Summary
Video games have often been criticized for glorifying murder and death. It’s an understandable viewpoint, as many games do encourage you to kill people, but it’s usually certain people. In most cases, it’s enemies who can fight back or who started the fight in the first place. Games tend not to appreciate you eliminating random civilians.
Even the very controversialGrand Theft Autoseries doesn’t let you kill innocents with no repercussions. Some titles just grant an immediate game over if you hurt people you aren’t supposed to, while others provide more creative and unusual punishments for players who target NPCs. Here are some of the most notable examples.
8Halo 3
Sergeant Johnson Doesn’t Appreciate Team Killing
In the Halo games, you killa whole lot of different creatures. It’s accepted and encouraged. That is until you start firing at your fellow marines. These are the UNSC soldiers that accompany you in battle.
In Halo 3 - and some other entries - you can kill these brave souls, but they will turn on you and start fighting back. This is particularly problematic in missions containing Sergeant Johnson, as he is more deadly than the others and will kill you quickly if he’s got a weapon in hand.
7Resident Evil 4
Luis Isn’t Afraid To Shoot Back
Resident Evil 4 isn’t a game where you have plenty of allies. From the very start, you enter a hostile place where all the citizens are dangerous monsters. One of the few friendly faces you meet is Luis, who helps you out on a few occasions.
One example is the long, action-packed section where the two of you are in a house, trying to defend yourself from the infected horde trying to break in. During this sequence, if you fire a few bullets into Luis, a cutscene will play where he guns you down, causing a game over.
6Payday 2
Killing Civilians Will Literally Cost You
If you’ve ever seen heists in movies or TV shows, you may have noticed that crowd control is important. The criminals need to control any of the civilians in the building they’re robbing. This is also the case in the Payday games. In Payday 2, in particular, there are a bunch of heists featuring civilians that get in the way.
You may think killing them will be beneficial as it will remove them from the equation. However, the game very much frowns upon that. If you murder civilians, you automatically lose money, and getting released from Police custody if you’re captured becomes more difficult. So, save your bullets for the cops, as you’re allowed to kill them.
5RollerCoaster Tycoon
RollerCoaster Tycoon attempts to simulate what it’s like to build and manage your own theme park. Where it differs from real life is in the safety procedures. In the game, you aren’t forced to go through as many safety checks when building things. Therefore, you can make your park very dangerous if you desire.
Coasters that go way too fast and shoot people off the map are possible to create. Alternatively, you’re able to just replace the floor guests are standing on with water to make them drown. So, there are multiple ways to kill innocent people in this game. However, deaths will hurt your park’s rating, which will result in fewer guests in the future. Why purposefully killing a bunch of people doesn’t immediately lead to your park being shut down is a mystery.
The Old West Isn’t A Completely Lawless Place
There aren’t quite as many rules in the Old West as there are in modern society. Yet, certain things are against the law, including killing random people. You can find this out in Red Dead Redemption 2 as, like any crime, murdering people increases your bounty.
This means people will be on the lookout for you. If the bounty gets high enough, full posses will attempt to hunt you down, and towns may go into lockdown, meaning you can’t use their stores or facilities. Thankfully, you can pay these bounties off. Or, if you want to keep your money, just try to avoid the region where you’re a wanted criminal and visit other places instead.
3Fallout 4
Killing Can Alienate People
When you do things or make choices in Fallout 4, it sometimes changes the relationship you have with your companions. Certain actions can either make them like you more or less. Killing random NPCs in cold blood is certainly a polarizing action.
Most of your companions will have a negative response to senseless murder, and their affinity for you will drop. This may stop you from getting to know them better oracquiring their specific companion perk. So, verify to think about how killing can impact the people around you before you do it.
2Metal Gear
Murderers Get Less Ammo And Health
In the original Metal Gear, you can find multiple prisoners of war as you’re sneaking around the fortified state of Outer Heaven. They tend to be very useful, as they can provide you with vital information that will help you on your mission. Also, saving these hostages increases your in-game rank, which can boost your ammo capacity and maximum health. So, there is no reason not to save them.
However, if you’re so inclined, you’re able to kill these poor POWs, which will decrease your rank. Not only does this mean you will have less ammo and HP, but if you kill enough of them, you can actually lock yourself out of beating the game. This is because you need to be a certain rank to finish it.
1Grand Theft Auto 5
Become A Wanted Man
Grand Theft Auto 5 contains three ofthe best protagonists in GTA history, and like the rest, they’re all criminals. As such, you spend most of the game committing all sorts of crimes, including murder. However, despite usually encouraging killing, the game still punishes you for it with the Wanted system.
It’s one of the most well-known punishments in gaming. The more crimes you commit, the more your Wanted level increases. It works on a five-star scale. At one star, you will have some issues with the cops, while at five, you will be relentlessly hunted by a large group of police officers and special NOOSE agents. They will try to kill or arrest you. You need to get out of sight and hide to lose them.
All the Grand Theft Auto games have a Wanted system, and they all work very similarly.
