Can anyone name a single serious narrative-based game that's been made where someone doesn't die, either onscreen or offscreen or implicitly? I'm trying to think of one and I can't. This could be because I'm pretty tired and I can't quite wrack my brain the way I usually can, but this has got me to thinking about the obsession with death in videogame culture. There are countless movies, of course, where tons and tons of people die, but just as many where death isn't even a minute theme in the piece. Not the case, it seems, with games. Games are all about overcoming an enemy, and death is hardly ever treated with the gravitas that it should be. I'm actually really curious in the game Heavy Rain coming out for the PS3 – it seems to have a genuinely mature narrative and, while I'm a little concerned about the interactivity of the game (will it basically be like a choose-your-own-adventure interactive movie? I'm hoping not…), it looks like one of only a handful of games coming out this year that really seems to actually take the implications of its story seriously. On the other hand, it kind of seems to have a little bit in common with Tommy Wiseau's masterpiece, The Room, so there's that. Check out the trailer, see what you think, and let's open up a discussion of this topic, because I know I don't have the answers.
The Room:
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In Portal no one dies. GlaDOS is destroyed, but machines cannot die as they were not living in the first place.
Chell dies if you make a mistake, but I am not sure whether that counts. Otherwise no death.
That is the only one I can think of, though.