Video games are arguably the most immersive form of entertainment available in the modern age. The ability to mold your own story the way you see fit is revolutionary for a number of reasons, and there's no doubt in anyone's minds that the video gaming industry will continue to grow as one of the best mediums of entertainment anybody can access around the world. The absolute freedom provided to the player to do whatever you want, whenever you want with barely any limitations whatsoever has contributed a lot to this exponential growth in more ways than one.

However, even in the medium of video games, there are some restrictions that need to be placed on the player so that they don't go too overboard with the freedom they're provided (something that's way more prevalent than you might think). Most of these restrictions are rather boring, such as forced linear segments, invisible walls, and the inability to progress to a certain area before satisfying certain objectives. But, in this hub of unoriginal measures, there are some games that truly go off the rails when it comes to thinking of creative solutions to deter players from doing certain things that don't conform to the rules of their game's universe. Here are 20 of the most creative punishments that games dole out when you end up breaking the rules.

20 Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Tarred And Feathered

Animal abuse is always horrible, whether done in the virtual world or in reality. This sentiment is taken to heart in The Legend Of Zelda series, where Nintendo punished players in the most poetic manner if they decided to unfairly take their frustrations out on the poultry present in the game.

The cuccos in the Zelda series serve as a not-so-subtle version of chickens in real life (like, they might as well have just called them chickens instead of something so stupid, to begin with). If you feel somewhat psychotic, then you can choose to attack these innocent creatures for no reason... but if you don't expect any retaliation then you're in for a surprise. This is because a large swarm of angry cuccos will come to the defense of their brethren, forcing you to run... or die for your sins.

19 Only Perverts Pay The Price

Dishonored was one of the biggest — not to mention pleasant — surprises when the game was released back in 2012. It received a ton of critical appraisal for various reasons, one of them being the amount of freedom afforded to the player, which could get rather disturbing after a certain point.

One such notable example is when the player-character Corvo happens to shoo away a pervert peeking at Callista while she's taking a bath. If your hormones are particularly imbalanced, then you can choose to enter the room and shamefully stare at Callista who implores you to go away (obviously). Of course, you can choose to ignore her and jump in the bath... only to receive a game over since the rebellion ended up getting disbanded. Good job, ya perv.

18 You Will Be Hunted

White Orchard is pretty much the tutorial area of The Witcher 3, where you learn about everything there is to do in the game. Money's also pretty hard to come by in this area, but if you're really strapped for cash then you can choose to slaughter the cows here to sell their hides. Just make sure you don't go overboard with this.

This is because once you kill enough cows, a level 27 chort will spawn in the general vicinity and charge towards the player. This is pretty much a death sentence for the player, since there's no way that Geralt would be able to handle a level 27 chort in the early goings of the game.

17 Bad Sports Get Humiliated

GTA Online is one of the best online experiences a gamer can have. From gunplay, to heists, to racing — almost everything can be accomplished on this multiplayer platform that has revolutionized online gaming in more ways than one. And yes, this also includes the punishment that cheaters receive for being a bad sport.

If you hamper other people's online experiences one too many times, then you're forced to wear a 'dunce' cap for the whole world to see. There are also certain gamers who found an exploit to bring their ultra-powered cars from single player into the online realm. Of course, Rockstar decided to punish these players in an appropriate manner... by making the car explode the moment they sat in it.

16 Watch An Icon Commit Suicide

It might be a huge surprise for you, but there actually was a time when the Sonic series used to be good (yeah I know, it's a real shocker). SEGA's side-scrolling platformer was a legitimate contender to Nintendo's Mario series, and the third game in the franchise was nothing short of spectacular. Of course, your experience with the game might wildly differ based on one simple action.

If — for some reason — you decided to leave Sonic idle as you dealt with real life (not that you had one), after a while Sonic would get bored and straight up commit suicide by jumping off the screen. If that wasn't bad enough, unlike other deaths in the game you'd lose all your progress, having to start all the way from the first level.

No wonder SEGA lost to Nintendo.

15 The Strippers Have Secret Bodyguards

While the latest title in the series is nothing short of a train-wreck, Duke Nukem used to be the manliest game series of all time. The games were a satisfying first-person romp through various levels as you shot demons in the face time and time again until you completed the game... and sometimes, you'd also have the opportunity to interact with strippers as well.

However, if you decide to attack these women for no rhyme or reason, then be prepared to get into one hell of a fight. This is because trying to assault these innocent women will lead to a large horde of demons spawning in their defense, forcing you to enter a firefight that you might not even survive.

