Permadeath, And Why It’s Awesome

Wired.com has turned their attention to the concept of permadeath in video games, with the primary focus of the article being why it’s “awesome” and how it can “tap into real human emotions”. Firaxis Games’ Jake Solomon discusses the team’s reasoning in adding such a mechanic to XCOM: Enemy Unknown in the article, as well:

Jake Solomon, lead designer of the strategy game XCOM: Enemy Unknown, believes that if death in games is to have any meaning, it has to be as irrevocable as the real thing.

(Permanent death brings real consequences to the games we play,) said Solomon in an e-mail. (It evokes dread and a real sense of loss in players, because it’s something that they don’t want and they can’t undo once it has happened.)

In XCOM the player controls a squad of powerful soldiers that they train up throughout the game. If a soldier dies in battle, he or she is gone forever. Even though XCOM involves a fantastical sci-fi alien invasion scenario, the fear of losing a valuable character is vastly more thrilling than any contemporary war game in which death has no repercussions.

(It’s authentic,) Solomon said. (It’s real. Those emotions are real. The loss is real. The challenge that arises out of that loss is real. In some way, that makes the game real.)

(Permadeath) has been growing in popularity among game designers in recent years. Although it can take different forms depending on which game you’re playing, the message is always the same: Mistakes have consequences.