Main/Nonstandard Game Over/Screen/Sandbox



Game Over screens can be a good way of building atmosphere. Granted, it's typically the atmosphere of the afterlife, because you usually only see one after you've been savaged by the undead or after you've taken a long walk off a short pier, but still.

Unfortunately, for certain special situations, the old standard of white letters spelling "Game Over" on a black background just doesn't cut it. That's when you'll see the Nonstandard Game Over Screen, a special screen showing that you screwed up big on this one, son.

This page refers to the special screen that the game uses to mark your exceptional misfortune or incompetence.
 * For the method you used to get to this screen, see Nonstandard Game Over.
 * For games that give you sarcastic comments, poems, and/or bloody pictures with every death (as is common with adventure games), see Have a Nice Death.
 * For games that include a different animation for each type of death, see The Many Deaths of You.
 * For games where every object (no matter how seemingly harmless or illogical) seems to be out for your blood, see Everything Trying to Kill You.
 * For events that look like a game over, but really aren't, see Interface Screw and/or Fission Mailed.
 * For good, bad, or better variations on the same basic outro, see Multiple Endings or Golden Ending.
 * For when the standard game over includes extended narrations or demonstrations of exactly what your failure has wrought, see It's a Wonderful Failure.

"OF COURSE!!!"
 * One of the Kirby games show a mini-game where you battle . When you lose all your lives, you fall down one last time... but instead of the words "Try Again" and "Quit", you get "Accept Defeat".
 * Tales of Destiny offers a unique example: if you manage to defeat Leon when he attempts to arrest you (a task requiring either cheats or insane amounts of early-game level grinding), you are treated to a positive Nonstandard Game Over Screen, in which your budding party goes on to have zany adventures apparently unrelated to the ones the plot intended for them to have. Presumably, said zany adventures only last as long as it takes for the Big Bad to execute his plans and destroy the world, but the Nonstandard Game Over Screen does not address this little issue.
 * In Splinter Cell: Double Agent, if you fail the final minigame-for-a-boss, you are treated to a very disturbingly realistic portrayal of emergency services and new helicopters flying over
 * The normal Game Over sequence in King's Quest VI is a very short cutscene in Hades. There are three Nonstandard Game Overs: a Deader Than Dead Game Over (Alexander's skeleton in tattered clothing collapses on a black background), a Baleful Polymorph Game Over ("Was that the beast you could do?"), and another non-deadly Game Over where Alexander gets captured and locked in the castle dungeon right before the wedding ("'Tis a noble thing to have a means of escape, and 'tis a far, far better thing to never get caught at all!")
 * The Baleful Polymorph Game Over is definitely worth a chuckle if you're playing Hey, It's That Voice!; Alexander is voiced by Robbie Benson, who was the voice of the Beast in the Disney version!
 * In Shadow Hearts: Covenant, the party can enter the Bonus Dungeon, Black Forest. It's a maze where you're guided by talking flowers. Yes, talking flowers. The white flowers always tell the truth, and generally give you clues about how to get through the dungeon. However, near the end, a white flower tells you how to "proceed deeper into the forest." If you follow its advice, your characters get lost in the forest forever (complete with a creepy message) and thus, Game Over.
 * Shadowgate: All the myriad deaths cut to a glowing-eyed Reaper against a sunset with the caption, "It's a sad thing that your adventures have ended here!!", except (at least) jumping into a massive chasm, which brings, "The Reaper Man stands below, waiting to catch you" instead. If that doesn't seem scary, you lack the childhood trauma.
 * Also, "The well was deeper than you imagined. You have just broken every bone in your body."
 * System Shock's normal game over is you serving SHODAN well, as a cyborg. You get a non-standard game over . The game ends.
 * Alone in The Dark: the normal Game Over shows a zombie dragging your dead body to the alter of Pregzt, where it shows the text "The End". Nonstandard game-overs occur if you die in or near the final boss room, get eaten by the giant plant guarding the front door, or happen to read "De Vermis Mysteriis", in which it just says "The End" on the screen where you died.
 * In Street Fighter Alpha 3, losing to M. Bison, unlike when losing to anybody else, doesn't let you continue and instead makes you watch an ending in which your character is captured and used to power the Psycho Drive that powers Bison's attempts to, you guessed it, Take Over the World.

"Perhaps it's a good thing that he won't wake up"
 * ONLY in the arcade version (thankfully). The console ports let you continue, but you do get the Nonstandard Game Over if you decide not to. This is actually a minor variation of M.Bison's true ending (with Ryu being the unlucky victim); you even see his character portrait. Strangely enough, you also get this if you lose the final match as Evil Ryu, even though his opponent is Shin Akuma.
 * The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask had two game over types; the standard death, and the ending that occurs when you let the moon fall on Termina.
