instant kill
One-shot fatal blow
Instant kill refers to an attack, ability, or condition in video games that defeats an enemy or player immediately, bypassing normal damage calculations: The pit is an instant kill if you fall in, That boss has an instant kill move you have to dodge.
The term appears in fighting games, action games, and multiplayer shooters.
Outside gaming, instant kill occasionally describes any method designed to cause immediate death—a trap, a weapon strike, or in pest control, devices meant to kill without suffering.
- oneshotSingle unrepeated occurrence
- fatalityDeath from accident
- executeCarry out fully
- annihilateDestroy completely, leaving nothing
- obliterateDestroy all traces of
deathblow · finishing move · critical hit · headshot · assassination · KO · coup de grâce · snipe · delete · vaporize · nuke · sudden death · game over · wipe · smite · devastate · lethal · tombstone
- combat mechanicsmelee, melee attack, ranged attack, damage, combos
- game killsfrag, headshot, killstreak, first blood, elimination
instant killslow death
Extended process of dying
war of attrition · slow burn · chipping away · bleeding out · death by a thousand cuts
instant killglancing blow
Oblique, partial impact
scratch · flesh wound · miss · graze · near miss
instant killinvincibility
Immunity to defeat
immortality · resurrection · second chance · extra life · god mode
instant, instantly, instants, instantaneous, instantaneously, instance, instances, kill, kills