Appreciate the comments pointing out other games that do this, this was never meant to be comprehensive and I have a few glaring omissions either because I was unfamiliar with the game or I just blanked it, but I’m glad to see all the excitement over the topic 😊👍🏼 let’s address the most common ones I’ve been seeing!

Undertale: I considered including it but decided to make a bigger video on it closer to the 10th anniversary. I 100% should have just double-dipped.

Shadow of Mordor/War: Admittedly a blind spot in my repertoire burning a hole in my backlog.

Borderlands: It was in the video until the day before I uploaded but in my research I found the writers don’t consider New-U stations as canon to the actual lore but it’s just a game mechanic themed to something that COULD make sense in the world.

I was unaware of the existence of Rain World and I just kind of brain-farted on putting Helldivers in there.

If there was ever a topic deserving of a part II down the line it’s this one!

Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order has a canon explanation too: since you respawn at a meditation point, everything you did since you last were at your respawn point is just a vision of the future you had.

Undertale's ENTIRE lore is you saying "nah, id win" until you make the god of hyperdeath give up and start crying.

KATANA ZERO uses the respawn mechanic in an intresting and perfectly canon way. You can predict the near future so when you play and die u see "this wont work" and need to redo all the action

I think my favorite is from Baldur's Gate 3.
Your adventuring party meets a spooky skeleton called "Withers", who is secretly actually a god of death.
He allows you to respawn your dead party members, and the reason he does so is because he just has personal beef with the antagonists of the game, and wants you to win.

The best example of this is the shadow of Mordor nemesis system, whenever an orc kills you, they either level up or become a captain and next time you see them they will react uniquely

A great example for the expendable mortality and dispensable respawn mechanic would have been Helldivers 2, it’s so cool how the reason you respawn is due to you being replaced by another diver, and every death is for the glory of super earth and for the “greater good” peak respawn mechanic.

Rain world is a perfect example of this. Rain world has "cycles" where when a creature dies,  it just wakes up in the last place it rested. Your whole goal for two of the three base campaigns is to break this cycle and ascend

he technically forgot detroit: become human in the view point of connor, after death coming back and it physically having effects on the game world

In lobotomy Corp, every mechanic is canon.

Restarts? The facility is under the effect of T Corp’s technology to let the Manager finish his mission even if things go wrong.

The HUD? That’s the information team working themselves to death getting you information. You have to UNLOCK basic hud information.

The artstyle? Filtering to reduce trauma.

Limbus company makes this a PLOTPOINT, literally its awesome.

Another example of this is Dead Cells. Whenever you die, the mush that is you, crawls out of it's body and finds a new one at the beginning of the game. This is because when you died, the mush lived and carried your mind, allowing you to live forever while inhabiting other bodies.

Project Zomboid also has that thing where when dying, you have to make a new character, you can even find your previous character and get all your shit back

The fact Shadow of Mordor isn’t mentioned in this video is baffling especially considering the main character respawning affects the game

The Borderlands series has an amazing respawn gimmick, in which your body is reanimated at the cost of money by Hyperion's New-U system. In Borderlands 2's most infamous side quest, the antagonist Handsome Jack tells you to kill yourself, and when you do, you're brought back to life by his own system and pays you Eridium for completing the side quest.

4:30 In gta if you hangout with another character and then get killed they’ll even text you and ask if you’re ok. It’s neat but subtle.

In Secret Level Sifu, Spelunky and New World episodes respawning in canon was used pretty effectively

god of war ragnorok’s valhalla DLC did great. Whenever you died you’d wake back up at the beginning because it was supposed to be a set up challenge for Kratos, and it was expected that he’d die.

Shadow of Mordor and shadow of war would’ve been good entries

0:44 SCOTT PILGRIM REFRENCE