10 Video Game Tricks Players Fall For EVERY Time
9. Absolute Permadeath
One of the easiest ways for developers to increase gamers’ sense of tension and agency is by employing permadeath.
As the term implies, it punishes players who make a fatal mistake by forcing them to restart from the beginning of their journey or even bid farewell to specific characters and game saves. As such, it adds realism to the experience while going against fundamental gaming conventions of retries, checkpoints, and the like.
A few titles fulfill the promise of permadeath – including Darkest Dungeon, Returnal, and Dead Cells – yet just as many bend the rules or flat-out lie about having the feature. Because said games rarely make that clear, people are often fooled into believing that it’s truly all-or-nothing before they learn the truth.
The dark rot mechanic of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is the most famous and ingenious implementation of this trick. Every time Senua dies, more of her body decays, with the promise of permadeath occurring once the deterioration reaches her head. However, the rot automatically stops spreading after several deaths, implying that the threat is merely an aspect of her psychosis.
Elsewhere, Hades allows protagonist Zagreus to upgrade certain attributes and perks every time he resets at the House of Hades.
Despite what players might believe, then, death isn’t always possible or completely debilitating when permadeath is on the table.