{"id":157285,"date":"2021-01-01T15:15:12","date_gmt":"2021-01-01T15:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gamerant.com\/disco-elysium-hades-death-failure-good\/"},"modified":"2021-01-01T15:15:12","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T15:15:12","slug":"hades-and-disco-elysium-share-an-important-feature-in-common","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2021\/01\/01\/hades-and-disco-elysium-share-an-important-feature-in-common\/","title":{"rendered":"Hades and Disco Elysium Share An Important Feature in Common"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Last year’s\u00a0Disco Elysium<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and this year’s\u00a0Hades<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0are two of the most celebrated story-rich games in recent memory, and for good reason. They tell very different tales in very different ways, but both titles share a mechanical feature\/design philosophy that sets their storytelling apart from the rest of the pack.\u00a0This\u00a0not only lends their narratives, but allows them to compete with AAA titles like\u00a0The Last of Us\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0Ghost of Tsushima,\u00a0<\/em>and juggernaut IPs like\u00a0Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Fantasy<\/em>. And the ironic secret to their success\u00a0is how they handle failure.<\/p>\n

Few gamers are happy to\u00a0see “Game Over” on their screen, while “You Died” and “Mission Failed” also tend to be downers.\u00a0These stock phrases entail retrying from the last save point, with the implicit, inherently demoralizing\u00a0subtext of “don’t fail again.” Worse still, such failures are cut from the game’s narrative tapestry. They are retconned. Lara Croft didn’t\u00a0actually<\/em> botch that jump, Master Chief didn’t really\u00a0<\/em>blow himself up with his own rocket launcher, but both\u00a0Hades<\/em><\/a> and\u00a0Disco Elysium<\/em><\/a>\u00a0embrace failure as a\u00a0vital part of their narratives and<\/em>\u00a0their core gameplay loops.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Disco Elysium Players Are Trying to Earn A Mysterious Achievement<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In real life and well-told stories, failure is usually not the end of the world. Do or die moments do exist\u2014there are moments when someone must win to move forward\u2014but failure is also a\u00a0vital\u00a0part of every major endeavor in life, acting as a catalyst for growth and discovery. Traditional video game failures have the same potential, of course. Countless losses train players to attain mastery, as per Dark Souls<\/em>‘ punishing model<\/a>, but depriving those shortcomings of their narrative validity generally makes for simpler,\u00a0less organic\u00a0stories. The failures players are officially allowed to encounter become deterministic and sterile.<\/p>\n

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Dying in Hades<\/em> can sting, and the farther\u00a0a player gets, the worse it hurts. Yet, Supergiant Games always rewards players for their efforts. When Zagreus returns to the House of Hades, humbled and soaked in blood,\u00a0narrative development\u2014and character\u00a0growth\u00a0in particular\u2014is waiting for him.\u00a0Players can spend the valuable resources they have accrued on their ill-fated runs, and can give gifts to friends, enemies, and everyone in between, and receive powerful keepsakes in return<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This transforms dud runs\u2014an inescapable part of rogue-likes\u2014into something well-worth players’ time. It is a major reason as to why Hades<\/em> is the best reviewed game on Steam of 2020<\/a>. Winning is obviously still the goal, as winning gives more important narrative development than dying endlessly. But death becomes an important part of the process rather than a meaningless road bump,\u00a0and it establishes a sort of asymmetric progression between skilled and less-skilled players that makes comparing notes more fun.<\/p>\n

Similarly, in\u00a0Disco Elysium<\/em>, players will frequently encounter skill checks that they have no hope of passing, due to the game’s huge selection of stats. Some of these checks can be reattempted as the player improves their attributes, who\u00a0begins as an absolute\u00a0garbage fire of a human being.\u00a0This points from prosaic statistics into narrative stepping stones that are as vital to progression as Link’s dungeon items are to the Legend of Zelda<\/em> series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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While it is possible to tediously save scum checks, playing in that style actively erodes the integrity of the game loop and narrative. Levels and stats become meaningless, and the screw-up detective is suddenly, inexplicably good at everything.\u00a0Investing in stats to pass\u00a0a check, only to fail repeatedly,\u00a0can be frustrating, but those setbacks are also truer to life. Then, each unsuccessful attempt raises the stakes for the next, and stakes are what make games, stories, and general pursuits\u00a0worthwhile<\/a>. Knowing that a failure will have lasting, in-universe consequences is far more compelling than knowing the worst thing that will happen is a one-way ticket back to the most recent save point.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Hades Infographic Breaks Down Game’s Dialogue Count<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There is a scene in Disco Elysium<\/em> where bad checks and\/or poor choices can lead to a literal massacre. In most titles, that kind of catastrophic failure would mean game over until the player does better or constitute a bad ending. In Disco Elysium<\/em>, however, the player has to live with the aftermath of their failure. And because they are more directly responsible for those deaths, the scene can hit just as hard as a big budget cutscenes that kill off\u00a0key characters via the will of the plot. The latter scenes can be tragic, but\u00a0tragedy without the weight of responsibility is essentially just authorial manipulation.<\/p>\n

The ownership of one’s effort and the consequences of its outcome is a crucial aspect of meaningful storytelling\u2014especially in an interactive medium. Hades<\/em>‘ “God Mode” gives\u00a0struggling players\u00a0the opportunity to stack the deck<\/a>\u00a0in favor of\u00a0victory, but instead of acting as a joyless “I Win” button,\u00a0the advantage only increases with every failed attempt. This approach\u00a0gently nudges players toward mastery,\u00a0without insulting them or undercutting the value of their effort. Thus, players are still responsible for their victory, even if they had a handicap.<\/p>\n

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The other great benefit of failure in real life is its potential for discovery.\u00a0Disco Elysium<\/em> frequently\u00a0presents players with hysterical threads of dialogue, or gut-wrenching comedy of errors scenarios that can only be\u00a0encountered\u00a0after failing certain checks.\u00a0Similarly, Hades\u00a0<\/em>surprises players by gating certain paths of development behind a number of attempts, rather than a number of successes. A brutal loss may lead to a new work order that opens up an entirely new path of narrative progression. Or it could leave players with just enough keys to unlock the next set of perks from the Mirror of Darkness.<\/p>\n

And that might be the most crucial Lesson ZA\/UM and Supergiant Games<\/a> have for other developers: losing makes persistence empowering. Loss can be weird and wonderful, as well as frustrating and demeaning.\u00a0In real life,\u00a0it is often some combination of all of the above. In that respect, these two indie developers are miles ahead of studios working with\u00a0a\u00a0much higher magnitude of resources. Hopefully, the competition will take note of these underdogs and risk following their examples because risking failure and learning from it is far more productive than playing things safe.<\/p>\n

Hades\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>and Disco Elysium\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>are available now on Mac, PC, and Switch.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

MORE: The Best Video Game Stories of 2020<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n

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Hades and Disco Elysium are extremely disparate experiences, but both games are structured around a common mechanic that elevates their storytelling.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":667,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"Hades and Disco Elysium Share An Important Feature in Common - ITTeacherITFreelance.hk","description":"Hades and Disco Elysium are extremely disparate experiences, but both games are structured around a common mechanic that elevates their storytelling."},"footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157285"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/667"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157286,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157285\/revisions\/157286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}