Permadeath (a portmanteau of permanent death) is a game mechanic in both tabletop games and video games in which player characters who lose all of their health are considered dead and cannot be used anymore; it is one form of death in video games."Never-to-return death is called permanent death or PD." (Bartle 2003, p416) Depending on the situation, this could require the player to create a new character to continue, or completely restart the game potentially losing nearly all progress made. Other terms include persona death and player death."Some old-timers prefer the expansion persona death. Exceedingly old-timers might even use player death, but at least we're trying to break the habit." (Bartle 2003, p416) Some video games offer a hardcore mode that features this mechanic, rather than making it part of the core game.
Permadeath contrasts with games that allow the player to continue in some manner, such as their character respawning at a checkpoint on "death", resurrection of their character by a magic item or spell, or being able to load and restore a saved game state to avoid the death situation. The mechanic is frequently associated with both tabletop and computer-based role-playing games, and is considered an essential element of the roguelike genre of video games. The implementation of permadeath can vary depending on the type of game.
In single-player video games
Permadeath was common in the golden age of arcade video games. Most arcade games (such as Space Invaders and Pac-Man) feature permanent death as a mechanic by default because they lack the technical ability to save the game state. Early home gaming mimicked this gameplay, including a simulation of entering coins to continue playing. As home computers and game consoles became more popular, games evolved to have less abstract protagonists, giving the death of a character more impact. When developers added the ability to replay a failed level, games become more complex to compensate, and stronger narratives were added, which focused on progressing characters through a linear story without repeated restarts. Inspired by the dungeon crawls in the first wave of Dungeons & Dragons adventures, early role-playing video games on home computers often lacked much narrative content and had a cavalier attitude toward killing off characters; players were expected to have little emotional connection to their characters, though many allowed players to save their characters' progress.
Few single-player RPGs exhibit death that is truly permanent, as most allow the player to load a previously saved game and continue from the stored position. The subgenre of roguelike games is an exception, where permadeath is a high-value factor. While players can suspend game and resume it from the same point linearly, they are typically unable to "rewind" the game to an earlier state to act differently and "branch the history". To achieve this, the game at all times keeps at most one, most recent savefile. Yet players may deliberately work around this by backing up and restoring savefiles using system tools, this tactic, called "save scumming", is considered cheating. The use of the permadeath mechanic in roguelikes arose from the namesake of the genre, Rogue. The developers initially did not implement save capabilities, requiring players to finish the game in one session. When they added a save feature, they found that players would repeatedly reload a save file to obtain the best results, which was contrary to the game design—they "wanted [realism]"—so they implemented code to delete the save file on reloading. This feature is retained in nearly all derivatives of Rogue and other games more loosely inspired by its gameplay.
Implementations of permadeath may vary widely. Casual forms of permanent death may allow players to retain money or items while introducing repercussions for failure, reducing the frustration associated with permanent death. More hardcore implementations delete all progress made. In some games, permadeath is an optional mode or feature of higher difficulty levels. Extreme forms may further punish players, such as The Castle Doctrine, which has the option of permanently banning users from servers upon death. Players may prefer to play games with permadeath for the excitement, the desire to test their skill or understanding of the game's mechanics, or out of boredom with standard game design. When their actions have repercussions, they must make more strategic and tactical decisions. At the same time, games using permadeath may encourage players to rely on emotional, intuitive or other non-deductive decision-making as they attempt, with less information, to minimize the risk to characters which they have bonded with. Games using permadeath more closely simulate real life, though games with a strong narrative element frequently avoid permadeath.
