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[Men_in_Boxes]

The last two AAA (maybe that's my problem) single player games I played were Horizon Forbidden West and Far Cry 6. I can't stand them for one crucial reason...

Death is a minor annoyance rather than a compelling motivator.

Scared? Me neither. There's an infinite number of Aloys and only one of this guy.

These games want you to sneak around, take in the environment, and feel some drama from the enemies / story, but their fatal flaw prevents that. It's a complete waste of time to play with a sense of caution when running full steam ahead gives you much more knowledge about how to advance. Sure, you'll die once or twice but you'll get to see your opponents proverbial cards, and adjust accordingly after your 10 second respawn. Why do people put up with this?

TLDR: Can you recommend a SP game that makes death/failure a compelling or harrowing experience?

Thread Updated w/ list of suggested games...

- Hitman
- Frost Punk
- VN428
- Patholigic 2
- XCom
- Witcher 2
- Fire Emblem
- David Cage games
- Sifu
- Returnal
- Zombie U
- Far Cry 2
- Prey
- Wario Land 2 + 3

 

[Magic Carpet]

Frost Punk. You get one and done. How far can you get?

 

[a multicultural team of v]

So, roguelikes?

Or if you want hilarious bad endings play the VN 428; Shibuya Scramble, it has a ton of them

 

[GHG]

Pathologic 2.

Every time you die it has consequences both on your character and on the game world. And better yet you can't even save scum.

 

[theStartupSound]

Hitman with the elusive targets. I always get half of a heart attack playing this mode.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Any game with permadeath or an Iron Man mode.

X-COM is cool, you can completely fuck up a mission but still keep playing the campaign.

 

[IFireflyl]

The Witcher 2

When you play on Insane difficulty your save file gets deleted if you die.

 

[Raven117]

"With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created,"

 

[crackajack]

Some games have permadeath modes or trophy challenges for this.
But I guess you could just go to new game if dying once or x amount of times in any game. No one stops you from adding the needed death has a cost variable. Challenges can almost always be added and or increased if that's what you want. Even if that is most certainly a waste of time, which is soemthing you also don't want...

 

[Fbh]

Fire Emblem in harder difficulties and classic mode?
Since there's perma death you actually feel a tension to keep everyone alive, which gets enhanced by the fact that they are all actual characters with personalities that you might have grown attached to (and not just andom faceless soldiers)

Of course you can always save scum but that's up to you

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Any game with permadeath or an Iron Man mode.

I find most, if not all, of these games lacking because they're so clearly designed with the knowledge 99.9% of players will play on normal difficulty.

Roguelikes seem to be better, IMO, but even then it's just a bigger slap on the wrist (spawn 15 minutes back instead of 10 seconds back) with a little cookie (We're sorry about making you replay the last 15 minutes so here's a small buff that will make progressing a little easier).

 

[TintoConCasera]

I find most, if not all, of these games lacking because they're so clearly designed with the knowledge 99.9% of players will play on normal difficulty.

Uh I dunno, that's something we would need to check game by game. My usual procedure is to play a few times on Normal, and then jump into Iron Man once I got the grasp of how the game works.

Roguelikes seem to be better, IMO, but even then it's just a bigger slap on the wrist (spawn 15 minutes back instead of 10 seconds back) with a little cookie (We're sorry about making you replay the last 15 minutes so here's a small buff that will make progressing a little easier).

If the game has a little cookie then that's not a roguelike but a roguelite. Roguelikes won't give you shit after you die.

And it's fine. If the game is fun I won't mind replaying anything, specially if the game has enough variation on it's randomness or build variety to keep every playthough different from the last one.

 

[Flabagast]

Pathologic 2 lowers your life each time you die, among other things (though it's not as bad as it seems, still pretty bad though lol) + it affects physically the map of the game. This permeates throughout your whole playthrough, so if you come back to an earlier save the effect of death will still be taken into account.

 

[Aenima]

The last two AAA (maybe that's my problem) single player games I played were Horizon Forbidden West and Far Cry 6. I can't stand them for one crucial reason...

Death is a minor annoyance rather than a compelling motivator.

Scared? Me neither. There's an infinite number of Aloys and only one of this guy.

These games want you to sneak around, take in the environment, and feel some drama from the enemies / story, but their fatal flaw prevents that. It's a complete waste of time to play with a sense of caution when running full steam ahead gives you much more knowledge about how to advance. Sure, you'll die once or twice but you'll get to see your opponents proverbial cards, and adjust accordingly after your 10 second respawn. Why do people put up with this?

TLDR: Can you recommend a SP game that makes death/failure a compelling or harrowing experience?

Well im playing The Quarry now, and if you let a character die, its gone, the story moves on and you only see that character again in a new run.

More games like this that I recommend are Untill Dawn, Heavy Rain and Detroit Become Human.

Then you have the Souls games, where each death punishes you but u can always come back. Or rogue like games where each death restarts the game.

Havent played yet, but i think in Sifu each time you die the character gets older, so you can only die a certain number of times.

