The One Video Game Feature Everyone Is Sick Of

Problematic Permadeath

Permadeath, by definition, is a very punishing mechanic.

Those with limited time to play their favourite games in the first place, or those who don’t have the patience to replay early sections of a title over and over to get back to where they were, often find it very off-putting.

At the same time, though, there’s no denying that permadeath absolutely has its place. Part of the joy of the Roguelike/rogue-lite experience lies in learning enemy patterns and behaviours, developing a playstyle, surviving longer and longer and enjoying the satisfaction of steadily improving at the game.

Each ‘successful’ run essentially becomes a new high score, which is super satisfying. It’s just that, when a particularly neat combination of obscure power-ups is achieved (The Binding of Isaac is famous for this) and then lost on death, it’s a real blow.

On the one hand, the quickfire nature of runs lends itself very well to the whole ‘it’s 5am and I have work in three hours, but I’ll just do one more quick run’ thing, but players’ mileage with that will vary.

If gamers are defeated by a boss with a scarcely perceptible slither of its HP remaining, only to be unceremoniously dumped right back at the start with nothing to show for it, they might well be inclined to put the game down for the day/forever instead.