This topic hits hard for me. I'm old as hell and spent my early gaming years haunting arcades, so I'll always equate game over with insert tokens / quarters. Whenever a game takes its death mechanic seriously, integrates them into the story or gameplay, it gets me every time. Awesome video! Also thanks for mentioning darkest dungeon, still feel like that game never gets enough love
I love the way games have unique states. Especially if they follow the vibe real well. Like Let it Die, their whole gimmick is that you're playing a game in an arcade and the death state reflects that by letting you either go back and kill your own character to retrieve them or pay to revive/salvage the fighter. If you want to skip that step you just revive for a premium currency, quite literally adding in more money to play bc you failed
Fun fact about Borderlands 2's mechanic; the game actually acknowledges the respawn stations once. There's a sidequest given by the main villain who offers to pay you for committing suicide off a cliff or making fun of you for calling a self-help hotline. While the New-U stations aren't mentioned explicitly, the villain clearly expects you to return from death as he gloats over you for following his whims
He also owns the company that makes them so each time you die he is makeing money off of you This quest is actually why it's wierd to me it said not Canon lol. Cause I figured it was more like well you are new here so he hasn't blacklisted you from revivals yet Although that wouldn't explain the bosses not being revived afterthey get perma deaths
I do remember the original cast mentioning in voiced dialogue that they were unregistered from the New U network which is why they're a lot more cautious by the time of Borderlands 2.
i started playing the franchise for the first time a few months ago, and while playing the first game i wondered if the in-universe reason for other characters dying and never coming back is because they either didn't register with the network or didn't have enough money to respawn. and the infinite number of bandits could be due to that. They get killed and choose not to attack again after getting digi-structed to try and attack you with a better plan or what have you.
Lots of games treat fail states as non-canon endings that you just rewind from because it _works._ Yes, it's nice when games think outside the box and treat fail states in a different, unique way, but that doesn't mean that the ones doing it the traditional way are doing it _wrong_ or tritely. Sometimes it's just the best choice for a game.
Especially as in regards to the topic of horror games, the first ones that came to mind were Castlevania and more recently, Fear And Hunger. Both games are challenging and immersive in regards to horror, but the biggest fear that seems to reign over both of them (And their respective genre descendants) is fear of lost progress. Both are brutal and unusually cruel in their failure states, forcing the player literally back to square one with each failure, and pushing the player to re-gain all their progress out of merciless fear of the game itself. Certainly, 'git gud' is a teaching method, and one many games have utilised (Dark Souls, Bloodborne, etc.), but it is ultimately a barrier for many unseasoned or lax players, who might be drawn more to the game's lore or story, and want to experience it for themselves. It really comes down to cost. Are you looking to make a challenge that players can test themselves against, or do you want to tell an immersive story and world? The choice is really up to the dev and the thematic intentions of the game. It's hard to have your cake and eat it too.
Exactly. I like lex but he seems to not acknowledge that not everything can be one size fits all and there's not really a single solution that will work for every single genre of game and also not every game needs to be everything all at once in order to be a good game. He seems to value his own preferences more than anything else and not really consider other preferences a lot of the time. Few things in gaming are truly objective which means when making videos about these kinds of topics I think it's best to try and deliver all of the information possible and then let the viewer decide for themselves. Perhaps denoting and including your opinion just for human engagement purposes if nothing else.
amazing analysis. I remember playing returnal and I was absolutely captured by the fact that the main character actually acknowledges her own death and being able to listen to recordings of yourself from one of your many lives was amazing, even finding your own dead bodys. Returnal is honestly so good.
Looking at from a (non-game) development perspective, every outcome is additional development time/energy. Fail states are like invisible walls for narrative. You can be given the illusion of a huge map, but we've only coded for about 100 sq ft. Want to go through that window for this sneaking mission? Sorry, we didn't have time to code the scenario to account for that. As a developer, I LOVE accounting for and responding to every possible outcome as efficiently as possible. However, as someone who [nonconsensually] depends on a company to provide me the means to live, I have to cut that short to within the boundaries they set.
@@Jerome16_ I don't think he'll be underrated for long. It seems like the algorithm is catching on a bit and the quality speaks for itself. He's only been at it for like a year, nobody blows up that fast
@@LAK_770 Except for that Arch guy, apparently haha. I like his content, but his channel grew absurdly quickly, and with so few videos. One of the many mysteries of the algorithm, I suppose. I hope Lextorias continues to grow though, because his videos are great. I stumbled upon his piece on the rise, fall, and resurgence of Space Westerns, and that was an instant subscribe!
@@stinkytoypeople also seem to forget how insanely quickly NakeyJakey blew up out of nowhere. One week I'm watching this dude on a Yoga ball talking straight facts with almost no views and the next I'm looking at a huge tuber with millions of subs.
One thing you missed with Morrowind is that Bethesda added an alternate way to beat the game after killing important npcs. It's actually faster than playing through the main story normally
I didnt know that, I've only beaten it normally! that's really neat. They really need to remake morrowind. With better graphics that game would be so cool (you can kinda do it with mods)
Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor is another great example of how to handle failure state. You died? Well guess what, the guy that shanked you just got a promotion, got new gear, and knows your weaknesses. Fantastic game with failure state thought thru, except for story scripted moments, but as far as the open world goes its awesome.
Far cry 2 had a really cool companion system where if you were to die and were on good terms with your companion, they'd actually save you from death. The catch is that the companion could die, meaning that even when they saved you from death (which in far cry 2 on the hardest difficulty it really feels like your life was spared) you're still scrambling trying to help your buddy survive the remaining enemies, which I always thought was a really cool mechanic that added a lot of depth to the game, especially since being on good terms with your companion meant that you had to do special, often harder missions for them which made cheating death feel earned.
great video, man. another game analysis channel called Adam Millard coincidentally just put out a video on a similar topic, more focused on how failure states can be used to move the narrative. Really cool to watch these two videos so close together
Funnily enough, this is not the first time that I've put out a video so close to someone else making one on the same topic. I'll definitely check his out!
This video blew my mind in the same way as “The power of invisible choices” by game maker’s toolkit. There’s something so magical about being able to try different things and not get railroaded by the devs. It’s fun even if I make a mistake and have to play through the consequences. I hadn’t even considered a game over could be anything more significant and impactful than a game over until now, so thank you for that!
I actually literally accidentally looped the video at the end and experienced him looping due to a failure at the end. The video opens with a game over screen. Brilliant!
It's crazy watching this video in 2025 where the Borderlands movie has gone on to win multiple awards including 6 diffrent oscars and is already set to be included in the criterion collection next month
5:30 okay so I haven’t really played many stealth games but in my head this is how I think you could fix some of them that automatically make you fail when spotted. Instead of doing that, KEEP the game GOING. You won’t have weapons and you must find another place to hide in order for them to not find you. However- it’s not gonna be like in Skyrim where they’re like “huh, must’ve been the wind” the enemies now KNOW that you’re in the building and will actively hunt for you. There could be many places to hide, but they’ll keep looking in every nook and cranny- everywhere you can go, THEY can go. Not only that but they’ll look at items that you had to drop and draw attention to it. This could be a benifit, but if you’re in the general area then you could also get screwed. Anyway that’s my thoughts, also I absolutely love your videos dude
I’ve always found the failure states of game’s interesting. Personally hated the ones that didn’t get creative and just failed me because they could. Another banger video.
I've been recently playing State of Decay 2. Found out the hard way just how difficult a Juggernaut is to defeat when he picked up my character, the leader of my community, and ripped him in half. Cue the switch character screen, and now my community has to deal with the morale penalty of his death, choose a new leader, and move on. I've also failed a few missions because the NPC that was with me got killed. The punishment is that I have to move on knowing that I got them killed.
State of decay 2 was awesome. But man it sucks when gour community morale plummets because you took your leader to attack a plague heart thing and got brave then everyone dies. Good times.
