The sound comes from A Hat in Time, the 2017 3D platformer developed by Gears for Breakfast, where Hat Kid is the young protagonist travelling through colourful worlds collecting Time Pieces. Her short hurt vocalisations became popular outside the game as reaction clips, in the same way the ROBLOX oof turned a simple damage noise into a shared meme shorthand. Creators reuse this yikes because it communicates a hit instantly without dialogue, and its cute delivery keeps the tone light for edits, streams and short gaming videos.