Death in games

[lord.jeff]

I was wondering about game deaths, mostly do to this article [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_306/8872-Disney-Colored-Death], and was wondering can a death still have it's full impact after you've watched hundreds of other people die. I'll use Aeris's death as the example, by the time you see her die you've killed probably about a hundred human guards with no remorse from the characters, not even the game cared about their passing, plus you most likely would of seen Aeris herself die and get stabbed several times by now and gets better. I think the the fact that Aeris will never return had impact but the imagery of her death lost a lot of power form the fact that death was just common place in this world. Final Fantasy isn't the only game with this problem most games with deaths have this problem I think especially RPGs do to revival items, not only is death common place in all of them but all of them tend to treat any death outside of that one death as an everyday happening, with the characters and you just completely forgetting what you just did to someone.

What I'm wondering is, does anyone else feel this way and if so can it be fixed so that I could still care about life within a game world that constantly has people dying in front of me?

 

[Gkthepwner]

I don't seem to have much of a problem with it. Unless it's mindless killing for no point at all, and doesn't even contribute to the game's plot. You can get games that don't have much violence and killing in them, if you like.

 

[Wuffykins]

Not to go attacking your example, but technically in Final Fantasy hitting 0 hp isn't a character 'dying', they're just getting knocked out (or incapacitated to the point they can't continue in battle). So that's the impact of Aeris dying because she's really dead, and is well beyond the point where a Phoenix Down would help (which are basically smelling salts if you look at it).

But moving on to your whole topic question, it really is a matter of how the game world is portrayed, and, also how character death is portrayed as well. Hell, let me bring up the original X-COM: UFO Defense. Soldiers there are a dime a freakin' dozen and are essentially a pile of stats with a name (that can be replaced at your choosing). But once one's dies, they're dead. And when it's a Captain who's gets gunned down after he's been loyally leading the squad mission after mission, or a fresh recruit who nearly cleared the map himself only to be shot in the back by a squadmate aiming for the last alien, it hits you. But the fact you can't bring them back unless you reload does do that (Fallout companions are another example)

Basically I'm one who promotes the idea of penalties (and sometimes permanence) in character deaths, it does give me a little more effect that just watching someone wake up after a fight like he just finished his nap.

 

[BRTurtle]

Not to go attacking your example, but technically in Final Fantasy hitting 0 hp isn't a character 'dying', they're just getting knocked out (or incapacitated to the point they can't continue in battle). So that's the impact of Aeris dying because she's really dead, and is well beyond the point where a Phoenix Down would help (which are basically smelling salts if you look at it).

But moving on to your whole topic question, it really is a matter of how the game world is portrayed, and, also how character death is portrayed as well. Hell, let me bring up the original X-COM: UFO Defense. Soldiers there are a dime a freakin' dozen and are essentially a pile of stats with a name (that can be replaced at your choosing). But once one's dies, they're dead. And when it's a Captain who's gets gunned down after he's been loyally leading the squad mission after mission, or a fresh recruit who nearly cleared the map himself only to be shot in the back by a squadmate aiming for the last alien, it hits you. But the fact you can't bring them back unless you reload does do that (Fallout companions are another example)

Basically I'm one who promotes the idea of penalties (and sometimes permanence) in character deaths, it does give me a little more effect that just watching someone wake up after a fight like he just finished his nap.

I agree with that 100%.

I prefer games that has penalties for messing up, one of my person favorites is Final Fantasy Tactics, you raise your soldiers to what ever you want them to be and if you mess up in that fight you can loose them for good if you don't revive them while there knocked out. Sure you can go and buy more and raise them the same way but its not the same dude. Not only do you have penalties for messing up, but you are fighting for a reason in the game and not just a maniac with a sword and BA skills.

I think there should be more games that has a bit more permanence to the world and have a lot of depth when it comes to death of your characters and your enemies. At the same time not all games should punish the characters for messing up because guess what its a game and somedays you don't want to deal with permanent actions in games (like death) and that is ok too.

