"Oops, I didn't mean to do that!" - Games where you accidentally killed an NPC

[Verelios]

I accidently hit the priest(friar?) in the Nexus in Demon's Souls and he started bugging out. It was whatever, he wasn't even that fast, let him be and kept challenging arch stones. But he kept pushing me every time I stopped by the Nexus to the point that I had to put him down. Wasn't much of a loss since I didn't use him anyway, even though it made the Nexus that much more bleak.

 

[Hu3]

Demons souls I don't know what I was doing at the time. Killed every npc even the maiden in black I pushed her through the hole in the middle of the HUB.

 

[DrLight66]

Everyone's killed him at least once not expecting anything to actually happen to him, and he doesn't come back (they don't come back? is there more than one?) unless you reload your save file.

 

[Valdega]

In Gothic, there's an NPC called Mud. When you meet him, he follows you around and acts like you're best buddies. It's charming at first but you quickly realize why everyone hates him. He's completely worthless in combat (forcing you to babysit him in order to keep him alive) and constantly interrupts you to whine and ask stupid questions. After a few hours of this, I reached my limit so I beat him down and then murdered him while he lay defenseless on the ground.

That was the first time I ever felt guilty about killing an NPC. It wasn't so much because of the beatdown. That was the only way to make him leave me alone. However, I didn't need to kill him. It wasn't so much an accident as an act of frustration. It felt like a relief at the moment but I regretted it the more I thought about it hours later.

 

[Bookkoo]

Forever Regret

 

[Jawmuncher]

 

[Megatron]

I killed or attacked a bunch of people on accident in Red Dead 2. In the side mission with the two brothers who are trying to outprove themselves, I kept accidentally shooting them when I was trying to shoot the bottles off their heads . I think it was using a shot gun, so the ammo sprayed a bit.

I remember one time I was trying to go pay my bounty at the post office but I had accidentally made a scene and they wouldn't talk to me. So I went to the bar and tried to rent a room, and the button prompt said y, but then when I pushed it, it changed to punch and I started a bar fight when I was specifically trying to LOWER my bounty. And similarly when I was in Saint Denis, I came out of a bar where I was planning to go grab a stage coach to the northwest corner of the map. I pushed y to jump on my horse and instead I jumped on a random NPC and started strangling him, which of course brought the police.

 

[knightmawk]

It happened about once in hour in Red Dead 2, I'd be trying to punch someone or ride a horse or walk into a general store and I'd end up brutally stabbing some guy in the gut or shooting a woman in the neck.

I think the worst and the one that will always stick with me though is Morrowind. I played that game for at least 100 hours before I realized it even had a main story quest, I was just running around finding stuff and looking at stuff. Anyone, eventually I started the main quest, I'm now well over 100 hours in on this character and I get to a point where I need to go meet a guy in one of the towns in the Ashlands, and I just can't find the guy. I keep looking and keep looking and ask friends and everything I can think of, and eventually realize I killed the guy some untold amount of hours ago and moved in to his house. I don't remember why I killed him, I was probably trying to rob him and it went bad.

Morrowind had a little pop up when you did this, something to the effect of "you killed an essential NPC, you can either reload a previous save or live in the world you've created" but it was small and it appeared in the lower right of the screen only briefly, I was playing on a 14 inch crt TV, so I could read dick all already. Good times.

Also my first play through of Dishonored was very nearly non-lethal, I had two kills the entire game. One guy got killed by an infected I let out during a mission because I'd knocked him out and hid his body where the infected found it, and the other guy was in the very begining, the sewers, and there's a guard you have to get passed. I knocked him unconscious, but I threw him in the water before going up the ladder, I imagine he either drowned or the rats ate him. Only two kills the entire game though, which I'm pretty proud of.

 

[texhnolyze]

Is this even a thing in JRPGs that is not Souls?

 

[Talal]

RDR2 the thread.
I accidently killed some npcs in Saint Denis while riding my horse because it was the most crowded city. I only traveled by foot there afterwards, things can go to shit pretty quick.

 

[sph3re]

I smacked that dude in Firelink Shrine in Dark Souls a couple times, which made for a very interesting day

Really the worst NPC to piss off early on

 

[Dec]

i killed an npc in bloodborne 'cause she had her back to me and looked vaguely enemy-like.

 

[Captain of Outer Space]

All of the time in the Gravity Rush games when my anti-gravity antics accidentally swept up regular folk and sent them off to the void below.

I wouldn't call it an accident, but pushing people on the pier in Mafia II into the water and watch them sink into the water because it was funny to me that they had no swimming animations was definitely a thing I did a bunch. The cops didn't care about that.

 

[melodiousmowl]

I set my controller down while playing Dark Souls and accidentally hit Solaire and aggroed him in Anor Londo.

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ps3 controller + souls game + setting down = dead npc

 

[Tachya]

Forever Regret

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I thought of the chickens in Skyrim later, but I'm surprised no one else mentioned them specifically.