 

[RoadHazard]

Souls games, Returnal, etc. Basically, games where dying actually has a cost and there's a real inventive to not carelessly go rushing into situations.

 

[calistan]

Hitman 3's new Freelancer mode is a good one. The main incentive for playing is to collect cool new gear, but if you fail you lose everything you took into the level, plus some of the stuff from your home base, plus half your cash, and your current campaign progress is reset to zero.

 

[Fuz]

The Captain

You are Captain Thomas Welmu, a Spacefleet science officer, lost on the other side of the

www.gog.com

It doesn't really have "fail" states.

 

[Rendered Tangent]

The last two AAA (maybe that's my problem) single player games I played were Horizon Forbidden West and Far Cry 6. I can't stand them for one crucial reason...

Death is a minor annoyance rather than a compelling motivator.

Scared? Me neither. There's an infinite number of Aloys and only one of this guy.

These games want you to sneak around, take in the environment, and feel some drama from the enemies / story, but their fatal flaw prevents that. It's a complete waste of time to play with a sense of caution when running full steam ahead gives you much more knowledge about how to advance. Sure, you'll die once or twice but you'll get to see your opponents proverbial cards, and adjust accordingly after your 10 second respawn. Why do people put up with this?

TLDR: Can you recommend a SP game that makes death/failure a compelling or harrowing experience?

As others have intimated, it sounds like you want a Soulsborne experience (think Sekiro, Bloodborne, Demon Souls, Dark Souls series etc...).

 

[Eimran]

First thing that comes to mond are games like Until Dawn, The Quarry, Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls etc. Death is permanent. The story just goes on. I like games like these.

Didn't you also get older in Sifu each time you died, resulting in higher difficulty? Haven't. Played this yet.

And otherwise just like many said already. Games with permadeath mode. Try Max Payne 3 on midnight mode. Otherwise go retro.

 

[Dr. Suchong]

Frost Punk. You get one and done. How far can you get?

I really want to play more of this, but it is BRUTAL!
There wouldn't be any shame in reducing the difficulty imo.

 

[RoboFu]

Been playing through Metroid Prime and there was a section right after getting to the phazon mines where there is along stretch of battling and a mini boss and then up a puzzel magnitracks while fighting on each level that if you die you have to start all the way back at the save room. Since the is absolutely no way to NOT GET HIT .. it makes it very frustrating.

 

[Warablo]

There was that head game. Where like instead of dying your head gets shot off and you gotta crawl/roll back to your body.

 

[cireza]

Shiren 5+

 

[Knightime_X]

Any game with permadeath or limited man\continues.
Dead Space on impossible mode is the most recent.

I think the Soulslike Wu Long game gets harder and harder every time you die.

 

[Games of Today]

Curious Expedition. Every character can die and you can literally end up alone and die yourself.

Also in Far Cry 2, if you have some buddies you risk getting them killed when you die because one will show up to rescue you.

 

[UnNamed]

Zombi (U).

 

[SF Kosmo]

Prey 2006 had an interesting one where you could fight your way back from the spirit realm.

Wario Land 2 and 3 were interesting for their lack of proper fail states, handling everything within the level design itself.

 

[A.Romero]

Fifa campaign. Can't remember starting what year but basically you have to do well in the trainning sessions to be able to play on the next game. If you do so so you only get a few minutes. If you do well you can play the full game.

If during the game you perform well (good passes, scoring, tacklings, etc) it helps you playing the next game too.

It's not possible to restart the game so every play matters and it can be exhilarating to try to up your score as mistakes also count against your overall score.

It's really my favourite part of Fifa. Too bad they didn't know what to do with it and went for that Volta stuff. I rather play another character like Alex Hunter and do exactly the same, lol.

 

[Maddux4164]

Dark Souls 1

You die, you go back to the last bonfire and lose your souls/humanity

No warp. No fast travel until you beat O&S.

Go ahead and have a broken weapon in Blighttown at the Ash Lake bonfire and have no good backup weapons/repair equipment and are cursed….. the ultimate troll by FromSoft

 

[Ar¢tos]

King's Quest (the original games)
Space Quest

and my personal favorite (regarding the thread subject):
Simon the Sorcerer
If you failed to pick up some non important looking item at the start of the game you wouldn't be able to finish it, and only near the end you would discover this (and no way to go back to the starting area, you needed to start a new game).

 

[Eiknarf]

Try, Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Fifa campaign. Can't remember starting what year but basically you have to do well in the trainning sessions to be able to play on the next game. If you do so so you only get a few minutes. If you do well you can play the full game.

If during the game you perform well (good passes, scoring, tacklings, etc) it helps you playing the next game too.

It's not possible to restart the game so every play matters and it can be exhilarating to try to up your score as mistakes also count against your overall score.

It's really my favourite part of Fifa. Too bad they didn't know what to do with it and went for that Volta stuff. I rather play another character like Alex Hunter and do exactly the same, lol.

The developers of Tape to Tape criticized the Fifa campaign on their twitter. Their hockey game seems to be NHL94 x Roguelite with a campaign emphasis.