 

[badgersprite]

The problem with death in games is they expect you to care about someone you know nothing about, have no reason to be attached to, and possibly don't even know the name of. It's not how much death has happened in the story up to that point, it's "why do you care?"

I'm going to use a comparative example here. In CoD:WaW some nameless guys in the American squad ultimately end up dying in scripted events, but the thing is that I don't care. I don't care like I do in CoD4, or even Black Ops when their important characters die, because unlike in CoD4 or again even Black Ops (which I don't think is a good game at all, mind you) WaW doesn't take time to establish the group dynamics or who individual people are, so I never got a real sense of having a team behind me like I did in other CoD games. They do succeed on the Russian side, I guess, but on the American side, you seem to just have a team of easily replaceable dudes who you don't really get attached to at all.

On the RPG end of things, I've been playing a few Final Fantasies side by side, and I can tell you that sheer quantity of death doesn't make it lose power. FFIX. A lot of nameless NPCs and entire towns get wiped out over the course of the game, but you still care because a) they take time to establish the places that get destroyed so you get attached to them, b) the characters care, and their emotions at seeing people die horribly are very tangible, and c) because they use very brief cut scenes or dialogue to establish the people who are dying as people, and, guess what, a lot of those people you talked to in Disc 1 are never coming back. This makes it effective, at least for me.

Compare that to FFX. There are scenes where large places and loads of people get wiped out, but I never found it anywhere near as effective as in FFIX, because I never bought them as being tangible places. A lot of these places were destroyed before I ever even got to them. They killed one minor NPC during one of Sin's attacks, and had his friend grieve over him, which kind of worked, but, otherwise, it's just not as effective. I mean, yeah, the death and destruction is kind of a morose thing, and you get that from the Sending Ceremony, but the difference between FFX and FFIX is essentially one using death and destruction as a means of reminding the audience that the stakes are supposedly high in order to make them care, whereas the other is more like making you care about the places you visit so as to make what happens to them completely unexpected, and make you think, "Holy crap, anywhere could be next!"

So, really, the effectiveness of death isn't anything to do with quantity, it's more how much you care about the individual person or place that's being attacked. No one is going to care about death if they don't have any reason to care. They don't even have to be established characters at all, it's just that the audience needs to be able to empathise. It's like the difference between seeing CGI people or stock characters getting killed in disaster movies without any real weight attached to their deaths, and seeing just a handful of people you've never even seen before individually dealing with their terror and grief in Titanic. It's not the death itself; it's how it's handled.

EDIT: Or allow me to use another example. The destruction of Nibelheim in FFVII kind of suffers the same thing FFX does. It doesn't really make you feel, "Oh, God, people are dying!" but rather the scene's effectiveness is to establish how powerful the enemy is, not to make you feel the deaths are tragic in any way.

 

[oldskoolandi]

The death at the end of Red Dead Redemption had a pretty big impact, for me at least.

 

[Ace of Spades]

It all depends on characterization. For example, in Call of Duty 4

Spoiler

it was quite jarring at the end when Gaz and Price were gunned down

but contrast Black Ops,

Spoiler

in which I honestly didn't notice when Woods died.

 

[valleyshrew]

There's narrative and gameplay dissonance in the majority of singleplayer games. When John Marston dies it's quite moving, even though you'll have died a few dozen times before those deaths didn't count. Likewise the thousands of enemies you killed don't count because it's just part of the gameplay. I don't like it either, I think it's a lazy design choice and I love when games like fallout, alpha protocol, deus ex and metal gear solid allow you to be a pacifist and complete your mission. In red dead redemption the most horrible thing they made you do was put a female on train tracks for an achievement. The direction the developers took to make it a less meaningful game and instead more crazy puerile fun, took off 5% from my review score and took it down a half dozen places on my favourite games of all time list. And I'm certain it's going to very negatively affect my opinion of LA Noire, a game where you really shouldn't have to kill more than a dozen people from what I've seen there are some standard generic shootouts where you kill countless goons. Have we not got bored of that? I know I have.

