Branching Dialogue: R.I.P. Death

Presenting Branching Dialogue, a weekly, wordy and often worryingly pedantic discussion of video game genres, trends and err ... stuff I didn't think to put in this introductory line.

If there's one thing the year 2008 has proven adept at, it's polarizing players with titles that seem to generate more discussion than actual sales. Much like Assassin's Creed before it, Ubisoft's Prince of Persia has been viciously yanking people off fences, this time with simplified controls, Open-World Lite™ platforming and sassy, cel-shaded protagonists.

The game's difficulty (or supposed lack thereof) has also come under scrutiny, with some tough-guy gamers lamenting the Prince's newly found and quite convenient resistance to death. I don't wish to argue with the complaint ... but I do want to pluralize it. "This game is not difficult," and, "You can't die in this game," are two very different accusations, and one of them is more than a little unobservant of modern conventions.

I hate to break it to you guys, but death has been pushing up daisies for years.

There is no death in modern games. There is only progress or a lack of it, the latter usually being signaled by your hero having his head chopped off and an on-screen message politely relaying the bad news ("Umm, you died. Try again?"). But is the gruesome demise of your avatar really the same as death? Does your quest to save the universe come to a grinding halt?

"The GAME OVER screen lies somewhere outside of a game's universe ... "

The truth is, Toad doesn't lay down a wreath in front of that bottomless pit that swallowed Mario and forever concealed his body. Rather weirdly, nobody in the world seems to remember nor acknowledge when the main character meets his demise. To them, it never happened. Thanks to the omnipotent, extra-dimensional save and checkpoint gods, the hero's demise is erased from the timeline, his body safely deposited out of harm's way.

A stockpile of lives is no longer accepted as currency in today's games and second chances (not to mention third, fourth and fifth chances) have ceased being a limited resource. Having your avatar squashed, mashed, mushed or mutilated is largely inconsequential when the game instantly resurrects it and offers you another go. If you've ever had to repeat a devious segment numerous times, you'll agree that "another go" brings with it the real punishment for failure: your character's life may be infinitely expendable, but your time is not.

"This game isn't frustrating at all, so it must be easy."

When examined in this way, Prince of Persia's life-saving companion character isn't particularly innovative -- she's a glorified checkpoint with a plunging neckline. But then, this is also where I heap my praise on Prince of Persia: Elika is a beautiful solution to an ugly problem.

"Elika is a glorified checkpoint with a plunging neckline."

If I were to tell you a story about a hero gallivanting across a magical land, I'd probably skip the part where he fell down a cliff and died. And the part where he got stabbed in the chest by a gooey temptress. Also, the part where he got stabbed in the chest by a gooey temptress and then fell off a cliff and died. For a game attempting to tell a linear and coherent story, death simply doesn't make any sense. The narrative doesn't allow it, which is why most games are content with ignoring it entirely. The GAME OVER screen lies somewhere outside of a game's universe, and while it may seem commonplace to you, imagine how jarring it must be for an external observer following the story. The hero dies, he comes back ... and everything just goes on, no questions asked. Huh?

Prince of Persia addresses this game design elephant in the room and successfully incorporates an inescapable, "videogamey" element into its narrative structure. It not only makes for a less frustrating and richer adventure, but it means you can enjoy the story without having to subconsciously filter out all the mechanical bits and bobs. Prince of Persia's certainly not the first game to do it -- BioShock buried death deeply within its story and Sands of Time disguised its checkpoints just as cleverly -- but it's a type of convergence I'd like to see explored further.

Like, in Prince of Persia 2. I'm dying to play it.

Branching Dialogue is written by Ludwig Kietzmann. He regularly writes posts on Joystiq and also wrote the highly narcissistic blurb you're reading right now (well done for making it all the way to the end, by the way). He can be written to by means of this fairly uncomplicated e-mail address:

Reader Comments (163)

To Ludwig and zpoc,

Please read my posts. I say nothing about difficulty level, am not lamenting the loss of 'old school' games, or being unwelcome to progress in the medium. I ended my first post by saying that "I applaud any attempts made by developers to fix those problems - including this one."

Ludwig, you say: "...You're not discerning between Elika and a regular checkpoint system at all..."

Yet I spent my whole first post discerning the differences between the two. I don't know how that was missed. To summarize: Checkpoints only invade the immersion when you die. Elika invades the immersion at all times during gameplay - despite their attempts to make a place for her in the story arc. In short, I believe this solution undermines itself. My first post explains how.

Ludwig, you also say: "...The only real difference here is that Elika is a character that exists within the narrative, whereas checkpoints are invisible..."

...exactly.

Again, to reiterate: I am strongly _for_ the consolidation of all game concepts into the game world itself when possible, and I applaud them for taking the chance to do so. I just think they fumbled this one.