 * There's an extension of the moon falling Game Over: . Then it continues to the normal scene of this Game Over variant.
 * Breath of Fire 2 has a still screen depicting an army of demons taking over the world that can be seen in one of two ways: either by choosing not to unseal the gate to the final dungeon, or failing to break out of the final boss's paralysis spell.
 * Breath of Fire 4 also has a case of a Nonstandard Game Over, which Ryu ultimately agreeing with Fou-Lu, merging with him instead of battling him, and caused the player to CONTROL the final boss against the entirety of your former party. Destroying them was quick and brutal, and afterwards the game left no doubt in the player's mind as to the fate of humanity (it was blown up).
 * Guess what Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter has as well? You get one when you max out your D-Counter and select The End.
 * In Treasure of the Rudras you get one when you are at the bio tanks and input the wrong combination to stop the pollution.
 * The original Metal Gear Solid used the Nonstandard Game Over as a plot device on one occasion, being told before a possibly-fatal Mini Game that "there are no continues, my friend...". And, of course, dying results in a Nonstandard Game Over screen - with no CONTINUE option. A player would have to quit the game and reload before they could try again...
 * The game can go even further to psych out the player here. If you haven't saved in a while, the game will detect this and call you out on it. "Do you really want to lose all of your progress?"
 * Metal Gear Solid 3 is actually a prequel to Metal Gear Solid 1 and Metal Gear Solid 2. In MGS3, you meet a boss that also appears in MGS1. You're supposed to simply knock-out that boss in MGS3, but if you decide to kill him instead, you'll have Colonel Campbell, from the 'future', shout "Snake! You've created a time paradox!" and the words "Time Paradox" will appear, instead of the usual game over text.
 * Of course, since MGS3 is the prequel, with Naked Snake being Big Boss, or the father of Solid Snake, the normal Game Over screen will slowly evolve from the words "Snake is Dead" to "Time Paradox", if left alone long enough. In addition, if the Fake Death Pill is used, and the words change completely to "Time Paradox", then Snake dies for real, fake death or not.
 * There's a few cases in Metal Gear Solid and its sequel, in particular, where you get a wildly different Informal Eulogy depending on the circumstances. Crash into the tripwires surrounding Baker, and Ocelot will call you an idiot/fool depending on if you're playing the remake or not. Fail the torture, and not only will your CONTINUE option be missing, but you'll get to hear Liquid yell at Ocelot for getting carried away. Die during the final battle in Metal Gear Solid 2 after your "support" team has dropped their façade, and they'll laugh at your failure.
 * In Metal Gear Solid 4, die during the final battle & you will be given the choice to "Continue" or "Exist". Choose the latter, and you will hear Ocelot tell you "Not yet, Snake!" and you will have to choose again, only "Exist" will have returned to the traditional "Exit".
 * Gurlugon. Possibly the most bizarre game over sequence in the entire series.
 * The Disgaea series tends to give you (rather humorous and upbeat, all considered) Non Standard Game Overs from being beaten by the games' Goldfish Poop Gang. In Disgaea 2 Cursed Memories,
 * Signing a ceasefire with a major enemy group in Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 results in a sequence of events over several missions in which the situation degrades until your army dies a horrible death. In the same game, should a particular character be defeated in action, its defeat causes the end of all existence, complete with a special game over screen.
 * The first and third Fallout games feature several possibilities of siding with the baddies, resulting in multiple combinations of bad things being shown happening to you, the world and your loved ones. The second one ends just by attacking your fellow villagers.
 * The newest one with Dead Money allows you to side with Elijah as you unleash the horrible effects of Sierra Madre on the Mojave.
 * Space Quest IV has the option, at one point, to access an in-game computer and "delete" the files for Space Quest IV. Doing so automatically quits the game, with no warning.
 * A similar thing happens if you in the second and third installments of Leisure Suit Larry.
 * Also as such if you in Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist.
 * Several of the Boktai games have non-standard bad endings if the player ever abuses the vampiric side his character is cursed with in later parts of the series.
 * During the final battle in the first God of War,
 * During one of the last battles in the second God of War,
 * Normally, losing a fight in the first Fatal Fury leads to a taunting quote from your opponent and a "Continue?" screen showing your fighter's battered picture. Losing to Geese, the last boss, however, gives you a cutscene where he kicks you off of Geese Tower. The "Continue?" screen likewise shows your character plummeting to his death.
 * Given that using a Continue would place you back at the same battle again, one imagines a giant trampoline placed directly under the window...
 * Metal Saga features several Nonstandard Game Overs, usually for humor and initiated with a single conversation. The very first appears before the game even begins, when the player character's mother asks if he'd like to stay and work in the family garage instead of embarking on a quest for fame and fortune. If the player agrees, an epilogue detailing the rest of the character's life (which is entirely un-noteworthy) begins and the game ends. The player character may also marry his first prospective party member at any time simply by asking her, at which point they both quit adventuring to start a family.