You've mentioned that this discussion of failure states is niche and that no one talks about it... Yet a video from "Adam Millard - The Architect of Games" came out around 2 days ago exploring this exact idea, about how losing is fun, about failure states and the likes. I'm not crying out about plagiarism or whatever of the like, if anything, I'm curious how you two got the same idea of doing an essay about failure states at around the same time and explained it with similar themes and examples (Sifu, Dark Souls, etc). Otherwise, great video, that's the kind of content I subscribed for, entertaining, some actual laugh-out-loud moments and genuinely interesting topics.
Having checked out the video, it's very interesting how we talk about failure states pretty similarly, but I guess that's part of the TH-cam video essay game. It's not the first time I've made a video around the same time as someone else, and it probably won't be the last. As for inspiration, I started writing this video right after my last one came out, and my idea originally started as "Death In Video Games" after thinking about Sifu. Don't know where Adam got their idea, but I'm glad there's more than one video on the subject now. Theirs covers a bunch of different areas that I think add a lot to the discussion.
reminds me a lot of the same idea in infinity blade back in the day on ios. tho it didn’t really change the game and i’m not sure about rogue legacy haven’t played yet.
Fire Emblem has in recent games introduced a time rewind function. And in both Three Houses and Engage they use this function as part of the cutscenes too. It doesn't always work as intended, but at least the developers acknowledges that the main character has a superpower!
7:58 I think many people would get very frustrated at that, especially if that information is needed to move on. Maybe something unexpected happened and, because they lost that chance, they would have to traverse a different challenge to get it, but they wouldn't be ready for that. Some people like the instant repetition so they don't feel they "lost" part of the gameplay. But then again, a game with those mechanics is obviously not intended for the people I just described, and shouldn't try to appeal to them if it's in conflict with the developer's intentions. It just can't happen in games that look to appeal to a broader audience first, and to make unique gameplay second.
You mention that it would be interesting If an NPC you're escorting dies. Its important to note that this is only true if the consequences for failure are as interesting and compelling as succeeding. The results of the NPC death need to be more fun than the quests and story beats you miss out on while that character is alive, otherwise it just becomes frustrating and incentivizes manual save reloads
I disagree. The results of the NPC death would be a punishment for failing the mission. To make the game more fun or interesting after failure would diminish the rewards of success. You should still naturally be able to have fun with the game after failing, but there should be some idea that the route without failure is the optimal route. Either in terms of a better ending or some mechanical benefit to the player. Until Dawn does something like this with it's character deaths. As for the problem of manual saves, that's one I don't cover too much in the video. But the games I talked about like Darkest Dungeon and Dark Souls implement frequent autosaves that lock you into bad decisions or failures and prevent you from save scumming. So that is a feature that would obviously work here.
@@Lextorias I do agree that the consequence of failure should not diminish the rewards of success, however there should definitely he offered something to the player. You've convinced me that it maybe shouldnt be as fun as the main story line but there does need to be something. To have the player simply miss out on content with no consolation, while interesting, just isnt fun. Maybe other story lines have altered paths or endings idrk. In terms of punishment for poor play, having the story line not conpletable is one thing, and offering something in reward balances it out so that the main punishment comes in the form of this character that you, hopefully cared about, dying. Have it affect the character emotionally. The player doesn't necessarily need to be outright punished mechanically. Imagine if you didnt bring Mimir to Freya in time in God of War. That would just suck. It's kinda neat that it can happen, but its uninteresting in the long terma and would make the game as a whole, objectively worse.
@@CptnXplosion That's what I was talking about when I mentioned Until Dawn or Detroit: Become Human. Playing the full game and losing some characters still leads the story to a close that can be satisfying and fun, but you just miss out on the full experience by storylines having to continue without some key characters in them. For example, if you want Mimir to not die, have the segment be pre-scripted. Don't give the player the chance to fail in the first place if you're going to ignore and reset all those failures. Make it an interactive cutscene (which, as far as I can remember, it already is) Otherwise, if you want to give the player the agency to be able to fail that segment, account for the continuation of the story with that failure in place.
Fun fact! In Morrowind there is a way to beat the game even if Vivec dies at the very start, at the small, itty bitty, teeny tiny cost of over 200 hp. for the rest of the game.
Something that's always made me feel more immersed is almost like imagining every failure or death is one of many timelines. I don't know when I picked up that habit or why but for some reason it's just a lot of fun that, in _this_ timeline I fell from a little too high and died and the other versions of this character are looking at that and going "Look at this fucking idiot!" Perhaps that behavior just ended up stemming from the exact issues you brought up here. I want something more permanent, like morrowind. I can't tell you why I started doing it and certainly no one else can either.
You forgot Undertale. When you kill Toriel, and reset, she asks why you have a weird expression on your face, and she asks: "Do you know something that I do not?" And in the Genocide Route, Sans keeps track of how many times you died, until he doesn't.
All I can do after watching this video is to recommend the game Inscryption. it is a WONDERFUL game that breaks so many boundaries and typical rules of games. It will continually surprise you, and each death reveals something new and is mentioned explicitly in the story. right when you think you understand the game, it shatters your perspective again and it's fresh and new.
The Hex by the same devs is better IMO. It weaves the meta into a compelling narrative. Inscryption, while more polished and definitely more gameplay-focused, is mostly just gimmicks for the sake of themselves.
I swear I found your channel many years ago when you were posting cool little videos about messing around in Prey and now look at you! This was a really thought-provoking video talking about failure states. You hit the nail on the head as to why I have been gravitating towards roguelites/roguelikes now, without me even realizing that was part of the reason. I wonder what you think about required grinding for progression that we are seeing often now in the videogame landscape. It's a topic I talk about often with my friends, combined with hard difficulty = bullet sponges, as it just really annoys me that this has became the standard in the videogame industry. Anyways, keep up the good work!
You're right! I think I even recognize your username from back before I had 100 subscribers. And a video on grinding/bullet sponges/artificially increased length or difficulty of a game sounds like a good idea. I'll add that to my list!
I'm not sure a narrative justification for a failure state is substantively different than just a run of the mill one. Lot's of the examples given I agree with. Disco Elysium also has plenty of opportunities to fail annd keep playing to the end. Yet i would say the just narrative recontextualizing games are proving the opposite of cage's quote, like Dark Souls. That sometime failure/game over is integral to the experience. That a set-back in time is the point by overcoming it. Sekiro would be the one that focused on that "mastery or failure" purpose in fromsoft title, imo
Dude you really came right outta the gate with excellent videos. Crazy quality to the editing, scripting, sound, everything. Subbed and binging all your shit.
I feel like i should mention a game that does the "fail state" thing quite well: Oriental Blue for the GBA. It's an rpg with a free-scenario system that basically has no game-over screen, because after being defeated, it leads to a cutscene related to the enemy you died if it is a boss + you waking up at the closest inn, followed by different dialogue coming from the characters in your party member at that moment. Sometimes this means that the boss may be waiting for you to a rematch, or better yet, the story will move on with your defeat changing how it will go from that point. Really recommend it to anyone wanting a very replayable game.
Seriously so happy to have found your channel from your scary horror games video, this one was also a delight to watch! I also love when games acknowledge deaths because it's such a game-unique mechanic and you brought up amazing examples (oh borderlands...). Had some great chuckles over your jokes too! Looking forward to whenever your next video comes out! Would love to recommend Jacob Geller's video Time Loop Nihilism (or his one on returnal LOL). I think it falls into this topic really well too, looking specifically at time loops as a narrative explanation and the ways it shapes a game's narrative!
Justifying death in-universe requires either a supernatural element (Hades, Dark Souls, Sifu), a technological element (Borderlands), a simulation (Prey DLC), or “they’re not actually the same person” (Rogue Legacy). A lot of these raise the Borderlands issue of why the element isn’t used in other places. Braid embraces this: you start thinking the time rewind is only available on death, but it’s actually part of the entire game. When it works, it works great, but it also limits the sort of stories that can be told (I don’t see an obvious fix for Uncharted or Far Cry).