And speaking of chickens, the ones in Link's Awakening OH GOD.

 

[Dommo]

I remember starting a play-through of Fallout: New Vegas. I'd just completed the first section of Goodsprings and was wrapping up for the day. I saved and then started mucking about for a couple of quick minutes, antagonised a Goodsprings citizen, which led to a town-wide slaughter, running all over murdering the lot of 'em. I quit the game without saving, and I thought that was that.

I return to the game a couple days later and pick up where I left off. Immediately walk out of Goodsprings and play for around 10 hours completing various quests around the Mojave. After all of this, I finally return to old homely Goodsprings to warmly reunite with the old mates only to find an entire town of dead bodies. For a few minutes I was like "holy shit what quest triggered this? I didn't realise this happened in the story. Is this the fucking Legion's doing?"

Only after some time had passed did I realise it was me who had killed them. I'd loaded the autosave made after I'd gone on my killing spree, instead of the quicksave I'd made before. I cracked up with the thought that my wholesome character had just snapped one day, entered a fugue state, murdered an entire town of people, then forgot the whole affair, returned to his wholesome ways for another 10 hours only to be confronted by the horrors he'd inflicted earlier.

It was me. It was me all along.

 

[MazKiller]

Spoiler

Toriel

in Undertale.

 

[Valkerion]

Bloodborne Patches, what were they thinking making him look like that in a dark area. I went all in instantly and murderlated his ass without realizing it was a npc until it was too late.

 

[Booki]

I remember my Arthur Morgan choking out random passerby during my RDR2 playthrough. I'm just trying to interact with my horse, but I pull one of these:

 

[Tizoc]

Blazing Saddles.

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Thansk.

 

[Tachya]

I remember my Arthur Morgan choking out random passerby during my RDR2 playthrough. I'm just trying to interact with my horse, but I pull one of these:

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This and plenty of other situations in this thread are a symptom of "A to Awesome!" or just more generally having too few inputs to adequately support the simulation so a lot of stuff gets contextually mapped to fewer buttons or whatever and it's more often than not a bit fast and loose.

Also the PS3 triggers at least were horribly designed such that they're very sensitive and can easily active upon setting the controller down so all the Demon's Souls and other PS3 stories don't surprise me that much, since trigger buttons often activate attacks which can lead to the "interesting" situations presented. I think the PS4 Dual Shock is a bit better in this regard though.

Sort of related to the topic at hand, I had a near complete save of Spyro 2 back on the original PlayStation and some party guest's kid at the time far too easily overrode that save file. And I think there were options for at least 3 save files for that game. I never ended up actually finishing the game after that because something like 20+ hours of kid me's effort was wiped out. I'm sure others have stories of their save files being overwritten by a careless sibling or whatever, so I'd be curious to hear those.

 

[Iztok]

WoW dishonorable kills back in Vanilla.

It had serious consequences and halted or even reversed your progress through the PVP honor system.

 

[Lucreto]

The butcher in Valentine in RDR2. I keep hitting R2 hitting hit Square in the chest. I kept losing high quality pelts after dying after killing the butcher.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

This happened to me all the time in Red Dead Redemption II, it is so easy for a simple robbery to escalate. Before you know it you are dragging the body of the guy who saw you kill the guy who saw you kill the guy you were trying to rob

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[FF Seraphim]

Bloodborne Patches, what were they thinking making him look like that in a dark area. I went all in instantly and murderlated his ass without realizing it was a npc until it was too late.

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No you did the right thing, he deserves death.
Has anyone on Era not accidentally hit or killed a NPC in a Soulsborne game? I killed that moss lady in DS1 when I first saw her thinking she was an enemy.

 

[LongLiveLink]

Skyrim. Hail multiple save files!

 

[SugarNoodles]

Happens occasionally when I put the PS4 controller down because all it takes is gravity to push R2/L2

Ended a dark souls 1 playthrough after a couple of hours because I put the controller down while I was standing in front of Oswald. Got him permanently aggroed to me and couldnt get undo it because Oswald is the NPC that does it.

 

[SugarNoodles]

Everyone who went in blind accidentally killed Toriel in Undertale the first time.

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*shrug* much more thematically fitting that way.

 

[Butt-shot Katana]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

In the police station, there's a hooker talking to a cop. I would sometimes get the interact and melee attack buttons confused.

So you can imagine what happened. My friend who was watching me play looked at me like I was a monster and the whole police station aggro'd.

 

[Dandy]

I used to accidentally hit NPCs in Everquest all the time. Of course, you just die instantly when that happens.

 

[Aexact]

Well I felt progressively worse about killing the non-hostile robots in Nier Automata.

But for most games, if you can't talk to them the only way to interact with a thing is to kill it.

 

[Vulcano's Assistant]

*shrug* much more thematically fitting that way.

