Hollow Ponds

Death-Themed Games and Playing the "Good Death"

This research examines how "death-themed games" – those designed to encourage reflection on death, dying, and grief – intersect with the concept of a "good death."

• Heather Maycock's paper examines death-themed video games, which encourage players to reflect on death, dying, and grief rather than treating death only as punishment or a mechanical feedback loop.
• The paper argues that death-themed games, though often presented as humane and empathetic, can encode particular cultural values, particularly the dominant twenty-first-century Anglosphere model of the "good death" originating in palliative care.
• That dominant model emphasises individualism and the dying person's control over timing, place, symptoms, and activities.