The Best Games Where Permadeath Is An Optional Mechanic

Dying in video games is often inconsequential or a minor inconvenience, with players merely respawning or restarting at the most recent checkpoint and carrying on as if nothing had happened. It can be annoying losing some progress or having to retry a difficult section, but it acts as a safety net and means that players can continue relatively unharmed.

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Some games have introduced permanent death or “permadeath” mechanics, meaning that a character or an entire playthrough is lost on death, which can be gut-wrenching. Hours, days, or weeks of work can be lost in an instant, but the entire roguelike genre is based around this concept and it has proven to be very popular. Other games make permadeath optional, with many players viewing all-or-nothing runs as the optimal way to play these games.

10

Diablo 2

The First Diablo Game To Feature Hardcore Mode

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Diablo 2

Systems

Released

June 28, 2000

OpenCritic Rating

Strong

Enabling ‘Hardcore’ mode on the character selection screen in Diablo 2 already sets that playthrough apart from others, putting the chosen character’s name in red and animating them in a more aggressive stance. Upon death, that character is permanently lost, remaining on the load screen as a hooded ghost and reminding players of their past failures.

While developing Diablo 2, many of Blizzard’s team were very hesitant about adding a ‘Hardcore’ mode with permadeath, fearing fan backlash. However, it proved to be very popular and has remained a feature in later Diablo games, with many players believing that it adds realism and gives a real sense of achievement if they beat the game with just one life.

9

The Long Dark

Cheat Death, But There Is A Catch

For many years, permadeath just had to be accepted by players of The Long Dark and its brutal Survival Mode. Many players were resistant to the idea of changing this since death is part of the game, but Hinterland Studio added the “Cheat Death” mechanic as an option in 2024, with a few caveats.

When this option is turned on, players are given the choice to continue upon death up to three times, but the game becomes progressively harder each time. “Rebirth” incurs several penalties of varying severity, such as a weakened state and clothing being torn, as well as the loss of items. In many ways, it may just be better to accept one’s fate and start a new save.

8

Watch Dogs: Legion

If The Last Operative Falls, DedSec Falls

Initially, Ubisoft planned to have permadeath as a default option in Watch Dogs: Legion, but chose to make it optional to appeal to both casual and hardcore players. When choosing the “Ironman” setting, players are unable to turn off permadeath, but Standard allows it to be turned off during a playthrough, although it can no longer be turned back on during that playthrough.

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In a normal game, operatives will be arrested or injured, but with only one life enabled, they are dead, meaning that the game will end if players run out of operatives. ‘Resistance Mode’ has Ironman permanently enabled, and even makes enemies stronger and the game world feel more oppressive, increasing the difficulty level across the board.

7

Remnant: From The Ashes

Permadeath In A Soulslike

Having permadeath in a Soulslike may seem unthinkable to many, but that’s exactly what the developers of Remnant: From the Ashes decided to include in their Hardcore Mode. While many games unlock this option after completing the game at least once, this time it’s available from the get-go, though it is recommended that only more experienced players try the mode.

There are plenty of exclusive rewards on offer for those brave enough to try, and there are rare occasions when players can be revived in multiplayer, but none at all in single-player gameplay. It’s certainly not a mode for beginners, requiring lots of prior knowledge about the game, its enemies, and its map layout.

6

Fire Emblem: New Mystery Of The Emblem

This Japan Exclusive First Introduced Casual Mode

• Platform: Nintendo DS
• Released: 2010-07-15
• Developer: Intelligent Systems
• Genre: Tactical Role-Playing

Permadeath has been a feature in every Fire Emblem game, but in recent entries, it only occurs while playing the game in ‘Classic Mode.’ While many attribute the first inclusion of ‘Casual Mode’ in the series to Awakening, it was actually Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem that introduced it first.

Exclusively released for the DS in Japan, it is a remake of the third installment in the series. Adding the option to have fallen units return was meant to attract more prospective players who were put off by the permanent death mechanic, but it was a bone of contention for many developers working on the game. In this mode, fallen units merely retreat from battle and return to fight in the next mission.

5

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus

Choose ‘Mein Leben’ For Only One Life

In previous Wolfenstein entries, the hardest difficulty level was already a tough challenge for many players, but MachineGames decided to add an almost impossible challenge in Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus. ‘Mein Leben’ is only for the most dedicated players, increasing the difficulty level and giving players only one life with which to complete the game.

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If that’s not already too much of a challenge, this mode must also be completed in one sitting with no saves, and players must restart from the very beginning upon death. Considering that it takes roughly eleven hours to play through the game, any prospective combatant would have to possess a lot of patience and a clear schedule to roll credits on this difficulty.

4

Minecraft

No Respawning In Hardcore Mode

The Hardcore variant was already added to the open-world crafting game Minecraft way back in 2011. This new addition gave players only one life in Survival mode, with no option to respawn upon death, only a button to delete the world. The ability to spectate has since been added, and players must now manually delete the world themselves, but it is still impossible to respawn.

Hardcore is also set to Hard difficulty by default, so some players will struggle while trying to survive. It’s also possible to play in Creative Mode, but players will still see the same death screen in the event of their untimely demise. Of course, some may have found sneaky ways to cheat death in Hardcore, but that kind of thing is not encouraged.

3

DOOM (2016)

Only One Life In Ultra-Nightmare

The 2016 reboot of the first-person shooter DOOM saw the introduction of ‘Ultra-Nightmare’ difficulty, which features all the regular perks of ‘Nightmare,’ such as more aggressive and intelligent enemies, but also gives players only one life to work with. This feature also remains in the sequel, DOOM Eternal.

While it is slightly more forgiving than Wolfenstein, allowing players to save at the end of levels rather than playing the entire game in one sitting, it still presents a tremendous challenge. Many players struggle to finish the first level, and the game even warns that it is punishing when selecting ‘Ultra-Nightmare.’

2

The Last Of Us Part 2

Custom Grounded Difficulty Gives Many Permadeath Options

Systems

Released

June 19, 2020

OpenCritic Rating

Mighty

Introduced in The Last Of Us Part 2 and retroactively added in the Part 1 Remaster, permadeath is one of the many difficulty modifiers for Custom difficulty. It can only be enabled when starting a new game, and players have three choices when selecting it as an option:

• Per Chapter: Restart the chapter upon death.
• Per Act: Restart the act upon death.
• Whole Game: True permadeath, must restart the whole game from the very beginning.

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In terms of difficulty, players can attempt a permadeath run on the easiest setting, Very Light, if they wish, all the way up to Grounded. There are also no manual saves, and if the player closes the game during a dangerous moment, it is treated as a death to prevent save scumming.

Lost Units Stay Dead In Ironman

Arguably the games most well-known for optional permadeath are the strategy games XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2 with their notorious Ironman Mode. Autosaving is disabled, with a single campaign save file existing in order to prevent players from simply reloading to an earlier point or restarting a mission.

Players almost inevitably make mistakes in XCOM games, and Ironman forces them to deal with the consequences, even when a character dies from sheer bad luck. The fact that soldiers are fully customizable means that players often become attached to their operatives, making their loss in combat even more sorrowful.

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