Short Thought: Player Agency in Roguelike Stories

I was struck by a thought while playing Scar-Lead Salvation, a roguelike which sees you resurrected at the start every time you die, minus your weapons. I managed to defeat the first two bosses without dying — except for the first scripted time, which happens in a cutscene seven minutes in. However, the protagonist kept bringing up how it hurt to keep dying, and complaining about not having a map because the routes kept changing upon each resurrection. But she had died once, and had never even reached that floor more than two hours in.

This had me thinking about how the game didn’t want me to succeed, from the very narrative bones of it, even if you ignore the increasing difficulty of enemies. It actively hurts the story and decreases how invested you can be in it if the game is telling you that you’ve died multiple times when, in fact, you’re on a very good run with immense amounts of good luck!

In general, I’m not a fan of roguelikes anyway, because I absolutely hate losing my progress in things. A genre where you’re literally supposed to lose your progress multiple times is vastly unappealing. However, I do try them now and then in an effort to experience more from the gaming landscape.

What I am a fan of, however, is a story. I can’t count the times that I just stopped moving in God of War Ragnarök out of fear I’d stop Mimir nattering away, resulting in a lot of quiet time in my endgame realm exploration. I actually appreciate the Valhalla DLC’s decision to restrict the chatter to certain areas, rather than wherever the fancy strikes him.

Speaking of Valhalla, as a roguelike it also infers that you’ve died many multiple times, even when you haven’t. Of course, it’s less important to the story of the DLC than when it’s brought up in Scar-Lead Salvation, but it still stands out.

It’s hubris to think that developers should create separate narratives that most players won’t experience because they play as the game is intended: they die. But maybe write the story so that not as much attention is brought to it, or have a few more scripted deaths before it’s brought up?