Who's the bad guy now, huh?

14 Killing Old Yeller Just Got Harder

Harvest Moon is a cute, fun time-waster that is — ironically — played more by creepy adults than by the kids that the games are geared towards. For the uninitiated, the best way to describe Harvest Moon would be offline FarmVille if FarmVille was actually a good game and not a blatant cash grab. The game lets you play out the life of an aspiring farmer as you grew crops, tended to your livestock and let your dog eat the mayor of the town... wait, what?

Yep, in the DS version of the game, one of the starting sequences involves the mayor getting attacked by your canine companion. Obviously, you need to save the mayor to progress with the game, but if you feel particularly psychotic then you can choose to do nothing as the mayor cries out in pain and the game simply... ends.

Boy, that's quite morbid indeed.

13 Man Up Or Lose The Woman

The Metal Gear Solid series is perhaps one of the greatest story-driven franchises of all time, featuring a plot so hopelessly convoluted that it's a wonder that people have even managed to follow it at all. The first title of the series might not have aged very well, but there's a reason why it was considered the catalyst that sparked the meteoric rise of this series.

The attention to detail present in this game is extremely impressive, especially when one considers this particular event that occurs if you happen to fail the torture segment present in the game. You'll bear witness to a different rendition of the ending where Meryl dies because you gave up. This scene is truly heartbreaking, and players would certainly be missing out on a powerful moment if they happened to miss out on this alternate ending.

12 Don't Talk To The Drug Dealer — Or Else

Grange Hill was a BBC program about a bunch of high school kids dealing with overly dramatized problems... so obviously, people thought that making a game based on this TV show would be a great idea. The title itself was an adventure game with nonsensical puzzles, filled to the brim with random game overs that would just contribute to the frustration one might experience from playing adventure games, to begin with.

Perhaps the most odd game over present in this title (which — let me assure you — is quite a hefty statement to make) revolves around a shifty-looking drug dealer who offers you a bag of white powder. Since the whole point of adventure games is to pick up whatever you can find, you decide to take this powder... only to be chastised by the game for becoming a junkie and getting a game over to boot.

All this for just touching a freaking packet.

11 Use Every Part Of The Animal — Or Pay The Price

Assassin's Creed III is arguably the worst game in the long-running franchise. While some people might consider Unity to be the dark horse of the franchise, the fact of the matter is that after the bugs were patched out, Unity arguably provides a much better experience than this abomination of a title.

Perhaps the best example of this title's mediocrity is one of the gameplay elements that is just so brain-dead in nature that it boggles the mind. There are various animals present throughout the game that you can choose to hunt — however, if you choose to indiscriminately kill these animals without skinning them for their pelts, the game will give you a stern warning... before straight up desynchronizing your ass after your third kill.

Talk about an overreaction.

10 Adults Only: Always Use Protection

BioWare games are known for having deep, rich and interesting worlds full of details that make the universe feels more fleshed out. Oh, and tons of partners who you can "spend the night with." Almost forgot about that.

Mass Effect 2 is arguably the greatest BioWare game of all time, and the amount of freedom afforded to the player is simply mind-boggling. Of course, freedom can have its drawbacks — the most major one being in the form of an Asari named Morinth, who's a potential boning candidate in the game. Unfortunately, Morinth has no control over her own mind-bonding power (which is how Asari's mate), and if you choose to sleep with her, then Shepard will straight up die, forcing you to reload an earlier save.

9 Go To Prison. Get A Mouthful.

Piracy is an evil act that should rightly be punished — ideally in the most creative ways possible. Of course, sometimes developers go the extra mile when it comes to curbing this evil, which is exactly what LucasArts did with the game Zac McKracken And The Alien Mindbenders, back in the time when pc games needed discs with serial numbers as a proof of purchase.

If you fail to provide this serial number when the game asks you to, then you'll get locked up in a jail made solely for pirates. To make things worse, a guard will start lecturing you on the evils of piracy and why you shouldn't do something so unethical.

Well... talk about a stern way to punish pirates, indeed.

8 Don't Piss Off Luis

Resident Evil 4 was a landmark title for horror-action games and third-person shooters alike, featuring revolutionary gameplay mechanics that have been adopted and perfected by modern gaming. The series has seen its fair share of ups and downs, but there's no doubt that Resident Evil 4 is the best title in the series by a country mile.

