What’s the best way to ramp up a game’s difficulty? Permadeath—a favorite mechanic of theroguelike genre—is a quick and easy way for a game to suddenly becomewaymore difficult.
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But difficulty isn’t the only reason that permadeath is exciting! Whether risking a character or a save file, at its best permadeath helps create new stories and experiences.
The point of permadeath isn’t just to challenge your skill. It’s to enjoy a different type of gaming, one where choices matter. Meaningful choices are why voluntary permadeath—like the popular “nuzlocke” ruleset for Pokémon—remains popular.
Now, let’s attempt to survive this deadly list of permadeath games!
10Doom Eternal: Ultra Nightmare
Death Kills Your Save
DOOM Eternal
The hardest difficulty inDOOM Eternalfeatures an additional punishment for failure:on Ultra Nightmare, if you die your save is deleted.
Even hardcore veterans are sure to get an adrenaline spike knowing the dangers of making asinglemistake.
Built-in optional permadeath settings like Ultra Nightmare into a game are awesome because they combine difficulty with accessibility.
These modes (or sometimes mods) spice up a game you’re already familiar with—even if permadeath isn’t really “central” to the game’s identity.
9Fire Emblem
Tactical Genius Required
Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade
TheFire Emblem franchiseis well-known for its compelling storytelling and tactical challenges. The series' first English release—known asRekka no Ken or Fire Emblem 7in Japan—demonstrates how character death shapes both the narrative and your future choices.
For example, new characters are typically recruited from the antagonists when you interact with them using the correct character on your own team. If that character died previously, well, you can’t recruit the new one!
This rewards careful tactics by providing new characters, items, and even hidden levels throughout the game. However, character death is hammered home most strongly in the final credits, as each character’s future depends on the relationships you fostered and which characters you allowed to perish.
Fire Emblem’spermadeath spirit remains in the modern games, too, with the ability to choose between “classic” or “casual” game modes.
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8Slay the Spire
Classic Deckbuilding Roguelike
Slay the Spire
Slay the Spireis an addictive and satisfying game built around the roguelike staple mechanic ofplaying multiple “runs” to unlock additional items.Whether you win or die, each run results in accruing XP, resulting in new cards and artifacts that may appear in future runs.
Ongoing “ascensions” slowly increase the game’s difficulty as each is vanquished. Repeated deaths in higher ascensions merely prepare you to better understand how to clear that difficulty.
However, there isn’t much “narrative” behind the use of permadeath inSlay the Spire.It’s a fantastic game—one of the best currently available on GamePass—but deaths are quite mechanical, and don’t really foster an ambient story.
7State of Decay 2
Brutal Open World Survival
State of Decay 2
Zombie or post-apocalyptic survival games are plentiful in the modern gaming scene. Even though many use permadeath,State of Decay 2sticks out because it combines permadeath with difficulty.
Even if you build up your community, your resources, and your weapons, it’s still easy for a character to die. One character’s death isn’t necessarily the end of a run, but their death is indeed permanent!
Continued deaths build up a sense of attrition and despair as the game continues. This is a great fit for zombie horror, reflecting the eternal struggle against undead hordes.
6FTL: Faster Than Light
Crew Are A Resource
FTL: Faster Than Light
LikeSlay the Spire,this indie roguelike is also built around making “runs” to unlock new ships and crew for future attempts. InFTL,though, character death is more impactful because each crew member’s death forebodes the demise of your ship.
Even though you can recruit new crew members, they’re never enough to fully replace the old. Crew are also used as a resource, allowing additional options during events and even allowing for their sale in tragic circumstances.
Since each crew member can operate a part of the ship, as they die from attacks your tactical options are reduced.FTL’spermadeath shines because there’s a strong connection between a crew member’s death, the story, and your ability to make future choices.
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The RNG Gauntlet
Built around a central campaign, inXCOM 2your most important resource is the soldiers you send out on tactical missions. Any amount of damage to a character remains when the mission ends, grinding down the resources available to you.
If a character survives, though, they can become quite skilled and experienced! That doesn’t make them immune toXCOM 2’sinfamous deaths to RNG. Choosing when to use your powerful “pieces,” and when to send recruits into the meat grinder, becomes an important strategic decision.
4Don’t Starve
Die To The Environment
Don’t Starve
Don’t Starveis a survival game built around the simple premise in its title. This creates an interesting twist on the survival genre.
Most survival games are filled with monsters and other overt threats.Don’t Starveincludes those, of course, but the game instead emphasizes keeping your belly full and staying sane.
It’s quite possible to survive for a while, but especially in Winter even the best-prepared player is at risk of running out of food.Thus, the survival mechanics that keep you near deathalsoincentivize increasingly risky choices to stay alive.
3Sunless Sea
The Ocean Is Evil
Sunless Sea
Set in Victorian England—well, strictly speaking, on her oceans—this Lovecraftian horror game does a great job blending character narrative with permadeath mechanics. InSunless Sea,each character you recruit has their own story.
However, these stories can only be told if the characters survive. Similar to other games on this list, your own death doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the game: as the Captain, you can pass on your house and heirlooms to a scion if you die.
This not only allows you to carry some of your achievements into the next run.Sunless Seaweaves a narrative about multiple generations drawn to the waves, despite tragedy and madness.
Insane Community Simulator
RimWorldis wild. You control none of the characters. Instead, you give orders to the NPCs, which they follow depending on their skills, mood, needs, and relationships with other NPCs.
Obviously, this creates a very chaotic experience. The variety of characters—and how they grow and change during a game—contributes to their uniqueness. Without an overt narrative in place,RimWorlddoes a great job building story after story out of character interactions and random events.
The permadeath of characters punctuates these stories, because a character’s death effects the mood and relationships of your colony’s other NPCs. One death can lead into a failure spiral—or it can harden your best NPCs, driving them to perform better.
1Darkest Dungeon
No Bravery Without Madness
Darkest Dungeon
Darkest Dungeonis among the best games with permadeath because it blends a continuing narrative and theme with roguelike “runs” through the dungeon. Each expedition gives you a chance for characters to strengthen and improve—or to fall further into insanity, or straight-up perish.
This blends seamlessly with the game’s gothic horror. Since there isn’t really a “game over” state, story progression remains consistentdespite the game’s high difficulty.
As bodies fill the decrepit halls and new recruits are driven to gibbering madness, there remains but one question: how many will die in your quest to reclaim your ancestral home?
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