 * In an Older Than the NES example, many old text adventures (Interactive Fiction) games allow you to easily recover from death (sometimes by simply "walking out" of the afterlife, sometimes with an "undo" command) but have some exceptions where that doesn't work if you really screw up, such as by wiping yourself from existence through Temporal Paradox.
 * Example: The original Zork trilogy always cut to a prompt allowing you to "RESTART, RESTORE or QUIT" upon death. The notable exception was if you died in Zork 3 while using the time machine to travel to the past -- the game simply and immediately quit to the system command prompt, due to the historical paradox making your character cease to have ever existed entirely. This becomes particularly jarring for people playing the games on emulators on modern systems.
 * The notoriously cruel The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy text adventure also does this if you, as Ford Prefect, negate the events of the game by not saving Arthur Dent from the Earth's destruction in the first place. It is particularly notable for causing chaos and consternation among players by actually quitting the game in MID-SENTENCE.
 * Quitting the game became a less acceptable option over time at Infocom, but the Enchanter Trilogy, sequel to the Zork Trilogy, kept up the tradition of having special ways to die. In all three games it is possible to take actions that not only cause you to fail your mission but make the world substantially worse off than it was before. Thus, your score displayed at the game over prompt, which normally would be some score taken out of a total (100 out of 400, say) and give you a rank dependent on your score (from "Charlatan" to "Enchanter" to "Sorcerer" to "Archmage"), would instead become a score of -100 and your rank would be "Menace to Society". In the original game, Enchanter, one earned this rank for releasing a powerful Lovecraftian demon upon the land; in the sequel, Sorcerer, one earned this rank for successfully tracking down your demon-possessed mentor and allowing the demon to transfer itself to your far more powerful body; and in the finale, Spellbreaker, it was revealed that the entire plot of the game was a cunning trap and that actually succeeding in your goal would grant you this rank if you didn't see the ruse in time.
 * In Dragon Quest I, when you finally face the Dragonlord, he offers you a chance to join him and rule half the world. Smart players select "no" and get on with the battle, but if you choose "yes" (and confirm it): "Then half of this world is thine, half of the darkness, and... If thou dies I can bring thee back for another attempt without loss of thy deeds to date." Then the screen turns red. "Thy journey is over. Take now a long, long rest. Hahahaha..." Then you're dead. (It's been rumored that this also erases your game data, but that is not correct.)
 * In the computer game version of Frederick Forsyth's The Fourth Protocol (in 1984), you have to uncover a Soviet plot to explode a nuclear bomb near a US Air Force base in Britain, to influence the upcoming British elections and lead to the election of an anti-NATO, anti-American, anti-nuclear, pro-Soviet government. Usually, if you take too long or don't get anywhere with the plot, you get a memo telling you you're being reassigned to the Falkland Islands, until you get far enough. When you find the bomb you have to defuse it, and if you mess it up you are told the plan succeeded: Britain fell to the Soviets, and they started working on Europe from two fronts. But sometimes a different ending appears: the bomb leads to a limited nuclear war, destroying both sides and making the northern hemisphere uninhabitable. This comes "From the annals of the Australio-Indonesian Empire..."
 * In the Strike series of Helicopter games, simply getting yourself blown up would earn a normal game over. Failing a mission or otherwise rendering the level Unwinnable, however, would result in your being recalled to base for a dressing-down from your commanding officer which changed according to what you did wrong. (From Jungle Strike's first level, if you tried some Monumental Damage of your own: "You redecorated the White House, Beruit style!")
 * In Nuclear Strike, it is possible to have a nonstandard game over piled on top of a nonstandard game over. If you tried to refuel thrice after being told to return to base because of a SNAFU, General Earle orders your (literal) termination for going rogue.
 * The Code Geass game for Nintendo DS normally uses a still picture from the show's ending credits as the Game Over screen, with a voiceover by C.C. admonishing the player to not be so stupid next time. However, one can earn a Nonstandard Game Over simply by . This turn of events yields a different quote from C.C.: "Well, this is a Good Ending, I guess..."
 * Until you realize one of the two things happen - One would be that now it is a Special Administrative Region, the other nations of the world will begin the power grab ala Nightmare of Nunnally. Or that V.V. and other Geass assassins will eventually come in and make sure the place is an Area once again...
 * Metroid Prime 3 has one: Stay in Hyper Mode for too long and you see a cutscene of Samus turning into Dark Samus. Followed by a modified death screen. Wait, what? Normally, the game over screen has a red splatter appear; presumably blood. If you get this Nonstandard screen, there's this dark blue blotch that grows on the screen and the words "Terminal Corruption" appear.
