7 Games You Can Fail Before They Even Start 

In Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, saying no when it asks you to agree that the events of the game are fictional has the narrator tell you that you're not allowed to partake of the game and then kicks you back to the start screen.

Wow, never knew Doki Doki had a game over for deleting Monika before starting, but the reaction from Sayori makes a lot of sense. Without Monika, Sayori becomes the new class president with the same overwhelming 4th wall knowledge, and it breaks her instantly.

The DDLC one is so meta. You delete Monika, but then Sayori realizes she’s in a game and starts freaking out. Showing that Monika was strong enough to handle the knowledge, which of course, Sayori is not. Edited because I misspelled Sayori as Sayuri.

fun fact, the reason why Sayori says that in DDCL is because she is the vice-president of the club, with Monika as the president. however, the president has the knowledge of the fourth wall in this game, so without Monika in it Sayori then becomes the president; this means Sayori now knows about the fourth wall and begins to freak out and say what can be seen from this video, ending in the original game's first ending except you must completely restart the game after this instead of continuing the game like you normally would.

Every time I play a visual Novel, the first ending I ever get *without fail* is the “failed to complete any route” path 😅

In the hitchhiker's guide text adventure from yonks ago, if you choose to "sleep" on the first turn, you wake to your house being bulldozed to build a bypass and then the Vogons destroy the planet, leading to the game telling you "Next time, try turning on the light."

I actually died to the helicopter blade in Prey. It was quite funny until I had to rewatch the opening scene.

In Super Paper Mario you can just refuse to save the world and immediately get a game over. This forces you to watch the entire opening cutscene again.

It's not at the very very start, but in Super Paper Mario you can refuse Merlon's request to take on the game's quest proper, and after refusing like 3 times, you get a "Game Over" screen.

In Disco Elysium you can give your character a heart attack in the first screen by trying to grab your necktie. It's a pretty good indicator of what's to come.

If you name yourself Gaster in either Undertale or Deltarune, the game will immediately return to the opening cutscene

There was a Flash game called DSYP (Don't Shit Your Pants), based on those early DOS adventure games where you type prompts to do things but there were visuals too. The game at the splash screen tells you to type 'start' to begin, you can type 'shit pants' instead, and the game gives you an achievement for failing the game before you even started it.

In We Happy Few you can choose to take the pill that makes you see everything as wonderful, ignoring the memories that otherwise begin the game

Fallout 4 - If you don't go to the vault in the pre-war intro, you'll witness the power of Atom first hand.

I'm so disappointed you didn't mention the beginning of Harvest Moon DS, where you can (at least, it's heavily implied, to keep the E age rating) kill the mayor in cold blood by both using your farm tools on him and not stopping your dog from brutally attacking him, which then rolls the credits and kicks you to menu screen. It's downright hilarious to discover that the first time you play, since it's payback for the Mayor insulting you and your inherited farm.

In Chicory: A Colorful Tale, you can end the game without even painting anything. After all the color is wiped from the world and you find the magical paintbrush on the floor, you can simply refuse to take it over and over. Eventually, the game starts the credits in front of blank screens and in complete silence, making you try again.

Starting Hardcore Mode in Kingdom Come: Deliverance comes with a roughly 90% chance of dying before you even get out of the menu, mentioning that you died to numerous medieval ailments (in birth, famine, plague, etc.) before the game could start. New attempts decrease the chance to about 70%, then 50%, and finally 30% before you actually "live" and get to start the game in earnest.

The jump scare warnings on the Five Nights at Freddy's entry were greatly appreciated.

FTL has a tutorial, where you can't really die except by intentionally turning off your shields or opening the airlocks and letting all the air out of your ship. If you do this, the game will say "Somehow you've died during the tutorial. Feel free to try again but this doesn't bode well for your mission"

One that comes to mind is Mystic Messenger that has 2 prologue bad ends. One is that you get kidnapped after repeatedly lying about not seeing a lock. The funnier one is when you just show no interest in taking part of whatever is going on and the game then shows a scene where a few days later, the police apparently arrested a whole cult

In Golden Sun, say "no" after going through the Sol Sanctum sequence, and then leave the sanctuary. You get a secret game over screen that says Weyard fell into ruin.

