10 Video Games Where You Start Off Dead
8. Mass Effect 2
Though Mass Effect 2 players do technically get to play as an alive and kicking Commander Shepard for about 60 seconds in the game's prologue, immediately afterwards he's ejected into space as the Normandy explodes, quickly suffocating to death.
It's a supremely shocking, even heartbreaking moment for fans eager to regain control of Shepard once again, though thankfully BioWare didn't simply kill Shepard off for the sheer jaw-dropping sake of it.
Moments later, the scene shifts forward two years where Shepard has been resurrected thanks to Cerberus' "Lazarus Project," an experimental procedure which managed to reconstruct Shepard largely in tact.
BioWare sure gave fans a scare there, and though the means of Shepard's revival are fundamentally pretty loony, it's a damn sight better than permadeath for mere shock value.