 * If you die in Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, you will usually just watch Kyle die in a slow motion sequence. However on one level, you are required to be stealthy. If an enemy raises the alarm, you will see a cutscene of Kyle in prison just before being tortured.
 * Failure during the finale of any Quest for Glory installment from Trial by Fire through Dragon Fire will lead not only to the hero's death, but a scene of the resident Sealed Evil in a Can breaking free to lay waste to the world.
 * This can happen several times in the second game, Trial by Fire. The main city is beset by four elementals over the course of the story, and three days after they individually show up, if they haven't been defeated, then you get a cutscene of them destroying the city. In addition, the final portion of the game, after the Big Bad gets the sealed evil, but before it is released, any failure or waste of time will result in the above mentioned non-standard game over.
 * Conkers Bad Fur Day involves a fabled Panther King seeking a red squirrel with which to replace his broken table leg, so as to prevent him from spilling his milk on said table. The standard game over has Conker, the protagonist, tied and gagged to the king's table leg. Depending on the circumstances of the player's death, the game's nonstandard endings include the Panther King's minions turning Conker in as either a bag of soggy squirrel, bloodied chunks or black char, or just a shot of Conker's Face on a Milk Carton.
 * In the final stage of the game after, they do away with the cutscene entirely, only showing you "GAME OVER" on a black screen.
 * America's Army - If you shoot an instructor, the screen goes black and then transports your character to a prison cell in Leavenworth.
 * If you shoot people on your own team too many times in online play the game will kick you out of the server and give you the Leavenworth scene as well.
 * Valkyrie Profile. If you REALLY louse up and annoy the gods enough,
 * Valkyrie Profile Covenant of the Plume, likewise, gives you an unwinnable battle where and a different ending if you abuse the Plume too much in chapters 3 and 4.
 * And like before, even with cheats, the game ends as the death of her causes a premature end of the world and Ailyth won't approve of that.
 * Half-Life has several of these:
 * When using the teleporter "gun" in Opposing Force, there are places where you can translocate into nothingness, giving you an unusual Game Over screen.
 * And if you try to chase Freeman to Xen, you will lose due to creating a Temporal Paradox.
 * And similar to the America's Army example above, you can attack/kill an instructor during the tutorial and get yourself court martialed.
 * In Half-Life 2: Episode Two the G-man's endgame reports have been replaced with Vortessent messages, the most amusing of which comments that "the Magnusson's misgivings about the Freeman were completely justified" if the player fails to protect the base.
 * Rise of Nations has two kinds of Game Over: the normal defeat, when your opponent simply wins, and the Armageddon defeat, which happens if you drop too many nukes, and basically means everybody loses. Similarly, the Cold War campaign has two Game Overs: the normal defeat, where the opposing side wins, and the Nuclear Holocaust ending, where everybody fires Mnogo Nukes.
 * So does Theatre Europe. Notably, you can't win as Warsaw Pact under the hardest difficulty, as NATO will, as a desperate measure, launch a major nuclear attack against you, leading to an Endofthe World As We Know It. (Conversely, when playing as NATO your goal is to defend yourself for a requisite number of turns; if you ever enter the Warsaw Pact territory, the enemy will start a global nuclear war. You can also trigger it deliberately, or by provoking the enemy by launching one too many nuclear missiles against them.)
 * Fire Emblem 7 has an interesting case - in one mission you are supposed to talk to the boss. If you so choose to attack the boss, he'll probably kill that unit. But if you win the fight with the boss, the mission ends with him telling you that you now have no way to continue. Game Over.
 * And even if you didn't kill him, he would then refuse to take you to the Dread Isle, resulting in a similar Nonstandard Game Over.
 * In Silent Hill 3, if you die a certain way or in a certain place, Valtiel is shown carrying away Heather's body.
 * And if Heather shoots Claudia, Heather "births" the god and dies in a rather gruesome cutscene, where Claudia says "Oh God, bring us salvation".
 * In Fatal Frame II, if you decide to use the secret passage to escape from the haunted village without your twin sister Mayu you'll get a scene and then one of these. It could actually qualify as a bad ending, since it's a viable conclusion to the story and even suckier than the already depressing regular (and canonical!) ending.
 * In Red Faction, if Griffin dies, you will get a special message saying "Your failure to protect Griffin doomed the rebellion, etc'', followed by just "Game Over" instead of "You Have Died".
 * In Red Faction: Guerilla if you kill your brother during the tutorial, the Game Over screen will appear, saying "WTF, you killed your Brother!?!?!?!?!". Yes, with that wording.
