The Most Shocking Deaths In Video Games

The most shocking deaths in video games often come right out of nowhere. We’ve all played strategy games where units are faceless entities cursed to fall like flies without ceremony, or roguelikes where dying is no big thing, but this list looks at those deaths that got us properly choked up. Games where characters we built relationships with, characters we trusted, sometimes even the player character themselves are the victim of a surprise death.

Many of these are deaths that not only caught us off guard, but ended up being some of the biggest plot twists in video games. The loss of a companion, a beloved side character, or an unsuspecting innocent can sometimes provide a new avenue for the narrative to explore: revenge.

Obviously there will be a fair few heavy spoilers in this list, so if you’ve not played any of these games already, it might be time to get stuck in. If you’ve played them all and are looking for some heartstring tugging, we do have recommendations for games like Red Dead Redemption 2, and many of the games like Life Is Strange on this list will also get those tears flowing and offer some juicy narrative twists and turns.

Hands up: How many of you reloaded a save to try to save Lenny? Lenny’s death in Red Dead Redemption 2 was so shocking that many of us simply couldn’t believe it was canon–surely there was a way to save this down-on-his-luck outlaw? But no–whatever you do, Lenny dies during the Saint Denis chapter and leaves us all the poorer for his loss.

What makes this death especially heartbreaking is that when the heist starts going south, there’s still a sliver of hope that you can all (Hosea aside) make it out alive. Diving between rooftops and almost getting away unscathed, it all takes a turn for the worse. Suddenly, two Pinkerton agents appear with rifles and gun Lenny down, killing him instantly. But you can’t stop to grieve, or even to lift his body. Arthur and the rest of the group have to keep running, leaving Lenny in the dust.

The one silver lining is that it’s later mentioned that Lenny and Hosea’s bodies were recovered by Sadie Adler from the Saint Denis morgue, and that they’d both been buried together in Bluewater Marsh. Even if this addition spoilered one mission for you a little, our 9/10 Red Dead Redemption 2 review proves that there’s still plenty to surprise you in the game.

Joel’s death itself wasn’t totally unexpected for The Last Of Us fans, who already knew to expect heartache and struggle at every possible juncture, but the drawn-out and bloody nature of his death made it a particularly shocking watch to those of us playing for the first time.

As soon as Joel mentions his name to Abby’s gang, the atmosphere is tense. It takes mere moments for Abby to break that tension by shooting Joel in the leg, kicking off a lengthy chain of gruesome events that eventually lead to his death-by-battering in front of a restrained Ellie. The reason for his death–revenge from an ex-Firefly whose father had been killed by Joel in his quest to save Ellie–is later explained in more detail, adding to Ellie’s already-complicated feelings about a deeply complex man.

If you need some help shaking the image of Joel bleeding out on the floor, maybe try finding every The Last Of Us Part 2 Easter egg and reference in this handy guide for some light relief.

People die in the Mass Effect series all the time, and more can die based on your decisions, but there was something so heartbreaking about Mordin’s death in Mass Effect 3 that still sets it apart for many players. He keeps a calm demeanor when announcing it “had to be me; someone else might have gotten it wrong,” with his voice shaking as he sings his final song, and his ultimate sacrifice to ensure the survival of an entire race.

Mordin’s death wasn’t a big stoic moment, despite his brutal past. He was frightened and vulnerable, and the game pulled no punches showing you the terror he felt at the top of that tower. But it was his work and his responsibility. We just had to hope he felt absolved by the end.

Lets just hope they don’t expose us to his tragic demise for a second time in the upcoming Mass Effect TV series, which was revealed recently to be well underway with several key members of the Fallout TV show team in tow.

For many kids growing up in the late ’90s, Legend of Dragoon was one of the first times we’d had to confront the death of a “good guy” in a game. Love him or hate him, Lavitz’s death certainly had a profound impact on so many of us.

His confident, capable energy made him seem invincible somehow, like we’d be fighting with him to the very end. Lavitz was a valuable friend to Dart, and espouses values of loyalty and valour as both a captain of the First Knighthood–and a loyal son to his doting mother. Watching him crumple to the floor and have all that history melt away like it was nothing … that’ll stay with you into adulthood.

Image source: Phoebius’s VGM on YouTube.

Point-and-click games often share a sense of hope: a feeling that, even if the solution is absurd or involves travelling across the world multiple times, there is always a solution and everything will turn out okay in the end. That’s why Howard’s death in Tails: Noir hit so hard. So rarely do we lose anyone of consequence in this genre, let alone watch the main character die as you play as him.

Earlier on in the game, we know Howard touched something that started messing with his DNA–a strange alien artefact we couldn’t place. But it seemed like a sideline in the story, which you’d find a cure for or come out on top of. You begin a long walk through the city with plans still in your mind, but the walk doesn’t stop. Howard just walks and walks until suddenly, he keels over. The end. No one expected it to play out like this, but it was an incredibly impactful blow that shook our sense of security and showed what a bold game Tails: Noir really was.

In a game that makes you feel like every choice is your own, the scripted and unavoidable death of Jackie Welles gave us all a real shock. You’d be forgiven for trying to prevent it, like how you can save Takemura later on, but nope: Jackie is a goner, whatever you try and do.

Jackie is pitched as V’s best friend, so we get to know him pretty well in a very short space of time, coming to understand the bond the two characters share across a montage of heists and personal moments. The game sets it up like he’ll be our number two, only for him to be cut down during an early-game mission. It’s a mark of a great game when a character we’ve only known for a little while feels like such a loss. Compounding this loss is the fact you get to decide what to do with his body, and how his funeral plays out.

