbow and Vanguard have, fills this role.
** What makes it a wonderfully painful Punch isn't that he's built up nicely as a sympathetic figure, working first as an extremely useful ally and then as an honorable ([[That One Boss|if hard to defeat]]) enemy. It's that he isn't even killed for a good reason. He's not a threat, about to uncover the terrible secret behind the Rikti War. He's not an inspirational symbol of how enemies can team up to challenge a greater evil. No, he's killed because Nemesis is a racist. That's the point where he goes from [[Magnificent Bastard]] to Complete Monster.
** The game gives us a new one in Issue 17: You're given a doppelganger who at first is an opponent, but then starts working with you on your missions. At the end of the arc, they're all alone fighting off dozens of clones of you while you're taking on the mastermind behind the whole mess. You win, but the fight takes its toll on your double; they stay behind to make sure the bombs they set go off, and you race to get them out... you're forcefully kicked from the mission just as you're about to reach them and everything explodes around you.
* In the ''Wrath of the Lich King'' expansion in ''[[World of Warcraft]]''. Any player, Horde or Alliance, who has experienced it needs only to hear the words Angra'thar the Wrath Gate.
** Less so on Horde side, though. Alliance loses Bolvar Fordragon, the benevolent regent of Stormwind, who had been in the game for more than two years and had saved the player character from being ambushed by the dragon Onyxia. Horde loses Saurfang the Younger, who, unlike his [[Badass]] father, had done nothing remarkable until the Wrath Gate.
*** Except that wasn't the only thing the Horde lost: Apart from the emotional significance of delivering the news of Saurfang the Younger's death to his father, the Horde must then confront one of their former racial leaders, Varimathras, who has been in the game since launch and even started quest lines for younger characters. The Horde falls under martial law, the Forsaken have to, well, forsake their home until Thrall, Sylvanas and Vol'jin can storm the Undercity with the player character (and any friends he/she brings) and put an end to Varimathras, removing him from the game permanently. And even after you tear one of the Horde's capitals down to cinders around the traitor's ears, you learn that it was still all for naught, and the Alliance king Varian Wrynn reignites the war that Thrall and the others have been fighting for years to prevent.
*** This is still a difficult quest line for the Alliance players who enjoy the lore and fleshed out story Blizzard has really put into this expansion. You first accompany Jaina Proudmoore on a diplomatic mission to Thrall about the events at the Wrathgate and find that both Jaina and Thrall are dedicated to creating peace and cooperation on both sides to fight Arthas. After you help Varian and Jaina reclaim the Undercity, Varian hears a warcry from Thrall for having defeated Varimathras and takes the fight on to Thrall and his soldiers. Wrynn then declares his goal to destroy the Horde once and for all. Jaina does stop him, but not before it's too late to stop the war. No specific player or NPC dies, just the hope for peace between the Horde and Alliance.
*** The Wrath Gate also has a.... different kind of Player Punch, specifically for Forsaken players. See, that bioweapon Putress is hocking at the Horde, Alliance AND Scourge? Yeah, every single Forsaken player had a hand in making that. There's a series of quests before you even leave the starting zone - called 'A New Plague', in which we assist the [[For Science!|Royal Apothecary Society]] in the development of a new secret weapon(ized disease). When Putress roars DID YOU THINK WE HAD FORGOTTEN?, every single Forsaken on Azeroth went [[Oh Crap|HOLY CRAP WE DID.]] It gets more evident once you reach Vengeance Landing and Venomspite, but it only sinks in after the Wrath Gate.
**** The entire Horde-side questline through Howling Fjord and Venomspite deals with the Forsaken apothecary's final preparations to bring this weapon to bear. If you ever did those zones, you were directly responsible for this.
*** The Wrath Gate comes back to haunt the player even further when one of the bosses in Icecrown Citadel turns out to be Deathbringer Saurfang. Yes, Arthas raised Saurfang the Younger after the Wrathgate incident to become his most powerful Death Knight and now the player has to kill him. Again. Alliance and Horde each even get their own versions of an in-game cutscene to beat the crap out of you even more:
**** Horde players are accompanied by High Overlord Saurfang -- ''his father''—when he appears at the entrance to the Upper Spire and asks his father to join him in service to Arthas. The High Overlord responds, "My boy died at the Wrathgate. I am only here to claim his body." before charging into battle. After the battle, Saurfang kneels over his son's body and weeps before carrying it to the airship to take him to Nagrand to be placed with his mother at the ancestral burial grounds.
