7 Most Terrifying One Hit Kills That Will Ruin Your Whole Game 

Talking of the Witch, I remember one time when playing a friend tossed a molotov, just before I said "Wait, there's a witch up there". An achievement popped up saying "Burn the witch", and I thought "Oh, that was easier than I expected." Or at least I thought that until I saw the witch running down the stairs, while on fire, and leapt at us, and I just remember thinking "Well, I didn't know there was a way to make the witch worse, but we found it."

Mike: How about knitting, I hear it's very relaxing? Me, knitting and cursing as I laboriously unpick every other stitch after making a mistake: is it? Is it really?

The jackal snipers from Halo 2 may also fit the bill, especially on Legendary. They WILL instantly kill you if you come within about a square mile of them. They don't need lines of sight, they are incredibly good at killing the Chief and while it doesn't have a flashy animation, watching a beam rifle shot come out from nowhere and instantly kill you for about the thirtieth time in 5 minutes certainly ruins the players day, even if not the entire game.

I think the worst one hit "kills" are the boss fights you didn't know you had to lose for story reasons after using all of your healing items.

The first time I got decapitated in RE4 I actually just sat in shock for about 10 minutes. It was so brutal.

A little extra note about the Banshees from Mass Effect 3. In the multiplayer, because of some slightly wonky net code, even with very low pings, you could still get a lag effect grab from them without you being able to see or avoid it. And that is one of the few attacks that instant kills you making it impossible for a team mate or medigel to revive you. Which combined with their teleportation meant that anywhere within about 15 meters was technically grabbing range in the multiplayer. And you can't do a quick-time dodge counter like in the single player. It's technically possible for a team mate to stun them and save you, but when that move is happening they have the second highest stagger resistance in the game, so a Vanguard with maxed charge is pretty much the only thing that can reliably interrupt it. Oh, and they can teleport through walls too, of course. So many rounds have been ended by Banshees that players didn't even see.

“Squishy flesh casing that has an armour rating of zero.” Speak for yourself Andy. I’m fat as hell so my AR is through the roof! Wait no, cholesterol. Cholesterol through the roof lol

The Heart of Darkness from Darkest Dungeon forces you to choose which one of your characters to kill and you will be royally screwed if you are playing on stygian/bloodmoon difficulty since only so many characters can die before you get a permanent game over.

The bloaters in TLOU forever terrified me when I encountered the first one in the school and it ripped Joel's face off, and the camera cuts away just a second too late before the animation happens

The hidden math behind how powerful Master Tonberry explains why some people were not as terrified of it as I was. Having it shank Cloud and insta kill each party member while I tried to run away left an impression.

Midir reminded me of one of my other favorite instakills, also from a Dragon, from Monster Hunter World which is the ultimate move from Safijiva, which if you don’t take cover behind a rock, you will be incinerated in a glorious blue inferno. Although it is truly a instakill if it hits, it looks so beautiful it probably fits better in a list like “Top 10 instakills that ENHANCE your whole game.”

Leon, dodging another axe throw from a ganado: "Damn- that was a close shave!" Dr. Salvador: "Heh."

The xenomorph from Alien Isolation can kill Ripley in one hit if it catches her in a number of different ways like with it's secondary mouth or its tail.

Every one of these attacks come with their own *Record scratch freeze frame* “Yep, that’s me..”

Midir’s laser is actually extremely avoidable, cuz once you get past the fact that it goes all over the place, you notice that it goes all over the place the same way every time, so if you find a safe spot once, you can completely shrug it off. His REAL terrifying 1HKO is the phase 2 humanity explosion that shoots out like 50 little dark spirits that rush you down and essentially guarantee death if you stop running for a fraction of a second.

I never expirienced the heart stopping hit in Yakuza: Like a Dragon (And I played the True Millenium Tower), but that he gets the Orbital Laser if his HP is low enough is much worse. If your Level is not high enough or your party is not completly healed he can kill your entire party with one hit.

Freaking banshees. Also from Mass Effect 3: The Phantoms can kill you instantly with a sword if you get too close. The wiki also says Brutes, Atlas mechs, Scions and Praetorians also have similar instant kills. But it's that banshee scream that really sends chills down the spine.

