Death is pretty integral to videogames. Not in some fancy, high-falutin conceptual way, but as the default failure state in most action games. Even when it’s not explicitly referred to as such by the game, we talk about dying, about losing lives. At the same time, the attitude towards death is rather relaxed. You die, you restart, you try again. No biggie, until some story beat snatches a beloved NPC away from you. (Aeris! *sob*)
While some games have played with this, embracing death as a game mechanic, like Planescape: Torment, or rejecting it entirely, like Fable 2, the big shake up for dying in games came with Dark Souls and chums. Suddenly death mattered beyond simply losing progress. I’m not going to go into detail, for fear of stealth Soulsborne article accusations, but if you’ve carefully edged through a tough area to reclaim your lost souls/echoes/rings, you’ll know what I mean.
Thing is, it’s been a while and that approach is getting a bit stale. Did it really need to be in Tunic? Like Anor Londo, it’s beautiful, but stagnant. We need a fresh take on popping the old clogs. That’s where Blood West comes moseying into town, all cocksure gunslinger swagger. Death is a big part of the game, not least because that’s how you start out, a freshly raised undead desperado (undeasperado), tasked with collecting cursed golden artefacts by the (supposedly) benevolent spirits who dragged you back to the land of the living. Since they’ve done it once, they can do it again, rendering death a very temporary state of affairs.
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