**** For Alliance players, when the fight is over, the High Overlord arrives to claim his son's body, only to be [[You Shall Not Pass|stopped]] by Muradin Bronzebeard. Muradin is about to resort to force when Jaina Proudmoore teleports herself and King Wrynn onto the scene. Considering [[Jerkass|Wrynn]] and Saurfang's history, when the King tells Muradin, "Stand down, Muradin. Let a grieving father pass," ''every single Alliance player'' knows exactly how much a [[World of Warcraft/Heartwarming|Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming]] this is.
** And anyone who's played a death knight needs only to hear the words "A Special Surprise" for still another.
*** Night Elf Death Knights have it the worst out of all the races. For Night Elves, the target of the quest is their caretaker while they were still an infant. [[Tear Jerker|DAMN.]]
** For many Horde players, if they can [[Memetic Mutation|find her]], delivering the news to Mankrik about his wife can be a sobering task.
** For Alliance players, there's Emmy Malin. Emmy is a captain in Malygos' anti-magic army and is in charge of one of the ley line foci located in southwestern Dragonblight. Player characters have to kill her to get a ring necessary for reading and recording information stored in the focus she's guarding. When looted by an Alliance character, her corpse proves to hold a letter she had written to her father, detailing how she had been forced into serving Malygos and that she had been working from the inside to sabotage the corrupted blue dragons' plans. The questgiver tells the PCs that they shouldn't feel guilty as there was no way they could have known, and Emmy's father, an Archmage in Dalaran, even sends a letter later saying that he understands the actions taken by the PCs and forgives them . . . but ''damn''. That's still a kick in the gut.
*** The same goes in Horde version for Ta'zinni, who had a similar backstory and of course another quest requires you to kill him as well. Converse to the Alliance equivalent, Ta'zinni's sister sends the player a letter swearing vengeance on whoever killed her brother, your exact role in his death being covered up when she was informed.
** A Horde example at the end of the Pit of Saron instance, with the death of [[Incredibly Lame Pun|SpartOrcus]] [[Killed Mid-Sentence|in the middle of]] a [[Rousing Speech]] praising the players' triumph. The real punch isn't his death though, but rather Sylvannas's [[Never Speak Ill of the Dead|posthumous mockery of him]].
** The final battle with Arthas in Icecrown Citadel is a literal player punch for the PCs. After a long, difficult and grueling fight against The Lich King, once he reaches a certain health level, [[Hopeless Boss Fight|he effortlessly wipes your entire raid.]] He tells you that [[Xanatos Gambit|he's been waiting for you to fight your way through to him]] and now the [[Unwitting Pawn|most powerful heroes in Azeroth]] will [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|become his most powerful Death Knights]]. [[Oh Crap|Oops.]] Fortunately the spirit of his father appears to resurrect your team and assist in finally beating Arthas down.
*** Thereby turning what just about every lore fan acknowledged was Arthas being handed an [[Idiot Ball]] into a [[Fridge Brilliance|genius]] [[Xanatos Gambit]].
** The Battle of Darrowshire. While we see why the Plaguelands is called Plaguelands, finding a ghost of a ''little girl'' is a completely different thing.
** A good Punch (though not actually tear-jerking) comes with the unbelievably long quest chain (''the'' longest in the game) in The Storm Peaks, where you basically reinvigorate a downcast Thorim to raze hell ''only to find out that'' ''everything'' you'd done for Lok'lira the Crone, from freeing her to the end of the quest chain, was actually for Thorim's [[Jerkass]] brother Loken. It's ''your fault'' that Thorim gets captured and corrupted. It's ''your'' fault that Veranus, a noble proto-dragon broodmother and Thorim's old ally, is tortured and transformed into Razorscale. This isn't a Player Punch, so much as it's a [[Street Fighter (video game)|Player Instant-Hell-Murder]].
