Permanent death

Video game concept

Upon the protagonist's death, all game progress is lost and the player must start the game all over instead of loading a save or restarting at some checkpoint such as level start.

555
games
42
platforms
Contrast: permadeath, unlimited lives

Related:
* Quit save
* Single save
* No saves
* 1 life

Contrast:
* Deathless
Notes:
* Saves are deleted/invalidated if there were any.
* Player may have multiple lives/retries/etc. which need to be depleted before "actual" death occurs. This is the norm in arcade games.
* Likely uses suspend saves
* Does not affect player progression, as otherwise it's character progression rather than player.

The first Permanent death video game was released in 1971.

NEUC, EAG and Klei Entertainment published most of these games.

Parent groups

Anti save scumming, Game saves, Hardcore elements

Platforms

Apple II E 230
Linux 119
Windows 81
Mac OS X 35
MS-DOS 21
BeOS 6
OS/2 5
Unix 4
BSD 3
Internet Only 3
Flash 3
Mac OS Classic 3
NeXT 3
Solaris 3
Android 2
Commander X16 2
PS Vita 2
GamePark 32 2
Xbox One 2
PS4 2
NES 2
GP2X 2
Atari 2600 1
Tandy Coco 1
Xbox 1
Switch 1
Pandora 1
Atari 400/800 1
custom 1
Atari ST 1

By year

7173757779818385878991939597990103050709111315171921 481224360

Popular tags

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