No game over in Beyond: Two Souls - FZ.se

David Cage has talked a bit about the upcoming big game Beyond: Two Souls with Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe in the cast. Cage will not use it in play contexts oh so ordinary game over screen. This is because he considers it bad game design.

– I have always felt that “game over” is a failure for the designers, not the player. It creates an artificial loop and says “you did not play the game the way I want you to play, so now you will be punished and get to play the sequence until you do what I want you to do.” In an action game, I can understand it, why not? There, it is about skill. But in an action driven experience, it is not at all sensible.

He gives an example in which the protagonist Jodie chased by two police officers on a moving train. Are you clever escape, escape the cops. But fails with the sequence, you get no game over screen printed in the face, but is captured and placed in a police car. How do you get to escape from there instead.