Death and Video Games

The death is unavoidable, it’s the only assured event in the life, touching all societies and populations. Its appreciation can be different depending on the culture, but for the most part, the death is the first human anxiety in the Western world and is described as the end of the living state and the living process.

Man has tried many times to investigate death, and how to delay it, but the waters of eternal life hasn’t been found yet.

The fact is that video game heroes can’t really, strictly speaking, die. You can just pay for another game in an arcade, just reload your save or restart your game to « continue ». This development now allows us to play with the death, and gives it many other descriptions rather than only something irrevocable and definitive.

For years, death in video games plays with the players emotions, who has never cried after a loved character's death ? Who has never dropped their controller after an umpteenph death during a boss fight ? It also allows the player to conscientiously and psychologically eliminate enemies that inspired us hate, disgust, the will to protect someone or something, and to be a hero. It also establishes competition in multiplayer modes, where your goal will be to eliminate the others players.

Death has been used and shaped by a lot of creative designers through the years, to offer different experiences and challenges to the players.

Let’s review how death can be present in video games.

Game Over

The first use of death within video games was surely to impact the duration of the game.

Of course, in the late 70’s, who would want to let a player spend only a quarter to play Periscope or Space Invaders, for 3 hours or more ? Inconceivable, arcade games had to bring in money, and to limit the time of a play session, death was the perfect solution. It would signify to the player that he will have to pay to continue to play, and allows the arcade game to be beneficial financially. Arcade games were also commonly called coins-operated games. They were created in a balance between difficulty and time.

That’s how designers used to manage the duration of the play time, the death of the player triggered a legendary « game over » screen provoking the player to try again or just simply renounce and leave their place to the next in line.

In some cases, the player may have few tries before their death was definitive, for example the number of extra balls in a pinball game.

This process was later used as an inspiration for the console games, and gave to the players a definitive death only after a loss of a certain number of life points, like in Zelda and its famous hearts, representing life points. The Game Over screen was also reused, like the famous “You died” in Dark Souls for example.

In that case, the death was very pejorative in games, it would significant the end of the adventure, and should be feared by the players. But, you can breath, fortunately, the save system was there to restart again.

« [the death] can leave a strong impact on the player »

In other cases, the death should also be present as a kind of sacrifice of your player at the end of the adventure, like the death of Tidus in Final Fantasy X.

It must produce a strong pain for the player who’s just spent many hours playing with his character whom he were attached, spending all the game trying to help him survive and continue his adventure, and at the end, he will die irrevocably, and now you can’t save him anymore.

It will certainly leave a strong impact on the player, and it’s a strong narrative feelings creator, that the player can’t forget. The player can’t do anything and this time, it’s not his fault at all. It surely used the concept of fatality, an irrevocable destiny created in the ancient tragedy, where gods used to have all powers and decided of the destiny of humans. Like the famous heroes of Homère, who never really are responsible for their actions : they are the puppets of Gods, sometimes abandoned, sometimes encouraged, sometimes victims of Them.

The death should evolve and take another aspect later and be directly integrated in the game, more than an end game condition, It become a real feature of some games.

Die and Retry

« Sega, c’est plus fort que toi ! »

A new way to use death was invented with « die and retry » games.

Through the easier games generation alimented by the increased of the casual gamers, this type of games is very popular in our time. Let’s review the principles of those games.

First and simply, die and retry games are based on « learning by death ». It was the famous specialities of 90’s games, like Sega’s games for example (No, I won’t say Sonic as an example, I promise….) so much that they made an ingenious pub in 1990 in France to concurrence the famous Mario, with the slogan « Sega, c’est plus fort que toi ». Clearly here, it means that the game wishes to be stronger than you, and that he’s gonna let you sweat all the water of your body on his Megadrive controller.

If you didn’t already though that players are sadomasochists yet, let me explain a little more this principle.

« [death] is the path to masterization »

It’s a very specific type of game cause the death isn’t really avoidable : it’s the path to masterization.