Permadeath of individual characters can be a factor in party-based tactical role-playing games like the games from the Fire Emblem series. In these games, the player generally manages a roster of characters and controls their actions in turn-based battles while building their attributes, skills, and specializations over time. If these characters fall in combat, the character is considered dead for the remainder of the game. It is possible to return to a previous save game state in these games before the death of the character, but this requires the player to invest more time in order to repeat the battle and continue, risking the loss of the same or other characters. Square's 1986 fantasy shoot 'em up game King's Knight featured four characters, each of which had to clear their own level before rejoining the others. If one of them died, they were lost permanently.Gems In The Rough: Yesterday's Concepts Mined For Today, Gamasutra
In multiplayer video games In massively multiplayer online role-playing games Permadeath in multiplayer video games is controversial."It's [permanent death is] the single most controversial subject in virtual worlds." (Bartle 2003, p415) Due to player desires and the resulting market forces involved, massively multiplayer online role-playing games (such as World of Warcraft) and other multiplayer-focused RPGs rarely implement it nowadays, despite permadeath being a key component of early virtual worlds such as MUD1. Generally speaking, there is little support in multiplayer culture for permadeath."Existing virtual world culture is anti-PD." (Bartle 2003, p444) Summarizing academic Richard Bartle's comments on player distaste for permadeath,"Dr. Bartle finally interrupted the conversation by trying to bring the conversation back to a player's perspective: 'Do you want permadeath or pedophilia? Both seem equally attractive to most players.'" (Quote is on second page ) Engadget characterized fans of MMORPGs as horrified by the concept. For games that charge an ongoing fee to play, permadeath may drive players away, creating a financial disincentive to permadeath."The most frequently cited reason against permadeath is, of course, player investment, which put succinctly says, 'We never want to give players a reason to stop paying us $10 bucks a month.' … Due to the intricate coding complexities and the… unique nature of sharing a space with other players, it's hard enough to prevent these catastrophic events from occurring. Why on earth would we want to give you a choice as to whether or not to start a new character, or cancel your account altogether?" (Schubert 2005)"Not only will they [players] say they'll leave when it [permanent character death] happens, some of them actually will leave." (Bartle 2003, p424)
Diablo II, Diablo III, Diablo IV, Minecraft, Terraria, and Torchlight II are mainstream exceptions that include support for an optional "hardcore" mode that subjects characters to permadeath. Star Wars Galaxies had permadeath for Jedi characters for a short period but later eliminated that functionality after other players targeted them."For a few months, one type of "Star Wars" character, the rare and powerful Jedi, could be permanently killed. But when players began singling out Jedi characters for vicious attacks, Jedi players cried out for help, and last month LucasArts abandoned permadeath, a company spokeswoman said." (Glater 2004) Even World of Warcraft has a following of players who call it the "Hardcore Challenge". Players who join this challenge use an addon in their game to track their combat. If their character ever dies, the rule is they must delete their character.
Proponents attribute a number of reasons why others oppose permadeath. Some attribute tainted perceptions to poor early implementations."This is primarily due to imperfect early implementations and bad customers service decisions; nevertheless, the legacy is there." (Bartle 2003, p444) They also believe that confusion exists between "player killing" and permadeath, when the two do not need to be used together."Many of the benefits that advocates of PKing cite are primarily due to PD; some of the strongest objections to PKing are due to its PvP element, rather than to PD." (Bartle 2003, p416) Proponents also believe that players initially exposed to games without permadeath consider new games from that point of view."If they [players] began with a virtual world that had no PD, they'll judge your virtual world from that standpoint." (Bartle 2003, p424) Those players are attributed as eventually "maturing", to a level of accepting permadeath, but only for other players' characters."Even if they are 'mature enough' for PD, they're [sic] attitude is analogous to the way that people in the real world view public transport. … So it is with PD: It's fine when it happens to you, but not so fine when it happens to me. (Bartle 2003, p424)
The majority of MMORPG players are unwilling to accept the penalty of losing their characters. MMORPGs have experimented with permadeath in an attempt to simulate a more realistic world, but a majority of players preferred not to risk permadeath for their characters. As a result, while they occasionally announce games that feature permadeath, most either remove or never ship with it so as to increase the game's mass appeal."Certain high level monsters would also have the ability to perma-kill a player character. [...] In retrospect, though, that one just seems crazy."
Proponents of permadeath claim the risk gives additional significance to their in-game actions. While games without it often impose an in-game penalty for restoring a dead character, the penalty is relatively minor compared to being forced to create a new character. Therefore, the primary change permadeath creates is to make a player's decisions more significant; without it there is less incentive for the player to consider in-game actions seriously."Then, the fact that the whole experience [play without permanent death] is vacuous begins to nag at them." (Bartle 2003, p431) Those seeking to risk permanent death feel that the more severe consequences heighten the sense of involvement and achievement derived from their characters."Without PD (it can also mean "permadeath"), there's no sense of achievement in a game." (Bartle, "Column 2") The increased risk renders acts of heroism and bravery within the gameworld significant; the player has risked a much larger investment of time. Without permadeath, such actions are "small actions"."Without PD, 'small actions' are steps on a treadmill and 'done well' means you move slightly faster than people who have 'done badly.' Heroism is no such thing—it's just another example of a 'small action.'" (Bartle 2003, p431) However, in an online game, permadeath generally means starting over from the beginning, isolating the player of the now-dead character from former comrades.