I'd like to see GTAV and Mass Effect 3 have pacifist playthroughs as they're really suited to that option. You don't even need to change the gameplay much at all, just give tranquilizer bullets and design the levels to accomodate sneaking. Yakuza 3 did it really well where you seemingly kill hundreds of street punks, but really you're just knocking them out in defensive fights and helping them change their ways and reform. It's the most morally satisfying game I have ever played, even with lots of combat and a focus on gangs. You're taking care of kids in an orphanage in your spare time! I wish they had a bigger budget and market for the game as it's got fantastic direction. They should be given FFXV to take over and make as the SE devs have lost their ambition and creative drive. Games shouldn't just be combat and cutscenes, if you don't have any depth to the levels, narrative and gameplay such that cutting out those 2 features doesn't leave you with a fun game then you're not coming close to reaching gamings potential. It's fine for call of duty that is just a quick shooting war game, but it's unacceptable in FFXIII to spend the whole game running down corridors and fighting boring monsters with little to no motivation for doing so because the world, characters and gameplay variety are not developed despite having 5 years to make the game which is more time than between the release of VII and X where we got 4 fantastic games with lots of variety, lots of characters and well developed worlds.

 

[lord.jeff]

There's narrative and gameplay dissonance in the majority of singleplayer games. When John Marston dies it's quite moving, even though you'll have died a few dozen times before those deaths didn't count. Likewise the thousands of enemies you killed don't count because it's just part of the gameplay. I don't like it either, I think it's a lazy design choice and I love when games like fallout, alpha protocol, deus ex and metal gear solid allow you to be a pacifist and complete your mission. In red dead redemption the most horrible thing they made you do was put a female on train tracks for an achievement. The direction the developers took to make it a less meaningful game and instead more crazy puerile fun, took off 5% from my review score and took it down a half dozen places on my favourite games of all time list. And I'm certain it's going to very negatively affect my opinion of LA Noire, a game where you really shouldn't have to kill more than a dozen people from what I've seen there are some standard generic shootouts where you kill countless goons. Have we not got bored of that? I know I have.

I'd like to see GTAV and Mass Effect 3 have pacifist playthroughs as they're really suited to that option. You don't even need to change the gameplay much at all, just give tranquilizer bullets and design the levels to accomodate sneaking. Yakuza 3 did it really well where you seemingly kill hundreds of street punks, but really you're just knocking them out in defensive fights and helping them change their ways and reform. It's the most morally satisfying game I have ever played, even with lots of combat and a focus on gangs. You're taking care of kids in an orphanage in your spare time! I wish they had a bigger budget and market for the game as it's got fantastic direction. They should be given FFXV to take over and make as the SE devs have lost their ambition and creative drive. Games shouldn't just be combat and cutscenes, if you don't have any depth to the levels, narrative and gameplay such that cutting out those 2 features doesn't leave you with a fun game then you're not coming close to reaching gamings potential. It's fine for call of duty that is just a quick shooting war game, but it's unacceptable in FFXIII to spend the whole game running down corridors and fighting boring monsters with little to no motivation for doing so because the world, characters and gameplay variety are not developed despite having 5 years to make the game which is more time than between the release of VII and X where we got 4 fantastic games with lots of variety, lots of characters and well developed worlds.

That's what I was trying to get at, games have a double morality, one for cut scenes and one for game play. I think when you have to ignore the moralities set up in the narrative just to have an excuse to throw in fights, it hurts the narrative a lot.

 

[kcjerith]

The death at the end of Red Dead Redemption had a pretty big impact, for me at least.

Agreed, this is one of the few games I became emotional over. My wife who watched me play most of the game also got kind of choked up over it.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Well, even though you killed many to get here. They were namless, faceless people to you.

When someone you care about dies, that hits home.

Every day someone dies, but no one makes a big deal about it. Unless of course, that person was someone they loved/cared about.

Then it becomes a horrible nightmare for you.