The death couldn’t be because of the game, but because of the player itself. It’s always a matter of masterize the game to anticipate it well and dominate it. A mistake is unforgivable, and the death will be the consequence.

But here is the point ! Thanks to this death, you will be able to take a step back above what you’ve done : you’re now trying to formulate new hypothesis of the way of playing. Based on your mistake, you elaborate new strategies and try them, again and again, until you understand the best pattern of play to adopt to succeed the challenge. And then, here we go again, become the next challenge and the same way of assimilation. Even if you will get more and more skilled, this type of game was thinking to always propose new challenges to the players. Dark Souls series are now famous games that can provide such a challenge for players. The Game Over screen of Dark Souls might be feared, but it, at least announce the new chance provided to overcome the challenge.

The player will has to stay humble and reavaluate himself to conclude what he could have miss, what he could have done, and still have the strength to continue. The patience will be your best ally.

But here, the death isn’t a punition, it’s an inevitable way, allowing to learn, question, and it isn’t fundamentally pejorative, permitting a certain category of player who want to surpass themselves and to access to more ways to comprehend the game.

Permadeath

Moreover, the death could also impact directly the gameplay of the game.

A famous process is used to affect both gameplay and both player’s feelings, that could refract more than one player : the permadeath. You can feel frightened by this name, describing the definitive sadly disparition of one of your lovely character.

« it can affect one of your acolyte, a member of your team»

Now it’s time to take your tissues, cause it can affect one of your acolyte in a RPG, a member of your team. I want to share the name of Agro, even if he wasn’t a person, he still was your only acolyte in Shadow of the Colossus, or your lovely healer, Aerith in Final Fantasy VII, their deaths had a terrible impact on players after spending time with them, developping a special relationship, they are sorely removed from you.

Or your fighters in a T-RPG in whom you give all your hope, like in the Fire emblem series, or sometimes just somebody close to your main character. When their death are definitive, because of you or not, it just can affect you because you used to be close to them.

« it may tend to focus and implicate you in the fights »

Even if, most of the time, you can just reload your save and restart again the fight, trying to save your character, this may tend to focus and implicate you in the fights, cause those characters in those specific games are created to be unique, in their art style but, where I wanted to go precisely, in their utility : they have a specific impact on the gameplay cause they embody specific roles like healer, tank, archer, and lose them signify lose their capacity.

And that can directly have huge consequences on the gameplay style of the player. He will have to adapt to the new situation, maybe change his habits, and that will make him in a new uncomfortable situation, where he will be inevitable to think again about his strategies. It can also really destabilize for few times the player, and increase the difficulty of the game. After the death of Aerith, you’re suddenly forced to play without your healer, while during the whole game you got used to have her. It’s then the time to think about your way of playing, including the fact that you don’t have anymore a healer character during the fights, so you might try to reduce damages in order to decrease the need of your dead character, for example.

Moreover, we can just simply say that, if you were attached to one of this character, you will simply be launch in a bereavement state, like if the character was one of your entourage that you’ve now lost. After all, it’s the definitive removal from a dear entity. The pain will be subjective, depending of the player’s attachment, it will be more or less painful, more or less longer.

But sometimes, the death is a part of the story, and reload the save won’t change anything.

Repercussions are huge on the gameplay style but also on the psychological impact on the players and the story. Who never cried after the Aerith death in Final Fantasy VII?

It simply affect us cause we’ve got emotions while playing, and we all were attached to those characters that mostly were close to our main character, like Sarah, the cute little girl of Joel in The Last of us, that tragically died in our arms at the beginning of the game. It was a very shocking scene, and you, as a player, couldn’t do anything to save her. This impact was calculated, to instaure a proximity with the character, Joel, cause you can share his pain, but also set narrative basis, to explain the Joel’s behaviour in the game.

