Permadeath
noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Permanent death, where the player cannot continue but is obliged to restart the game from the beginning. countable, slang, uncountable
"And yes, especially 'special' mobs coming back is a bit of a stretch. But then the players coming back is a stretch too, no? (yes, I know, many have implemented some form of permadeath)."
- 2 Likewise, any situation where a player character or characters who die are lost permanently but do not trigger a game over, allowing the player to proceed without the character(s). Particularly applies if said deaths are avoidable (not forced by the plot) and occur only as a result of player blunder. countable, slang, uncountable
"Last week, as you might recall, I promised to play Fire Emblem: Awakening with permadeath on. I also promised to continue battling no matter what happened: in other words, if any of my party members died in combat, they'd be dead for good."
Example
More examples"And yes, especially 'special' mobs coming back is a bit of a stretch. But then the players coming back is a stretch too, no? (yes, I know, many have implemented some form of permadeath)."
Etymology
From perma- + death.
More for "permadeath"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.