Opinion: It's Time To Get Rid Of Fall Damage

Absolutely not. If the game wants the inconvenience of immersive danger, then all to them.

I understand your article is just trying to draw engagement, but game design as well as artistic expression cannot be beholden to such broad generalities. As mentioned in your article, even different Xenoblade games within the same franchise want to evoke different feelings with whether or not they implement fall damage.

The difference between a first-person game choosing to maintain a first-person perspective while operating vehicles (Far Cry) as opposed to switching to a third-person perspective (Halo) is also a deliberate design choice, and can evoke different experiences within each game.

That's the point of the game it makes it challenging and makes one strategize the game more.

It depends on the game whether they're aiming for realism or not. There's a very good reason story-wise why Xenoblade X has no fall damage, and it's thrilling to escape a battle by hurling yourself off a steep edge, knowing that you'll live.

But having fall damage does have a better sense of danger and risk, making everything you do crucial to your survivability. Imagine the riots occurring if From Software decides to remove fall damage from their games.

I like it, it makes use of mechanics like the paraglider in botw/totk, plus if link falls his ragdolling is hilarious

Could just be a settings toggle for no damage or respawn at last ledge point like some 2D platformers

What a poor meditation on game design. Is this site becoming Kotaku?

No there should be fall damage. Just like enemies can hurt you, you should get hurt if you fall. As long as it isn't made unfair.

@Ulysses Xenoblade X says hi

Depends very on the game but as a general rule it makes sense to take fall damage and games in general should be challenging which includes taking damage from falls, drowning and lava.

Fall damage is fine in Xenoblade games. Nothing is more thrilling than making a huge dive in a pool of water (hey, that's also unrealistic!) and barely missing the land nearby. Or not actually missing it and watching the unintentionally hilarious animation of your character keeling like he was stabbed instead of falling so many metres.

Nah man, let games have fall damage. It's more immersive and challenging. Obviously it shouldn't be overly penalizing, but it should still be part of the experience. Some games, like Super Mario 64, even let you cheese the fall damage.

Slight spoilers but should you fall into a bottomless pit in xenoblsde X your whole party dies.

I think it depends on the game and the intent from the developer. It may be convenient to not have fall damage — and it feels super satisfying in Xenoblade Chronicles Z — but it could also break immersion. It’s a design choice, and also depends on the game. As you stated, it would be weird if Red Dead Redemption 2 didn’t have fall damage. The same would be true with other games.

Some of the funniest deaths I've had in games have been due to fall damage, I'm good with it staying

I feel like I thrive off of limits in games so I'm cool with fall damage.

Totally a case by case basis.

“Game Journos” looking for that “Journo mode” instead of getting gud.

I loved how all gameplay in The Witness was a line based puzzle. I think this is a good argument for all games being all about line based puzzles.

“ I clearly don’t respect the balance.”
Indeed.

Let's just have no damage at all in any video game.

This is just a very bad take, if anything the fall damage made exploration and combat in BOTW and TOTK way more interesting than it would have been without.

It doesn't necessarily fit every game but for many it makes sense and having a sense of danger when very high up just makes me focus more than I would otherwise. I just don't understand why so many people are against having some consequences for mistakes in games

I think it really depends on the game. But i strongly agree that some games have fall damage where it detracts from the overall experience instead of adding to it.

I don't see it as immersive as much as just a way to enforce the rules on a game to a certain extent. Metroidvanias have the proud tradition of the double jump to limit access, however briefly, to implicitly make you play within those constraints. Whether that makes sense for the game can be debated, but whether consciously or not, the designer is saying that this was the intended experience.

Which makes it more entertaining, as in new generation Zelda games, when someone manages to break it to hilarious effect that no one ever planned for.

Do you know why the summer flowers don't make it to winter?

Because they take FALL damage

<tilting head in search for the door>

Absolutely.

Fall damage adds nothing to a game to me,
it mostly seems to me a peculiar attempt to add 'realism' to games that otherwise pay no heed to it.
In most games it is not difficult to avoid the damage; it's just tedious.

Same with not being able to breathe underwater.