I don’t think some reality bending element needs to be present at all. Games like GTA already contextualize “death” with you waking up in the hospital. For most games it would be as easy as that to incorporate mechanics. Far Cry already has the character be resurrected by allies. It would be relatively easy to implement that the character gets knocked down and brought back to a checkpoint by some unseen friendly reviving them (the same as the opening to Far Cry 3 with Dennis) Uncharted writers have already explained Nate being a bullet sponge with the idea that his health is “luck”. Take that and combine it with the cinematic nature of the games and it would make sense to contextualize death as VHS-like rewinds. Literally telling the player “that’s not supposed to happen” and using the death mechanic as part of the movie homage the whole series is. Both of these ideas are literally off the top of my head and work fully within both games, so I would argue any competent writer/developer could include immersive death mechanics into any game and have it fit.
Prince of Persia has a narrator telling you they didn’t tell the story correctly and restart it from a previous point that’s something any game featuring a narrator could use to justify it
This video made me realize the value you bring to the table in video game design. I've enjoy every video I've seen of yours so far. I've subscribed, and I look forward to see what else you do!
Supergiant do a good job of this in general. Transistor doesn't kill you when you lose all your health, it removes one of your equipped abilities and lets you continue on. Pyre is structured as a repeating sports tournament; losing the final match isn't a fail state, you just improve your team and try again.
I forgot about how Transistor did it! You're right, it is cool. It forces you to change up your strategy, AND it adds another reward to push for, because you'll get those powers back after you succeed.
One game that came to mind in how it acknowledges death was Bioshock 2 because at the very beginning of the game it is explained that you, as Subject Delta, died except Eleanor had some little sisters carry your DNA over to a nearby vitachamber. This is enhanced with the fact that you loose all resources that you have expelled between saving and respawn implying that the new Subject Delta out of the vitachamber collected the gear of the previous one. Plus, unlike in Borderlands 2, the only characters that die are ones that are not revived via vitachamber and at the end of the game when a death does happen, Rapture and by proxy the vitachambers is destroyed
14:28 I think those are roguelites, not roguelikes. though it's not that big of a deal, their upgrades persisting after death is the main difference between the two. a true rougelike would be something like pixel dungeon, while an example of a rougelite would be wizard of legend, or yes, hades. cool vid tho!
Ah yeah, they do a cool thing too in Nier: Automata. Since you're playing an android, when you die, it's just the body that's actually destroyed. The previous conscience/memories/data are then uploaded in a new body and poof you're out again. But you have to get your chips back from your previous body kinda like the Souls games, but it's not money, it's augmentations. And they even put a twist on that later in the game, when there's a small dysfunction with the save system. That's awesome and so immersive.
this was really interesting and the immediate game that came to mind was hades so i was so happy you mentioned that!! the way death is tied to the game is literally my favorite thing (tho i’m aware that’s just also the nature of rougelikes) - my first play through, it just kept me so glued to the game, made me not care about failure or dying (well - id inevitably hit my rage quit limit lol) but look forward to what story i might unlock after and jump right back into the fray.
Two things to add. 1. 14:30 Actual roguelikes (Rogue, NetHack, Angband, ADOM, ToME, DCSS, etc.) have historically avoided this, and arguably that's a big part of what they've become known for. Carry-over of items and power-ups was a relatively recent idea that only came to be sometime in the early 2010s; the commonly accepted term for this off-shoot is "rogue-lites". Personally, I highly dislike such unlockables in games because unless it is important for plot-related reasons, I want to experience the game in the way I want without having to do it in the way I _don't_ want first. It just sounds fucking backwards that you'd keep the game in a castrated state on purpose to have the player gradually build it up to the state it's _meant_ to be in. 2. It's criminal that you've never mentioned Planescape: Torment (1999), which was a game about an immortal person who'd lost memories of his past lives and is trying to make sense of them and wrestling with decisions he'd made that led to the present. It's one of the best-written games of all time, with megabytes' worth of dialogue trees, and it was one of the first games to both acknowledge the main character's dying, resurrecting, and losing part of his memories of the past as a valid mechanic in its world, and make it an essential plot tool for the main character's story arc. In fact, I'd strongly encourage you to play it, because even though the gameplay is dated and clunky as fuck, the writing by the legendary Chris Avellone makes it 100% worth it.
I rarely comment on youtube but I have been watching your channel since its early days and I really hope you the best. Fantastic analysis on this topic and look forward to future videos.
As for issue 3 I think a really good example of making failure states an in game thing is undertale, where it actually explains why you can reload a checkpoint and it also makes a boss reloading checkpoints
I am rabid for more of your content, my guy. Thanks for the new addition. Idk if you have a "docket" of content, but I'd be happy to throw a bunch of stuff for you to consider to look into, from the perspective of a absolute basic casual.
@@Lextorias Sick my man! I hope these can help inspire some of your next works, even if it's from ADHD topic hopping: 1) Nostalgia Brands - originally for kids but the show/game has to either adapt with the growing audience or target the newer demographic. Like how yugioh/pokemon card/video game franchises have to go, and how that effects the games as a result. 2) The advent of remakes/sequels being prioritized over original content, and the audiences/studios participation in perpetuating it. 3) The recurring juxtaposition in anime/manga tone where serious topics are alluded to while simultaneously not taking itself serious in a "meta-joke" capacity. E.g. Street fighter specifically avoids directly adult themes in their recent games in the effort of things like fan service and inside jokes, but also never directly honest or avoids it in game in character design/behaviors/implications. 4) The anime fascination with beautifying food and skill crafts in the show, how it started, and why it's so fitting within the medium. (Anime/Manga has those mouthwatering shots of food and the characters describe it so detailed, taste and all) 5) The seemingly quiet surge of more retro styled/pixel/ top down games as they are advanced for even cellphone game play (e.g. Pixel Dungeon, rogue-likes). 6) The seemingly loss of narrative nuance in more modern mainstream works, how shows and games may be telling more directly why something is wrong or right, instead of letting the player/audience develop those feelings themselves, and why developers/authors feel it necessary to do so. 7) Waifu categories. Why they exist? What they imply from the audience and author? How do they influence the real world today? 8) In the same vein of 7, and this may be a stretch for your area, but do you think the influencer/model field that western culture has seen a rise in over the last decade or so maybe a adaptation of the Eastern "Idol" culture, and Waifus and anime may have been part of the bridging link to that change? Is this an example of cultural globalization/Unification? 9) The recurring consequences of translations, and the often comical or tragic language mishaps that occur because of misinterpretation? 10) Not super original, but addressing the MCU phase artistic progressions over its phases, figuring out what each MCU franchise fits within a specific movie/TV genre (Shang Chi is a Martial arts/Kaiju movie, She-Hulk is a Family sitcom show, Captain America is US propaganda films but stretches from a historic military movie, to us Espionage film, avengers 2.5, and then a critique of US poltics., antman is about heist films, etc.) That's just some ideas and I tried to spread them around for your past topics you've covered. I tried thinking of anime, pop/action movies, video games, and a branching level of critique of how actual people interact/interpret them. Hope these are interesting for you to look into! I live your video essays, man!
A little thing that makes the borderlands 2 part worse is that there is a sidequest later, in the eridium blight iirc, where Handsome Jack, the villain, asks you to kill yourself for money. If you do, he gives you the money, and makes fun of you; if you don't, I can't remember exactly but I think he is disappointed but says he respects you more or something? Either way, the new U station thing actually adds an optional (and imo meaningful and funny) interaction with the main villain. They also never really give any meaningful reasoning why he can't just respawn himself at the end, considering he, you know, owns the company who makes the new U stations in the first place. Death in borderlands is so strange, and kind of ruins the stories for me a fair bit.
Neat video, although I don't agree that every game should integrate deaths with the story. Some games are just better without them, like some story type game imho.