The fact that you have the option to punch anything and everything, even in the menu of Takechi's challenge has to be one of my favorite things ever.

There was a PS2 game called Metal Saga where during the starting dialogue, before you'd had a chance to move your character or do anything else, your parents ask if you're really sure you want to become a hunter... and you can say "No", after which your character decides to pick up a normal job being a mechanic. It has its own epilogue and then you go right to credits.

Honorable *really* old-school mention: It's possible to die in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game before Earth is destroyed (not quite 'before you even start,' but effectively so for story purposes). The fun twist here is that it's a text-adventure game, so you have to continue putting in inputs to pass another three or so turns before the Vogons blow everything up... and the game responds with "You keep out of this, you're dead."

Speaking of the 80s, there was a game called Global Thermonuclear Warfare. It's a bit of a strange game, where the only way to win is not to play.

When I saw FNAF on here, I wasn't expecting the 1987 easter egg. I was actually expecting the *extremely* low chance that on the first night, before the animatronics even start really moving you *can* get the Golden Freddy jumpscare... if you're incredibly unlucky.

There might be a grain of truth to the "punch 30720 times on the title screen and beat Takeshi's Challenge" thing: the number 30720 is divisible by 256 (the 8-bit integer limit), so it's not infeasible that the game not only tracks how many times you punch, but also tracks how many times that counter rolls over. It would certainly fit everything else about this game.

in Drawn to Life, a DS game where you draw your character and a lot of major items yourself, you can get an instant game over by just saying no when youre asked for help at the beginning!

Another game similar to the Matrix one was Star Trek: Borg. In that one Q asks you if you want to go back in time and figure out what happened to your dad, or if you want to obey your commanding officer's orders and evacuate to a safe space station. If you pick the suitcase, he's a bit disgusted with you, but acknowledges your choice and lets you end the game without doing any of the cool time travel Borg fighting you bought the game for.

Luke: [flees] Achievement unlocked! Justin Bailout!

The opening credits music in Prey is an absolute banger. It’s even called ‘Everything Is Going To Be Ok’, which is definitely the vibe it gives off, starting you off on a high note, before everything goes to hell

In We Happy Few, you can choose to take joy in the opening scene and it ends pretty much immediately.

In the NES game Karateka, you start the game next to the edge of a cliff. You can take one step to the left and get an instant game over. It's downright hilarious.

Fun fact: In the console version of DDLC, if you delete Monika before starting a new game (only possible after playing through at least once), after the Sayori scene that plays out shown here, instead of crashing, you get a new 'END' screen with a black and white image of Sayori hanging herself again.

In Outer Wilds, you can get a game over if you somehow manage to get yourself killed before visiting the Nomai statue in the museum on the starting planet.

“Mr Takeshi of Takeshi’s Castle made a video game?!” “… nearly impossible to complete…” “Ah, yes.” God I love OG Takeshi’s Castle, sheer insanity the whole way through.

I would have included Night Trap, where you can "fail" the opening cinematic because it suddenly throws you into gameplay with no heads-up.

“The 1980’s weren’t as great as Stranger Things and the powerful hairspray lobby would have you believe,” said L’Oreal’s best customer.

I did not expect that failing before the game properly begins unlocks a more difficult campaign. That is an AWESOME little detail I wish more people put in their games. It's a great way to unlock stuff that I never even considered until now.

As a kid I did the path of neo one just to see what would happen. I was shocked the game legit went "ok, don't play then..." lol

not sure if this counts but in luigi's mansion 3 at the very start of the game when King boo reveals he capture mario and the others if your not careful he can actually catch luigi in a painting and you get a game over right there before you even truly start the game its honestly one of the more depressing and quite frankly scary game over screens as far as mario games goes

In “Kingdom Come Deliverance” right after you finish talking with your mother, you can skip talking to your father and go attack the local guard. If you agree to go to jail, you get a cutscene of your jail cell being lit on fire as the town outside also burns during a raid.

In the story mode of "Nice: A genetics survival game" you can actually die in the tutorial before Adam even gets to meet Eve, you unlock a rare achievement if you do that.

