The gamers living life on the digital edge - where a single slip up can cost hundreds of hours of progress
Hardcore game modes regularly have features where character deaths are permanent. But the modes are often entirely optional - so why do people chose to play them?
Tuesday 19 December 2023 03:23, UK
Meet the gamers living life on the digital edge - where a single lapse in concentration can cost hundreds of hours of progress.
They are playing hardcore modes, where the death of their characters is permanent.
No replay, no do-overs. Just an old-fashioned "game over" screen.
However, unlike 90s-style arcade games - which usually end within minutes - these games can be lost after hundreds of hours of play time.
"It gives you another challenge - another obstacle to overcome - that's the main draw for me," says Max, an experienced streamer of the game, Diablo IV, who goes by the name Wudijo.
"For me also, as a streamer, it is more exciting for the viewers because there is always the chance I mess up and lose my character, or something goes wrong and I get out of it," he says.
The 31-year-old, from Germany, has lost characters after clocking more than 200 hours of game time - enough to fly from London to Sydney and back five times.
But it is a risk he willingly accepts.
"Some things can surprise me still - that is just how the games are designed - anything can go wrong," he says.
"In that moment you can feel the blood pumping and it can get really intense, and you feel that rush - that's really cool.
"But in general, I would say I have become numb to the loss - I know my character will die at some point."
Hardcore mode gaming is where players face more difficult environments and conditions than standard retail versions of games.
These can vary from game to game, but can include lower health bars, limited weapons or ammunition, or tougher and more numerous enemies.
Permadeath - a setting where characters have just a single life - is often used in hardcore versions of popular role-playing computer games (RPGs).
These games, such as World of Warcraft, Diablo, or Minecraft, often require hundreds of hours of play to develop characters.
In normal versions, death is an inconvenient part of gameplay - one where characters are able to be revived, albeit with some kind of loss of progress.
But with permadeath modes, there is no second chance.
"You have to take things really slowly," says Jess King, a 25-year-old gamer from North Wales who streams her experiences of hardcore mode World of Warcraft Classic online under the name RageDarling.
"Every monster you come across, every cave you go into, you might not be able to get back, and every hour you spend working on a skill could all be lost."
But even the most careful and skilled players can be caught out.
"Once I played hardcore mode with my boyfriend, and he is particularly good at the game, and so I felt confident," she says.
"That went to my head and on the beach I attacked one too many crabs."
RageDarling's boyfriend rushed his character in to try and rescue the situation, but it was too late.
"Within ten seconds, his character was dead. It was like three weeks of progress, gone, because of these crabs. And I genuinely felt guilty for killing my boyfriend's character," she says.
"It was devastating. But the thing that attracts me is it creates these strong emotions, and when something positive happens, you get that intense joy - you don't get that with every other game mode."
Hardcore modes of existing big-name games have seen a rise in popularity in recent years, particularly among streamers, who can use them to create compelling high-risk content for their viewers.
Diablo has had a hardcore mode since Diablo II, first released in 2000, while Minecraft introduced one in 2011, a couple of years after its first release.
Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard made waves this year when it released a hardcore mode version of its popular World of Warcraft Classic series.
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Naman Budhwar, a senior discovery and marketing manager at London-based gaming publisher Playstack, says gaming companies are responding to the changing demands of consumers.
"I think there's always been an interest in hard games, but around the early 2010s you had games like Dark Souls, and then last year Elden Ring, which have been accessible to a larger audience," he says.
"I think in some games, players were not being challenged significantly and there was a counter-culture to that where people wanted to want those challenging experiences."
He says independent developers have been leading the charge with harder or hardcore games - but that larger companies are trying to tap into the market.
"Hardcore modes for bigger games are often additions to games that have been around for a while - like with World of Warcraft you have Classic for the nostalgia, and now they have introduced hardcore.
"Attention is the hardest thing in the industry, and finding ways to push new modes like hardcore modes is a good way of doing it."
As for why gamers play them, Elliot Ludvig, professor of psychology at the University of Warwick, says it is a matter of risk and reward.
"Clearly, there's a parallel to the thrill you get from gambling and the risk involved, but it is interesting because, as opposed to a thrill seeker who jumps out of an aeroplane for example, there is nothing really at stake," he says.
"You can lose your progress, but won't lose your house, you won't lose significant financial investment.
"It's a way of getting that thrill of having risk, but because it is time and effort, rather than money or your life, it is, in reality, safe."