Most games have something called a failure state. A part of the game you see when you play less than perfectly. Whether it's a game over, death screen, or other way the game fails you, these are core parts of the experience of gaming. So why are so many of them so simple? Let's find out.
set my ringtone to the codec call years ago and to this day its still gets me... i booted up this video. saw the death screen codec. and still went dang what spam call is it this time
Great video on a topic I think about a lot. The franchise I work on doesn't have artificial failure states and instead has permadeath, adaptive missions, and no manual reloading, which really does heighten the tension, but the thing that I think makes it work really well is the fact that you control a community of characters, and so knowing you have other characters to fall back on really helps lessen the blow of losing a character. It's kind of similar to Darkest Dungeon in that regard. I will say though, it makes creating missions pretty complicated and time consuming because the mission logic needs to handle every possible outcome or change in the world that is relevant to the mission, and can lead to a lot of hard to find bugs.
I would like to add Pokémon Nuzelockes to this entry. The fact that each death leaves a permanent mark on your team, forces you to rethink your strategy from the scratch, and play every battle on the edge makes them so much more fun than the standard gameplay loop.
I feel like Nuzlockes require a much higher knowledge base to become fun than Pokemon's standard gameplay. Like imagine doing a Nuzlocke of Gold if you didn't know a damn thing about the game and six hours in you get completely murdered by Miltank. It would feel completely bullshit.
@@HeavySighSA definitely, one of the hardest aspects of nuzlockes is not knowing whats coming without either just knowing the game that well or looking up things (and some things are shockingly hard to look up). Also randomizer nuzlockes are centered on this uncertainty, you never know when a random encounter or important trainer will have a legendary or worse, a wobuffet. (Wobuffets are the worst thing ever thanks to shadow tag, destiny bind, and counter/mirror coat making it very easy for them to just take out one of your pokemon)
I've never really thought about this too much, but I love all your points! As a big pokemon fan I'm thinking about how it implements it. You lose one pokemon at a time which can make your fight harder and alter your strategy. And you have to plan how to get back to a full team of non fainted pokemon.
And then you add on the nuzlocke which adds a lose condition to the game, and makes each failure (fainted mon) significantly more impactful than normal.
6:56 Literally what the Erekir campaign turns into in the late game of Mindustry. "Oh I'm sorry. You made a small mistake and now you get obliterated by ballistic missles." An automation tower defense/rts game literally based off of factorio and built with creativity in mind forces you to do it the exact way the map makers want you to... I've had to self destruct my core way too many times in the sector "Siege" because I'm backed into a corner, and every time I launch back I have to start all over again. What I like about the Serpulo campaign though is the fact that failure is integrated into the gameplay. Say for example, you were attacking an enemy base or defending a sector but your core gets destroyed. You can launch back to the sector and the enemy base will be partially rebuilt, and anything left of your own base and defenses that didn't get destroyed will stay. That feature has saved me so many times at the Nuclear Production Complex Anyways, great video! Keep up the amazing content!
That one escort mission in NieR: Automata where you gotta get this machine child back to his mother and if he dies then the mission ends and you have to go tell the mother that you failed to protect her child. Shit made me so determined to get it right the next playthrough. Also the way that dying in the game in different ways are treated like endings.
My problem with trying to solve really pretentious-sounding word is that death is such a (literally) vital part of life that integrating video game retries into a story restricts your story a lot. While I agree that stories supported by mechanics are the only ones unique to video games, I can understand why fail states are treated as non-canon afterthoughts. Also, I think the Quantic Dream solution only works if the "best" ending is tied to at least one "failure". E.g., if failing to save someone's attempt at game-overing themselves just leads me to a worse path, it won't be something innately interesting - it'll just be another failure state rather than some sad truth you should accept. Instead, if that "failure" causes the protag to grow and achieve something exclusive to that story branch, then it becomes interesting and might get me to accept the failure (i.e., don't restore a prev. save).
I hate punishments in most games. I like Celeste more than Hollow Knight because dying in Celeste sets you back way less than it does in Hollow Knight.
Man that's sick you used future club as the background music at the 13 minute mark that's a great song I'm going to have to go listen to it after this video
Games like Shadow of Mordor and it's Nemesis system comes ro my mind seeing as your death from particular orcs and other enemies changes how they react within the world and acknowledges your death You can create your own personal rival!
just a small addition - 3:55 - you have choices where you die (as in, your HP gets set to 0 and you respawn). Small spoiler here is for the Mission in the "Yangtze" Submarine: You have to repair the Reactor in a secific way, doing something different here can make the reactor explode, killing you in the process.
In Styx Shards of Darkness you have quick saves and the Deaths still feel extremely punishing and funny because in the Death screen the Character will talk to you and say stuff like: "How about this i come out and play and you come in and die PAINFULLY" what makes the deaths so much more realistic 😅 i love the game so much
A good example of this kind of thing that's really annoying is Arven's final battle in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet. Like every other battle, you're SUPPOSED to win. However, in the story, Arven has a sick and dying Mabosstiff that just got cured, but he has sent him into battle. So instead of doing the morally correct thing and losing on purpose, you're forced to defeat the Mabosstiff mindlessly like it's yet another Pokémon Trainer you're dealing with or something. What makes this even more disgusting is that GameFreak has implemented conditions where you can lose yet the story continues. They do this with Blue and Lusamine however. As if to say that these people are amazing yet Arven is trash and he deserves to lose. This single detail broke immersion for me once I figured that out, and it could easily be fixed. I doubt this will though because look at these games. If this doesn't tell you that a failure state is just another way to make you stay on a straight line, then I don't know what will.
I think a good example would be cruelty squad. It explains in the story how death is impermanent, and how nobody really dies, not even the people you are tasked to kill. Instead, every time you restart a level, not only does your character revive, but so does every npc. Except the ones that die permanently. Those are treated as a consequence, and a further narrative point. Hell, even the hardest ending to get shows everybody marching towards death, and how allowing death to be permanent is a good thing. So yeah, play that game.
On the Death part thats one of the things ive always liked about Destiny 1 and 2 With all Guardians having Ghosts that revive them with the Travelers Light (Yes there are times where it forces a check point but even then its explained as an area where the light cant reach you) The only Guardians who have died or has assassination attempts with weight to them (like Cayde and Zavala respectivly) has their Ghosts destroyed. Its so baked in the the community has a massive theory that Savathun will come back in Lightfall all because her Ghost escaped after we killed her
This topic hits hard for me. I'm old as hell and spent my early gaming years haunting arcades, so I'll always equate game over with insert tokens / quarters. Whenever a game takes its death mechanic seriously, integrates them into the story or gameplay, it gets me every time. Awesome video!
Also thanks for mentioning darkest dungeon, still feel like that game never gets enough love
I love the way games have unique states. Especially if they follow the vibe real well. Like Let it Die, their whole gimmick is that you're playing a game in an arcade and the death state reflects that by letting you either go back and kill your own character to retrieve them or pay to revive/salvage the fighter. If you want to skip that step you just revive for a premium currency, quite literally adding in more money to play bc you failed
Fun fact about Borderlands 2's mechanic; the game actually acknowledges the respawn stations once. There's a sidequest given by the main villain who offers to pay you for committing suicide off a cliff or making fun of you for calling a self-help hotline. While the New-U stations aren't mentioned explicitly, the villain clearly expects you to return from death as he gloats over you for following his whims
He also owns the company that makes them so each time you die he is makeing money off of you
This quest is actually why it's wierd to me it said not Canon lol. Cause I figured it was more like well you are new here so he hasn't blacklisted you from revivals yet
Although that wouldn't explain the bosses not being revived afterthey get perma deaths
I do remember the original cast mentioning in voiced dialogue that they were unregistered from the New U network which is why they're a lot more cautious by the time of Borderlands 2.
i started playing the franchise for the first time a few months ago, and while playing the first game i wondered if the in-universe reason for other characters dying and never coming back is because they either didn't register with the network or didn't have enough money to respawn.
and the infinite number of bandits could be due to that. They get killed and choose not to attack again after getting digi-structed to try and attack you with a better plan or what have you.
This also happens in Borderlands 3! It's pretty funny
Lots of games treat fail states as non-canon endings that you just rewind from because it _works._ Yes, it's nice when games think outside the box and treat fail states in a different, unique way, but that doesn't mean that the ones doing it the traditional way are doing it _wrong_ or tritely. Sometimes it's just the best choice for a game.
