Last year's Disco Elysium and this year's Hades are 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. This not only lends their narratives, but allows them to compete with AAA titles like The Last of Us or Ghost of Tsushima, and juggernaut IPs like Star Wars and Final Fantasy. And the ironic secret to their success is how they handle failure.
Few gamers are happy to see "Game Over" on their screen, while "You Died" and "Mission Failed" also tend to be downers. These stock phrases entail retrying from the last save point, with the implicit, inherently demoralizing subtext of "don't fail again." Worse still, such failures are cut from the game's narrative tapestry. They are retconned. Lara Croft didn't actually botch that jump, Master Chief didn't really blow himself up with his own rocket launcher, but both Hades and Disco Elysium embrace failure as a vital part of their narratives and their core gameplay loops.
In real life and well-told stories, failure is usually not the end of the world. Do or die moments do exist—there are moments when someone must win to move forward—but failure is also a vital part 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' punishing model, but depriving those shortcomings of their narrative validity generally makes for simpler, less organic stories. The failures players are officially allowed to encounter become deterministic and sterile.
Progress in Hades and Disco Elysium
Dying in Hades can sting, and the farther a 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, narrative development—and character growth in particular—is waiting for him. Players 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.
This transforms dud runs—an inescapable part of rogue-likes—into something well-worth players' time. It is a major reason as to why Hades is the best reviewed game on Steam of 2020. 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, and it establishes a sort of asymmetric progression between skilled and less-skilled players that makes comparing notes more fun.
Similarly, in Disco Elysium, 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 begins as an absolute garbage fire of a human being. This 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 series.
Genuine Stakes
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. Investing in stats to pass a check, only to fail repeatedly, can 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 worthwhile. 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.
There is a scene in Disco Elysium 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, 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 key characters via the will of the plot. The latter scenes can be tragic, but tragedy without the weight of responsibility is essentially just authorial manipulation.
The ownership of one's effort and the consequences of its outcome is a crucial aspect of meaningful storytelling—especially in an interactive medium. Hades' "God Mode" gives struggling players the opportunity to stack the deck in favor of victory, but instead of acting as a joyless "I Win" button, the advantage only increases with every failed attempt. This approach gently nudges players toward mastery, without insulting them or undercutting the value of their effort. Thus, players are still responsible for their victory, even if they had a handicap.
Accidental Discovery
The other great benefit of failure in real life is its potential for discovery. Disco Elysium frequently presents players with hysterical threads of dialogue, or gut-wrenching comedy of errors scenarios that can only be encountered after failing certain checks. Similarly, Hades 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.
And that might be the most crucial Lesson ZA/UM and Supergiant Games have for other developers: losing makes persistence empowering. Loss can be weird and wonderful, as well as frustrating and demeaning. In real life, it is often some combination of all of the above. In that respect, these two indie developers are miles ahead of studios working with a much 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.
Hades and Disco Elysium are available now on Mac, PC, and Switch.