Games are a funny thing. There are some where it feels
natural for enemies to respawn time after time, where mechanic and setting mesh
perfectly. Take Dark Souls, a game I love to talk about because it’s so
well-crafted. Within the setting, respawning enemies make sense on multiple
levels—many are hollowed Undead, and thus have the same Lazarus effect as the
player; in addition, the flow of time is distorted, which is essentially
“Magic, I ain’t gotta explain nuffin” but is still an answer. There are other games, however, where such jack-in-the-box
enemies don’t make sense at all. Two that spring to mind are Far Cry 2 and The
Witcher. Both are great games. But both have enemy respawns that border on the
nonsensical.