My most embarrassing death at the start of a game was breath of the wild. I exited the shrine of resurrection and was so busy looking at the view I walked straight off the edge in front of me. My friend has never let me forget about it total shame.😂😢😂

In ''Return Of the Obra Dinn'' you are supposed to row a small boat out to a suspiciously empty ship to investigate why all the crew disappeared. Except that you can decide it's not worth the hassle, get back into the row boat and leave immediately, failing the investigation.

In Nier automata, you get a few different endings for dying during the tutorial. You could also just wander off to get endings as well.

Shadows Over Loathing, the new West of Loathing sequel, gives you the ability to do this as well. You start new games with a newspaper stuck on your face, and you need to enter a diner to remove it (and choose your face). However, you can instead choose to walk into the road and get hit by a car before your character even has a face or a name. A hilarious start to the game.

Surprised you didn’t mention how the original pc version of Quake required you to preform increasingly difficult platfroming tasks to choose a difficultly, with the highest difficulty requiring you to jump over lava.

An important fact in Doki Doki Literature Club (spoilers) After you delete Monika and restore things to normal, Sayori becomes the head of the literature club and gains all of Monika's self-awareness (Monika was aware that she's a video game character, by the way. It's implied that it comes with the position.) and goes crazy like she did unless you got every CG in the game. So if you delete Monika before the game even starts, Sayori gains self-awareness early. Oh, and Sayori's already VERY depressed at the start of the game, so if you boot the game up after it crashes, she's killed herself and destroyed the game.

Well now I have several questions about Luke’s memorable Christmas party

In Nethack, one of the grandaddies of the rogulike genre, it's possible to die on turn 1 if you happen to make a chaotic character with a fragile class like wizard or tourist and have autoloot turned on in the settings. There's a 1 in 3 million chance of the game spawning a holy sword at your feet, which you automatically pick up. It, being lawful and intelligent, then beats you to death like the evil doer you are.

I recently learned that in Outer Wilds you can get a game over, which you can normally only get by disabling the Ash Twin Project and then dying, by dying before you ever link to the nomai statue.

In a similar vein to DDLC, Cafe Enchante has one of my favorite first choice game overs. What makes it special is the feeling of horror and dread when you take a moment to think about the consquences of this ending because at first it just seems like a normal bad ending. The main character inherits her grandfather's cafe and goes there to see what it is like. Players are presented the choice whether or not to flip the sign to open at the back of the cafe. Flipping the sign to open starts the supernatureal cafe romance that slowly becomes more horrifying as the story goes on. Not flipping the sign open, the main character returns to her job where she is constantly overworked and verbally abused. Now that doesn't seem terrible otome bad endings concerned, Orlock's bad ending is far more traumatizing, but what happens to the other characters. Canus is forced to keep killing, as part of a never ending cycle to keep the world tree from eating everyone. Faries still being sacfriced to be the World Tree's Bride. Ignis is stuck with the person who is quietly manipulating him to become a world devoring monster, while Ignis is trying to prove that killing does not need to be the way. Rindo is unable to talk anyone about the grief about his sister's incident, while Mikado experiements on himself in an effort to turn Rindo's sister, Mikado's girlfriend, back human after she was transformed into a slimly life force sucking non human. Il is trapped constantly watching the gateway to the cafe hiding for the Heavenly World's hunts where he will either waste away or be captured and brainwashed to be a mindless, emotionless killing machine once again. Myisr is trapped alone in a world where only he and the world are the only things that can survive there. Myisr's touch forever turning everything to dust, surrounded by the people that died when the arrived in that world. AND that's ignoring the oncoming end of the world as The End of the World, the world Myisr is on, is obssessed with the main character constantly trying to reach her which is breaking the fabric of reality. Worlds slowly start to disinagrate even if The End of the World doesn't want that to happen. And what does the End of the World want with the main character... To destroy her human form and combine both of their conscious until they are one being, so he will never be alone again. YEAH its a pretty bad ending for all involved.

