10 Video Games That Punish You For Dying

Jak II was generally widely lauded by critics, though there was consistent criticism at both its high level of difficulty and the sparseness of its checkpoints.

As a result, death can be a frustrating experience, and one compounded by one extra punishment: your ammunition supply carries over after death.

While the overwhelming majority of games will reset you to the previous checkpoint with all your prior ammo upon dying, Jak II uniquely threw you back with whatever ammo you had left upon expiring.

It doesn't take a games design major to appreciate why this might be problematic: it creates an ammo scarcity problem at a point where the player has already died and may well be stuck.

This in turn creates a feedback loop of struggle in which the player may ultimately be compelled to quit the game and reload from their last save - an irritating added step for already frustrated players.