** In the old Duskwood zone, there was a very long questline you do for a nice old man living in a shack at the edge of the woods. His requests for things like ghoul ribs, plague flowers etc. aren't really that strange considering what else this game has had you do so far. And he only wants to make wacky voodoo charms to protect himself, right? Up until he hands you a note to take to the town mayor, informing them about the horrific abomination that he's created and is about to unleash on their town. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Which so you kindly helped him to build.]]
*** Also in Duskwood is the saga of Mortimer Ladimir, the selfless paladin who spent his entire life sacrificing for the good of others, only to be caught by despair and corruption following the death of his wife and children. Also known as Mor'Ladim, the elite-level killer revenant who will appear out of the dark mists without warning to kill your ass while you're trying to complete quests in the eerie graveyard of Raven Hill.
* In ''[[Vindictus]]'', Ellis is a cadet who at first comes off as the "Oh I'm happy to be here" cadet for the royal army. After it's implied that the royal army was the provocation of a recently destroyed village he almost breaks at the mere thought that his ideals were not those of his army's, to the point of appearing sad for the first time. When he gets permission to examine the incident, he rushes off to the village to examine. The normally [[Cloudcuckoolander]] old man realizes just how deadly that was, and warns you that you had better get over there fast. He promptly gets brutalized and then killed when you finally catch up to him.
 
 
=== Platform Games ===
* ''[[Klonoa]]: Door to Phantomile'' has two—first, we discover that Klonoa was never a resident of the world to begin with, but is really a dream traveller destined to travel from world to world wherever danger goes, and that all of his memories of his life there were false ones implanted by his friend Huepow. ''Then'', we have the [[Tear Jerker|absolutely gut-wrenching ending]] where Klonoa is permanently sent away from Dream Phantomile, just after Huepow tried in vain to keep him from being sucked away.
* ''[[Metroid|Super Metroid]]'' did this with the Metroid larva which imprinted on Samus as its mother at the end of the second game. Its kidnapping starts the plot of ''Super'' and when we next see it outside its little case, it's been mutated to a horrendously huge size. In a rather touching scene, the giant Metroid nearly kills Samus, but suddenly backs off when it recognizes its "mother." The Metroid is later killed by Mother Brain while rescuing Samus from her near lethal wounds. Considering you're given an [[Eleventh-Hour Superpower|ungodly powerful gun]] as the Metroid's last sacrifice, Mother Brain probably didn't have time to process she was vaporized before you finish the monster off.
** And on top of all this, the Metroid gives an absolutely pitiable death cry when Mother Brain blasts it. Try to find a ''Metroid'' fan who isn't affected by that sound.
** What makes it even more of a Player Punch is that Mother Brain reactivates and starts blasting the poor Metroid with all her power, but the Metroid refuses to flee or even let go of Samus until the latter is fully healed. The Metroid's bright green shell and crimson nuclei darken gradually as the energy drain/Mother Brain assault combination slowly kills it, and any first-time player is likely ''screaming'' at the Metroid to go away before it really dies.
*** In ''[[Metroid: Other M]]'' the scene where [[Arch Enemy|Ridley]] finally makes a full appearance and Samus flashes back to when he killed her parents, it truly drives home that while Samus is an ultra-hard, unstoppable [[Badass]], she's that way a great deal in part because her parents were brutally murdered right before her eyes when she was just a little girl.
* ''[[Sonic Adventure 2]]'' has Robotnik apparently kill main hero ''Sonic'', acting as a Player Punch for his sidekick Tails.
** Emerl from ''[[Sonic Battle]]''. They even dared to put in a [[Hope Spot]] moment before Sonic is forced to kill him. All of this because Emerl was nice to Eggman...
** When Mephiles kills Sonic in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 video game)||Sonic the Hedgehog 2006]]''.
* ''[[Tomb Raider (video game)|Tomb Raider]] Underworld'': Poor Alister. And as for Amelia Croft, it's a punch to both the player and Lara.
* The death of Dan at the hands of recurring villain Asha in ''[[Iji]]''. There is a way to save him, but one you're not likely to find the first time you play the game.
** For that matter, the death of Tasen Soldier <nowiki>KG111:PAIE</nowiki> and the rest of the surviving Tasen is fairly crushing. Three of them can, however, be saved.
