Permadeath is contrary to games that allow the player to continue in some manner, such as their character respawning at a nearby checkpoint on 'death' (such as in Minecraft), resurrection of their character by a magic item or spell, or being able to load and restore a saved game state to avoid the death situation (such as in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim). Some video games offer a hardcore mode that features this mechanic, rather than making it part of the core game. Other terms include persona death and player death.

Depending on the situation, this could require the player to create a new character to continue, or completely restart the game potentially losing nearly all progress made. Permadeath or permanent death is a game mechanic in both tabletop games and video games in which player characters who lose all of their health are considered dead and cannot be used anymore.

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