I think leave it up to game designers, but my personal preference is something akin to BOTW and TOTK where there are outfits you can earn/find that enable the ability and you have to remember to use it. Or offer a glider of some sort. I don’t think there should be a straight abolishment of fall damage, but I wouldn’t be opposed to a toggle on offer for those who would like it.

zero risk platforming is not for me 👍 i feel like theres a conflation of "falling" "jumping" and "fast travel" happening here.

I am so happy one person isn't in charge of all games. I've been playing vast amounts of games these past 2 years and my favorite thing is going into each new game wondering how different it will feel to control. Sometimes having fall damage is a big factor in tension for certain situations. sometimes it's fun to not have it as well.

...said Gunpei Yokoi to Shigeru Miyamoto, circa 1982

No, really, according to Wikipedia, the latter was actually skeptical, Mario Bros initially envisioned to have the feature like the very Donkey Kong game it branched off from. Ultimately, the choices made were among the ones to codify the genre - indeed, outside iconic but select examples like OG Prince of Persia or Another World, platformers have mostly eschewed fall damage since. On the other hand, it would have never returned if it didn't have its uses. Xenoblade series itself is illustrative of coexisting features - it's refreshing to just drop down any height in Xenoblade X, but a whole lot of the main trilogy's exploration aspect is built with fall damage in mind, urging you to judge the terrain and look for manageable routes, revisiting the same areas in search of a new perspective. No matter the annoyance of predictably lethal landings, I've never felt deterred by the mechanic in other openworlders like BotW, Witcher 3 or GTA either; if anything, the latter's earlier third person view entries have always felt goofier for having protagonists who had apparently learned to drive all kinds of motor boats before developing any semblance of personal buoyancy. Fall damage in Aria of Sorrow would feel at least as plausible as in Flashback years before it, but drowning right between a pier and a boat you were trying to board as Claude or Tommy will always be as goofy as it is irksome.

My own incurably limited competence in video games sure does synergize with the fall damage mechanic to ensure I never look forward to actually experiencing it. But there are many age-old features I subjectively value and/or miss much, MUCH less.😏

Fall damage prevents or discourages shortcuts. Sure some games allow it, but some other games want you to find another way down. Or is perhaps a reward to unlock later in the game by falling from a high place and surviving with your increased health.

As some have mentioned, it's different on each game. Having said that, I prefer it on most games. You may find it "tedious" to avoid, but that's because of a constant necessity of doing things as fast and easy as possible. Part of the gameplay is being cautious and creative enough to move without causing yourself that and learning to appreciate different types of pacing goes a long way to make gaming more enjoyable in general.

I think it should depend on the game.

But I'd be lying if I said I didn't agree with you on how amazing it feels to leap off a mountain in Xenoblade X. You're not wrong about that.

@Erigen Yeah, I had thought about that when first reading this article. If a person has played far enough into XCX, they would know why things are the way they are. It's one thing not to bring it up due to spoilers, but the way they put together this article assumes there's no reason for it, and they use that as a point against fall damage. That is just terrible writing...

Why not turn on god mode and be done with it?/s

It depends on the game. Sometimes it has its place, sometimes it's arbitrary.

Truly bizarre article. All games are different, some need fall damage and some don’t. You’d have to completely design your game around a lack of fall damage to account for how much more difficult it is to gate areas from each other. I know that most journos have zero idea of how games are actually designed but this does sort of take the biscuit.

'I acknowledge that it might be a bit weird if, in Red Dead Redemption, John Marston and his horse could fall off a cliff and survive – there’s a time and a place for it. '

this is your actual position, then. 👍

yet, "OPINION: There's a Time and Place for Fall Damage" doesn't rile and manipulate your readership quite sufficiently, does it? ✌️😂

This kind of reads like one of those "Dark Souls should have an easy mode" pieces. All other types of entertainment are more or less pure escapism, but games are supposed to have some degree of challenge, and the form that challenge takes is just as much a creative choice as the art style or story. Fall damage isn't just there to add realism. It's a punishment for failure or a way to keep players from skipping large chunks of the game. To be fair, I've complained vigorously and repeatedly on this site about things like level-scaling, excessive openness, and overuse of assets ruining the sense of progression and novelty in open world games, but seeing a personal preference like that declared as a sweeping statement in the header of an article just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

How about we just get rid of the games altogether, then you won't have to feel so sad about being bad at playing them.