 * In Golden Sun, after you let the bad guys make off with the Elemental Stars, you are asked (not told) by your village elder to go after the stars. Refuse twice and the screen fades to a sepia tone, accompanied with the text "And so, the world drifted towards its fated destruction." You are then given the option of continuing from the beginning of the conversation. This is ironic because the destruction it is describing
 * In Dracula X/Chi no Rondo/Rondo of Blood, normally Richter dies in a Rain of Blood (being the first CV Protagonist to suffer this), but getting ambushed by a living portrait ends up with Richter being trapped in a picture within the picture - which the figure in the portrait proceeds to tear up. It's the only unique death animation in the game.
 * In Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, if you do things wrong in Madame Carvier's apartment, the police arrest Lara and the game resets to the title screen.
 * Spiderweb Software (best known for the Avernum / Exile series) is known for doing dozens of these endings in their RPGs. Often, they are the result of attacking or killing a major NPC or upsetting a major town (such as the starting town in the third game, which is a bottleneck between the upper and lower worlds). One particular ending is when you attempt to attack the Queen of the Surface Empire, when in previous games the player killed her father; the moment you go hostile, you get rushed into a dungeon to live out the rest of your days.
 * One question in The Impossible Quiz 2 asks "Click Yes to exit." Clicking "Yes" will
 * There are three non-standard Game Overs in Harvest Moon DS and two or three in Harvest Moon DS Cute.
 * The first is during the opening sequence, when Mayor Thomas from Mineral Town annoys your character into attacking him. The dog will then become angry. You'll have the option to call your dog back. If you refuse, the screen will fade to red, likely signifying that your dog has killed the mayor. The credits roll, and you're taken back to the title screen.
 * This next one takes a very long time to get...you have to grow a Level 100 Toadstool, then submit it at the Harvest Festival. The entire town (including you) will grow sick and die. The credits roll, and you're taken back to the title screen.
 * If you turn on HMDS with Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town in the GBA slot (or HMDSC with Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town), villagers from Mineral Town will start to visit Forget-Me-Not Valley. You only have to do this once to make them keep coming back forever. The Mineral Town girls in DS are marriage candidates... but marrying anyone will cause the credits to roll, but marrying a Mineral Towner will take you back to the title screen. You cannot play the game married to a Mineral Towner. This is changed in DS Cute, thought--you can continue the game with a Mineral Town husband.
 * Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town and Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town have this as well. If you choose not to inherit the farm after the mayor asks you, the mayor will be sad and the ending credits will roll.
 * In the Wonderful Life subseries the only real game over is to die of old age. However you can divorce from your wife if you don't make enough money or work enough in year one (though you can't do this with Celia), you can not marry or in Special Edition you can straight how tell the owner of the land you want to work on that you aren't interested in the farm.
 * A Japanese interactive movie Super Voice World has several Nonstandard Game Overs, the first of which you can get in the very first choice you make (choose wrong and you end up ran over by a car). Most of them get you killed or Put on a Bus. Considering that the film is about you doing stuff aspiring seiyuu do in order to become one, it certainly has creative ways of getting rid of you - you can, for example, end up getting shot by Shinichiro Miki when trying to sneak out of a bar without paying, or get eaten by a vampiric Tessho Genda.
 * The Famicom game Atlantis no Nazo has a level known as The Black Hole, where you can't do anything but fall to your death until you run out of lives.
 * In the Atari game Kya: Dark Lineage, standard Game Overs show a screen saying "Game Over". However, near the game's end, if you're hit by 's Wolfen Gun, you can see a sequence where Kya slowly transforms into a scary, female Wolfen. And that's The End.
 * In fact, Kya remaining as Female Wolfen would solve Brazul's need of to obtain more Wolfens...
 * In the Magic Knight Rayearth RPG for the SNES, there is one battle were you're pitted agains your mind controlled friends. Defeat them, and you get a screen telling you that you're a bad friend, and a game over.
 * Losing to any of the final dungeon's bosses gives you a Nonstandard Game Over as well; each boss has a different one.
 * There is exactly one of these in Rayman 2: the Great Escape : there's a quest in which you have to locate a healing elixir in the Cave of Bad Dreams. After completing the cave's obstacle course, you are offered massive sums of cash. If you accept this, you will find yourself sitting on a luxury yacht with a pile of cash the size of a small building. Apparently if you're rich enough, the pirates threatening to enslave/destroy the world will just go away.
 * Cave Story:
 * After the standard Critical Existence Failure, the gameover screen reads "You have died. Would you like to try again?" If your Oxygen Meter runs out underwater, the screen changes to "You have drowned." If you fall into either of the two Bottomless Pits in the game, it reads "You were never seen again..."
 * The worst of the game's Multiple Endings borders on a non-standard game over. Notably, the music that plays ("Hero's End") is different from that in the better endings ("The Way Back Home"), and this is the only ending that lacks the ending credits.
 * In the Groove has a slightly different Game Over screen for its hardest song, "Pandemonium." After the usual "LIFE DEPLETED/ROUND FAILED" screens, a skull appears.
