Sonic The Hedgehog (2006)

Sonic is fast enough to escape a giant killer whale and skilled enough to retrieve Princess Elise from Dr. Eggman, but if he enters a body of water, he will suddenly and dramatically drown.

The Sims

Your Sims can be as successful as you want them to be—you can give them the resources they need to get a promotion, make new friends, or start a family. On the other side of things, Sims will only survive as long as you take good care of them. Being trapped in a corner by a poorly positioned couch and being unable to reach food is an anti-climactic way to die. If you make an error in the design of your Sim’s home, like placing a wooden crate next to a fireplace, your Sim can burn to death. If you step away from the game for too long, or if you run out of money, your Sim can starve. Your Sim didn’t die snowboarding off an epic mountain, SSX Tricky-style. They didn’t die fighting a herd of Nazi zombies, as in Call of Duty: World at War. You failed to prioritize showering for your Sims, and they died from poor hygiene.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (PC)

In this game, Harry Potter can die at age eleven by falling, as there are gaping holes in the flooring in several hallways at this place of learning. Harry is powerful enough to defeat the Lord Voldemort in year seven, and this game introduces an alternative path for Harry where he can die while anticlimactically wandering the school, or walking to class, if he fails to successfully jump from one floating slab of cement flooring to the next.

Halo

You’re participating in an interstellar war, but one of your biggest threats is walking too close to the edge of a cliff and plummeting to your death.

Super Mario Bros.

In the first level of Super Mario Bros., your character can die if a slow-moving Goomba strolls into you. Mario’s eight-world adventure will be canceled, and the princess will never be saved if you fail to make Mario hop over a Goomba in this somehow pivotal moment of the game.

The next time you play, keep these instances in mind and make sure you take every obstacle seriously—death is shockingly imminent.