As a kid, I remember thinking it was so strange Sora in Kingdom Hearts didn't get hurt from fall damage. Up to that point in 2002, I played so many games where fall damage was the standard. It actually kinda bugged me. Lol

Like every opinion piece on this site is some broad generalization to farm engagement. Boring

This article is a joke right?

Seriously,nit every game needs free fall from insane heights with no damage. Sure I agree geralt falling a few meters and taking massive damage is a bit much, but he also shouldn't be able to fall 500 meters and survive without a scratch.

Every game is different, this adds immersiveness to some games and a challenge.

Opinion: It's Time to Get Rid of Opinion Articles 😏

It's weird from a consistency standpoint for a platformer with no fall damage to have deaths from pits. Is the pit so deep that it counts as a type of fall damage? Metroidvanias solve this though of course.

Also, in many 3D platformers, you can lose quite a lot of time by falling off a tower or mountain and having to repeat sections. Sometimes I'd rather lose a life and respawn where I was.

I love all the people acting offended by this article. It's just an opinion & it's not hurting anyone, calm down. It's pathetic people getting angry at a journalist doing their job, reminds me of privileged people screaming in others faces when they don't get exactly what they want in a timely fashion or their beliefs don't perfectly align. I do disagree like most of the comments, imagine playing 2D games or platformers where pits didn't kill you.. that would be strange. I'd wager just about all video games consider fall damage when they're in the designing stages, it's not like it's a thoughtless obstacle.

There was a terrible game on the Atari ST back in the day called Pothole Pete, the story was the titular Pete had fallen a thousand feet underground and needed to escape. Once you get in game, Pete can’t fall more than 3 feet without dying… 🙄

Absolutely not. Might as well as remove pits, spikes, lava and other environmental hazards.

I can understand wanting a game that isn’t skill intensive to not have fall damage or to make it a trait/perk (assassins creed (modern ones) have this) to make it an option or thematic or even a plot point (Prince of Persia 2008) but it should never be applied across the board. I get not everyone has the reflexes or skill or dexterity for whatever reason, but that is no reason to fundamentally change how games work. Games trigger risk/reward responses in most people and what gets that going is different per person. Or even game. I don’t play bokumono or coral island for the same reasons I play Virtua fighter or Starfield. That variety in gameplay stimulates me differently. Aspects like gravity or enemies or competent AI creates the challenge in games.

As I age, and my reflexes will begin to fade and my vision has been fading, I recognize that not every game or even games I loved are still playable. But I want others to have those games and for devs to have the creative freedom to make those games. Games often adopt franchise specific gameplay mechanics not because its still the 80’s and tech is limited but because that becomes their brand/vision for how the game works (which includes different rates of fall damage). Fall damage and all. That’s why the add a difficulty choice to dark souls request doesn’t really work. As the game is designed around the difficulty. Levels and game world concepts are usually defined by the gameplay mechanics.

That being said I didn’t realize this triggers people but brains consume stimuli differently.

A big fat nope to that idea.

Watching Link fall down mountains whilst his hearts whittle away is half the fun of BotW and TotK.

Straight up NO. Except for jump'n'runs.

I don't get this article. The examples here show when and where fall damage feels appropriate and not appropriate and why it belongs. What a weird read.

And then there’s Mega Man X, where some robots just can’t be brought back for some reason but then a dead corpse with only 35% of the body remaining is able to hide and repair himself (yeah, I know that wasn’t really what happened) and come back like nothing happened. Oh, and you can’t forget about the ZX characters. Vent and Aile were able to survive falling off a cliff in their biometal-less forms, but Giro… how did Giro die? Or even Albert? As for Mario… there is no way it’s always the same person. Dude can go from being able to breathe under water for an unlimited amount of time, to barely being able to swim under water for 30 seconds. Oh, and in some games, he doesn’t even get stunned when falling from large heights. And how do the warp pipes work? Is it just some sort of elevator, or do the characters actually fall in there? I’m intrigued.