Especially as in regards to the topic of horror games, the first ones that came to mind were Castlevania and more recently, Fear And Hunger. Both games are challenging and immersive in regards to horror, but the biggest fear that seems to reign over both of them (And their respective genre descendants) is fear of lost progress. Both are brutal and unusually cruel in their failure states, forcing the player literally back to square one with each failure, and pushing the player to re-gain all their progress out of merciless fear of the game itself. Certainly, 'git gud' is a teaching method, and one many games have utilised (Dark Souls, Bloodborne, etc.), but it is ultimately a barrier for many unseasoned or lax players, who might be drawn more to the game's lore or story, and want to experience it for themselves.
It really comes down to cost. Are you looking to make a challenge that players can test themselves against, or do you want to tell an immersive story and world? The choice is really up to the dev and the thematic intentions of the game. It's hard to have your cake and eat it too.
Exactly. I like lex but he seems to not acknowledge that not everything can be one size fits all and there's not really a single solution that will work for every single genre of game and also not every game needs to be everything all at once in order to be a good game. He seems to value his own preferences more than anything else and not really consider other preferences a lot of the time. Few things in gaming are truly objective which means when making videos about these kinds of topics I think it's best to try and deliver all of the information possible and then let the viewer decide for themselves. Perhaps denoting and including your opinion just for human engagement purposes if nothing else.
amazing analysis. I remember playing returnal and I was absolutely captured by the fact that the main character actually acknowledges her own death and being able to listen to recordings of yourself from one of your many lives was amazing, even finding your own dead bodys. Returnal is honestly so good.
Man’s pumping out godly vid after vid
@@Jzdano fr, I was subbed to him before but only really started paying attention to him after I watched the fanservice video. Since then Im in love
@Stardust Bro litteraly me I was just looking for content put on that video subbed then binged
Am not nearly as bothered by fail state but Dam I do dig the fact your bodies can become traps
@@senritsujumpsuit6021 yea thats really cool
Looking at from a (non-game) development perspective, every outcome is additional development time/energy.
Fail states are like invisible walls for narrative. You can be given the illusion of a huge map, but we've only coded for about 100 sq ft. Want to go through that window for this sneaking mission? Sorry, we didn't have time to code the scenario to account for that.
As a developer, I LOVE accounting for and responding to every possible outcome as efficiently as possible. However, as someone who [nonconsensually] depends on a company to provide me the means to live, I have to cut that short to within the boundaries they set.
Dude your videos are great
Underrated channel
Very underrated 😢
@@Jerome16_ I don't think he'll be underrated for long. It seems like the algorithm is catching on a bit and the quality speaks for itself. He's only been at it for like a year, nobody blows up that fast
@@LAK_770 Except for that Arch guy, apparently haha. I like his content, but his channel grew absurdly quickly, and with so few videos. One of the many mysteries of the algorithm, I suppose.
I hope Lextorias continues to grow though, because his videos are great. I stumbled upon his piece on the rise, fall, and resurgence of Space Westerns, and that was an instant subscribe!
@@stinkytoypeople also seem to forget how insanely quickly NakeyJakey blew up out of nowhere. One week I'm watching this dude on a Yoga ball talking straight facts with almost no views and the next I'm looking at a huge tuber with millions of subs.
One thing you missed with Morrowind is that Bethesda added an alternate way to beat the game after killing important npcs. It's actually faster than playing through the main story normally
I didnt know that, I've only beaten it normally! that's really neat. They really need to remake morrowind. With better graphics that game would be so cool (you can kinda do it with mods)
Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor is another great example of how to handle failure state. You died? Well guess what, the guy that shanked you just got a promotion, got new gear, and knows your weaknesses. Fantastic game with failure state thought thru, except for story scripted moments, but as far as the open world goes its awesome.
I don't care about Failure state that much but yes the idea that if you suck the guy becomes more of a full of himself bully
I'm 50 years old so probably not the regular audience but really enjoy your analysis. Glad I was recommended your channel.
Far cry 2 had a really cool companion system where if you were to die and were on good terms with your companion, they'd actually save you from death. The catch is that the companion could die, meaning that even when they saved you from death (which in far cry 2 on the hardest difficulty it really feels like your life was spared) you're still scrambling trying to help your buddy survive the remaining enemies, which I always thought was a really cool mechanic that added a lot of depth to the game, especially since being on good terms with your companion meant that you had to do special, often harder missions for them which made cheating death feel earned.
great video, man. another game analysis channel called Adam Millard coincidentally just put out a video on a similar topic, more focused on how failure states can be used to move the narrative. Really cool to watch these two videos so close together
Funnily enough, this is not the first time that I've put out a video so close to someone else making one on the same topic. I'll definitely check his out!
the borderlands movie did in fact end up sucking
Went to the comments to make sure somebody told him
This video blew my mind in the same way as “The power of invisible choices” by game maker’s toolkit. There’s something so magical about being able to try different things and not get railroaded by the devs. It’s fun even if I make a mistake and have to play through the consequences. I hadn’t even considered a game over could be anything more significant and impactful than a game over until now, so thank you for that!
I actually literally accidentally looped the video at the end and experienced him looping due to a failure at the end. The video opens with a game over screen. Brilliant!
Dude ended the video with all the death screens in the games he spoke about. Clever
It's crazy watching this video in 2025 where the Borderlands movie has gone on to win multiple awards including 6 diffrent oscars and is already set to be included in the criterion collection next month
that big smoke part hit too close to home..
5:30 okay so I haven’t really played many stealth games but in my head this is how I think you could fix some of them that automatically make you fail when spotted.
Instead of doing that, KEEP the game GOING.
You won’t have weapons and you must find another place to hide in order for them to not find you. However- it’s not gonna be like in Skyrim where they’re like “huh, must’ve been the wind” the enemies now KNOW that you’re in the building and will actively hunt for you.
There could be many places to hide, but they’ll keep looking in every nook and cranny- everywhere you can go, THEY can go.
Not only that but they’ll look at items that you had to drop and draw attention to it. This could be a benifit, but if you’re in the general area then you could also get screwed.
Anyway that’s my thoughts, also I absolutely love your videos dude
I’ve always found the failure states of game’s interesting. Personally hated the ones that didn’t get creative and just failed me because they could.
Another banger video.
I've been recently playing State of Decay 2. Found out the hard way just how difficult a Juggernaut is to defeat when he picked up my character, the leader of my community, and ripped him in half. Cue the switch character screen, and now my community has to deal with the morale penalty of his death, choose a new leader, and move on. I've also failed a few missions because the NPC that was with me got killed. The punishment is that I have to move on knowing that I got them killed.
State of decay 2 was awesome. But man it sucks when gour community morale plummets because you took your leader to attack a plague heart thing and got brave then everyone dies.
Good times.
You've mentioned that this discussion of failure states is niche and that no one talks about it... Yet a video from "Adam Millard - The Architect of Games" came out around 2 days ago exploring this exact idea, about how losing is fun, about failure states and the likes.
I'm not crying out about plagiarism or whatever of the like, if anything, I'm curious how you two got the same idea of doing an essay about failure states at around the same time and explained it with similar themes and examples (Sifu, Dark Souls, etc).
Otherwise, great video, that's the kind of content I subscribed for, entertaining, some actual laugh-out-loud moments and genuinely interesting topics.
Having checked out the video, it's very interesting how we talk about failure states pretty similarly, but I guess that's part of the TH-cam video essay game. It's not the first time I've made a video around the same time as someone else, and it probably won't be the last.
As for inspiration, I started writing this video right after my last one came out, and my idea originally started as "Death In Video Games" after thinking about Sifu. Don't know where Adam got their idea, but I'm glad there's more than one video on the subject now. Theirs covers a bunch of different areas that I think add a lot to the discussion.
Funnily enough, I found that video in the feed right alongside your comment.
