10 Video Games That Punish You For Dying
3. You Get Older With Each Death - Sifu
Sifu boasts one of the most ingeniously poignant death punishments in the history of video games.
Players start the game at the age of 20, but each time they die, they respawn having gained a few years of age, which while granting their strikes more power, also gives them less health.
If the player dies enough, they'll end up in their 70s, where dying will become permanent and they'll need to start the current stage from the very beginning, undoing all of the chapter's accrued progress.
Though Sifu is an incredibly challenging game in places, this unusual punishment never feels cheap, serving as a constant reminder that death has a cost. Plus, with a successful run through each chapter being relatively short, having to start from the beginning isn't a gigantic time sink.
Even so, it's an undeniable barrier of entry for more casual-minded players and those who simply loathe repetition, but it's at least a creative way to make players question what they're doing in every single moment.