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The game goes out of its way to make sure you do it. I say that guilt is a fundamental part of the experience when things are revealed to you in the end, so it is all by design imo.

 

[Thequietone]

Accidentally killed the merchant in Resident Evil 4. Trying to kill the ganado that followed me.

 

[Psoelberg]

During my first playthrough of GTAV I was really trying to be good. In my first 15 hours, I managed not to kill any NPC (besides the bad guys in missions) - I was waiting for the green light in traffic lights, and didn't shoot or didn't punch anybody. I was really behaving. Then - after about 15 hours - I was driving a bit too fast. I lost control of the car, drove into another car. That car drove off the road and hit a tree. And then I just heard the haunting sound of the car horn. I walked over the crashed car and saw this dead woman with her head on the steering wheel. A simple moment that I guess all GTA-players have experienced. But because I had managed to not kill any NPC's for so long it really hit me hard. I felt so guilty. A very powerful moment.

 

[DJwest]

Detroit Become Human. Sorry Hank

 

[jedezel]

Dark Souls : first Pyromancer merchant. Did not think to roll in order to free him, I used my sword and "agroed" him.

 

[Donos]

Demon's Souls - the Hobo merchant (selling Hardstones), sitting in a pile of rubble... i really needed buyiing hardstones though.... had to grind them -_-

You can't just sit in a pile of rubble like a fiend and scare me, in a game where i'm scared to insta die all the time....

 

[Deleted member 1726]

RDR2.

Some guy slumped over a tree with his leg in a bear trap, I went to help him and ended up blowing his head off because I pressed the wrong button.

 

[Tachya]

When we play these games are we all basically One Punch Man?!

 

[ShinySunny]

Dark Souls, the lady in the sewer around the corner that sells Humanity and the ironic decurse HP item where all the frogs are in the sewer...

Old Lady: KEKEHEEHEH...
Me: *Swing sword around me.*
I AM TRYING TO RUN OUT OF THIS INFESTED RATS/FROGS HELL HOLE LADY!
DON'T SCARE ME LIKE THAT!
Oh shit...my HP is 50% from curse.

 

[Fool]

I've played through Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1, 2 and 3 without killing any NPC's, at least as far as I can remember. I was always cautious in the hubs with them and the ones that you meet in the wild I guess I managed to keep alive by luck.

In Kingdom Come I've accidentally killed some merchants while traveling. One time I got ambushed by some people and when I had dealt with them I assumed the merchant who was standing around was with them so I took care of him too.

 

[Garlador]

I know that "technically" Batman doesn't kill anybody in Akrham Knight...

... but "technically" I think I ran over more people and crushed more criminals in cars than Batman's normal "no kill policy" would permit.

 

[Morrigan]

I must be the only one who never accidentally killed an NPC in Soulsborne games. A friend of mine has a history of always attacking the non-human NPCs on sight though. He sniped at poor Manscorpion Tark with his bow (and realized something might have been off when the death cry sounded strangely human) and instantly killed Patches in Bloodborne.

I was a genocidal monster in Gravity Rush 1 and 2 though, but then again, who wasn't?

Andre The Giant in Dark Souls 1.

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You did WHAT

Spoiler

;) You mean either Andre the blacksmith or the Giant blacksmith I take it. Andre being the more important one so that would suck!

Same here

And a few hours later I got cursed and he's the only guy who sell the item to cure curse (at least during the first half of the game)
I had to find Ingward in New Londo to cure the curse

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Oswald of Carim (you find him after ringing the first bell) also sells those, and at half price... lol

They changed that in GR2 right?

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Nope.

Are there... any consequences to doing that? Because it kinda looks unavoidable.

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Nope.

Accidents can happen to anyone

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"Accidents"

Has anyone on Era not accidentally hit or killed a NPC in a Soulsborne game? I killed that moss lady in DS1 when I first saw her thinking she was an enemy.

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I never killed anyone on accident but I did accidentally aggro Siegmeyer once, during the Izalith pit sidequest. I panicked, homeward-boned out of there, and paid the redemption fee... which, pre-patch, was at 2000 souls a level instead of 500, so it cost me like 104k souls :( but it was worth it to get that damn slab lol.

 

[Redowl]

I killed the first merchant in Dark Souls 1 and didn't have a bow until much later in the game. My friend was like, "Why'd you kill him?!" I'm like "Oops"

 

[BouncyFrag]

Forever Regret

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Leave no witnesses.

 

[a_mad_bag_of_cats]

Pretty much every and any npc in a soulsborne game where typically everything and everyone wants to kill you.

Your typically an isolated character and don't stop to ask questions if some random enemy happens to look slightly different or may be friendly. It's usually mid-weapon swing that you realise there's an "x - Talk" option on screen, by which point it's too late.

I mean it's hard trusting whether or not an npc will not kill you if even some chests will kill you...