The Deadening of Death

An integral part of most games is death. However it tends to really just come down to the same simple form of die re-spawn over and over. This really dose show in how games are done, both mechanically and emotionally they tend to be bland experiences mostly giving you frustration more than anything else.

Personally I am a big fan of games like Total War, but if anything games like that really do devalue death in a huge way. For example a sound tactic is to hire mercenary units and get them all killed in a forlorn hope in the same turn so you don't need to pay the huge upkeep costs. Really most games of this type can have this issue, of needing to be the cold calculating commander willing to throw units away for the bigger win. But then again the original Starcraft really did push a quite amazing story with characters that you cared about, but when it came to using the characters and a loose condition if they died, well they just never got used. But then again RTS games tend to have you more detached from the characters and world.

Another example is Titanfall, a game mostly about killing, and lots of it. One of the focuses is on killing the poor “grunts” to advance the summoning of your robot. This is a little odd as no reason is really given to why the poor guys are so crap and gunning them down helps your robot build quicker, but that is not really the point and is an interesting way of doing things. However an attempt is made at the end of each battle to add “value” to your life as a character, mostly if you have lost. When every battle ends the loosing side gets a small amount of time to get to a drop ship and escape, they have one life to do this as the rival team shoots them as they run or just blows up the unarmed ship. My biggest issue with this is the jarring jump from being killed with no downside other than annoyance to being forced to care suddenly about my character. As much as I hated the end part of the battles, you can't be too annoyed at people trying new things out.

Come to think of it is part of the issue the shooting down of escape craft to win a battle part of the issue? I find more and more in games that the tricky issue of death is glossed over or ignored in favour of game play, or simply convenience.

An example of this as a game play issue is War Thunder, another flight game that rewards xp for hits on opposing planes, a sound idea. It gets a little morbid when people find out you still get the xp for hitting planes that are clearly crashing, meaning people really try tear apart a plane that is already on fire and spiralling towards the ground. But would people still shoot if you did not get the xp? Is all this an example of worrying too much and not enough shooting stuff, or the fact everything has gotten a little stale?

On the other hand some games can really over emphasize death, take for example the new Tomb Raider. I found while playing that you can die in lots of situations and far too many have detailed "snuff films" regarding the character, having her neck broken, impaled shot ect. This has lots of issues not regarding that fact they are disturbingly brutal for the most part, but also the fact you need to watch the damn thing every time you fail the same bit, really annoying me as I want to get back to the game to try it again.

Recently Rouge-like games have really started to surface, anything from dungeon crawlers to colony builders all very final in death. Death is the end, start again.

I only play a few games like this and namely Rimworld and Xcom. I do however find that after hours of building a colony or levelling up a character just for it to be torn apart due to luck or a blunder is more frustrating than anything else. But then again it adds far more weight to a mission if effort hangs in the balance, but seldom do you care for anything more than that, not the characters who die along the way. The mechanical idea is fine but it dose not really make you connect to it as it makes death a certainty, it will happen, and you will likely be annoyed.

However quite recently Rimworld did release an update that really expanded on the damage system of the individual character, now every area of the body and internal organ can be shot, injured and destroyed. This really dose add tension to the game as a hit that fails to kill a character can have long lasting effects and can really add to the story of the colony.

After spending quite some time trying to dig out a situation in a game that made me emotionally respond to death, I finally recalled Gunpoint. In Gunpoint one of the characters ends up being framed for a crime and due to your actions before even knowing this situation you make it worse. You can try and change what happened, you can be honest you can lie, but her death will happen and made all the worse not just from your actions but also the innocence of her character. Really only leaving you with the chance for revenge, something she never wanted to begin with.

One of the big problems with death in games, is well being dead is inconvenient. Some games try and mix it up, Prey for example put you into an odd spirit realm to kill ghosts to go back, or something …. But that was busy work for the most part. Fable 2 had an interesting idea, when you die, you get back up in a triumphant flourish and carry on. However you will now have a scar on your character and it will be different dependent on how you died, this means you can get a really grissled look to your character adding to the personal character building narrative. A more recent example is Shadow of Mordor, a game about killing orcs but with a twist, all the orcs have a hierarchy and it can be manipulated and used against them in the mechanics, but the interesting is part is your death as a character can go towards shaping the individual captains, giving them grudges, promotions and being able to narratively mention the fact they killed you previously. This is something I really like from a player side, it gives depth to death without making you go back endlessly to carry on with the same bit you just can't seem to do.

Personally I do enjoy alternate death as a mechanic more than I a more finalised death, injuries, capture, transformations and countless other things can be done to break up the monotone drone of death. Some games such as Skyrim to host a number of mods to add more interesting elements into games, and we are seeing more and more interesting ideas so with any luck this will be a thing of the past.