Personally I love Rogue Legacy and the concept of playing as the next successor of the family each time you die
reminds me a lot of the same idea in infinity blade back in the day on ios. tho it didn’t really change the game and i’m not sure about rogue legacy haven’t played yet.
Fire Emblem has in recent games introduced a time rewind function. And in both Three Houses and Engage they use this function as part of the cutscenes too. It doesn't always work as intended, but at least the developers acknowledges that the main character has a superpower!
7:58 I think many people would get very frustrated at that, especially if that information is needed to move on. Maybe something unexpected happened and, because they lost that chance, they would have to traverse a different challenge to get it, but they wouldn't be ready for that. Some people like the instant repetition so they don't feel they "lost" part of the gameplay.
But then again, a game with those mechanics is obviously not intended for the people I just described, and shouldn't try to appeal to them if it's in conflict with the developer's intentions. It just can't happen in games that look to appeal to a broader audience first, and to make unique gameplay second.
You mention that it would be interesting If an NPC you're escorting dies. Its important to note that this is only true if the consequences for failure are as interesting and compelling as succeeding. The results of the NPC death need to be more fun than the quests and story beats you miss out on while that character is alive, otherwise it just becomes frustrating and incentivizes manual save reloads
I disagree. The results of the NPC death would be a punishment for failing the mission. To make the game more fun or interesting after failure would diminish the rewards of success. You should still naturally be able to have fun with the game after failing, but there should be some idea that the route without failure is the optimal route. Either in terms of a better ending or some mechanical benefit to the player. Until Dawn does something like this with it's character deaths.
As for the problem of manual saves, that's one I don't cover too much in the video. But the games I talked about like Darkest Dungeon and Dark Souls implement frequent autosaves that lock you into bad decisions or failures and prevent you from save scumming. So that is a feature that would obviously work here.
@@Lextorias I do agree that the consequence of failure should not diminish the rewards of success, however there should definitely he offered something to the player. You've convinced me that it maybe shouldnt be as fun as the main story line but there does need to be something. To have the player simply miss out on content with no consolation, while interesting, just isnt fun. Maybe other story lines have altered paths or endings idrk.
In terms of punishment for poor play, having the story line not conpletable is one thing, and offering something in reward balances it out so that the main punishment comes in the form of this character that you, hopefully cared about, dying. Have it affect the character emotionally. The player doesn't necessarily need to be outright punished mechanically.
Imagine if you didnt bring Mimir to Freya in time in God of War. That would just suck. It's kinda neat that it can happen, but its uninteresting in the long terma and would make the game as a whole, objectively worse.
@@CptnXplosion That's what I was talking about when I mentioned Until Dawn or Detroit: Become Human. Playing the full game and losing some characters still leads the story to a close that can be satisfying and fun, but you just miss out on the full experience by storylines having to continue without some key characters in them.
For example, if you want Mimir to not die, have the segment be pre-scripted. Don't give the player the chance to fail in the first place if you're going to ignore and reset all those failures. Make it an interactive cutscene (which, as far as I can remember, it already is) Otherwise, if you want to give the player the agency to be able to fail that segment, account for the continuation of the story with that failure in place.
Called your shot on Borderlands. 😂
Fun fact! In Morrowind there is a way to beat the game even if Vivec dies at the very start, at the small, itty bitty, teeny tiny cost of over 200 hp. for the rest of the game.
Something that's always made me feel more immersed is almost like imagining every failure or death is one of many timelines. I don't know when I picked up that habit or why but for some reason it's just a lot of fun that, in _this_ timeline I fell from a little too high and died and the other versions of this character are looking at that and going "Look at this fucking idiot!"
Perhaps that behavior just ended up stemming from the exact issues you brought up here. I want something more permanent, like morrowind. I can't tell you why I started doing it and certainly no one else can either.
So glad I stumbled onto your channel, great content ❤❤
same 🤝❤️
Oh boy did you hit the mark with that Borderlands movie prediction 😭
You, sir, have excellent timing. I have literally been working on a game concept centered on canonical failure states.
Exanima makes my heart beat every 10 seconds, because your character is on the line for basically everything and I love it.
You forgot Undertale. When you kill Toriel, and reset, she asks why you have a weird expression on your face, and she asks: "Do you know something that I do not?" And in the Genocide Route, Sans keeps track of how many times you died, until he doesn't.
looking forward to a great video as always. keep it up.
All I can do after watching this video is to recommend the game Inscryption. it is a WONDERFUL game that breaks so many boundaries and typical rules of games. It will continually surprise you, and each death reveals something new and is mentioned explicitly in the story. right when you think you understand the game, it shatters your perspective again and it's fresh and new.
The Hex by the same devs is better IMO. It weaves the meta into a compelling narrative. Inscryption, while more polished and definitely more gameplay-focused, is mostly just gimmicks for the sake of themselves.
18:35 aged like a fine wine
I swear I found your channel many years ago when you were posting cool little videos about messing around in Prey and now look at you! This was a really thought-provoking video talking about failure states. You hit the nail on the head as to why I have been gravitating towards roguelites/roguelikes now, without me even realizing that was part of the reason.
I wonder what you think about required grinding for progression that we are seeing often now in the videogame landscape. It's a topic I talk about often with my friends, combined with hard difficulty = bullet sponges, as it just really annoys me that this has became the standard in the videogame industry.
Anyways, keep up the good work!
You're right! I think I even recognize your username from back before I had 100 subscribers.
And a video on grinding/bullet sponges/artificially increased length or difficulty of a game sounds like a good idea. I'll add that to my list!
I'm not sure a narrative justification for a failure state is substantively different than just a run of the mill one. Lot's of the examples given I agree with. Disco Elysium also has plenty of opportunities to fail annd keep playing to the end. Yet i would say the just narrative recontextualizing games are proving the opposite of cage's quote, like Dark Souls. That sometime failure/game over is integral to the experience. That a set-back in time is the point by overcoming it. Sekiro would be the one that focused on that "mastery or failure" purpose in fromsoft title, imo
18:33 this aged like fine wine
Great video, holy shit. I always look forward to your uploads! Criminally underrated work fr.
This is my new favorite channel. I'm looking forward to seeing how it grows.
I'm surprised you're not a bigger channel, great video
He's just stating the obvious... that's why he isn't any bigger.
Dude you really came right outta the gate with excellent videos. Crazy quality to the editing, scripting, sound, everything. Subbed and binging all your shit.
I feel like i should mention a game that does the "fail state" thing quite well: Oriental Blue for the GBA.
It's an rpg with a free-scenario system that basically has no game-over screen, because after being defeated, it leads to a cutscene related to the enemy you died if it is a boss + you waking up at the closest inn, followed by different dialogue coming from the characters in your party member at that moment.
Sometimes this means that the boss may be waiting for you to a rematch, or better yet, the story will move on with your defeat changing how it will go from that point. Really recommend it to anyone wanting a very replayable game.
Seriously so happy to have found your channel from your scary horror games video, this one was also a delight to watch! I also love when games acknowledge deaths because it's such a game-unique mechanic and you brought up amazing examples (oh borderlands...). Had some great chuckles over your jokes too! Looking forward to whenever your next video comes out!
Would love to recommend Jacob Geller's video Time Loop Nihilism (or his one on returnal LOL). I think it falls into this topic really well too, looking specifically at time loops as a narrative explanation and the ways it shapes a game's narrative!
Justifying death in-universe requires either a supernatural element (Hades, Dark Souls, Sifu), a technological element (Borderlands), a simulation (Prey DLC), or “they’re not actually the same person” (Rogue Legacy). A lot of these raise the Borderlands issue of why the element isn’t used in other places. Braid embraces this: you start thinking the time rewind is only available on death, but it’s actually part of the entire game. When it works, it works great, but it also limits the sort of stories that can be told (I don’t see an obvious fix for Uncharted or Far Cry).
I don’t think some reality bending element needs to be present at all. Games like GTA already contextualize “death” with you waking up in the hospital. For most games it would be as easy as that to incorporate mechanics.
