5 Best RPGs Where Immortality Becomes a Fate Worse Than Death, Ranked

If there is one thing we as human beings have been consistently terrible at accepting, we could safely say it’s our own mortality. The idea of living forever has been around since the dawn of time, and it makes sense why it’s so appealing. Imagine never having to worry about getting older or not having enough time to finish your entire backlog of games. However, RPGs have found plenty of ways to remind us that living forever might be cool only on paper.

In fact, immortality as a curse has become an interesting way to explore how a person can still lose what they love while watching the world change around them, and wishing they could escape their eternal trap. These fantastic RPGs prove that, in some cases, immortality might actually be worse than death.

5

Planescape: Torment

When Living Forever Means Losing Yourself

As the Nameless One awakens in Planescape: Torment one morning, he quickly realizes that he has no idea who he is. As the game progresses, his discoveries about himself eventually lead him to the realization that he simply cannot stay dead. Once he gets killed, his body regenerates, and he wakes again. At first, being one of the RPG protagonists who simply cannot stay dead sounds like a surprisingly good deal.

However, resurrection does not guarantee that he will keep his memories every time. This results in the Nameless One going through multiple incarnations with different personalities; some of them more evil than others. And the current Nameless One — he inherited the consequences without remembering he had caused them.

Eventually, he discovers how this cycle started in the first place. Long before the events of the game, his original incarnation had committed some terrible crimes, and he believed his soul would be condemned to fight eternally in the Blood War after death. Hoping to give himself enough time to redeem himself, he sought out the night hag Ravel Puzzlewell and asked her to make him immortal. This worked, but rather than giving him unlimited time to redeem himself, his immortality fragmented his identity across repeated deaths.

By the time the current Nameless One wakes up, he doesn’t even remember making that choice. From this moment on, he does everything in his power to uncover what happened to him and eventually become mortal again. This endless cycle is what makes me want to pull my hair out every time I think about this story; there is something uniquely terrifying about going in circles, being unable to truly move forward with your life, no matter how hard you try.

4

Lost Odyssey

Living Forever Gets Lonely

The concept of Lost Odyssey might be similar to Planescape: Torment‘s, but the execution is completely different. Although there is no such physical toll from being immortal, the horror in this game comes from having to outlive every ordinary human being again and again for a thousand years. And it’s important to note that we’re only seeing half of the protagonist’s story; by the time we start the game, Kaim Argonar has already lived for roughly 1,000 years.

He has lost his memories, but as they gradually return, he learns that his life has consisted of repeatedly forming relationships with mortals only to inevitably watch them disappear. What makes this entire story even more tragic is that although Kaim’s wife Sarah is immortal, their daughter, Lirum, is not. When Kaim eventually finds Lirum again, she’s already a grown woman who is dying.

This brings the protagonist to the cruel realization that the natural order of things has been so broken that he’ll have to watch his own daughter grow old and die while he remains unchanged. Kaim is one of several immortals sent from another world to observe this one, but Gongora, the game’s main antagonist, eventually betrays them all. Since Kaim cannot kill his fellow immortals, he starts to target what is most precious to them and interfere with their memories. However, despite his immortality and the battles he’s still fighting, he’s cursed to grieve until the end of time.

3

Death’s Gambit: Afterlife

Living Forever Doesn’t Mean Being Safe

The entire world in Death’s Gambit: Afterlife is built around people chasing immortality, only to find out that it is deeply unnatural and way more disturbing than it might initially seem. The protagonist, Sorun, arrives in Siradon as part of a military expedition seeking the Source of Immortality, blissfully convinced that the powerful Immortals protecting it will probably be easy enough to defeat.

However, when the expedition is wiped out and Sorun dies, Death intervenes and makes a deal with him; he must reach and destroy the Source of Immortality and restore the balance between life and death. In return, he will be unable to die while their agreement remains in force. This ability of his then becomes part of the gameplay mechanic and part of the entire story. As Sorun’s story progresses, he soon discovers that one of the immortals guarding the Source is his own mother.

This makes his choice brutally personal, and he must now accept the death of the mother he was so desperately trying to find for so long. However, he soon realizes that his mother has lost herself in her own immortality, having become just a husk of who she once was. By the end, he figures out that keeping someone alive forever is not the same as saving them. His mission ultimately forces him to fight against the very thing countless people entered Siradon hoping to obtain.

2

Immortal Darkness: Curse of the Pale King

An Eternity to Become What You Hate

In Immortal Darkness: Curse of the Pale King, the world has been destroyed by the Pale King and his Vampyr, leaving humanity to rely on Shade, a legendary vampire hunter who was bitten during a battle. Of course, being a vampire has given Shade some useful abilities, including being able to heal himself by drinking the blood of his enemies.

However, the more he relies on his powers, the closer he gets to turning into a vampire fully. Although potions and holy altars can slow this progression, they are both limited, and Shade has to constantly monitor his state. What makes this story different from the rest in this list is the mix between the horror of becoming exactly what you hate the most and being stuck with it until the end of time. Personally, I can think of very few things worse than having an eternity to become someone you never wanted to be.

1

Torment: Tides of Numenera

Escaping Death Doesn’t Mean Escaping the Consequences

Imagine suddenly finding yourself on Earth 1 billion years in the future. In Torment: Tides of Numenera, a man who will eventually be known as the Changing God discovers how to use technology to escape death by transferring his consciousness into another body and keep on living. However, every time he changes bodies, the corpse left behind develops its own consciousness and identity. These abandoned bodies are known as Castoffs, and the protagonist is one of them.

Of course, no matter what skills one has, cheating death comes with a price. The Changing God’s attempts to escape mortality soon awaken the Sorrow, an ancient entity that starts hunting him and his Castoffs, making them pay a price for a crime they never committed. And that’s how the Last Castoff gets stuck trying to understand their existence and escape the Sorrow.