Make sure you don’t get caught off guard again by following our Cyberpunk 2077 beginner’s guide, or load up in advance with our iconic guns and swords guide.

Not only one of the most famous moments in any Final Fantasy game, but arguably one of the most iconic moments in gaming full stop, Aerith’s death in Final Fantasy VII remains potentially the most shocking video game death of all time and we’d be wrong to leave it off such a list.

Positioned right at the close of the first section of the game, Aerith’s death sets the scene for a re-invigorated Cloud Strife to seek revenge on Sephiroth, but took many of us completely by surprise when it happened. It comes during what should be a peaceful moment, where praying at the altar is suddenly punctuated by her impalement and instant death. Cloud’s desperate speech to Sephiroth that “Aeris is gone, Aerith will no longer talk, no longer laugh, cry … or get angry …” had us all in tears and only deepened our resolve to finish the game.

Although Aerith’s death managed to traumatise a generation of gamers, this powerful piece on the art of dying and letting go in Square Enix games points out that this collectively devastating moment in 1997 may have helped to teach us the power of acceptance.

Call me naive, but even when Lee was bitten, I still held out hope that somehow he might be healed. Perhaps he would turn out to be immune, or be able to tackle the infection some other way. Gradually, you see him start to fade, replaced by an unquenchable aggression, but you’ve grown so close to him by this point, surely they wouldn’t take him away from Clementine.

But Lee does die. And what’s worse, he needs to be killed. He begs Clementine to put him out of his misery before he becomes the very thing they’ve been fighting to flee. Either fate is miserable. Either Clementine walks away, leaving Lee to suffer and turn, or we watch a child shoot her guardian in the head. It’s not a cheery finale, and one we wished we could avoid.

This one is a little different, but still deserves a place on the list for being “shocking.” The 1999 role-playing game set in the titular D&D setting had many twists and turns up its sleeve, telling unusual and impossible stories with flourish and creating a rich environment for players to explore. The player-character starts as a fairly blank slate: an amnesiac covered in scars and tattoos who goes only by The Chosen One in the official literature.

His death–as an RPG character–is not the shocking part. What earns him a place on this list is that his death is not the end. TCO dies organically in a fight he wasn’t equipped to win and you expect to start back at some kind of checkpoint. But nope; you’re back in the morgue, where you’ve woken back up. Again and again, your character will die, be taken to the morgue, and be resurrected, meaning no death erases where you’ve been or the choices you’ve made. Dying is baked into this game as a gameplay element, opening up a whole array of unique storytelling options.

All the deaths in Mouthwashing are pretty hard to stomach, but Anya in particular left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Her death was the first–it confirmed that there was very little to be done and very little hope. Within the space of two short missions, almost everyone else is dead, including Anya from her pills, Daisuke from a failed rescue mission, and Swansea from our own hand.

When he first enters the medical room in a dazed state, Jimmy doesn’t even register her body. The screen warps and distorts to blank her out as he goes about his tasks. It’s horrifying how coldly she’s discarded when both the other crew deaths had emotionally conflicted responses from Jimmy. He never comments on Anya, despite her death being his fault to begin with.

Mouthwashing will be on console by the end of 2025, so if you missed playing it the first time around, there’s plenty of opportunity to play one of the best indie games of the last few years.

This one is another situation where you hold onto hope right until the very end, only to sacrifice the main character as you’re playing. In Still Wakes the Deep, Kaz goes from one terrifying situation to another, bouncing between unspeakable horrors and tangible threats until the whole oil rig is collapsing around him. His only real option is revealed just before the ending: He has to sacrifice himself and blow this thing up.

Part of why Kaz’s death was so shocking is due to the incredible writing in Still Wakes the Deep. The game emphasises the protagonist’s relationships with other characters, making him a point of strength for all these other people, which gives him a sort of perceived invincibility. Surely he can’t die, because he’s here to save these people. But he doesn’t, and his final gift to those he loved is to destroy the rig and pray the eldritch horrors within don’t make it to the mainland.

Halo: Reach was already a departure from the more predictable “Master Chief saves the day” storylines, introducing new ideas and a new main character in a game set just before the original Halo. Reach was something a bit grittier, a bit more creative, and full of surprises–something that has cemented it as a fan favourite to this day.

One of the most iconic scenes in Halo: Reach, and one that showed fans they were into something a bit special, was Kat’s death. There was no build-up or grand speech, and no time for a haunting musical sting or dramatic slow-mo to kick in. One minute Kat was talking and running, and the next she was dead. It was shocking and instant. Having a main character sniped out of nowhere like this, especially after the last death (Jorge’s) was framed as a more traditional “hero death,” is a clear example to newcomers of how fearless Halo: Reach’s writing team really was.

The game is literally called Assassin’s Creed, so we know there’s going to be a whole pile of bodies before the credits roll, but somehow the death of poor Phoibe still stands out as unnecessarily brutal and shocking.

Phoibe was a sweet Athenian teenager who saw herself as a protégé of Kassandra. As you progress through the story, her moral quandaries and cheerful demeanour are always a pleasant diversion from the endless killing, and one particular main quest sees Kassandra rescuing Phoibe from Cyclops’ gang. But this successful rescue only makes it more heartbreaking when Kassandra finds Phoibe’s dead body after a scuffle with the Cult of Kosmos much later in the game. It’s certainly a good motivator for bloody revenge, if nothing else.

If you’re wanting to relieve the horror, but also create your own significant trail of blood, check out our Assassin’s Creed timeline to learn how to play the games in true chronological order.