 

[asdasdasdbb]

Not exactly the same but it's possible to fail the entire New Vegas Honest Hearts DLC within the first 5 minutes of it.

 

[Esca]

I remember back in the everquest days you feared death in that game. Losing lots of time and exp. Harsh but it was exillerating passing because you had to be careful and prepared. I remember ressing so many people in dungeons. Everyone usually carried peridots to give after a res and a lot of times decent tips.

 

[FunkMiller]

Souls games.

They are designed around both learning from, and trying your hardest to avoid, death. The mechanic of losing all your souls when you die makes each death hit harder. The fail state is always a compelling element, as it forces you to take the hit, learn and grow more knowledgeable. Very few empty or easy deaths... other than with Elden Ring, I guess.

 

[Guilty_AI]

TLDR: Can you recommend a SP game that makes death/failure a compelling or harrowing experience?

I've actually been playing a game that plays with this concept

Basically in this game you can never really "die". You're an disembodied ego, and while you do have a sort-of main body, the game makes it so this body isn't absolutely necessary to proceed, you'll keep playing even if the body gets destroyed (although its possible to rebuild it). So if you 'fail', you'd simply have to figure out how to proceed from there while accepting whatever was that you lost in the process.

That said, its still possible to save-scum, though it only lets you save in specific places.

///

Aside from that, you can always just play a roguelik/te. You can also try games that have permadeath modes like Grim Dawn or Diablo.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

 

[KyoZz]

Prince of Persia 2008

 

[GeekyDad]

The original Rogue?

Death = game over, start from the beginning, no reloading.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Weird thread, its as if you never played games before? Are you new to gaming? The games you described are pretty much 90% of gaming. You die, you reload save. Besides roguelikes and souls likes, all games are the way you dont want them to be. As most told you, some games have perma death difficulty modes but a lot of them are very unrewarding in that regard. At least a rogulike offers a new experience every new run.

I swear some people just dont deserve to play games with their insane ramblings.

 

[Filben]

but even then it's just a bigger slap on the wrist (spawn 15 minutes back instead of 10 seconds back) with a little cookie (We're sorry about making you replay the last 15 minutes so here's a small buff that will make progressing a little easier).

What exactly is it then you want? Deleted save game? Genuine questions because I don't seem to find anything if iron mode and rogue likes is off the list.

 

[GymWolf]

Russian roulette maybe?

If a bullet to the head is too much you can use the rules of american pie 6 beta house.

 

[01011001]

Minecraft Hardcore mode.
you die, your world gets deleted.

everything you built, gathered and accomplished, gone...

a true survival game. get stronger by taking risks, build an arsenal and courage to go to the end and beat the ender dragon... but even then it's not over.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Russian roulette maybe?

If a bullet to the head is too much you can use the rules of american pie 6 beta house.

Theres also the Swiss variation with 6 loaded bullets in the revolver

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

Dark souls 2 lmao, and to a lesser extent the other dark souls games. The penalty gets worse as you progress, though, because the number of souls to progress gets higher.

Pathologic 2 as well, it's already been said but I second that one. Great game. It also has multiple fail systems, death being one of the lesser important ones.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

What exactly is it then you want? Deleted save game? Genuine questions because I don't seem to find anything if iron mode and rogue likes is off the list.

Think of a story (books + movies) where the protagonist fails and new options open up as a result.

Iron modes would be more interesting if the games were designed around that idea choice from the start. Every time I've seen it in games it's a gimmick feature thats tacked on at the end to appeal to a small percentage of players.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Think of a story (books + movies) where the protagonist fails and new options open up as a result.

Theres a action rpg called Outward which uses "death scenarios" for whenever the players dies.




The game also has automatic save system so you can't avoid it by save-scuming. Whenever you die you're forced to carry on the game from one of these scenarios.

 

[Filben]

Think of a story (books + movies) where the protagonist fails and new options open up as a result.

I see. It think it's going to be hard to find such a game that does it on gameplay mechanics level. If it happens in a book or movie it is scripted, so it is in a game where the protagonist is supposed to fail. But you want it to be unscripted, a if state when the player fails, not the script.

Closest I can think of is cRPGs where you can usually fail quests and some will influence others. In Morrowind even main plot NPCs could die. You're not forced to reload. In Disco Elysium there is tons of options opening up upon failure (except for death of course).

Then there's Heavy Rain where all choice, also failures lead to different outcomes.

Maybe The Banner Saga comes to mind.

But usually games want to tell one specific story and 99% of game mechanic failures would lead away from said stories. Even games who advertise with "choice and consequences" have a hard time to pull that off in a good and meaning full way. Budget would be waaaay exceeded (as much as dev's competence) if they would add gameplay failures to it.

 

[Eiknarf]

Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice warns you at the start that if the black tar running up your neck gets all the way up and you die, you must start the game completely over. Don’t know if that’s true, but it gave me anxiety

 

[A.Romero]

The developers of Tape to Tape criticized the Fifa campaign on their twitter. Their hockey game seems to be NHL94 x Roguelite with a campaign emphasis.

Looks interesting. Thanks!