Death is not the end for these particular video game characters. That is to say, they’ve either fooled the player or other characters in-game (sometimes both!) into thinking they have met an early demise… only to reveal that they never bit the dirt in the first place.
Naturally, the circumstances are usually different when compared to one another. There are protagonists who faked their deaths to save others, or just themselves. Then there are those who need the player’s help to falsify their demise in a unique spin on the game’s usual objectives. Whatever their reasons are, these are but a few examples of those who managed to live another day.
Kane from theCommand & Conquerseries isa villain that just won’t stay dead. In the third game, his main HQ in Africa is blasted by the Ion Cannon. Afterward, a huge green explosion occurred, whereby the toxic crystal Tiberium began to grow at a rapid rate globally, attracting the attention of alien invaders. Soon enough, he returns and reveals himself to be alive.
In the expansion packCommand & Conquer: Kane’s Wrath, however, it was revealed that he wasn’t in Temple Prime at all. He cleverly snuck out, left a Tiberium-infused bomb in the temple, and allowed GDI to destroy it to spread Tiberium across the globe. Attracting the attention of the aliens and prompting them to invade was the plan all along. Very devious, indeed.
Kiryu always muscled his way through some of the toughest of encounters. It seemed like, with each entry in the series, the stakes just kept getting higher and more dangerous. Finally, inYakuza 6: The Song Of Life, Kiryu meets his end - a sacrifice to protect his adoptive daughter Hakura and her family. Fans were stunned and cut down by the loss of thisbeloved protagonist.
Thankfully, it turns out it was all to trick the men who had Kiryu on their hit list. While the falsified death was hinted at inJudgement(which is set in the same universe asYakuza), Kiryu made a brief cameo inYakuza: Like a Dragon, revealing he was actually alive. In the newest entries in the series, he’s now rocking a new look and a pseudonym.
This is more referring to the Spy’s infamous watch,the Dead Ringer. With it, players can literally fake their deaths when damaged. A pseudo-corpse will drop to the ground, and the user will have a chance to run to safety and continue as before when the cloaking deactivates.
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It’s such a powerful piece of equipment that it had to be re-tweaked and rebalanced numerous times over the years. Since seasonedTeam Fortress 2players aren’t always fooled by this trick, they may end up shooting around the nearby area to see if they can kill the invisible user before they escape. For the sake of balance, the Spy cannot attack when equipped, so it has to be perfectly timed for a potentially successful getaway.
‘Flatline’ was one of the weakest levels inHitman: Blood Money, but it deserves some credit for its initial premise. A mobster and two optional targets need to be whacked inside a rehabilitation clinic, but first, an agent needs to be extracted via a fake death serum.
It turns out the agent in question is none other than Agent Smith, a hapless guy who 47 always ends up having to save on more than one occasion throughout the series. Saving him reveals the identity of the target (it’s always one of three guys). At least both got out of the clinic after discovering what was really going on in the basement.
Quan Chi and Shang Tsung were almost ready to revive the unstoppable army of the Dragon King, until the big cheese himself returned during a battle against Raiden. In a last-ditch effort, the thunder god sacrificed them all to stop Onaga, though it was in vain. Before all of this, however, the Deadly Alliancebumped off Outworld’s tyrannical emperor, Shao Kahn.
The GameCube version ofMortal Kombat: Deceptioncontained Shao Kahn as an exclusive character. According to his biography, he cloned himself while he went in hiding to regain his strength. The sorcerers had unknowingly slain his body-double. Shang Tsung would discover this when he was revived by the emperor, whom he was soul-tied to, during the events ofMortal Kombat: Armageddon.
This is another example whereby the player istasked to fake someone else’s death for a payoff.In The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, the Dark Brotherhood commissions the player to stage the murder of Francois Motierre with a special, poisoned dagger in the presence of a rival assassin. After that, he must be revived from the chapel where he is laid to rest and escorted to the nearby pub to skip town for good.
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Naturally, only the reward and bonus will be available if the player ensures he doesn’t really die. Still, it’s not like he deserves a second chance at life. Since the Dark Brotherhood only accepts contracts if a life is to be taken, he allows them to murder his mother in advance to cover that debt. He certainly hasn’t made his family proud.
Michael Townley has his demise staged in order to start a new life in Los Santos - this takes place in the prologue ofGrand Theft Auto 5. Eventually, theother cast of charactersdiscovers that he accepted a deal from the wholly-corrupt Federal Investigation Bureau to stage a robbery and have his death faked, in hopes of getting Trevor killed in the process.
Unsurprisingly, things don’t quite go as planned. Trevor survives, but Michael still gets his fresh start with a new alias and hefty sums monthly. Although, by this point, he’s living a meaningless, unfulfilling life with an unstable family. By that point, he decides to come out of his early retirement and get his hands messy again.
Even when Solid Snake defeated Big Boss in the first everMetal Gear, he still came back for the sequel. Almost three decades later, the fifth game revealed he was a body double. Snake would defeat the real Big Boss in the sequel, but this would not truly kill him, only severely wound him. As a result, his remains would be extradited, and he would end up being put in a coma via nanomachines. Nevertheless, he made an appearance right at the end of the fourth entry, where he would finally perish from FOXDIE.
Big Boss, back when he was known as Naked SnakeduringMetal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, was no stranger to faking his death, as he was equipped with Fake Death Pills that came in handy when tricking the enemy during confrontations.
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