There is this one enemy type in NieR: Automata, the big one with big hands, it insta killed me like 5 times before I realised it has an attack which telegraphs exactly the same as a different one, except this one can kill you in one hit

There is an enemy in risk of rain 2 called the void reaver that has a weird insta-kill. When it dies it makes this really weird noise and implodes, which is always a one hit kill. It's really unique for a game with a mechanic that means you can never get killed in one hit when at full HP. You even get a pretty chilling death message , "You have been detained. Await your sentence at the end of Time."

Only reason my Ichiban didn’t get annihilated by Tendo’s God’s Right Hand was because he had a weird vendetta against Nanba (who I kept bringing back) so uh… thanks, man. Didn’t make it any less terrifying though!

Fought Midir for the first time just yesterday and can confirm after about 50 attempts to beat him I survived the laser hit only once and that was with about 1400 hp (humanity buff included). The damage probably has a range at which the bottom end is very close to my HP.

Bad Girl's instant kill in No More Heroes still shocks me for how brutal it is despite its mundanity. In a game where you walk around cutting people in half with a lightsaber bought off "an internet auction site," where other enemies are using giant lasers made out of shopping carts and teleporting you into death traps, she just occasionally collapses and starts crying. If she does it with both hands on her face, hey, free hits. But if she has one hand on her baseball bat, she quickly counters and starts whaling on Travis. And then keeps smacking him until his face is a bloody smear. Then she keeps going because she's just too psychotic to stop. Maybe it was just how simple it was that added to the brutality.

I'm currently playing through Metroid Dread and I have to say, my first capture by an EMMI was pretty terrifying and since I wasn't paying attention at all I missed the counter flashes and was promptly murdered

Watched the intro, immediately thought of the like a dragon, Tendo boss fight, as a vivid yakuza fan. That one was one of the more painful, glad to know I’m not the only one.

In the defence of dorky face, it does have a party wide confusion attack that can be a battle ender if your whole party gets affected and then fights amongst themselves out of your control

I was hoping The Executioner from Alice: The Madness Returns would be on here. The chase scenes included one hit kills and could make grown men weep

In case you're planning a commenter's edition, consider the Ultimate Chimera from Mother 3, the instant kill attack is so efficient, that it doesn't even go into a proper fight, it kills you right there on the map and gives an automatic game over.

I 100% want to see an outtake on the Oxtra video where Andy storms into their studio and tells them to keep it down :D

Another example would be the E.M.M.I's from Metroid Dread, when they make Body contact to Samus, you only have the Chance of Timing your counter attack perfectly or it's Insta-death 😅

The Hama and Mudo spell lines from the SMT and Persona series. While the effect changes from game to game they almost always can instant kill. And since they are relatively common spells a huge number of encounters could result in an instant game over if they get the first move and you aren't lucky enough.

Another one from the Yakuza franchise is the optional boss battle against Jo Amon in Y6. It goes well until the point he starts to bring his drones out and they surround you. Cue consecutive detonations and broken controllers

The Sephiroth fight from Kingdom Heart 1 & 2. He has a move, I don't know what it's called, but he says "Descend Heartless Angel", then insti-kills you after a few seconds. Only way to not die is to either smack him before he finishes the incantation, or have Second Chance. First option is still better, though

Cabal drop pods from Destiny 2. I've gotten realy paranoid about those monsters. Slam down from orbit with no warning, smashing you into smear on the ground in a single frame. They get a little less deadly once you memorised their landing points, but a) by that time you've been hit enough times to be mentaly scared for life, and b) they will stil get you in the heat of battle...

The phantom from the very first Kingdom Hearts is the perfect example of this. It has a move that is not only a unavoidable one hit unalive move that requires you to constantly cast time freeze magic on the clock tower to keep it from being used, but said move make party members it hits unavailable until you beat the phantom or until you die. The only good news is that the Phantom won't target the main character Sora until you lose your other party members. So you basically have two lives in the very real situation that you run out of magic and can't use time magic to stop the clock. The bad news is that once you lose those two 'lives' your stuck fighting the phantom in a 1 on 1 fight, meaning that all it's attacks are going to be focused on you. So at that point, your going to have to balance dodging, casting stop on the clock, healing, and hitting the phantom with attacks it is vulnerable to. Since two of those vulnerabilities require magic to exploit, that means that smart players will treat these points of the fight as a sign to avoid the phantom and wail on the clock tower to build precious M.P. while moving whenever the phantom gets close enough to attack you directly. The time limit aspect of this one hit unalive move is what makes it so tense, because when you mess up badly enough that you can't avoid this attack, you still have to wait until the countdown reaches zero. Meanwhile your panicking trying desperately to get enough M.P. for one more cast of stop, or your wailing on the phantom in the vain hope that you'll do enough damage to win before the attack goes off. Then when you think you managed to claw your way back from certain defeat, GAME OVER. Every single time.