Far Cry already has the character be resurrected by allies. It would be relatively easy to implement that the character gets knocked down and brought back to a checkpoint by some unseen friendly reviving them (the same as the opening to Far Cry 3 with Dennis)
Uncharted writers have already explained Nate being a bullet sponge with the idea that his health is “luck”. Take that and combine it with the cinematic nature of the games and it would make sense to contextualize death as VHS-like rewinds. Literally telling the player “that’s not supposed to happen” and using the death mechanic as part of the movie homage the whole series is.
Both of these ideas are literally off the top of my head and work fully within both games, so I would argue any competent writer/developer could include immersive death mechanics into any game and have it fit.
Prince of Persia has a narrator telling you they didn’t tell the story correctly and restart it from a previous point that’s something any game featuring a narrator could use to justify it
This video made me realize the value you bring to the table in video game design. I've enjoy every video I've seen of yours so far. I've subscribed, and I look forward to see what else you do!
Supergiant do a good job of this in general. Transistor doesn't kill you when you lose all your health, it removes one of your equipped abilities and lets you continue on. Pyre is structured as a repeating sports tournament; losing the final match isn't a fail state, you just improve your team and try again.
I forgot about how Transistor did it! You're right, it is cool. It forces you to change up your strategy, AND it adds another reward to push for, because you'll get those powers back after you succeed.
One game that came to mind in how it acknowledges death was Bioshock 2 because at the very beginning of the game it is explained that you, as Subject Delta, died except Eleanor had some little sisters carry your DNA over to a nearby vitachamber. This is enhanced with the fact that you loose all resources that you have expelled between saving and respawn implying that the new Subject Delta out of the vitachamber collected the gear of the previous one. Plus, unlike in Borderlands 2, the only characters that die are ones that are not revived via vitachamber and at the end of the game when a death does happen, Rapture and by proxy the vitachambers is destroyed
"video game characters aren't real" YOU TAKE THAT BAKK!!!!
The tension you mention is a big reason I like playing hardcore mode in ARPGs.
18:31 aged like fine wine
14:28 I think those are roguelites, not roguelikes. though it's not that big of a deal, their upgrades persisting after death is the main difference between the two. a true rougelike would be something like pixel dungeon, while an example of a rougelite would be wizard of legend, or yes, hades. cool vid tho!
I'm actually amazed by how well-written this video is. Really, kudos man!
Still can´t believe you are a rather small TH-camr! The production value in these videos is amazing! I am excited to see you continue to grow.
Ah yeah, they do a cool thing too in Nier: Automata. Since you're playing an android, when you die, it's just the body that's actually destroyed. The previous conscience/memories/data are then uploaded in a new body and poof you're out again. But you have to get your chips back from your previous body kinda like the Souls games, but it's not money, it's augmentations. And they even put a twist on that later in the game, when there's a small dysfunction with the save system. That's awesome and so immersive.
Great video man, this is really insightful!
I'm so glad the algorithm showed me your channel. I've watched all of your content, your videos are amazing!
Dude, you deserve so many more subs/views. Your content is so good.
this was really interesting and the immediate game that came to mind was hades so i was so happy you mentioned that!! the way death is tied to the game is literally my favorite thing (tho i’m aware that’s just also the nature of rougelikes) - my first play through, it just kept me so glued to the game, made me not care about failure or dying (well - id inevitably hit my rage quit limit lol) but look forward to what story i might unlock after and jump right back into the fray.
This is such an interesting topic and I absolutely loved the analysis. Keep it up dude
Two things to add.
1. 14:30 Actual roguelikes (Rogue, NetHack, Angband, ADOM, ToME, DCSS, etc.) have historically avoided this, and arguably that's a big part of what they've become known for. Carry-over of items and power-ups was a relatively recent idea that only came to be sometime in the early 2010s; the commonly accepted term for this off-shoot is "rogue-lites". Personally, I highly dislike such unlockables in games because unless it is important for plot-related reasons, I want to experience the game in the way I want without having to do it in the way I _don't_ want first. It just sounds fucking backwards that you'd keep the game in a castrated state on purpose to have the player gradually build it up to the state it's _meant_ to be in.
2. It's criminal that you've never mentioned Planescape: Torment (1999), which was a game about an immortal person who'd lost memories of his past lives and is trying to make sense of them and wrestling with decisions he'd made that led to the present. It's one of the best-written games of all time, with megabytes' worth of dialogue trees, and it was one of the first games to both acknowledge the main character's dying, resurrecting, and losing part of his memories of the past as a valid mechanic in its world, and make it an essential plot tool for the main character's story arc. In fact, I'd strongly encourage you to play it, because even though the gameplay is dated and clunky as fuck, the writing by the legendary Chris Avellone makes it 100% worth it.
I rarely comment on youtube but I have been watching your channel since its early days and I really hope you the best. Fantastic analysis on this topic and look forward to future videos.
Your take on the borderlands movie was rather prophetic lol
As for issue 3 I think a really good example of making failure states an in game thing is undertale, where it actually explains why you can reload a checkpoint and it also makes a boss reloading checkpoints
I am rabid for more of your content, my guy. Thanks for the new addition.
Idk if you have a "docket" of content, but I'd be happy to throw a bunch of stuff for you to consider to look into, from the perspective of a absolute basic casual.
I only offer because I'd like to help anyway I can.
I'm always open to new ideas and video suggestions!
@@Lextorias Sick my man! I hope these can help inspire some of your next works, even if it's from ADHD topic hopping:
1) Nostalgia Brands - originally for kids but the show/game has to either adapt with the growing audience or target the newer demographic. Like how yugioh/pokemon card/video game franchises have to go, and how that effects the games as a result.
2) The advent of remakes/sequels being prioritized over original content, and the audiences/studios participation in perpetuating it.
3) The recurring juxtaposition in anime/manga tone where serious topics are alluded to while simultaneously not taking itself serious in a "meta-joke" capacity. E.g. Street fighter specifically avoids directly adult themes in their recent games in the effort of things like fan service and inside jokes, but also never directly honest or avoids it in game in character design/behaviors/implications.
4) The anime fascination with beautifying food and skill crafts in the show, how it started, and why it's so fitting within the medium. (Anime/Manga has those mouthwatering shots of food and the characters describe it so detailed, taste and all)
5) The seemingly quiet surge of more retro styled/pixel/ top down games as they are advanced for even cellphone game play (e.g. Pixel Dungeon, rogue-likes).
6) The seemingly loss of narrative nuance in more modern mainstream works, how shows and games may be telling more directly why something is wrong or right, instead of letting the player/audience develop those feelings themselves, and why developers/authors feel it necessary to do so.
7) Waifu categories. Why they exist? What they imply from the audience and author? How do they influence the real world today?
8) In the same vein of 7, and this may be a stretch for your area, but do you think the influencer/model field that western culture has seen a rise in over the last decade or so maybe a adaptation of the Eastern "Idol" culture, and Waifus and anime may have been part of the bridging link to that change? Is this an example of cultural globalization/Unification?
9) The recurring consequences of translations, and the often comical or tragic language mishaps that occur because of misinterpretation?
10) Not super original, but addressing the MCU phase artistic progressions over its phases, figuring out what each MCU franchise fits within a specific movie/TV genre (Shang Chi is a Martial arts/Kaiju movie, She-Hulk is a Family sitcom show, Captain America is US propaganda films but stretches from a historic military movie, to us Espionage film, avengers 2.5, and then a critique of US poltics., antman is about heist films, etc.)
That's just some ideas and I tried to spread them around for your past topics you've covered. I tried thinking of anime, pop/action movies, video games, and a branching level of critique of how actual people interact/interpret them.
Hope these are interesting for you to look into! I live your video essays, man!
A little thing that makes the borderlands 2 part worse is that there is a sidequest later, in the eridium blight iirc, where Handsome Jack, the villain, asks you to kill yourself for money. If you do, he gives you the money, and makes fun of you; if you don't, I can't remember exactly but I think he is disappointed but says he respects you more or something? Either way, the new U station thing actually adds an optional (and imo meaningful and funny) interaction with the main villain. They also never really give any meaningful reasoning why he can't just respawn himself at the end, considering he, you know, owns the company who makes the new U stations in the first place. Death in borderlands is so strange, and kind of ruins the stories for me a fair bit.