Besides, the death can actually be a motor in the narration, the whole story is next impacted because of this death : it mostly affect our main character, who will be sad and may search to take some revenge, like Cloud in Final Fantasy VII, or just simply completely change and it will influenced his future choices, like Joel. Even after the event, the death will still impact you through the story, and your character feelings and behaviour about this death, like in God of War for example.

It’s a current process used in litterature, like in Le Comte de Monte Cristo or cinema, like in Gladiator. It created ambitious and appealing character, who you want to follow the adventure until the final resolution.

« it can be you ! »

On the other hand, It can be you, like annonce Hellblade, there, permadeath just hide a Game Over as a sword of Damocles hanging over the player’s head.

« this process will increase the challenge of the game »

Sometimes it’s a long term propagation, like a disease propagating in your character and that kill him little by little, except if you succeed to regularly stop or slow it, like the Malaria in Far Cry 2 that could kill you if you don’t take regularly your pills, or it can be something which will grow when you will do something wrong, like in Hellblade for example. The more you die in game, the more you will be closer to a definitive game over, and will have to restart the game. (on a principle..) Again here, this process will increase the challenge of the game, and give to the players more pressure during the game. They will be more focused on their character and try to take care of them, and obviously be more in the flow state.

But sometimes the definitive death is more immediate. You will probably think to the famous Game Over previously approached, but some games used the specific features allowing a Game Over to just make you restart the entire game, no matter of your progression. The save system only accorded you a pause in the game, but if your character die, you can’t use it anymore, you’ve got to restart the game. The game over occurs a reboot of the adventure. Yes, It was the case of arcade games announced earlier, but this became one feature of a specific type of video game : the Rogue Like.

The name and the criterias were inspired by the game named Rogue, and after his popularity and the birth of many similar games, it became a type of video game. It will know few sub-genders, such as Rogue-Lite for example, that mostly reused the procedural dungeons of the Roguelike and the Permadeath, like Spelunky for example. One of its main feature was the permadeath.

The most famous Rogue Like in Occident was Diablo, which has popularized the genre and the permadeath in 1996. The death is frequent in Rogue Like, so much that gamers use an acronym « YASD » for « Yet Another Stupid Death ».

Players will play carefully, thinking about all the consequences of each actions, to avoid the permadeath. They are invested in the game and in their character and must do their best to survive, in DayZ for example, or X-com where you will lose a precious ally, one of your soldier. It also brings more reality to those games : who will ever have the choice to « continue » after a headshot in real life ?

« Sometimes, you never have a Game Over »

Besides, there is also alternatives to permadeath exploited in other games : they are less punitive, but still produce an impact on the player and the gameplay. The death is still a feature included in the game, but allows others purpose, and isn’t definitve, and doesn’t occur the end of the game, yes, sometimes, you never have a Game Over.

On Prey, the player never really dies. He is just sent into another dimension, where he will have to fight to gain life and mana in a limited time, to join again progressively his world: this is called the Death walk. In this state, the death affects the gameplay and gives to the player a new short term objective. It’s still stressful to die, but you know that you will just continue your adventure after a while and few fights.

It was surely inspired by Legacy of Kain : Soul reaver, that also use a spirit world after the character « death », in where the player needs to find a way out after recover all his health. The world has similarities, but the gameplay changes during few times to concentrate on the recover of health and find the exit of this world. Here the death can allow a change in the gameplay style, that should be kind of fresh, and producing a different challenge for the player.

« the death can’t be taken seriously »

In Life Goes On for example, the death is a part of the core gameplay of the game ! You have to use your dead bodies to solve puzzles and continue the game : here, dying is your one and only way to progress ! Each body will be useful to progress, by crossing peaks, activate interrupters for example, as the developers said « causing you damage will be a part of the challenge ». The death here, in this gameplay, allows it a comical aspect. The death can’t be taken seriously, you can die in many ways, and you’ve to find those ways ! It is way original in is utilisation of the death.