"The death of one is a tragedy. The death of millions is just a statistic."

 

[lord.jeff]

Well, even though you killed many to get here. They were namless, faceless people to you.

When someone you care about dies, that hits home.

Every day someone dies, but no one makes a big deal about it. Unless of course, that person was someone they loved/cared about.

Then it becomes a horrible nightmare for you.


"The death of one is a tragedy. The death of millions is just a statistic."

I'm not sure that applies if your witness to the deaths or directly involved with them.

 

[BRTurtle]

Well, even though you killed many to get here. They were namless, faceless people to you.

When someone you care about dies, that hits home.

Every day someone dies, but no one makes a big deal about it. Unless of course, that person was someone they loved/cared about.

Then it becomes a horrible nightmare for you.


"The death of one is a tragedy. The death of millions is just a statistic."

I'm not sure that applies if your witness to the deaths or directly involved with them.

Yea but it depends on your characters motivations as well, in a lot of games recently the character is a complete and uder maniac. Im going take an example you did with Final Fantasy VII with the slaughtering of shinra infantry and other bandits, Clouds motivation at the start of the game is one of a mercenary he kills for money his only motivation is that of money so he can live. To cloud at the start this is just another job and killing or incapacitating who ever the enemy is, Cloud honestly is a pretty cold guy who has no problem killing for money (well he did work for Shinra he is probably use to it before that mission). Over time he is then killing for the planet, working with AVALANCHE and has a goal which leads to slaughter of infantry for his very survival. When Aeris dies this is a loss of someone he cared about not nameless infantry who was trying to kill him. Anyways my point is that you have to dive into the motivation of the characters of why they are fighting there chosen enemies and why it does or doesn't effect them and I do agree there should be greater character development and having the slaughter of other critters effect them more, and more diplomatic solutions should be added into the games. In the end if you see your enemy as not human a monster or animal it is pretty easy to gun down the animal or monster. Propaganda is a very powerful machine.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Well, even though you killed many to get here. They were namless, faceless people to you.

When someone you care about dies, that hits home.

Every day someone dies, but no one makes a big deal about it. Unless of course, that person was someone they loved/cared about.

Then it becomes a horrible nightmare for you.


"The death of one is a tragedy. The death of millions is just a statistic."

I'm not sure that applies if your witness to the deaths or directly involved with them.

Star Wars

How many nameless Storm Trooper's died and no one cared?

But if Han Solo had been shot down, I'm sure Leia, Luke, Chewy and Lando would've felt horrible feeling of dread, that they never felt as they shot down Storm Trooper's and aided the Ewoks into killing them.

 

[lord.jeff]

Well, even though you killed many to get here. They were namless, faceless people to you.

When someone you care about dies, that hits home.

Every day someone dies, but no one makes a big deal about it. Unless of course, that person was someone they loved/cared about.

Then it becomes a horrible nightmare for you.


"The death of one is a tragedy. The death of millions is just a statistic."

I'm not sure that applies if your witness to the deaths or directly involved with them.

Yea but it depends on your characters motivations as well, in a lot of games recently the character is a complete and uder maniac. Im going take an example you did with Final Fantasy VII with the slaughtering of shinra infantry and other bandits, Clouds motivation at the start of the game is one of a mercenary he kills for money his only motivation is that of money so he can live. To cloud at the start this is just another job and killing or incapacitating who ever the enemy is, Cloud honestly is a pretty cold guy who has no problem killing for money (well he did work for Shinra he is probably use to it before that mission). Over time he is then killing for the planet, working with AVALANCHE and has a goal which leads to slaughter of infantry for his very survival. When Aeris dies this is a loss of someone he cared about not nameless infantry who was trying to kill him. Anyways my point is that you have to dive into the motivation of the characters of why they are fighting there chosen enemies and why it does or doesn't effect them and I do agree there should be greater character development and having the slaughter of other critters effect them more, and more diplomatic solutions should be added into the games. In the end if you see your enemy as not human a monster or animal it is pretty easy to gun down the animal or monster. Propaganda is a very powerful machine.

