8 Characters You Didn't Realise Secretly Died In Their Own Video Games
The goodbyes you never thought you'd have to say.
Death is a major theme of video games, and appears in many guises across our favourite titles, but like an M. Night Shyamalan twist in tribute, is so much more powerful when you didn’t even know it happened.
We’re not necessarily talking a Sixth Sense-style “Oh, he was dead all along” reveal, but more those cases where a main character died and we weren’t even aware. After all, if it's not an obvious piece of the narrative, how would you really know?
Instead, we’re going to celebrate those game figures who passed without us knowing. Most are mere theory as they may not have been officially verified by the creators, but take a look at the signs and decide for yourself if the death certificate is real.
It’s like the end sequence of Repo Men, when Jude Law smiles brightly beside his nearest and dearest, white sands to one side and a Mimosa to the other, only for the viewer’s screen to flicker, hinting all’s not as right as it seems.
So come with us on a journey of video game character deaths you might never have known about, throwing some morbid mystery on those whom we might have thought rode into the sunset forever.
8. Robo - Chrono Trigger
Who doesn’t love a scrappy robot sidekick? Particularly in RPGs, they tend to offer a different skill set to the rest of our characters and make for some of the most loveable characters, often venturing on a journey of self-exploration, realisation or something equally sentimental.
Robo is the most versatile character to evolve in Chrono Trigger, and makes for an incredibly valuable battle ally, so it’s only natural we use him a lot, developing a close bond with the character.
This makes it so much harder to accept Robo (or “Prometheus,” as he’s really named) dies after the game’s conclusion.
Robo volunteers to help Belthasar save time in 2300 A.D., and we next see him as the Prometheus Circuit in Chrono Trigger, by which point the Robo we knew and loved and shared smores with is long gone.
Square writer Masato Kato penned the script for Chrono Trigger and touched on Prometheus (Robo) as “the death of such a much-loved friend,” effectively confirming our chromed-out companion is no more.