Horror games almost always have protagonists who suffer the unfortunate fate of being thrust into a merciless and horrifying circumstance. For instance, these situations may come in the form of haunted hospitals, abandoned buildings, or even cities plagued by monsters and zombies. Fortunately, most of these horror protagonists live long enough to tell the story of their experiences. Unfortunately, some horror protagonists end up reliving their nightmares in sequels.

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Interestingly, some horror protagonists look at death in the face and win past their experience. Moreover, players get to see for themselves how these protagonists grow as heroes that overcame their personal nightmares. However, just which horror game protagonists might these be? Moreover, how did they overcome the inevitability of death?

10 Doom Guy (Doom)

Doom Guy and Icon of Sin - Horror Protagonists vs Death

Fans of Doom know how Doom Guy, originally an engineer for the marines, ended up in Hell and made his way back to Earth by fighting hordes of demons. Before the Master Chief, Doom Guy served as gaming's most popular helmed protagonist. Throughout the Doom storyline, Doom Guy finds himself saving Earth time and time again from various demons.

However, perhaps the most notable of these demons is the Icon of Sin. Unlike other final bosses, the Icon of Sin heralds the arrival of a black hole that will eventually engulf and destroy the entire Universe. Essentially, Doom Guy blasted the living hell out of the thing that could easily tear the Universe apart.

9 Jill Valentine (Resident Evil 3)

Jill Valentine and Nemesis - Horror Protagonists vs Death

Survival horror fans love Capcom's Resident Evil for their focus on fighting a relentless horde of zombies with limited supplies. However, Resident Evil 3 ups the stakes when Jill Valentine has to leave an entire city infested with zombies. Moreover, she has to accomplish this task while being chased by a hulking bio-organic weapon specifically tasked with killing her.

In RE3, Jill has to work with her wits and training to evade not just zombies but the dreaded Nemesis himself. Moreover, most encounters with Nemesis in the game end up killing Jill. It's after three grueling boss fights that Jill manages to secure the kill. In the game's credits, Jill manages to escape Raccoon City just before a missile completely destroys the city and the zombies in it.

8 Amanda Ripley (Alien: Isolation)

Amanda Ripley and the Xenomorph - Horror Protagonists vs Death

In Alien: Isolation, Ellen Ripley's daughter Amanda will search for her mother's whereabouts 15 years after the events of 1979's Alien. Unfortunately, the young engineer will have to fight a Xenomorph alone in the Sevastopol space station.

Amanda has to use her environment and her trusty motion tracker to run, evade, and hide from the deadly Xenomorph. Unlike other antagonists, the Xenomorph serves as a biological weapon - with near-impenetrable skin, heightened reflexes, and the ability to reproduce by hosting its eggs in other creatures.

In Isolation, Amanda has to face the threat that can eliminate denizens of entire ships and planets time after time across the Alien franchise. However, like her mother, Amanda eventually prevails against this biological weapon.

7 Devin Ross (Clive Barker's Jericho)

Devin Ross and the Firstborn - Horror Protagonists vs Death

In Clive Barker's Jericho, the Jericho Team - a team of superhuman operatives - needs to seal a spacetime breach caused the Firstborn, the first "thing" God created that He deemed too powerful to exist. Unfortunately, its prison "The Box" had caused interdimensional rifts that affected the flow of time inside of it. While the Department of Occult Warfare has sent teams like Jericho to seal the Firstborn, this breach might finally break the Box and free the Firstborn.

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Jericho's leader, Devin Ross, dies just as the Team began unraveling the Firstborn's nature. However, Ross's supernatural ability to possess others allowed him to direct his team from beyond the grave. They eventually destroy the Firstborn. It seems death is simply a "phase" when the threat involves a primordial being before Creation.

6 Edward Pierce (Call Of Cthulhu)

Edward Pierce and Cthulhu - Horror Protagonists vs Death

Granted, anyone dealing with Lovecraftian horror seldom gets a happy ending. However, in 2016's Call of Cthulhu, war veteran, and private investigator Edward Pierce soon learns that his investigation of the Hawkins family deaths has more than meets the eye. Throughout the game, Pierce becomes embroiled in Darkwater Island's strange culture, as well as a cult trying to summon an otherworldly force - which ends up being Cthulhu itself, the Great Old One.

