Permadeath
Video game mechanic
Summary
Permadeath is a game mechanic in both tabletop games and video games in which player characters who lose all of their health are considered dead and cannot be used anymore; it is one form of death in video games. Depending on the situation, this could require the player to create a new character to continue, or completely restart the game potentially losing nearly all progress made. Other terms include persona death and player death. Some video games offer a hardcore mode that features this mechanic, rather than making it part of the core game.
Originally created by Kwi
8/4/2005, 1:36:47 PM
Modified
5/28/2026, 5:09:45 AM
Recent revisions
/* In single-player video games */ link [[Cheating in videogames]].
Adding relevant link to Death in video games
/* In single-player video games */ Clean up spacing around commas and other punctuation fixes, replaced: ] , [ → ], [
[[MOS:CURLY]]
Reverted edits by [[Special:Contribs/Shibo Wang|Shibo Wang]] ([[User talk:Shibo Wang|talk]]) ([[:en:WP:WikiShield|WS]])
Move 2 urls. [[User:GreenC/WaybackMedic_2.5|Wayback Medic 2.5]] per [[WP:URLREQ#kotaku.com]]
/* In single-player video games */ clean up, replaced: achive → archive
/* In single-player video games */ stylik
/* In single-player video games */ capitalization edit
/* In multiplayer video games */ Copy edit ▸ Grammar ▸ Punctuation.
Adjusted lede to reflect the portmanteau origin of the term
Move 1 url. [[User:GreenC/WaybackMedic_2.5|Wayback Medic 2.5]] per [[WP:URLREQ#gamasutra.com]]
Move 2 urls. [[User:GreenC/WaybackMedic_2.5|Wayback Medic 2.5]] per [[WP:URLREQ#gamasutra.com]]
Corrected grammar (verb "require" to "requires") for subject-verb agreement in the last paragraph, in which the subject and its verb were split up by a prepositional phrase under the "in single-player video games" tab - and added demonstrative pronoun "this" for clarification.
Bot: [[User:FrescoBot/Links|link syntax]]
removed [[Category:Difficulty in video games]] using [[WP:HC|HotCat]]
Removing [[:Category:Permadeath role-playing games]] per [[Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 June 28#Category:Permadeath games]]
Removing [[:Category:Permadeath games]] per [[Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 June 28#Category:Permadeath games]]
added [[Category:Difficulty in video games]] using [[WP:HC|HotCat]]
