10 Video Game Deaths You Were POWERLESS To Stop (But Kept Trying Anyway)

Death is a part of the vast majority of video games, and beyond the possibly hundreds of enemies you'll indiscriminately murder over the course of a single game, there are of course those distinct character deaths that end up hitting hard.

But the beauty of games is the freedom of choice and possibility they present to the player, often that they can affect the outcome of the story and, in some situations, even prevent a beloved character from shuffling off their mortal coil.

We've all played games that granted the player agency to ensure a character remained alive, but to the same token, we've all desperately tried to save a character whose fate was sealed by the developers all along.

And the latter is absolutely the case with these 10 games, each of which killed off much-loved characters, forcing us all to try and figure out a way to bring them back.

Perhaps the game's mechanics suggested that there might be another way, but in the end there was nothing to be done - short of cheating, glitching, or straight-up modding the game, there was no way to save these folk...

Near the end of the American campaign in Call of Duty: World at War, you'll be given a choice of saving one of the two beloved comrades you've been through fresh hell with - Sergeant Roebuck (Kiefer Sutherland) or Private Polonsky (Aaron Stanford).

When the pair search a group of Japanese soldiers, they suddenly activate concealed grenades, at which point the player must choose whether to save Roebuck or Polonsky from sure death.

The outcome is absolutely heart-rending no matter who you save, the survivor left wracked with immense guilt over the other soldier's death. 

And many players felt it too, to the extent that they experimented around, trying to figure out a way to take the Japanese soldiers out before they could ready their 'nades.

It was eventually discovered that you technically can "save" both men by throwing an explosive and killing all the soldiers before they can strike, but there's a catch.

Though both soldiers will stand upright and appear to be alive, one of them will still react as though the other has died. As for the other, totally-not-dead soldier? 

They'll effectively be an unresponsive, spectre-like zombie locked in position from this point forward - a fate worse than death, arguably.