Despite having multiple endings, Pierce can stop the ritual to bring about Cthulhu into the world. In most of these endings, Pierce either dies or trades his sanity to save the world from certain doom.

5 Aya Brea (Parasite Eve)

Aya Brea and Eve - Horror Protagonists vs Death

In Parasite Eve, Aya Brea's days as an NYPD rookie become tested as she tries to stop a deranged actress Melissa Pearce - now calling herself Eve - from creating the Ultimate Being. Apparently, Eve has been using the mitochondria from people around her to transform them into beasts she can control. For some mysterious reason, Aya herself is seemingly immune from this.

At the end of the game's events, Aya discovers that she herself is host to powerful mitochondria. However, she learns to controls hers and manages to destroy Eye. At the end of the game's events, Aya single-handedly stops a parasite from "assimilating" the world's population into its being.

4 Alan Wake (Alan Wake)

Alan Wake and the Dark Presence - Horror Protagonists vs Death

Words have power, and author Alan Wake hoped to find his during a vacation in Bright Falls. In Alan Wake, Alan's supposedly-normal retreat to treat his writer's block ends up with his wife kidnapped. Moreover, Alan soon ends up fighting otherworldly creatures seemingly frightened by the light. Eventually, Alan learns of an entity called the Dark Presence who can use Bright Falls' lake as a beacon to transform fiction into reality. In turn, it lures authors into "writing" its escape.

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In the end, Alan ends up finishing his latest work "Departure." However, in it, he's written how his wife Alice gets freed from the Dark Presence's clutches, with Alan taking her place. In order to save the love of his life - and the world - from a horrifying force, Alan chose to sacrifice his own freedom.

3 Sebastian Castellanos (The Evil Within)

Sebastian Castellanos and Ruvik - Horror Protagonists vs Death

When Detective Sebastian Castellanos attempted to investigate a mass murder in Krimson City's Beacon Memorial Hospital, an earthquake seemingly destroys the entire city and unleashed various monsters. Sebastian soon learns that this nightmarish Krimson City was a product of STEM, a machine designed to create a hive mind with a primary host. In a race against time, Sebastian tries to find Ruvik, the unstable mind manipulating the entire world around the detective.

At the end of The Evil Within, Sebastian manages to "destroy" the monstrous subconscious Ruvik has unleashed on him. Unfortunately, Sebastian soon realizes that Ruvik may have found a way to come back to the real world. Regardless of the dreadful ending, Sebastian managed to conquer a dream world designed to kill him.

2 Heather Mason (Silent Hill 3)

Heather Mason and God - Horror Protagonists vs Death

After Harry Mason survives the events of the first Silent Hill game, his daughter Heather heads to the eponymous town to unravel the true nature of her identity. Heather soon learns of her status as the reincarnation of Harry's first daughter Cheryl and the psychic Alessa Gillespie. Moreover, Alessa's mother and her cult the Order forced a young Alessa to become the "vessel" of the god they worshipped.

When Alessa died, Heather becomes the target of the Order's resurrection plan. Heather tries and fails to kill the god prior to its birth. In the end, Heather confronts this very god, an abomination harboring Heather's hatred and Alessa's wrath. At the end of the game, Heather manages to kill the deformed god.

1 James Sunderland (Silent Hill 2)

Harry Mason and Pyramid Head - Horror Protagonists vs Death

James Sunderland's ordeals in Silent Hill 2 proved that mankind's greatest enemy lies within the monsters they themselves create. In Silent Hill, the various creatures of the nightmarish Otherworld plagued James in his search for his wife, Mary. Moreover, the enigmatic Pyramid Head has relentlessly stalked James, killing everyone who dares cross paths with him.

As it turns out, James killed his own wife after a terminal illness had caused her to become verbally abusive. In the end, Silent Hill's mystical powers transformed his guilt into Pyramid Head, forever reminding James of his own guilt. In the end, when James accepted his mistakes in the past, Pyramid Head eventually killed itself.

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