In Final Fantasy X, my friend was playing on another friend's nearly maxed stat save file. He took on one of the monster arena extra optional bosses, Nemesis, and we mentioned that maybe he should put Auto-Life up. His response was "I don't need it, if I can't beat this thing with maxed out stats, I might as well [not be alive]." One move called "Armageddon" later and the room went uncomfortably silent.

The funniest one is the final boss from Renegade on the NES. The game is a Double Dragon-esque brawler until you get to the final boss who simply pulls out a gun and shoots you dead. It makes you wonder why none of his henchmen were armed to begin with.

My terrifying one hit kill is getting dragged underwater in any way by Killer Croc in Arkham Asylum. His game over screen is the terror flavoured icing on the dread flavoured cake.

The Xenomorph from Alien Isolation. That thing has many ways to dispatch you instantly. The baby monster from Resident Evil Village. That thing eats you whole. Scarecrow from Batman Arkham Asylum, if he spots you he insta-kills you. Final Fantasy 6 boss, Doom Gaze, he has the incident Magic known as death 5. Instantly kills you if any of your characters as a level that's a multiple of five.

I remember when I was facing off against the Camouflage Skulls unit in MGS5 for the first time and made the mistake of staring down the scope for too long, waiting for an opening, and got jump scared when one of them materialized behind me and performed a one shot kill.

Yeah…I actually forgot about Banshees from Mass Effect 3, and how terrifying they are…thanks Mike!😨🥺 I’ve only seen them awhile back, thanks to you guys.😅 Also, I’ve only watched people play Left 4 Dead, but yeah Witches are the worst.

Gotta include the Grim Reaper from Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen in the Commenter Edition! That guy can make your entire party fall asleep from his lantern and one swing from his scythe can instantly kill all your pawns without being able to revive them and can instantly kill you without your own pawns being able to revive you either!

How about Yunalesca from Final Fantasy 10? When she enters her third form, she immediately casts Megadeath, which instantly kills the entire party. To avoid this, you have to NOT cure your zombie status that has been regularly inflicted on you over the course of the battle and cause you to rapidly die due to the boss also casting Regen and Curaga on the party which is good incentive to remove it.

To expand, while Dr. Salvador is the most famous of OHKO enemies in RE4, I would argue that there are some even worse. We do have the Novistadors(acid spit to the face), Garradors(claws on hands...yeah), Stage 2 and 3 plagas sprouts(head munch and acid spit to the face respectively) and perhaps the worst of all, Illuminados cultists armed with scythes("I'll take care of these guys later, they're just mooks and OMG WHY DID I JUST DIE?!?").

Master tombery is morphed into a ribbon (an accessory that gives you immunity against any status effect) if you kill it with morph, but you can't sense its HP, they have really high defense and you need yuffie's ultimate weapon because it is the only one that does full damage with morph if you want to get the ribbons with a minimal consistency

There was once a particularly nasty Confusion status after hours of grinding in the Omega Ruins that might as well have been an OHKO.

Dettlaff's bat swarm attack in The Witcher 3's Blood and Wine DLC was brutal. It took me ages to figure out how to avoid it, and it drains nearly all your health even with Quen up.

It's not a terrifying one-hit kill, but Jumbo Cactuar from Final Fantasy VIII has a pretty funny one-hit kill. His needles do 1 point of damage apiece, so he fires 10,000 of them. (When you get him as a summon, you can replicate this damage output, but ONLY if you get him to max level.)

Laura's battle was infinitely satisfying in The Evil Within 2. It's pretty much the same fight with a teeny little difference: YOU HAVE A FRIGGIN FLAMETHROWER. Seeing the monster that frustrated you so much cower away from you is one of the best things.

There's an alternate universe where you talk about the witch's fear of being OHKO'd by a shotgun blast between the shoulders.