 * In the Groove 2 features something similar if you fail "Vertex^2," you get the usual "LIFE DEPLETED/ROUND FAILED" screens, and then a power of two pops up next to "FAILED," turning it into "ROUND FAILED^2."
 * Losing to the final boss of Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria results in an exceptionally cruel and brutal gameover where you suffer a Fate Worse Than Death the boss doing some To the Pain taunting at your fallen character.
 * In Shadow of Destiny, when you die, you are generally given a couple of hints, and automatically continue; without the option to game over. However, it is possible in at least the first chapter to meet yourself -- by coming into contact with yourself, you create a time paradox which erases you from existence. It also fails back to the title screen.
 * You also unlock one of the Multiple Endings by inducing someone else to do it.
 * In Wing Commander, if the Tiger's Claw is destroyed, you get a message saying "With your carrier destroyed, you drift endlessly through the void..."
 * In Wing Commander IV, if you repeatedly screw up your early missions, say, by immediately ejecting on launch for every mission you get, Tolwyn hands you your pink slip in a hysterically dark cut scene.
 * In Wing Commander III, screwing up certain missions results in the fleet jumping back to earth, and you starting a mission to defend Earth, which can never be won, even with godmode, which drops you into another cutscene where you can decide how you die. This is quite possibly the Nonstandard Game Over that's drawn out the longest. If it is possible to save before the mission, pray you didn't save it over your previous save game.
 * In the final mission of Ace Combat 5, if you fail to destroy the SOLG (loaded with a nuke) in time, you're treated to a short cutscene of it detonating over Oured.
 * In the computer version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?? if on the fastest finger portion of the game no one gets it right after several attempts Regis Philbin comes on, mocks you for being stupid, says "That's it, I'm out of here." And the game quits.
 * This also happens as early as the name entry screen. If you don't enter a name or enter one but don't submit it, Regis will make a comment once every few seconds, growing increasingly impatient each time, before he finally throws in the towel and quit the game for you.
 * Similarly, in You Don't Know Jack, entering "Fuck You" three times on a gibberish question will cause the host to A. Remove about $150,000 from your score, B. Do nothing, and finally C. Quit out of the game, in that order.
 * In Prototype, if you fail a normal mission, MISSION FAILED is displayed on the screen. If you fail the last mission, you see
 * The award-winning Interactive Fiction Game, Anchorhead, has a large number of grisly ways to die, but the character can go insane in true Call-Of-Cthulhu fashion by either fully reading the black tome in the church or by attacking and killing your husband during the game's finale. The character can also suffer "Endless Torment" by being sucked into the womb at any point.
 * Return to Zork: In most deaths, a three-note song plays (the notes are from the game's opening theme), an evil guy laughs at you, and a temple screen is shown. However:
 * In the very first death of the game, a longer song plays.
 * In any death relating to water, a different three-note song plays.
 * In any death relating to explosions, there is no song and no evil laugh.
 * In one death, the temple screen is also upside-down.
 * Donkey Kong 64 has a rather chilling example of a Nonstandard Game Over turned into the game's only listed Game Over. In a game where Death Is a Slap on The Wrist, dying gets you expelled to the area's lobby on DK Island/to a cave entrance on the island. However, pausing the game and selecting "Quit Game" from the menu will eventually take you to the title screen, but first, you are shown a cutscene where
 * Watch what happens if you run out of time in Hideout Helm!!!.
 * Trauma Center: Under the Knife and Second Opinion, Episode 4: Fail the and instead of a depressing Game Over in which Derek quits his job,
 * New Blood, Episode 5: Run out of time on the and instead of "Your skills were not up to the task - Operation Failed",
 * Trauma Team also gets one. If you fail on Naomi's final case, instead of the normal message/suicide note, you get a recording of
 * In the Star Wars: Rogue Leader, it's possible to get a unique game over by running out of torpedoes in the attack on the Death Star.
 * In EVO Search for Eden, several bosses ask you to join them (the "Tyrasaurs" at the end of the dinosaur stage, the Birdman King in the first mammal stage, and the boss Rogon in the final stage). Saying "yes" results in a short (and usually somewhat comedic) ending, then puts you back on the world map.
 * Super Bases Loaded for the SNES. In this particular sports game, you end up getting the Nonstandard Game Over screen, should the CPU completely blow you out, by getting 9 runs straight. It will not even wait for you to make it to 9 innings. Instead it will briefly freeze, then show someone from your team kneeling in defeat, with the word "Blowout" over their head, with some sad music. From there, it will go to the scoreboard, and the words "Blowout Game" will appear. From there, it will promptly go back to the title screen. Did I mention, that you get NO Continues in 1P mode. So, if you make it far, and this happens to you, you can initiate controller chucking rage mode. (This to my knowledge, has not been tested in 2P mode. To ensure that you end up seeing the above, simply pick any of the final remaining 4 teams, and this happens eventually...)