Not sure if this is early enough, but in Dishonored, you can walk off a ledge onto a guard's head before you reach the empress. This triggers a game over before you've even hit the combat tutorial. (I believe the ledge is near where Campbell is standing for his portrait, but it's been a few years.)

another game I that has something like these is Drawn to Life, a game where you draw and play as your own hero, in the beginning the town is surrounded by darkness, everyone has left and a character called Mari begs for your help in which you can actually say "no", then she just says "then I guess it's all over" and you go back to the title screen before you even got to make the hero

Can we talk about how they put warnings before the jumpscares? As an extremely skittish and easily startled person, those warnings were a lifesaver and I so appreciate them!

6:33 the fact that we have never seen this mysterious “monica” on the channel can only mean one thing… she is still stuck in that bin on the 4th floor the poor thing. Or she’s been snatched up by lou bega i guess🤷🏻‍♂️

On the very first screen of Space Quest 2, you can die by stepping off of the ship whose exterior you're cleaning and floating away into the void of space. Ahh, good ol' Sierra games.

Not sure if this counts, but in The Stanley Parable, one of the endings is just to close your office door

Star Trek: TNG for SNES had a code where every planet was uninhabitable and transit time was instant. I swear I once figured out a pattern to it all, only to face endless swarms of Chodak spaceships that eventually wore me down.

you can fail "we happy few" if you take your medication when Arthur begins to remember his brother Percy from a newspaper article. less than five minutes into the game.

In Tormet: Tides of Numenera, an isometric CRPG, right after you create a new character the narrator tells you that you're falling from a great height (perhaps sub-orbital) and are hurtling towards the ground. If you choose to continue falling as fast as possible, you will splatter before being able to actually move your character around or make any other choice. Then again, I probably heard about it on this very channel before I tried it myself...

In Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok, you can pass out from exhaustion during the combat tutorial. This being one of those games that has a unique message for every possible way you can get a game over, the game has a bit of snark for you if you do this.

I can't believe they didn't include the hardcore mode of Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Where it's possible to die as a baby before the game even starts in order to simulate the harsh realities of living in medieval times. xD

Shadows over Loathing has an option on the first screen to "give up" which takes you back to the main menu.

In pillars of eternity 2, if you refuse Berath's request to stop Eothas twice, she goes through with her threat and return's the Watcher's soul to the Wheel, essentially killing the player character

Golden Sun has a great one where you get past the tutorial and have a typical "are you ready for your quest?" style dialogue with a town priest. If you refuse to accept enough times, eventually the screen fades to grey with a dialogue about the world slipping into destruction and it boots you to the main menu

THANK YOU for the jump scare warnings!! (for real, I watch this to wind down on my way to sleep)

In Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, when Takakura asks if you want to try farming during the opening scene, choose "No". There will be a short scene which shows your character walking away and then Takakura briefly talking and then you are kicked back to the title screen.

Well done! You didn't fail to start this video! You did start this video, right?

Classic example: NetHack. You can fail the quest by escaping the dungeon on your first turn. You might also get yourself instantly killed by falling off your horse or using certain magic potions, scrolls, or wands in an unfortunate way.

In “we happy few” you can choose to take joy upon starting the game, instantly showing the credits.

I listen to a lot of RU-vid videos while at work. But I had to pull the phone out rewind it just to see how adorable Ellen was dodging fake bullets in the chair.

What about Kingdom Come Deliverance? Negative perks at the start of the hardcore mode can mean you've bled out or died in your sleep before you've even started!

I bought my dad Subnautica, because he had been really into Fallout 76, so I thought he'd enjoy it. He later told me, he couldn't make it out of the emergency pod without dying in the fire. I didn't even know you could die in that bit

My favorite is GhostMaster. During the opening some teens use a Ouija Board and ask "is anybody there?" You use it to name your save profile but if you say no, the game closes.

Bit of a throwback, but in 1987's Grange Hill: the Computer Game for the ZX Spectrum & Commodore 64, you can immediately die by walking left, instead of right on the first screen.

King's Quest 6 starts you off on a beach post shipwreck. I promptly decided to see if I could swim. I just as promptly had to start a new game.

One of my favorite game overs before the game starts is at the beginning of Torment: Tides of Numenera. You start off answering text chains which can lead to you pancaking yourself as you fall from the heavens. I'll admit, I did this quite organically the first time I played the game.

