There isn't much worse in games than dying. Your death usually comes at the cost of items and money, but can also set you back in some severe progress if your game decides to be less than generous in the autosave department. Knowing this, some developers will outright punish you for daring to die.
Other games will instead play with the concept of death and come up with new perspectives and ideas about how to deal with death in games. Bonus points for starting your game off already being dead or about to die. No other medium plays with the concept like games.
7 Grand Theft Auto
Given how you are a person running from the law in Grand Theft Auto, it’s not a surprise that your life is on the line. That’s the nature planning heists and causing general mayhem, it always catches up with you in the end.
Unless some guy just calls to put a hit out on you because you’re playing your music too loud in the microphone.
It’s a good thing death isn’t a thing here, nor game-overs to stop you from any meaningful progression you’ve made. Instead, you get an enviously low medical bill and are sent on your way, sans guns of course.
Just be sure you have enough cash on your person to cover the cost.
6 Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time
The tale of the unnamed prince is one full of danger, mystery, and romance. Throughout the game, the prince with no name turns out to be the narrator telling the tale.
Obviously, he lived to tell the tale, which means his death never came to pass, at least for now. You can rest easy until the next installment of his unbelievable tale.
The tale is being told to you by the Prince himself, who guides you through all his struggles as he tries to recover all the mysterious sands of time he accidentally released onto the nearby people, turning them into strange sand-infected creatures beyond your imagination. If you are unlucky and mess up, it’s no big deal.
The prince simply says that he’s misremembering the story, and that he needs to start again.
5 Death Stranding
The dead don’t simply stay dead in the bleak yet hopeful world of Death Stranding. It comes for everyone, but very few ever come back from it.
Sam Porter Bridges is one of the lucky (or unlucky) few that are able to do this strange phenomenon. Sam is a Repatriate, those who can swim in between your world and The Beach, a limbo realm that connects life and death.
That doesn’t mean that death is painless or easy for him. The water of the beach is heavy and full of buildings and BTs that are fighting to get to the surface of the real world.
No matter how many times Sam goes through The Beach, it never gets easier for him to return. He suffers, yet he continues on trying to unify America.
4 Ghost Trick
What do you do when you wake up and find yourself murdered lying in an alleyway in San Francisco? You’re sitting there, floating out of your body when you witness a young woman about to be shot to death by a stranger.
What can you do? You’re only a body after all, right?
Wrong! With your newly acquired ghost trick powers, you have the ability to possess an object for a limited time. Death is only the beginning of this mystery, and since you’re dead, why not use this time to find some answer about who killed you?
3 The Original God Of War Series
Those who haven’t played the original God of War series have only heard about Kratos’ exploits over there in the Greek mythology universe, and have only experienced the older and somewhat fatherly figure that the people have come to know and love today. The original fans have experienced firsthand how chaotic and deadly Kratos had been when seeking vengeance.
This man died on three separate occasions andhad been sent to hell personally by other gods, only to say ‘forget that noise’ and climb his way back up for more revenge filled violence. His actions leave little wonder why he doesn’t like to tell his son about the person he used to be.
2 Soma
How do you know you are dying when you’re not sure you're even really alive? If you found out that each accident or fatal blow from a creature resulted in your losing your current body and gaining a new one, would that change the perception of death itself in your eyes? There are some of the things that Soma challenges you to think about.
Though the deaths in Soma feel like tried and true game-overs, complete with having to start from the last checkpoint, those questions will always be picking at the back of your mind as you discover the truth of what’s really going on inside the seemingly abandoned underwater research facility.
1 Nier: Automata
Dying in Nier: Automata isn’t a big deal. In fact, most YorHa androids who are on the front lines are downright blazé about the subject of dying. It might be a little uncomfortable, but as long as their consciousness is constantly updating, they are able to be reborn inside an exact replica of their body with all of their memories intact
Making death and game-overs in the game serves to pull you into a false sense of ease knowing all you have to do is get rebooted. But because this is a Yoko Taro and company game, you can expect to have the completely subverted and make you question if it was ever a good idea, to begin with.