Death, when in the context of games, is a mechanic that at it’s core is meant to be a punishment for failure. After all, if you’re laying waste to massive numbers of enemy troops, be it in Real Time Strategy games or the myriad of Shooters that have come out lately, there really is no better way to say ‘you’ve failed.’ This usually results in stopping you in your tracks and sending you back to wherever you last saved, or the last checkpoint you reached. That effectively says you haven’t met the standard that the difficulty you’re playing requires. There are obvious exceptions to this rule; all racing games, puzzle games, and some RPGs will initiate some other consequence other than death, but they essentially give the same result. However, there are times when death is used in other ways.

The Science

So, let’s start from the beginning. Failure is a consequence of not being able to complete the objective set by the game in a certain time, or with a certain level of skill. Failure, therefore, is meant to give a sense of inadequacy and frustration at the challenge set. That is why short-tempered gamers throw their controllers at the ground in frustration, or say there’s a problem with the game. In a game that’s about survival or extermination, there is no more fitting consequence to illustrate failure than to oppose the game’s objectives, i.e. to die.

Death, in a game, is meant to bring about these feelings of frustration and anger. As time passes, however, death itself as a consequence has become less and less definite.

Do You Submit?

There were moments in games where death itself was a very real threat, in the context of the player. A perfect example of this is the torture scene in Metal Gear Solid. When captured, you are subjected to electric shocks that constantly drain your health. You always have the choice to submit and stop the torture, or you can stay and fight it. However, if you fight and fail, it’s game over. As Ocelot says quite famously, “There are no continues here, my friend!”, no second chance, no option to try again. Your only reprieve was if you had managed to save just before this scene; something which you would only know to do, had you already completed the game, and hence, completed the objectives successfully. That knowledge in itself can be considered a reward for success, but on your first play of the game, you have to make a very real choice, one which is pivotal to how the end of the game unfolds.

"Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Snake, I expect you to die!"

For most games, death has become an almost blase way to say ‘please try again’. There is no real consequence, and that irks me. Fable II tried to create a lasting consequence for failure, in a scar that cannot be removed. The problem is that in a principally single-player adventure, it doesn’t give the effect that Molyneux wanted. In a game where a scar can be seen as a character mark, and with the majority of gamers not caring so long as they do not have to see it too often, it was an irrelevant mechanic. Shooters are often the most consistent offenders, as they are catering more to the casual, busier gamers that would not have the time and the patience for backtracking.

How Do You Kill That Which Cannot Die?

There are always exceptions to this rule as well. Too Human had a death mechanic, that whenever you ‘died’, a Valkyrie descended from the sky through a portal to Valhalla, gathered up your body, and ascended through the same portal. Immediately after, you would spawn with equipment damage and your Ruiner (special, area-based attack) counter reset. Other than the mild status effects, you would be completely unharmed. Frustratingly, the sequence was unskippable. Some boss encounters required you to view this sequence several times, even more when you did not have the required skill level. It became a quickly frustrating cycle of death and rebirth.

As the god Baldur, you cannot truly die, hence Silicon Knights had to come up with a way to demonstrate your failure, without obeying the absolute rules of a true Death mechanic. Going back to the initial concept of failure, requiring frustration and a feeling of inadequacy in comparison to the objective set before you, this Valkyrie Sequence, although hated by many gamers, and often described as the single most annoying feature of the game itself, does what is required to be a punishment for failure in the game. It may not have been popular, but it worked.

Of course, there is the notion that Death can be the starting point for a game, rather than the ending point of the current gaming stint. Grim Fandango, an adventure game, is set in the afterlife, so Death is the only way in. The introduction shows what happens in the Grim Fandango universe after death, and was unique in this respect.

Believe it or not, this is the hero of Grim Fandango, Manny.

As morbid as it may sound, the consequence of Death is one that is now overlooked too quickly, and is sometimes avoided altogether. It is possible to be reprehensibly bad at Prince of Persia, but you can be saved by Elika in almost any situation. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was once again unique in that you could defy Death as a consequence, but you could only do so a finite number of times, determined by your skill as a player. When this finite element is removed, it becomes a casual, but somewhat less rewarding experience.

“And A True Death Will Come To This World…”

At its basic impulse, playing a video game is in itself satisfying an urge to defy Death as a real consequence, by sitting at a computer and simulating the world that the game depicts. After all, why race a car at 300mph and risk crashing in a blazing fireball, when you can avoid the risk and just simulate it? My point is, had a racing game been developed for realism to it’s very core, a crash that involved the car blowing up, or something that would’ve killed the driver, would end your championship there and then; no ability to load a save would allow you to retrace your steps without going through the game again. As it is well known, that would go against the reason video games exist: to create worlds where death is acceptable as nothing more than a consequence for failure, rather than as an absolute end to your tenure as a player.

In conclusion, it’s obvious that death is now holding very little consequence for the gamer and the games they play. It has simultaneously allowed designers to ramp up the difficulty to insane levels for those that want the challenge, and allowed traditionally more casual gamers to adopt the hardcore gaming mentality with less frustration. The time of a Rainbow Six’s team being limited by those that hadn’t sustained a gunshot, is over. For me, that is a disappointment, but it appears that consequence was the first hurdle in making gaming accessible for the masses.