For games like Mario and others that don't rely on realistic physics, fall damage doesn't seem necessary there. On the other hand for stuff like Zelda BOTW and TOTK, fall damage being there makes sense. While that isn't exactly realistic, it's physics are, and getting rid of fall damage there just seems weird.

I actually am kind of indifferent to fall damage. It can be annoying at times and there are some games that in my opinion have awful and unbalanced fall damage but being honest I sort of like the challenge it gives me when playing, and it also depends on what sort of game it is. I think fall damage in BOTW really fits the setting and open-world genre of the game since your exploring out in the wild for most of the time and also trying to be careful with the hazards and enemies you encounter, plus it’s trying to use more realistic physics to go with the setting. I feel like fall damage really fits here and does encourage you to also be careful where you choose to go.

But there are times where I do think some fall damage is badly designed, though I’ll say it mostly just pertains to old and more jankier games. Conker being what comes to mind in terms of poorly done fall damage since you take damage even from small heights.

The purpose of fall damage is to limit player movement. Xenoblades 1-3 have fall damage because each is a fundamentally linear game where you need to progress through the environment in a specified order at least one time. Each of them has areas where the player needs to find a path down and allowing the player to just jump down would be a major skip.

Or consider From Software’s mazes: those are often about finding a way down and removing fall damage would trivialize them.

Xenoblade X is different. It’s an open world designed for maximum traversal freedom, where literally everything you can see is accessible. Traversal challenges are mostly about starting at the bottom and finding a way up: the environments are just not designed for going down to be challenging. Instead, the ability to fall is kind of a payoff, climbing to the top of a high mountain and then free-falling all the way to the ground. WHEEEEEE!

I’m not sure about BOTW/TOTK, where fall damage exists but can always be reset to zero by pulling out the paraglider. I don’t think it would change that much if Link always pulled out his glider at the last minute.

Oh god, Nintendo Life keeps falling down with bad articles, weird clickbaits and ragebaits, what happened?
The only point I see from something like this being published is 100% ragebaiting for more ad revenue which is the lowest point a website can go.
Be better, you were better.

Fall damage doesn't exist in ToTK if you upgrade the Wingsuit to 2 stars.

Your more likely to break your legs falling off a cliff than you are breaking a metal sword in 5 or 6 swings.

Depends on the game.

If the argument here is “fun” based - I actually get a bit of a kick of the most absurd death animations. If anything, I wish that they would allow you to watch the complete fall in BOTW or TOTK before fading to a black game over screen.

I see the headline image and wonder when Tom Petty is going to return to this world.

@-wc- You engaged with this article by commenting on it twice, so it did its job 😉

Oh for crying out out, it’s a breezy, pleasant opinion piece written by a journalist on a Saturday. Is nothing safe from seething rage and hatred anymore? My goodness! If you’re so furious about fall damage, go play cautiously outside in the grass, or something. Jeez Louise.
That said, I’m gonna go jump off Mount Edge Peak in Mira, NOT take any damage, and love every second of it!

Gonna echo the other comments here saying it's is a decision to be on a game-by-game basis.

One series where I think fall damage (well, fall death) makes sense is Tomb Raider - particularly the original series. Partly for realism - it wouldn't make sense for Lara to land 100m off a cliff edge unscathed - but I feel it's pretty baked into the level design here - dictating the way in which you explore and ensuring you can't skip whole sections of the level (and IIRC there are quite a few levels that are centred around verticality).

On the other hand I can't think of a single JRPG that needs it.

@Synecdoche

I'm just getting started 😂✌️

@babybilly Is it shocking that when an opinion article gets posted people will share their own opinions on the opinion shared in that artcle? Isn't a discussion of opinions the whole point?

What are people supposed to comment?

"Yes this is an article, goodbye."?

This is one of those articles where I’m not convinced the author believes their own opinion. It is written solely to encourage discussion. I usually skip over them, but I’ll bite.