I don't think that the problem is that you can't die. It's just that the penalty for death has been decreased. In other Prince of Persia games you had to find every sand tank and find as much sand as possible to avoid being put back at the beginning of a especially difficult puzzle.This Prince of Persia is like just a run through. You just press buttons to jump from place to place, the girl saves you everytime you fall, he just runs effortlessly through all obstacles.All timing and skills are almost depleted to nothing. All in an effort to make the game more user friendly. I never get it. Everyone wants to make all their games easier so everyone can play it but what about me who still wants a challenge. Sure a game can be hard or even frustrating but it made me want to come back and try again and again. If the game holds your hand throughout the whole game why bother? Where is the challenge? There should be a limit (Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry) but Mario 3 gave a decent challenge and was still fun.

God of War does a great job at allowing us non-power glove owners have a great time. It's challenging and has Wizard-mode for those who are video-game-masters.

Growing up in the 80s, I remember breaking many a controller over battletoads, TMNT, and ninja gaiden. For games to sell more copies they need to embrace a bigger audience - thus WoW nerfs it's content so drooling face-on-keyboard-rollers can sweep through. What they will need to do is what God of War did. Add back that Wizard-mode for all you super-g@meRz out there.

I was actually impressed with this post. I hate blogs, hate the intarwebs in general cause so many of you fuck-tards who aren't worth listening to think you're opinion matters. Blogs are fail. But this post is one out of a million which addressed the immersion breaking issue of death quite well.

For the fuck-tards who want all games to be haadk0R3 mode, stop typing and get to work flipping my burgers. You don't matter.

I remember how impressed I was at the first "new" POP game that came out when you died and the prince would say "no that's not how it went", it was an intresting way of acknowledging the mistake and removing it from the "official" story.
Also another game that had death be part of the story was Soul Reaver where you would lose your corpral form and have to regain strength to manifest in the realm of the living again.

In mario bros. Mushrooms and turtles are evel murderers.

Ef course they ere.

I doubt every game could have an Elika-like checkpoint mechanic. But, I think she's more important to the flow of the game of the game than the logic of failing in a game world.

I'm fine with checkpoints in every entrance or every event. But, the beauty of an Elika (in the non-literal sense) is that it happens fluidly. You fall, there's a close up to her hand (loading!!!), and you're back at the beginning of the last couple of obstacles you braved so incorrectly.

Yeah. Elika is just the personification of a forgiving checkpoint system.

We can't have it both ways. I know Peter Molyneaux(sp) was saying something about Fable 2's development when he would have actual death. Whatever happened to that?

I remember a time when you played ET and you lost by falling into a hole(though I think we were supposed to go into the hole) and basically "Died."

I then remember playing mario and sonic and screwing up so many lives, that I died and had to start the whole level over again.

I remember how on starfox, if I died it was game over....

and I remember how on Steel Battalion, I wanted to kill my Xbox.

I say that we should still allow the concept of dying into the game. Only for the reason that you will(hopefully) feel horrible that you died(Unless you played as ET that is) The concept of you being rescued every time just seems "demeaning" I mean, if I play a FPS and know I am going to die because I screwed up big time, and there are no possible escapes. I would likely pull off a Tony Montana, die, and then start all over again, and realize that the next time I ever get there, don't do that.

Checkpoints are ingenious only for the reason of that you don't have to start all over again. I mean, how did those people who played the original Legend of Zelda with memory feel? Pretty damn good. All I say is that we should use death, and not just plain skip it(Unless you are ET, then you should just die.)

O HAI DERE.

I believe that in Destroy All Humans, when Crypto dies, a clone takes his place. So death can exist in a video game without hindering storytelling.

One that's a big staple in my mind in terms of being dead and not coming back is in Call of Duty 4 when you're a US marine (I think, can't remember though and my buddy is borrowing the game). He not only died but you watched him die, and died while playing him with nothing you could do to keep it from happening. That was just a big shock to me as I had never experienced anything like that before. Sure you had other characters that you played as still but that one was gone and not coming back unless you reset the game and played back through his story. Or take Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. If you've played through FFVII or have seen Advent Children or follow Final Fantasy pretty much at all you know what's going to happen to the character that you are playing as in the long run and there is nothing you can do to stop it. A lot of games have it where you die and come back but to me not many have an irreversible death in the way that these two examples do. No checkpoint, no restarting the level, just dead plain and simple.

Just for reference I have not yet gotten a chance to play Crisis Core because I do not have a PSP, I'm just using it as an example because it is well known what happens to Zack in the Final Fantasy VII storyline.

Cheap article?

Branching Dialogue: R.I.P. Death

"The GAME OVER screen lies somewhere outside of a game's universe ... "

"Elika is a glorified checkpoint with a plunging neckline."

Reader Comments (163)

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