That is true but the game itself doesn't even set a tone to remorse the guys I've killed, it just allows them to be faceless soldiers, plus you have Aeris beating the crap out of these people as well.

 

[deathstrikesquirrel]

Well, even though you killed many to get here. They were namless, faceless people to you.

When someone you care about dies, that hits home.

Every day someone dies, but no one makes a big deal about it. Unless of course, that person was someone they loved/cared about.

Then it becomes a horrible nightmare for you.


"The death of one is a tragedy. The death of millions is just a statistic."

I'm not sure that applies if your witness to the deaths or directly involved with them.

Star Wars

How many nameless Storm Trooper's died and no one cared?

But if Han Solo had been shot down, I'm sure Leia, Luke, Chewy and Lando would've felt horrible feeling of dread, that they never felt as they shot down Storm Trooper's and aided the Ewoks into killing them.

Better, the Ewoks were killing storm troopers and by that time countless imperial workers and soldiers lost their lives thanks to Luke Skywalker, but when an Ewok gets killed and its friend tries to wake it up, I tear up every time.
If this is about the characters themselves, then it would fall under 'What Measure is a Mook?'

 

[BRTurtle]

Well, even though you killed many to get here. They were namless, faceless people to you.

When someone you care about dies, that hits home.

Every day someone dies, but no one makes a big deal about it. Unless of course, that person was someone they loved/cared about.

Then it becomes a horrible nightmare for you.


"The death of one is a tragedy. The death of millions is just a statistic."

I'm not sure that applies if your witness to the deaths or directly involved with them.

Yea but it depends on your characters motivations as well, in a lot of games recently the character is a complete and uder maniac. Im going take an example you did with Final Fantasy VII with the slaughtering of shinra infantry and other bandits, Clouds motivation at the start of the game is one of a mercenary he kills for money his only motivation is that of money so he can live. To cloud at the start this is just another job and killing or incapacitating who ever the enemy is, Cloud honestly is a pretty cold guy who has no problem killing for money (well he did work for Shinra he is probably use to it before that mission). Over time he is then killing for the planet, working with AVALANCHE and has a goal which leads to slaughter of infantry for his very survival. When Aeris dies this is a loss of someone he cared about not nameless infantry who was trying to kill him. Anyways my point is that you have to dive into the motivation of the characters of why they are fighting there chosen enemies and why it does or doesn't effect them and I do agree there should be greater character development and having the slaughter of other critters effect them more, and more diplomatic solutions should be added into the games. In the end if you see your enemy as not human a monster or animal it is pretty easy to gun down the animal or monster. Propaganda is a very powerful machine.

That is true but the game itself doesn't even set a tone to remorse the guys I've killed, it just allows them to be faceless soldiers, plus you have Aeris beating the crap out of these people as well.

I don't think he had time to remorse given the circumstance of what was going on and trying to think ahead of the hero of the world who is now trying to kill the planet, but I hope one day in games that there will be time for the characters to have remorse and to think about what just happened. But I do think that cloud did have some in advent children. Anyways it would be a great advance in character development and story development.

By the way thanks for the great discussion so far because it has inspired me to better my character development for the stuff I write and movies I make.

 

[lord.jeff]

By the way thanks for the great discussion so far because it has inspired me to better my character development for the stuff I write and movies I make.

That's good to hear, glad to help a fellow movie maker.

 

[Tsaba]

Well, even though you killed many to get here. They were namless, faceless people to you.

When someone you care about dies, that hits home.

Every day someone dies, but no one makes a big deal about it.

snip

Take note, they hit the nail on the head, they're generic faceless nobodies, 50 of which shinra vat grew that morning. You don't know their stories, because, it's not their stories that matter. Your party doesn't die it gets incapacitated which will lead to death/game over/Science Experiments/ etc if everyone is knocked out (K.O.) (kudo's to the guy who noticed, you know who you are *wink*).