So… your argument is that since your character might defeat a strong enemy with a weak weapon, they shouldn’t be able to die from falling to their death?

In games where there is no fall damage, should we remove the possibility of death entirely?
If Mario can survive falling from a 100 story building, kind of silly that he can die from brushing up against a little goomba.

Removing the possibility of failure would also remove the incentive to play.

The quality of articles on this site have been in a constant dive.

Did you actually feel good and proud after publishing this? Maybe you should move over to Kotaku, they'd love you over there.

Great article! I agree with you. But there is a balance, and some games need fall damage. Kinda silly that Link can beat Ganon, an incarnation of pure evil, with a stick, but will die from a 20-foot fall.

@Ravenmaster
Or set bonus the glide suit

Nah some games are designed around fall damage. They don't all need to be the same.
I loved the reason for no fall damage in XenoX though I don't think there is much spoiler there as mentioned in the article?
I mean don't they simply explain that the gravity is different at the very beginning of the game? I seem to remember something like that. No need to go into the real spoilers then!

@Smeddy
Thanks for that post man I can't believe some of the stuff I'm reading here.

Yeah it would be super immersive to jump off a mountain in TOTK and not take any damage at all…

Seriously, this is a horrible take. Limits are a good thing in games. Plus, most of the time there is an easy way to get out of taking fall damage.

The writers at this site sure do get goofy at times.

Why don't games have a mandatory godmode that you can't disable which makes it impossible for you to lose?

Answer: Because it wouldn't be a game then

Fall damage is just another gameplay mechanic that makes it so that you need to stay on your toes and be careful.
Personally I never had a problem with fall damage, especially not in Breath of The Wild or Tears of The Kingdom. I think I died from fall damage a few times at the beginning when breath of the wild was new but now I barely ever even take any fall damage, I'm just better at these games.

I don't know what the problem is

And what's the deal with walls anyway? It's like I'm trying to move in a certain direction and there's this dang slab of matter prohibiting me from doing so.

How about time to get better skills

In Dragon Quest Builders 1 & 2, there is Fall damage depend on the height you fell but you can craft equipment which can reduce the Fall damage until zero.

It takes away from Immersion when you can fall a mile and live.

Yeesh, I think the Mario Kart price complaints are getting a bit too much if people are starting to get heated over something like this

@Lizuka Summed it up perfectly

Fall damage has its uses, at least in not making the game so easy. May just depend on the game, though. Zelda should keep it, maybe Xenoblade should get rid of it.

And maybe Mario should not have it.

Id say keep it where it makes sense and eliminate it if it doesnt.

Its one of those things like underwater levels needing air that is annoying at times, but better immerses you and makes you think a little.

I love easy games more than most(always play on easiest setting), but even I dont want things as simple as removing minute things such as fall damage would give.

Infinity Nikki has no fall damage and is a better game for it. I can see games where the emphasis is exploration or cozy vibes going this route. Anime inspired games as well.

If you get the second upgrade on the glider set in Tears of the Kingdom, you won't take fall damage.

Props to Nintendo for anticipating this article and providing a solution.

I think it'd be weird if you didn't take any fall damage in BotW/TotK, but it is a bit weird when you've maxed out your heart containers and armor and everything and you can survive huge blasts from guardians or gleeoks or whatever but falling from slightly too high is just an insta-kill no matter what.

I don't think they should let you just survive huge falls (it'd kind of break TotK in particular), but it'd be nice if it just blipped you back up onto the last "solid ground" you were on and maybe sapped a heart or two like it does when you fall in a bottomless pit in the shrines instead of doing the whole "Game Over" screen and reloading loop, which is really what makes it annoying.

Granted, doing it without reloading is probably technically impossible in the overworld because you're potentially being very far away from the last solid ground you stood on (especially in TotK). But in every game prior to BotW it worked that way, where falling in a pit or lava was distinct from actually losing all your hearts and getting a game over.

Rather get rid of the weapon breaking in Zelda. Having to pause during battle or thumb through the hot buttons every 30 seconds in battle lowers a fun factor for me.