 * Baseball Stars uses a similar "mercy rule", ending the game if either team is ahead by ten or more runs at any point.
 * Typing "click heels" in the old The Wonderful Wizard of Oz text adventure would lead to a black screen and state that while it did get Dorothy home safely, it leaves her friends fending for themselves, and that Dorothy will spend the rest of her life wondering about the wonders she missed out on.
 * Similar to the Donkey Kong 64 example (see above), Banjo-Kazooie shows you the Game Over scenario when you quit the game. Anytime from your first access to Gruntilda's Lair to winning the quiz minigame in the final stage, the scene shows Tooty losing her beauty because of Grunty. Both at the start of the game and afterwards (near the end of the game), you simply get a Game Over message. This trope happens the same way in Banjo-Tooie as well, but at least there are no Player Punch cutscenes this time.
 * In the 1985 game Balance of Power, pushing too hard in international negotiations would result in an immediate end to the game, with a black screen displaying the message: "You have ignited a nuclear war. And no, there is no animated display of a mushroom cloud with parts of bodies flying through the air. We do not reward failure."
 * In the final mission of Target: Terror, if you directly shoot the final terrorist instead of the Dead-Man Switch he's holding, the plane blows up. If you run out of lives during the "no continues" part of the mission, the plane is shown crashing into the White House.
 * There are a few points in Half Minute Hero's "Hero 30" mode where failing to complete the stage's objective before defeating its Evil Overlord will prematurely end your journey. Instead of the world exploding, you'll be treated to a still picture of what your hero wound up doing because he couldn't proceed (stranded on an island, forced into back-breaking slavery, etc.), and you won't be allowed to save your scores for that attempt.
 * In Vette!, if you don't answer the Copy Protection question correctly, after a few minutes, the game displays the message "You are driving a stolen Vette" and quits.
 * Rogue: "R.I.P.: Software Pirate. Killed by Copy Protection Mafia.", if you die while playing an illegal copy.
 * Call of Duty: "You are a traitor to the motherland!" if you kill an ally, or "You were killed by a grenade".
 * If you fail the helicopter jump in Co D 4 you get "Nobody makes their first Jump..."
 * Also, in Modern Warfare 2, in the early-on mission "Team Player", if the player chooses to run in on foot rather than go into the convoy, you are promptly taken down by sniper fire with the notice "It would probably be safer to ride in the convoy."
 * Operation Wolf: Aside from "sustaining a lethal injury", the game will also end if you run out of bullets and grenades ("Since you have no ammunition left, you must join the hostages.").
 * Strangely enough, you still have to run out of health before that happens.
 * Inverted in The New Zealand Story. If, after clearing World 1, you lose your last life by getting hit by an arrow (or similar) attack, instead of the standard game over screen, you instead go to "heaven", and have a chance to escape in order to continue the game. If you make it to the end of this "hidden" stage, however, the game ends for real. You have to find a hidden exit in order to get out of this "nonstandard" game over.
 * In Resident Evil 4, if Ashley gets captured, a cutscene is shown of the Ganado carrying her off and the game over screen says "Mission Failed" instead of "You are Dead".
 * There are several NGO's in Mass Effect 2, which are only possible to view if you make monumentally stupid decisions during the course of the game:
 * During Samara's loyalty mission, you can recruit . Once aboard the Normandy, you then have the option to . Doing so causes things to end about as well as you'd expect.
 * The biggest is the "Shepard Dies" ending, which is only possible if someone deliberately tries to go through the game making the worst decisions possible (more people know of its existence through online videos showing it than those who actually played the game and got the ending). To achieve this, the player must skip the recruitment of half their squad, not complete any loyalty missions, go on the mission as soon as its available, screw around for a long time before going into the Omega-4 Relay and make bad decisions on what squadmates to use during the Suicide Mission. Doing all of this results in every team member being killed upon the last mission. Shepard then dies during the escape sequence, because no one is there to pull him into the Normandy at the end. A shell-shocked Joker will go back on his own and deliver the mission report to the Illusive Man in your stead, and then watch the Reapers pour into the galaxy. On his own. Bioware have already stated that ending the game this way will not allow you to continue playing in Mass Effect 3.
 * Joker will meet an untimely end at the hands of the Collectors if you rush too quickly during their attack and abduction of the Normandy crew.
 * Not unlocking the valves fast enough for your chosen Tech expert during the Suicide Mission will lead to an abrupt Game Over.
 * If you take too long to defeat during the final boss fight in the Overlord DLC, it will upload to the Normandy and infect EDI.
 * Wait for the Arrival Countdown to hit Zero during the second scene and Shepard will experience what is a rapid glimpse of Reapers coming down on the galaxy to cleanse all life.