* ''[[Ape Escape]]'' had the villainous albino monkey Specter kidnap and brainwash the protagonist's friend Jake (the only person who would have been directly able to help him, and considering his superior jumping ability, he would have been a big help) and pit the two against each other three times, the third time resulting in a broken arm for Jake.
* ''[[Jak and Daxter|Jak 3]]'' had that horrifying death scene with Damas. During said scene, we discover that he's Jak's father. Jak figures out right away, but Damas doesn't and he ''dies before he got to know the son he missed WAS Jak!'' Veger, YOU ARE SO GOING TO '''DIE'''! Too bad the game doesn't even give you the pleasure of beating him up; though he at least ends up humiliated.
* [[The Smart Guy|Bentley]] being crippled by [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder|Clock]]-[[Complete Monster|La]] near the end of ''[[Sly Cooper]] 2''. It's made even more heartbreaking because you have to do the standard [[Quick Time Event|button-mashing sequence]] as [[The Big Guy|Murray]] to get him out, but no matter how hard you try, he can't be saved. It's even worse when Bentley cries for someone to pick him up and causes poor Murray to go [[Heroic BSOD|walk the Earth for peace]].
** Also, many players came to really love Arpeggio. But when Clockla killed him...CLOCKLA WILL DIE IN THE PITS OF HELL!
* When Ignitus gets killed in ''[[The Legend of Spyro]]'', you really start pulling out all the stops.
* In the Flash game ''The Company of Myself'', it is strongly implied that something bad happened to the narrator's girlfriend, Kathryn. It still comes as a shock when you get to the flashback level where you have to sacrifice Kathryn to proceed.
* In ''[[Prince of Persia]]: Sands of Time'', the Sands transform the Prince's father into a boss. Guess what happens.
** ''Warrior Within'': In case you didn't figure it out, that attractive woman who the Prince has been having sexual tension with for most of the game? That's the Empress of Time. And she's been trying to kill you. Oh, and you have to kill yourself. [[It Makes Sense in Context]].
** ''The Two Thrones'': The Prince's father is dead, and has been so for a while.
* ''[http://www.kongregate.com/games/ambitiousk/can-your-pet Can Your Pet?]'' looks at first glance like a harmless little virtual pet game where you get to customize [[Ridiculously Cute Critter|an adorable baby chick]], feed it, shower it, play with it and so forth. The more you do with your pet, the more options get unlocked at the bottom of the screen, leading all the way up to the bicycle at the far right.. ''It's not a bicycle at all.'' Click it and the floor drops out from under your pet, sending it falling into a black void; the bicycle icon then grows huge, flips upside-down, and reveals itself to be ''a pair of buzzsaws'' that promptly process your pet [[Ludicrous Gibs]]-style into a pile of chicken parts which fall down into a can labeled with whatever name you gave your pet. [[Ear Worm|And all the while this obnoxious chicken song is playing.]] That's right, [[Cruelty Is the Only Option|the game tricks you into not only killing your pet,]] [[Moral Event Horizon|but butchering it as well.]] [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|And its title is a terrible pun.]]
* At the very end of ''[[Drawn to Life]]: The Next Chapter'',The very world you've been working hard to save for the past three games is forced to be put to an end for the sake of keeping two characters alive in the real world.
* [[Mega Man X]]'s Zero ends up being a major player punch when, true to his name, he kamikazes Vile (the planes used at Pearl Harbor were called Zeros - although this is not the origin of his name). And it also seems that X himself channels the player punch by breaking out of an electrocage, having his health refill and finally having his weapons restored.
** The player punch feelings comes up again after defeating Vile with the conversation, and gift, that Zero will give you if you didn't get the buster upgrade.
*** By the by, if this scene is too much for someone to handle in the SNES version, do ''not'' play the PSP remake. It's ''[[Tear Jerker|much worse]]''.
** And the favor is eventually returned in ''[[Mega Man Zero]]''. Elpizo destroys X's body in order to release the Dark Elf.
*** This one is worse...because Zero made it in time, but was immobilized and could only watch helplessly.
** This scene is somewhat mirrored in ''[[Mega Man ZX]]'', when the [[Big Bad]] takes control of Zero's ZX [[Expy]], Girouette and forces the two of you to fight to the death. You don't get to [[Take a Third Option]].