Aion was the worst implementation of fall damage. Everything else felt insignificant in comparison. Except Star wars Survivor which still sucked.

Also TOTK is a bad example since it has the glide set that cancels fall damages when upgraded to +2.

But I'm not against an easy mode without fall damage for children and people who are just bad at videogames or just don't have the patience to learn how to play. I might even use it to feel like a god. A really lazy one.

Not sure I agree, but I love the argument, and that something so seemingly mundane in game design garners such intense debate among our special NL community here.

The article writer has been playing a little too much XCX.

@Doomcrow it is amazing how much better the games are without flimsy weapons, fragile shields, and ultra weak bows!

I fear the writer is hanging her hat too much on the word escapism (or experience.) Removing any jeopardy in a video game would make them feel too safe, maybe even boring. And that's not escapism. But I do get it, dying from merely traversing a game world is a bit lame. But is that on the player or the game?

Why did you not include a poll?

I agree with what many others here have said, that it's totally game dependent, but do think that having to safely navigate your way from one area to another is a huge part of the fun for me in games and having no consequence to taking any fall damage would vastly negate my enjoyment of the experience, can you imagine botw or totk with no fall damage, it would completely destroy the adventure.

I generally don't have a problem with fall damage in games when its reasonable. The problem is there are still games where characters fall a short distance and take damage and in some cases die. That kind of thing is best left to the NES/SNES era.

@Doomcrow Me too always found that infuriating.

Lool. Imagine being mad about this. While I agree that fall damage should still be a thing, Im totally fine with this article.

Fun read. I do disagree however, although I see your point is also very light in the way it’s written. I guess it must be different from Game to Game, because they have to balance the fun and the hurt and sometimes it’s important that actions have consequences. It can create just the amount of tension needed to celebrate when you don’t fall.

how much fall damage did this article take?

I disagree, I like some realism.

Strongly disagree. Giving the player too many handicaps, bordering on cheat mode, just diminishes the risk/reward factor, which in return makes the game less fun and engaging.

A large part of the fun in games with fall damage is planning your way around them. In Mario 64 for example, the Tick Tock Clock level was very tense because even one missed jump could lead to your doom, even if you landed on the floor, so you were more incentivized to time your jumps carefully. Mario Odyssey pretty much doing away with the risk of falling entirely, just made it less engaging since there was virtually no punishment for messing up.

Its good to have a little fire under the feet of the player, I'm not saying every game has to be Dark Souls, but doing away with risks and punishments entirely just creates diminishing returns imho.

Yeah, no. All X should be Y is just universally a bad take regardless of topic.

All it is says is that everyone needs to cater to my specific tastes and desires. Complete rubbish.

It's cool if you hate fall damage.

It's also cool if developers think it adds value to their game and has a place in their design.

The idea that "every" game needs literally anything is just a silly and kind of selfish one. It's also needlessly limiting and prosciptive. You can't innovate if you're all following the exact same mandatory design notes.

@AlanaHagues Great article as always. Always an ongoing subject. This is why I like setting sliders to turn off damage or unlockable god modes.

Personally I'm tired of popular games coalescing to the point where they all have the same mechanics, same controls, same possible actions. I want things to be different, and I want unique experiences. There's almost nothing in any game that I think should be in every game. If a game designer's vision for a game necessitates a certain mechanic, then I hope they can achieve their vision!

Such a poor article, mainly when you have actually played Tears of the Kingdom, and know there is an armor that negates fall damage no matter the height!

"The glide set cancels fall damage so it doesn't matter in TotK," except in order to get that you have to have progressed fairly far into the game - reached and completed all three of the diving challenges, unlocked multiple great fairy fountains, and upgraded all of the pieces twice.

A bit like saying getting one-hit killed in the early going isn't a problem because you can just complete all the shrines and upgrade your heart containers until most enemies don't one-hit kill you any longer.

I like it in Zelda, hate it in Arceus.

If you want to cancel fall damage in TotK just upgrade the glide set. Otherwise it wouldn't be good. The physics of the game exists in order to make the world believable.