Neat video, although I don't agree that every game should integrate deaths with the story. Some games are just better without them, like some story type game imho.
Most games have something called a failure state. A part of the game you see when you play less than perfectly. Whether it's a game over, death screen, or other way the game fails you, these are core parts of the experience of gaming. So why are so many of them so simple? Let's find out.
lex you madman, you've done it again, keep at it
Every death in pathologic 2 has an impact and an effect on the story, it's amazing and terrifying.
Pathologic is literally a play with death 😇
set my ringtone to the codec call years ago and to this day its still gets me... i booted up this video. saw the death screen codec. and still went dang what spam call is it this time
Great video on a topic I think about a lot. The franchise I work on doesn't have artificial failure states and instead has permadeath, adaptive missions, and no manual reloading, which really does heighten the tension, but the thing that I think makes it work really well is the fact that you control a community of characters, and so knowing you have other characters to fall back on really helps lessen the blow of losing a character. It's kind of similar to Darkest Dungeon in that regard. I will say though, it makes creating missions pretty complicated and time consuming because the mission logic needs to handle every possible outcome or change in the world that is relevant to the mission, and can lead to a lot of hard to find bugs.
I would like to add Pokémon Nuzelockes to this entry. The fact that each death leaves a permanent mark on your team, forces you to rethink your strategy from the scratch, and play every battle on the edge makes them so much more fun than the standard gameplay loop.
I feel like Nuzlockes require a much higher knowledge base to become fun than Pokemon's standard gameplay. Like imagine doing a Nuzlocke of Gold if you didn't know a damn thing about the game and six hours in you get completely murdered by Miltank. It would feel completely bullshit.
@@HeavySighSA definitely, one of the hardest aspects of nuzlockes is not knowing whats coming without either just knowing the game that well or looking up things (and some things are shockingly hard to look up).
Also randomizer nuzlockes are centered on this uncertainty, you never know when a random encounter or important trainer will have a legendary or worse, a wobuffet. (Wobuffets are the worst thing ever thanks to shadow tag, destiny bind, and counter/mirror coat making it very easy for them to just take out one of your pokemon)
I've never really thought about this too much, but I love all your points!
As a big pokemon fan I'm thinking about how it implements it. You lose one pokemon at a time which can make your fight harder and alter your strategy. And you have to plan how to get back to a full team of non fainted pokemon.
And then you add on the nuzlocke which adds a lose condition to the game, and makes each failure (fainted mon) significantly more impactful than normal.
6:56
Literally what the Erekir campaign turns into in the late game of Mindustry.
"Oh I'm sorry. You made a small mistake and now you get obliterated by ballistic missles."
An automation tower defense/rts game literally based off of factorio and built with creativity in mind forces you to do it the exact way the map makers want you to...
I've had to self destruct my core way too many times in the sector "Siege" because I'm backed into a corner, and every time I launch back I have to start all over again.
What I like about the Serpulo campaign though is the fact that failure is integrated into the gameplay. Say for example, you were attacking an enemy base or defending a sector but your core gets destroyed. You can launch back to the sector and the enemy base will be partially rebuilt, and anything left of your own base and defenses that didn't get destroyed will stay. That feature has saved me so many times at the Nuclear Production Complex
Anyways, great video! Keep up the amazing content!
That one escort mission in NieR: Automata where you gotta get this machine child back to his mother and if he dies then the mission ends and you have to go tell the mother that you failed to protect her child. Shit made me so determined to get it right the next playthrough. Also the way that dying in the game in different ways are treated like endings.
0:13 We got sponsor'nt
18:24 Just passing by to let you know that your prediction on the failure of the Borderlands movie came true 😂😂😂
This is becoming one of my favorite channels!
My problem with trying to solve really pretentious-sounding word is that death is such a (literally) vital part of life that integrating video game retries into a story restricts your story a lot. While I agree that stories supported by mechanics are the only ones unique to video games, I can understand why fail states are treated as non-canon afterthoughts.
Also, I think the Quantic Dream solution only works if the "best" ending is tied to at least one "failure". E.g., if failing to save someone's attempt at game-overing themselves just leads me to a worse path, it won't be something innately interesting - it'll just be another failure state rather than some sad truth you should accept. Instead, if that "failure" causes the protag to grow and achieve something exclusive to that story branch, then it becomes interesting and might get me to accept the failure (i.e., don't restore a prev. save).
I'm hugely enjoying your perspectives on these topics and love someone talking so passionately about something I enjoy! Also, you're funny as fuck.
The sponsor joke into Genshin joke in the first minute was a high-quality combination.
"It happens in a Cut-scene" Yeah I saw the funny FF cut-scene where a character panics looking for a Phoenix Down
Great vid man, love your reasoning and the way you break things down. Keep up the great work bro 💯
I hate punishments in most games. I like Celeste more than Hollow Knight because dying in Celeste sets you back way less than it does in Hollow Knight.
Respawn justifications should be done more in games.
Like how Mario's justification for respawning is the fact that heaven and hell reject his soul.
Man that's sick you used future club as the background music at the 13 minute mark that's a great song I'm going to have to go listen to it after this video
Loving your videos, keep it up!
Your videos are really deserving of wayy more views
Games like Shadow of Mordor and it's Nemesis system comes ro my mind seeing as your death from particular orcs and other enemies changes how they react within the world and acknowledges your death
You can create your own personal rival!
just a small addition - 3:55 - you have choices where you die (as in, your HP gets set to 0 and you respawn). Small spoiler here is for the Mission in the "Yangtze" Submarine:
You have to repair the Reactor in a secific way, doing something different here can make the reactor explode, killing you in the process.
In Styx Shards of Darkness you have quick saves and the Deaths still feel extremely punishing and funny because in the Death screen the Character will talk to you and say stuff like: "How about this i come out and play and you come in and die PAINFULLY" what makes the deaths so much more realistic 😅 i love the game so much
A good example of this kind of thing that's really annoying is Arven's final battle in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet. Like every other battle, you're SUPPOSED to win. However, in the story, Arven has a sick and dying Mabosstiff that just got cured, but he has sent him into battle. So instead of doing the morally correct thing and losing on purpose, you're forced to defeat the Mabosstiff mindlessly like it's yet another Pokémon Trainer you're dealing with or something.
What makes this even more disgusting is that GameFreak has implemented conditions where you can lose yet the story continues. They do this with Blue and Lusamine however. As if to say that these people are amazing yet Arven is trash and he deserves to lose.
This single detail broke immersion for me once I figured that out, and it could easily be fixed. I doubt this will though because look at these games. If this doesn't tell you that a failure state is just another way to make you stay on a straight line, then I don't know what will.
18:40 yo you were right borderlands movie is terrrible
I think a good example would be cruelty squad. It explains in the story how death is impermanent, and how nobody really dies, not even the people you are tasked to kill. Instead, every time you restart a level, not only does your character revive, but so does every npc. Except the ones that die permanently. Those are treated as a consequence, and a further narrative point. Hell, even the hardest ending to get shows everybody marching towards death, and how allowing death to be permanent is a good thing. So yeah, play that game.
On the Death part thats one of the things ive always liked about Destiny 1 and 2
With all Guardians having Ghosts that revive them with the Travelers Light
(Yes there are times where it forces a check point but even then its explained as an area where the light cant reach you)
The only Guardians who have died or has assassination attempts with weight to them (like Cayde and Zavala respectivly) has their Ghosts destroyed. Its so baked in the the community has a massive theory that Savathun will come back in Lightfall all because her Ghost escaped after we killed her
It's frustrating in so called "open world " games to force you on a rail path for hit missions and you're right
Lmfao. The pause at the beginning, waiting for the sponsor…Perfection
I think the horror game death problem is why RE4 implemented the dynamic difficulty.