Games

I actually managed to soft lock a side quest in The Witcher 3 recently. If you loot a container right as a cutscene begins, the item will be removed from the container but not put into your inventory.

I managed to do this with a key (by mistake) and almost lost around 25 hours of gameplay lol.

While playing Final Fantasy X the first time, I got to Old Zanarkand and inside the dome, I saved behind a sealed door in the Cloister of Trials. I wasn't savvy to good saving practices and after solving the puzzle, got into a battle I was completely hopeless to defeat. There was no way to walk back out the door from which I entered, the only way out was through; and with my existing inventory, spells, charged up aeons, etc. I absolutely could not defeat the boss.

It was pretty crushing because this moment is so close to the end of the game, but I gave up and had to come back months (years?) later to fully start the game over. I think maybe I played 99+ hours of Final Fantasy VII and then decided to give X another try. The second time, I was much smarter with maintaining multiple save games for safety. Not to be bested again, I grinded up all of my limit breaks and aeons for safety and completely obliterated the boss in one go the next time around.

Don't know if anyone has said it yet, but Fallout 3. There is a story quest where you have to ask a radio host named Three Dog information about your father and it's a percentage based skill check that if you fail it, I don't think you can progress (unless I am completely mistaken since it's been more than a half decade since I last played).

To make matters even worse, even at a maximum 100 in speech, the skill check can still be failed. Again, not 100% sure whether or not the Three Dog skill check is even required or if you can just run to the right place to progress the main story, but if you are a first time player you could absolutely screw yourself over not knowing about this.

I almost softlocked myself in The Evil Within (the first one). I've used up most of my ammo before walking into a boss fight and I just barely managed to beat him by using everything I had. It does give you ammo before the fight but it isn't enough to win, I imagine it would be easy to softlock there. I remember spending a huge time making sure all my shots land so I don't restart.

Takeshi’s challenge I think it was called. Notoriously bullshit game on the famicon

There are a LOT of these, especially from the 8/16/32 bit era.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnintentionallyUnwinnable

I played Earthbound as a kid and got stuck in a golem without the item needed to get out. Since I got it used I didn't have the game guide. No idea how much stuff I missed but I never picked it up again.

I'm sure others have mentioned it here, but..

Chrono Trigger.

XCOM: Terror from the Deep had some notorious research tree issues

Little Big Adventure 2. Just before the last boss I managed to save myself on the last island without a way to leave it. But I needed to leave and get another Ball or w/e it was to unluck a door. It was my first real pc game experience ever. Dunno why I stuck with this hobby after that tbh :)

this one reminds me of Farcry 4. The one with Pagan Min.

if you just stay and be a good boy, you get a free trip to where you really wanted to go.

It's easy to not do this because maybe the welcoming committee is not around anybody's standards.

Final Fantasy Legend for the og Gameboy. I remember getting pretty far in the tower and there was some weapon or item you had to have to pass or beat something and I missed getting it and couldn't progress and never played it again.

King Kong for the PS2 had a fire puzzle, where if you dropped the torch in the last section, you couldn't get a new source of fire. So you were stuck at a section where you had to burn away wood in the path forwards, but couldn't go backwards to get the fire.

Metro.

All 3 games require you do/don't kill certain people at different levels in order to get the 'true ending'. When I first played I just killed anything that moved, but then found out the consequences of doing so. Honestly it improved my game experience so much more when I had to carefully consider each action.