** [[I Let Gwen Stacy Die|Iris]]. Zero's really, really pissed after this especially since he was forced to fight her. Cue [[Unstoppable Rage]] that would span the last few stages of the game. Afterwards, he even [[Heroic BSOD|wonders if he's actually capable of saving anyone he cares for]]. Ouch...
* Kwolok's demise in ''Ori and the Will of the Wisps'' is widely regarded as the saddest moment in the game: [[Mood Whiplash|just as things are getting better and the land starts to heal itself]], the [[Big Good]] suddenly gets brainwashed by the Stink Spirit that nearly killed Ori earlier and [[Fighting Your Friend|forced to fight him to the death]]. The Stink Spirit is brutal, literally using Kwolok as a battering ram during the fight, and all you can do is attack the visibly struggling and suffering Kwolok until he snaps out of the brainwashing and [[The Dog Bites Back|crushes the Stink Spirit himself]], before dying of his injuries after a last farewell to Ori.
 
=== Puzzle Games ===
* [[Stray Souls Dollhouse Story]]. The main character Danielle frees the clown, who promises to free Sam, who's locked in a cage, and she's just about to be reunited... when the clown pushes her in and it turns out to be a mannequin. That's pretty harsh...
* The defenseless, innocent, immobile, inanimate [[Companion Cube]] from ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]''.
** Worse (especially for players who didn't get attached to the cube, or had already given up on empathy when you have to use it to block a plasma ball) is the screams of the cheerily curious little Curiosity Core as it meets the same fate as the Companion Cube.
{{quote|Ooh, what's thatYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!}}
* Subverted early on in ''[[Portal 2]]'': [[GLaDOS]] crushes Wheatley, the friendly, chatty, funny little personality core that was helping you navigate to freedom through the ruins of the Enrichment Center. Being an Aperture robot, he wasn't exactly attentive to your risks, and he very suddenly pops back up in Chapter 3 to help you out again, with a cracked lense and twitching spark now and then but perfectly fine otherwise. But the real subversion kicks in when {{spoiler|he becomes corrupt and villainous for the second half of the game, stopping your escape elevator mid-ascension. Given how he's less than compassionate even when he was helping you, his eventual fate doesn't fall into this category.}}
** Played very straight with the dear old Companion Cube in Chapter 2 though, served with a hearty side of [[Yank the Dog's Chain|chain yanking.]] It's given no introduction, but players of the first game recognize it as their dear friend, and then...{{spoiler|it disintegrates the second you pick it up. [[GLaDOS]] taunts you about it as she replaces it with a new Companion Cube, which she also destroys, so she can taunt you again with how very expendable the Cube is as she summons a third one you can actually use.}} Then the Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grill in that chamber just-so-happens to be broken, so you can even {{spoiler|smuggle the Companion Cube out of the chamber...only for [[GLaDOS]] to destroy it as you step in the elevator.}}
*** Made worse when [[GLaDOS]] says that the Companion Cubes do have a rudimentary intelligence, and aren't just inanimate objects.
** The turrets. Oh god, the turrets. They have adorable voices, but you are often forced to kill them. As you kill them, they will say things like "I don't blame you" or "Good night" just to make you feel worse about yourself.
*** And if that isn't bad enough, look at the sequel. On the Turret Redemption Line, you can save a still-functioning turret, but if you try to take it into the next room, it disintegrates. When the defective turrets are flung into the incinerator, you can stand in front of it and save them, for which they will be joyful and say "Let's get this started! All right!" However, they explode shortly after you place them on the ground. Finally, when you switch it so the working turrets get flung into the incinerator instead of the defective ones, they shout things like, "But I did everything you aaaaaaasked!" and "WheeeeeeOH NO!" You also later get to see them in the moment they get crushed in between gears, still shouting.
 
 
=== Real Time Strategy ===
* In ''[[Sacrifice]]'', depending on which plot branch the player follows, this can happen with Shakti (arguably the most sympathetic character in the game, including is the plot branch where the player chooses to follow the banner of Stratos: After a number of levels where the player character and Shakti collaborate, Stratos decides to break his alliance with Shakti's patron, and signal the break by having Shakti murdered - and gives the job of murdering her to ''the player''.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/2013748"
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