10 Video Games Where You Were Doomed From The Start
Sometimes your fate is sealed as early as the tutorial.
Generally, in any kind of story, the stakes and level of danger slowly increase throughout the plot, saving the best for last. However, no two stories are exactly the same, and some throw convention out of the window the minute they can - which is exactly why some video games have you doomed at the beginning of your entire adventure.
Be it from a disease, a curse, or just an inescapable situation, some of the most interesting premises in gaming come from presenting the player a scenario that either seems to be or actively is impossible to escape from, and seeing how they confront it. Or indeed if they even do - or gently deny what's clearly about to happen for the rest of the game.
In true hero fashion, some doomed characters do manage to escape their fate, with the power of strength, bravery, and some good old fashioned plot armour. However, many don't, finishing the game either dead, dying, or just as screwed as they were when you were first introduced to them.
As it turns out, even all the nanomachines in the world can't stop some characters from having a rough ride in a game, from start to finish.
10. Firewatch
The doom you have in Firewatch is very different to the type you have in many other games - largely because it doesn't involve your character slowly dying throughout the course of the game.
But it's no less painful in spite of not involving your death. Because - for anyone who hasn't played the game - the introduction to the game revolves around your character, Henry, and his love interest and eventual wife Julia. Their relationship is sweet, and appears to be going great until Julia starts to suffer from a disease that effects her memory, which complicates both the pair's dynamic and Henry's ability to cope.
After he gets a DUI and Julia is either taken home by her parents or sent to a nursing home, Henry goes off to be a Firewatcher - to try and clear his head and to try and escape his current situation.
So, not only does the end of Firewatch reveal that the big mystery was actually just a sad story of child death, but we also head back to exactly the same situation we left at the start of the plot - possibly further complicated if you fell for Delilah on the way.
While some dialogue implies that Henry is going to visit his wife when he goes back and try to sort things, even this isn't exactly a happy ending: just better than the other possibilities.