Death as an objective

« video games allow players to be someone else, a kind of hero »

The death was mostly an objective. From the beginning of the video game, a long term objective : kill all the opponents in Space Invaders, eliminate Ganondorf in Zelda, generally related to the notion of saving someone/something by killing. This is relative to the fact that video games allows players to be someone else, a kind of hero, spreading the good, facing the death, and eliminating the enemy. The player feels to be like a god, distributing the death to whom deserve it, and that encourages the player to continue the game, and achieve his death distribution. Moreover, it’s also a main objective in multiplayer competitive games (PVP games), where the goal can clearly be the elimination of others players, mostly by the death using many different ways depending of the type of the game, and so on, be the best by staying alive.

You’re using your units in a RTS like in Starcraft, your own guns in GoldenEye 007 multiplayer mode on N64, or some kind of magic or medieval weapons in Battlerite, or using fighter in a 1VS1 during a fighting game, like Street fighter. The death here is lighten, and it may creates a lot of fun by trying to kill others.

Besides, it can also be a sort of short term objective for the player : defeat some enemies will give him more experience allowing him to level up, upgrade his equipment, and be more ease with controls and competences of the characters. It’s a regular process use in RPG, or level-up possibility games, like Final Fantasy, Skyrim, Dragon Quest. The death of enemies increase your level or your capacities, and you become stronger by killing your opponent (isn’t it like it works in real life ?)

Death as a thematic

“life should goes on !”

The death can also be used as a thematic, ruling the entire world and experience. It can be a kind of dark and very oppressive games, but there are also others more lighter.

Like in Majora’s mask, the death is still ruling a Game Over, but also impact the game feel : you see that it’s coming upon you, you can’t really avoid it, and you will have to fight against. All the game is very dark, it’s very death-centric, there is a lot of death around you, above the last wishes of the dead you’ve to accomplish or the moon that is gonna crash on you, you directly interact with it.

What's incredible, is that the NPC are really realistic : even if they know the fact that the moon is gonna crash, they may adopt different way to react : some deny completely, some will just decide to continue their life, cause after all it’s unavoidable and they don’t have time to lose until the death, like a mailman that will continue to deliver letters even if he will die tomorrow, while others just dive in panic. Moreover, the game deal about the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) represented by five different zones that you gonna explore. Others games also deal with the bereavement, through the acceptance of the death (the Vanishing of Ethan Carter) or where the finality of the game try to accept the five stages of grief (Rime). Those kind of game can ask fundamental questions about the death, how deal with it, how accept it. Sometimes it frightened players, sometimes it succeeds to let them have some reflexion on it. Cause after all, life should goes on.

Another example, a recent game called Mortician tale also take the risky challenge to let the death as a thematic of the game : you play as a mortician and you’ve to control a funeral home, form the preparation of the dead to the funeral itself. The death isn’t approached here pejoratively, and will show to the player a new way to use it, by showing them how works the western death industry, and learn all the different processes to make people who have a death anxiety more comfortable and overcome it, like the developer did herself with Majora’s mask. Many others indie games are trying to innovate with the thematically aspect of the death, like in Speed dating for ghost or Night in the woods were, even if the world is colorful, the death is a very present subject, and we can see how the protagonist deals with her grandfather death.

Mostly, when a game as the death as a thematic, it tries to reduce the morbid aspect by the colorful or enjoyable aspect of the game. It was the case for Majora’s Mask, and it’s the case for many other games (including this analysis). When the death is used as a thematic, it allows to have a specific vision of this subject, not always on a sad or frightened way. Video games can be a strong tool to vehicle messages or bring reflexion about a such subject which frightened a huge part of the population.

By taking a step back on how death is classically used in video games and brings their own experience on death, developers succeed to creatively bring novelty about this subject. The video games can offer a way of acceptance and understanding of this subject, but It can also be used in a lighter way to bring fun to the player experience in many ways.

Each games deal with death in their own unique way to offer different experience to the players.

Don’t forget, we live everyday, and we only die once. (maybe twice if you are a video game character or if you come back from the dead thanks to a phoenix down)

Keep thinking !

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