Even if they don't fire back and kill you, you will still likely be arrested, court martialed, or some other appropriate punishment indicating that your mission is over and so is your career. This is often the case where you do things such as fire on friendlies just to see if they are Friendly Fireproof. This often gets you chewed out by an NPC followed by an unceremonious game over.

Performing any obviously stupid or unsavory act just to see what would happen.Performing any stupid thing which causes death of the Player Character, especially when not in battle.You lose in a way that renders the Player Character Deader than Dead, such as erasing yourself from existence completely.Odd or bizarre noncanon bad endings that the player can choose to acquire, usually involving failing a mission objective in a way that causes the death of the main characters, often in a way that no stat bonus on Earth could get the player out of.Punishment game overs that the game levies against usually unsuspecting players who attempt to break the rules or derail the plot (e.g., when the game actually lets you say 'no' to the main quest - and averts But Thou Must!, or triggering a case of You Lose at Zero Trust or a Reality-Breaking Paradox).Otherwise standard game overs (loss of hit points, lives, etc.) that receive special treatment because they occur in a particular place or time (e.g., a unique Downer Ending cutscene for losing to the Big Bad).Conversely, getting outright killed in a game whose scenarios rarely involve life-threatening situations may trigger a non-standard Game Over. In games where the standard 'game over' sequence is getting killed by something, any situation in which you can lose without actually dying may result in a non-standard game over.There are a few variations on this theme: Sometimes there are games that give an unusual message or even a full cutscene for losing the game in a specific way. But that is not what this trope is about. These are all standard failings, usually treated with a simple default message: ' Game Over.'Īlternatively, you have successfully finished the game, defeated the Final Boss and receive a Game Over message after the credits because technically the 'game is over'.

…Or, maybe you just forgot to pause the game while reading the walkthrough you pulled from GameFAQs and the game's timer ran out - you get the idea. You might have been caught or captured during a Stealth-Based Mission. Maybe you failed a story important mission or lost a critical Non-Player Character during an Escort Mission. Maybe you fell down too many Bottomless Pits and lost all your lives, or the Player Character was beaten to death by a particularly vicious Demonic Spider. In most games, players see the dreaded Game Over screen when they lose in some way.

Causality game over