If you die mid-heist, you are clearly not the protagonist.
Watched Solo, in which the four-armed pilot gets killed during a job. I bet that guy thought that they are the hero. Another example is Pratchett's Guards! Guards!.
As in a regular role-playing game there would be plots with characters of varying importance (e.g., in Solo, Beckett was the leader of the gang and Solo just tagged along; if the film wasn't about him, he could've been an expendable extra), and players are vying to become the protagonist. Not sure what they would need to do, but the closer they get to the goal, they would get better criticals and other perks. Taking Solo again as an example, during the final firefight on Kessel, the pilot droid gets shot to pieces, Lando gets one in the arm, and Solo is completely untouched, even though he is in the middle of every single action in that heist. (Or when no one gets hurt on the train during the train heist, and there are gravity, speed, multiple factions of enemies, etc against Solo, Chewbacca, and Becket, and yet, the four-armed pilot guy is hit lethally with a single shot by one of the marauders who climbs aboard the ship and can barely stand on their feet, not to mention to aim properly.)