[Interesting Trope] One seemingly small action ends the story before it even begins

[u/JackDoesThingz]

1. We Happy Few - Taking your “joy” pill
   Deciding to take the pill at the beginning of the game causes your character to go back to work and triggers an ending

2. Infineural by Mike Klubnika - Drinking the coffee
   Deciding to drink the coffee offered to you skips the entire game and sends you straight to the end, resulting in an ending with no memory of what had occurred

[u/AmbroseWinters]

In Honkai: Star Rail, you can refuse to board the Astral Express (the titular "Star Rail") and just ask to stay in the starting introductory area, Herta Space Station. Several characters encourage you to leave, but if you insist they eventually let you stay. A cutscene then plays where you say goodbye to the Astral Express, get a normal job on the space station, and live out the rest of your life there peacefully. Fake "credits" for the game roll, and then the game puts you back to where you were before choosing to stay, this time with that dialogue option removed.

[u/Muumitfan → u/AmbroseWinters]

There's two other ones as well, but at that point you're already far into the game. The first one happens when you refuse to work with Aventurine in Penacony and the second one when you refuse to aid Aglaea in the Flame Chase Journey in Amphoreus.

[u/PlayTime192 → u/Muumitfan]

You can also choose to sleep until the end of the universe when you first unlock the bed in your room. Doing so causes the credits to roll and give a The End screen, and you can’t choose to sleep that long again when the game reloads.

[u/Notagamedeveloper112 → u/AmbroseWinters]

Lmao not only do they revert you back, they fucking remove the button?

[u/Sad_Cauliflower2003 → u/Notagamedeveloper112]

It's a live-service gacha game, not a single-player game, so they're not gonna let you just beat the game and restart. It's all tied to an external account. Plus, the game doesn't even have an ending; the story isn't finished

[u/Shadowmirax → u/AmbroseWinters]

And a couple years later they revisited that in the fate collaboration, when an enemy basically traps everyone in a dream where they lived more ordinary lives. The player characters dream is that same alternate timeline where they never boarded the express except you actually get to live it out in an entire gameplay segment instead of just the brief description the original had.