 * In Infinite Space, you wind up in some sort of negative space where it's unhealthy to stay. You are presented with three options, and in two of the options you slowly drift around, with the situation getting worse and worse. You think you will get rescued or catch a lucky break but instead your party
 * In Path of Neo, taking the blue pill.
 * The Suikoden series uses this trope often.
 * In the second game of the series, Tinto City gets overrun by zombies, and it can be at this point that the poor kid just decides that he can't handle it anymore. This can result in him (and his... adoptive... sister) deciding to cut their losses and make a mad dash for safety. Of course, the core of your several-dozen-strong entourage comes after you once they realize you're gone. If you persist in leaving, The hero's second-in-command will Bright Slap him and ask him to come back one last time. If you leave the town to the south, the screen will fade slowly and be replaced by a still picture of a log cabin, indicating that the hero and his sister have chosen to live away from society, in order to have a so-called 'normal life' without wars or fighting. Granted, most people's normal life involves marrying and raising a family at some point, so...
 * In Suikoden IV you can elect to stay and make a life for yourself and your two companions on a deserted island as opposed to looking for a way to escape. This is a particularly insidious one since it never ends; you are placed into a Groundhog Day Loop repeating the same actions over and over leading some players to think that they are still playing the game and are stuck. It does hint that something's different by replacing the character portraits with black and white sketches and removing the local save point.
 * Also on the scene if you don't use the Rune of Punishment and let your flagship get rammed by the enemy.
 * In Suikoden V, if you accept Salum Barows' suggestion of taking the throne for yourself instead rescuing the rightful heir, you'll get a cutscene where said heir is informed that you were assassinated.
 * If you fail to defeat Roy in a duel, you're put into a coma from the injuries, and your group forces Roy to take your place, but soon the army's overrun, the last line in that ending:


 * In the Gaiden Game Suikoden Tierkreis, if you choose to, this will result in . On the other hand, this also provides more information about the Tierkreis world.
 * In Mega Man Legends 2 if you mess up during the time you're defending Nino island from the birdbots and they blow throw the gate the scene switches to the town's mayor going nuts and hitting the self destruct button blowing up the island and everything in it.
 * In F/A-18 Hornet, if you land or eject in enemy territory, you get captured and are listed as "Missing in Action". If you cause any collateral damage, you are "Court Martialed".
 * In Paperboy, if you lose all your customers, the game over screen says "Paperboy Fired" instead of the usual "Paperboy Calls It Quits".
 * In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, For most of the main quest, Martin Septim is flagged as essential, meaning that if his HP gets reduced to zero, he will not die, but will instead be knocked unconscious for a few seconds. But during the final mission, he can actually die, and if he does, you'll get a message basically saying that all hope is lost and will have to reload.
 * Wearjak in Heroes of Might and Magic IV can trigger one of these when he meets the Boar's Hoof tribe. Waerjak is given the option of attacking them and claiming their garrison; if he does so, his followers will turn on him, proclaiming his philosophy of community to be a lie.
 * This is a recurring element throughout the campaigns, made easier by the fact that all events are narrated instead of animated, resulting in various different scenarios that you wouldn't normally see in a game. If Lysander for example, would attack Glen Garrison to rescue the Big Bad's mother (instead of finding a way around it), the commander would notify him that he sent his men to execute her. If Elwyn takes the red ship instead of the blue one, Shaera would commit suicide, believing he died (granted, this is an unnecessary complication of the gameplay, since Harke will bribe the crew to switch the sails, and Elwyn arrives just in time to save the girl anyway, making the outcome pretty much the same).
 * Running out of fuel in the Star Trek Text Game, possibly the Ur Example from 1971.
 * In Halo, if Captain Keyes dies, the camera cuts to him falling, and Cortana says "No! Without the Captain, the Covenant have already won". If you run out of time during the Escape Sequence, the game cuts to the cutscene of the Autumn exploding, with you still onboard.
 * In X Wing vs. Tie Fighter, if you fail at a mission (rather than just dying, ejecting, or hyperspacing out of there before the mission's done), you'll be treated to some tragic music. Depending on how well you did, you might be the sole survivor, or your enemy might curb stomp you.
 * In Knights of the Old Republic, the Court of Manaan will sentence you to death if you can't prove the Sith violated the neutrality act (therefore justifying your own actions for breaking into their base).
 * Normal game overs in Ghost Trick are caused by being unable to save your subject's life before time runs out. However, there are two instances where you can actively cause the subject's death.
 * If you  while the van-driver is driving, he will lose control of the vehicle and crash anyway.
 * If you, it will still crash into   His ghost isn't very pleased, but it's hilarious to watch.
 * In Marvel vs. Capcom 3, you can watch a unique ending sequence if you lose to the final boss and opt not to continue.