Of course, even in a game like this friendly fire is looked down upon, and the retribution you face for doing so can be quite severe. One of the companions that accompanies you on this journey is a man named Luis, and if you injure him one too many times, then he'll simply get pissed off and shoot Leon, killing him in the process.

7 A World Of Hurt

It seems that Nintendo has a pretty strong stance when it comes to animal rights. We've already talked about the assault of the cuccos, but there's another way in which Nintendo reinforces this mentality in the mind of gamers who play Wind Waker, a stellar entry in the Zelda franchise.

In the game, Link has a pet pig which grows into a ginormous size after a point. If — for some reason — you decide to vent you frustration on this pig, then be prepared for a world of hurt. The pig will start attacking you for some serious damage — in fact, its attack takes away a total of three hearts, making it the most damaging attack in the entire game. Jeez.

6 Your Girlfriend Breaks Up With You If You Kill Too Many WHAT!?

Metal Gear Solid 2 is a game known for many things, perhaps most prominently for being a title that absolutely bamboozled players when it was released. Players who expected another romp with Solid Snake experienced a rather unpleasant surprise when the much-reviled Raiden became the main character instead.

The general consensus of Raiden is rather polarizing within the video game community, and if you're one of the many who absolutely hates Raiden to the very core then you can convince the in-game characters to share your mentality by making him shoot birds for no rhyme or reason. In fact, if you kill enough birds then Raiden's girlfriend Rose will break up with him... on a call, no less. Ouch.

5 Don't. Kill. Children.

Before Bethesda took over the reigns of the Fallout franchise, the original Fallout games were made by Black Isle Studios and included an impressive level of detail that was simply unheard of back when the games were released. In fact, the amount of freedom afforded to the player was too much at times... to the point where you could straight up murder innocent children if you wished to do so.

Doing something so absolutely despicable would surely lead to a whole host of problems for the player, which is obviously not ideal at all. You'd attain the title of 'Childkiller,' which would lead to a -30 disposition penalty with any individual. If that weren't bad enough, bounty hunters would also start chasing you, sporting powerful weapons like Miniguns that will surely turn you into mincemeat.

4 That's One Way To Do It...

It's pretty obvious that the save function should be utilized properly in any game, and this is all the more important in Animal Crossing, where failing to save a game can have dire consequences — to be more specific, the loss of hours upon hours of busywork. However, the game makes sure that you don't repeat this mistake again in the form of Mr. Resetti (yep, that's his real name).

If you reset your game without saving (or try to save scum), then Mr. Resetti will appear to berate the hell out of you. His subsequent appearances get even more annoying, and sometimes he'll force you to painstakingly repeat certain phrases as well. If that wasn't bad enough, he also gives you a lecture if your battery gets low too.

Goddamn, just chill out for a minute Resetti.

3 Third Time's A Charm

Banjo Kazooie is one of the most iconic 3D platformers of all time, and there's a bunch of reasons why this game has garnered such a passionate fanbase who still replay this title to this very day. There are a bunch of creative tricks and nuances present in the game that most people might not have noticed, and this list focuses on one such topic.

There are certain cheats that you can use in the game to make Banjo Kazooie easier for you to complete. However, try not to overuse these cheats, since if you do it one too many times then Grunty (the antagonist) will give you a message saying that she's deleted your entire Game Pak. To be more accurate, the game just deletes one of your save files, which is still quite a monumental setback.

2 A Match Made In Heaven

Capcom might not have the most stellar record when it comes to addressing the needs of their customers, but there are certain times when credit should be given where credit's due. In this case, the measures Capcom has taken to reprimand cheaters and ragequitters in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 should be duly noted and commended.

Fighting games generally tend to have rather poisonous communities, and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is unfortunately littered with tons of people who'd rather leave a game than take a loss on their record. In order to punish these ragequitters, Capcom decided to create a dedicated server solely for these people, making it rather comedic since pretty much no fight would end fairly at all.

1 The Invincible Force

Halo: Combat Evolved is the first title of a series that needs no introduction. Microsoft's premier first-person shooter title has seen a ton of ups and downs, but there's no denying the fact that the first game in the series is absolutely brilliant and warrants a ton of praise, especially for having a splendid campaign.

In the first level of the game, you are briefed by your commanding officer before landing on the designated planet. However, if you're already bored by the excess dialogue, then you can choose to shoot pretty much everyone on the spaceship. However, don't expect things to go smoothly, since an indestructible troop of high-powered individuals will appear and hunt you down without a moment's notice.

Good luck getting out of this one.