What's absolutely the most upsetting about "DDLC's" game over before starting is that Sayori's sprite for when she's found "hanging out" is shown when you re-open the game after watching her psychological break (it's a pretty morbid shot, so be weary). If you wait for about ten minutes or adjust the time on your pc's clock, the message, "Now everyone can be happy." will be shown (it's a famous line in the game that can be found somewhere in the files I believe?). Oh, and for "FNAF", that jumpscare happens because Scott implemented that in order to shut down rumors that you could play the game in the year 1987 (people thought they could seek out the Bite of '87 or something).

In Outer wilds by Mobius Digital, you can roll death credits if you fall in the fire where you wake up if you haven’t been put in the time loop yet. Edit: I love hearing everyone’s death screens stories in the replies : )

In Mystic Messenger, you can end the game in the tutorial by repeatedly refusing to go to the apartment, and being incredibly snarky to Unknown.

It's not exactly a _losing_ Game Over, but at the beginning of Far Cry 4, if you actually wait the 15 minutes Pagin Min tells you to, when he comes back, you'll automatically win the game and be able to scatter your dead mother's ashes without even firing a shot. XD

In Katawa Shoujo the opening section is basically a tutorial, where you meet all of the major characters, and make introductions. However, in the event that you anger, annoy, or otherwise fail to meet the prerequisites to start a game path with any of them, you get an ending where you fall off a roof and die.

Very kind to mention when the jumpscares are! Much appreciated!

That Metroid code suddenly being said in complete seriousness at 13:24 made me burst out laughing.

Ok, but dying on the menu screen in Takeshis Challenge is really funny xD

Not a video game, but there is a sci-fi TTRPG called Traveller that required you to roll randomly to find out about your character's origins and abilities in the game. The original edition, and I think a few subsequent ones, were infamous for you being able to roll a sequence of events that would cause your character to die, DURING CHARGEN, and then needing you to roll up a new one before the first session even began.

Finally some games that cater to my skill level! Also I'm pretty sure that bit about Ellen failing to do the bullet time limbo (you did your best) was not scripted.

"Heads up, jumpscare in 5 seconds" *proceeds to get jumpscared*

Actually those kinds of endings aren't even that rare in short indie horror games where you can get a bad ending immediately. How it usually work is like "Do you want to wake up and go to school?" and if you select no, you get a peaceful but albeit unsatisfying ending.

Similar to the Matrix game, if you take your “Joy” in We Happy Few at the beginning it of the game it also ends.

crazy how its almost been 10 years since FNAF dropped. damn.

In We Happy Few, a game that isn’t well known due to lackluster gameplay, you can fail the game at the very start of the game. In the middle of the very first cutscene, you will be shown a newspaper that sparks memories in your character. You then have the option to recall your painful memories, or take your joy, remaining in blissful ignorance. The obvious option is to recall, which starts the game. However, if you take your joy, the credits roll and the game ends before anything even happens.

Need a sequel: Games you can win before you even start. :P

Live-A-Live has a fun thing, dont know if to count it for this list but if you choose "The Infiltrator" chapter (Or in the select screen "Ninja/Twilight of Edo Japan") if you decide to walk away from scene, once the chapter lets you move, the game will ask you 3 times to confirm you really wanna leave. If you say Yes all 3 times, a secret "ending" will play out, which ultimately ends in a game over no matter how things go.

There was an old browser based text adventure, self proclaimed horror game called, not making this up, Don't S**t your pants. You can type the word... Well... S**t on the start menu to fail the game immediately

as an honorable mention I'd also like to mention Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors where if you choose the Impossible difficulty you get killed in the opening cutscene, although it technically is an unreleased title as the developers went out of business before it could be released but it ended up circulating the internet around 2005

It's funny how in Super Paper Mario, you can reject the first Pure Heart from Merlon. You don't even move ONCE. Not to mention that Count Bleck defets Mario at the very beginning of the game. He just gets knocked out. The Count kidnappes everyone else for the wedding 😂

Not quite at the start, but the wise one in Golden Sun asks you to go on a quest and you can say no. If you do and leave the place you will get a screen that explains that the world went to ruins.