The Threat of Death

As promised in last week's issue, today we will discuss consequences and persistent worlds in video games. I mentioned last week that the only way for a choice system to come into full effect in a game was to make the game have lasting consequences that affect not only the story, but also the capabilities of your character. Most games nowadays tend to let the player off way to easily for screwing up. This stops the gamer from fearing the dangers that should be present in a game. A game over screen and a slight wait while you fire up your last checkpoint don't inspire terror in most people. When I see a heavily armed squadron of bad dudes I don't want to think "Well, I might as well try to kill them. If I die, no big deal." I should be pissing my pants in terror and trying to find the simplest way to get around them.

This is where the issue of consequence comes into the game. Most games let you off with little more than a stern warning if you end up biting the dust, and then allow you to go right back to where you died and try it again. How about a game that actually punishes the player for failing missions or dying? Fable 2 made a half assed attempt at consequence (of course everything was half assed in that game) by giving the player a permanent scar, and by taking away a minimal amount of experience. But, that doesn’t inspire much more terror than the game over screen. I don’t care if my already butt ugly, blocky Fable character has a scar on his ass, I want games that kick my ass for failing, that really throw a wrench in the works because of my failure.

A prime example of this concept is the new hardcore RPG for the PS3 Demon’s Souls. Demon’s Souls is a game that not only expects you to die, but actively tries to make you fail. If you are killed in a mission you re-spawn with your maximum health reduced by one half and all of your experience/loot/souls taken away from you. Moreover, the more you die the harder the game makes itself, like some kind of twisted reverse Left 4 Dead. While this specific approach wont appeal to many gamers, it does inspire an actual amount of fear of death. If I’m presented with the idea of the game getting harder the more I die, I’m not very likely to press my luck. This will allow game developers to create a new level of intensity in their games. Intensity that, right now, is sorely lacking.

To make this idea of consequence palatable for most gamers however, we need to devise a system that will punish you for failure, but not so much that the game becomes impossible or overly difficult. To demonstrate my example I will use... well, an example. Take a sci-fi game that is about a hero named Action Bob. Action Bob has been given the task of defending a small village from a group of slavers. So, being the hero that he is, Bob diligently sets up the defenses, musters the town's militia, and gets ready for the slaughter. The slavers arrive right on time, and about halfway through the mission the Bob leans a little too much out of cover, takes a bullet to the gut, and is out cold for the rest of the fight.

For those attentive among you, you might have noticed that Bob was only injured by the bullet, and not actually killed by it. This will allow Bob to continue his adventures, but with some kind of wound de-buff. When Bob comes to he notices that the town was destroyed during the raid. Corpses of villagers are everywhere, and most of the buildings are smoking ruins. Bob also notices that he is missing a couple of his best items and has had his stats permanently reduced due to his injury. The consequence of Bob's failure is pretty self evident here. Not only did he doom an entire town to death and/or slavery, but he is also suffering from the effects of his injury. This can have a dramatic effect on the remainder of the game as Bob will no longer be able to visit this town for supplies and rest, and he will most likely meet some of the enslaved townspeople along the remainder of his journey.

While this sounds a bit harsh for making a simple mistake, remember that failing a mission/dying should inspire fear in the player. Of course the difficulty would have to be scaled appropriately in order to prevent players from dying all of the time and letting all of Bob's friends die, but that could be easily achieved through a Left 4 Dead style administrator system that could compensate for the player's skill, and keep them a little ahead of the competition.

By giving players something to fear from death, they will think more about their strategies, as well as the choices they make.

Deviating completely from this train of thought, next time I will be discussing how to make a real action RPG with: Hack & Trash.