The Rat King from The Last of Us: Part II messed me up for a while. In an already brutal game with tons of intense death animations, it was a new level of puke-inducing for me. That fight wasn't so much "insta-kill" as it was "insta-dismemberment." Poor Abby :/

I actually didn't know that Tendo can target Ichiban in the penultimate fight in Yakuza Like A Dragon. I am so glad I wasn't unlucky enough to have that instant kill happen to me in that fight, I would have been livid!

"As shockingly deadly as it is difficult to avoid" proceeds to easily avoid 4 different laser swipes

That's the sound of man that is tired of being eaten by furniture.

Actually, I think of enormous tortoises. And running cactuses, can't forget the running cactuses.

+1 for Yunalesca. One of the most memorable boss fights.

I recall the pain in my ears with the Banshee as I had headphones on the first time I encountered one and it really really hurt my ears and had me jump out of my skin and at least a foot physically I stopped playing at that point because it was late and the idea of going to bed having heard that trauma inducing screen was too much. I've played a lot of gore filled and bloody games in my time but the Banshee was something else to deal with the first time afterwards I was much more aware and knew how to deal with them and not to wear a headset when I did the missions in enclosed areas with them in.

In FFVII, there's the card dude that throws cards at you. I only know of three if them: Hearts- heal target character Clubs- damage a character Death- Take a guess.

I’m surprised you didn’t go with the Ancient Dragon from Dark Souls 2. That thing was a living One-Shot. Almost every single move it does is a one-shot. But its flying breath attack was the source of my anxiety. I get chills just thinking about it.

Sonic Advance 2 had that one boss that had a weird effect with one of its attacks where the center of its hitbox did damage even through invulnerability frames, so it would double tap and instantly kill the player just by slapping you. Since it was a running battle where managing your distance was already a pain, this made a boss that wasn't even that late game way harder than it needed to be.

The xenomorph in Alien Isolation is bad enough, but the instant kill attack of a facehugger in any Aliens Versus Predator game is also both terrifying and infuriating. Especially when you're playing as a predator and didn't manage to see that last facehugger in the hive in AVP2 that sneaks up behind you and ends your game with a surprise attack. Groan.

3:02 How does she manage to scream after having her head chewed off?

Actually didn't know that about the Banshees... I refused to let them get close to me, lol! I absolutely did not want them touching me.

One of my favourite BOss One-Hit kill is the baby catch in Blasphemous in fight with Exsposito, The Scion of Abjuration. It's such a ridiculous fight, where you are fighting a face glued to a twitsted sticks, only to hear a blindfolded baby behind you cry and... Catch you in it's hands, rip you in half and squeeze the head off of your remaining part.

Mike: it should come as no surprise that everything in dark souls 3 is trying to kill you, even the furniture SHOWS DARK SOULS 1 FOOTAGE

Best part of Midir's dark beam to me is how blatantly it's a reference to the movie Shin Godzilla, from the breathing to the ground to unleash fire, to it turning into a concentrated laser that the creature let's loose in a mass of pure destruction

Director: "The player is being eaten by a mimic here, so I need a few good screams and a death rattle." Voice actor: "Make it sexy, got it." Director: "What? No, I--fine, whatever. Just don't get us rated AO."

Don't forget Split Head from Silent Hill 1, made only worse by the fact that you can only hurt the boss while it's performing the one hit kill at close range AND you have to repeat the process more than once especially so on harder difficulties.

I love Jane's chapter being called "Jane Douglas" but the rest have the name of what is in that slot. (first one after intro is called Focused Dark Beam in the chapters) Jane is a terrifying OHK when she uses her Eldritch powers.

Jackal Snipers in the Halo series should be on this list for sure! Just one look at you and you're dead, especially on Legendary difficulty

Interesting thing about ol' master tonberry. He also exists in 6. If you try to copy his move with Relm's Sketch, apparently it's too op for the game to handle. It glitches out hard, and causes all kinds of wacky effects.

I would like to give a shoutout to Prometheus from Xenoblade Chronicles 2. The final boss has that move, and while it has a damage value and isn’t just an instant kill, if you are fighting it at the intended level, it almost certainly party wipes you. That attack still gives me PTSD.

Scissors has an instakill attack in Paper Mario: The Origami King that honestly terrified me. Remember, this is a game made for kids, wherein Mario can be literally cut in half.

13:08 - Confirmed sighting of a moonwalking Banshee...

Thank you so much for putting Midir on this list. The level of catharsis I've felt is unbounded, as in my first playthrough I remember tilting so bad with him, I literally had to take a nap, and come back next morning.

Safi'Jiiva's Sapphire of the Emperor is the coolest OHK I've ever seen! The way the music stops, the blue light, and the huge flash is just epic.

The Phantom from Kingdom Hearts 1. His Doom attack is not only an instant kill, it’s literally unavoidable. The only thing you can do is delay the attack and defeat him before the countdown is up. Fortunately, he always targets your party members with it first. It’s a really clever way to make a unique boss battle.

They had to drag poor Master Tonberry into this. Shanking is what he lives for

2:35 What about the terrifying One Knit Kill?

Weird that God's right hand can instantly kill you but his left hand is just used to cheat in football matches.

I'm kind of surprised the E.M.M.I. from Metroid: Dread didn't make it, considering how they violently murder-stab Samus in the heart with their pointy faces if they catch her. No matter what armour you have, nor how many energy tanks you've collected :O Edit: there's also SEVEN of them for you to avoid as best you can, not counting the first one which, despite being broken, you can't damage at all, no matter your weapons. Which of course applies to all the other seven as well >.>

"Rise, heartless angel" -_- poor dead Sora

Sodding Banshees ended more of my Mass Effect multiplayer rounds then anything else.

All Andy wants for Christmas is soundproof walls

I don't know if this happened to anyone else, but the Geth Armature's electric projectile instantly killed me every time in the first _Mass Effect_ game.

Tonburrys come back in pretty much all the games after, and they pretty much can always just kill you.

In Soul Hackers 2, there is a number of optional bossfights you can choose to fight in the dungeon called Soul Matrix. These bossfights have a mechanic where if you play bad enough and take too many turns, the boss will use Apocalypse Light, a move that will instantly kill your whole party. Many of these optional fights are also gimmick fights, so you're gonna suffer a few times.

"brittle bone mechs, piloted by squissy brains. Surrounded by a fleshy casing, that has an armor rating of Zero" Best description EVER!

Aah, immediately thinking about Yunalesca in FFX. That was awful, even if avoidable (in the most bizarre way of keeping a negative status effect on). And also, any ennemy with instadeath abilities in Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne. The nastiest thing is that a lot of very random demons have these.

I am currently on my 10th playthrough of Mass Effect, and am just now learning about the banshee instant kill. The second I hear that scream, I drop everything and shoot them from across the room until I can stop hearing that scream.

The Gammas in RE3make was an unpleasant surprise, I've always managed to avoid getting attacked by them but recently in my current playthrough I wasn't able to and seeing Jill get folded in half and sucked down its gut was an goddamn shocking to watch

Like a Dragon seems amazing. I want to play it.

Should've added Yunalesca from FFX! Not only does she have 3 forms to battle, but on the start of her third form, she casts Mega Death which instantly kills your entire party unless you've not cured the zombie status effect, which she takes advantage of by casting curative spells at you which harm you in that state. Being killed by this boss not only sends you right back to fighting her first and second forms all over again, but also forces you to watch a very long unskippable cutscene every time you wish to challenge her.

My first thought went the Fatman of Fallout. Hearing that whistle in 4... I usually die about a dozen times before I've even found the shooter.

In the many many ways you die in the Dead Space franchise, there is one I remember. One necromorph grafted to the walls that just lops your head off if you get too close.

I feel like Lobotomy corporation did a really good job with Nothing There, his one major attack where he says Goodbye is to most employees a one hit kill for players- high end Aleph gear with a high red resist are required for him. But we forgive flesh doggo.

Great timing, playing ME3 Legendary now, and I HATE Banshees! Damn things always teleport right in front of me. Not only do they kill you but do they have to sexually assault you right before they do it? And having to hear Liara freak out while they do it, man it's a rough death.

What about the terraria dungeon guardian? The moment you step foot in the dungeon before beating skeletron, you pretty much instantly die

How is the Payday 2's Zeal Cloaker attacks not in this list, I'd argue they're scarier and more PTSD inducing than the LFD Witch! Awesome video regardless.

Banshees as well as other one-kill ememies in Mass Effect have to be "activated" for them to execute the player. Banshees must stagger you with a screech, Brutes need to hit you one time and only second one will kill you for good, same with the phantom and Atlas. The Praetorian needs to jump at you before it can kill you.

3:08 ...Sorry, how does she manage to scream without a head?