Damn near every game news website I visit is advertising some game about a couple, one of them is dead. Kind of like uncle Ben and aunt May, except the art style sucks in these indie studio games. First it was some game about a lumberjack and his dead wife, then I saw another ad for a game about some musician and his dead girlfriend. Then there are all advertisements for Silent Hill 2 which (since 2001) is of course about James Sunderland and his dead wife Mary.

Why are game studios following the same odd ass trend to make games about half dead couples?

I'm getting some Beetlejuice vibes from constantly seeing these game advertisements about dead people.

Am I the dead one?

Saw that too. Im assuming its just a trend people wanted to talk about or maybe since Chinese New Year just ended and the dead return during that period iirc (may be wrong there).

Games about loss is such a broad term though given that loss is a very common theme in many video games.
Even narrowing it down to just loss of a loved one and coping, it is a prominent theme with bad methods (God of War Greek trilogy, TLoU2) and good ones (Gris).

My concern with the topic has nothing to do with the timing of the Chinese New Year ending, hell I didn't even know that it was still going on. I also don't see anyone else talking about the trend anywhere at all, I looked it up and all I could find was weird psychology "journals" talking about grief processing through games and other weird psychoanalysis that were boring.

I was just wondering why are there is a sudden surge in new games (mostly from indie companies) that are about grief/loss and almost all of them are have the central couple with one of them being dead. The most recent big company produced game that comes to mind is the Senua Saga games.

I'm not sure to what degree it's a new trend. It's always just an easy starting point for some drama. Disney turned the main character having at least one dead parent almost into a running joke decades ago in their movies. For indie games slapping something like "a story about loss" onto their games is also probably an easy way to make it seem more profound and "artsy fartsy".

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLostLenore

The trope of the deceased love interest or other half is very very common and is one of the oldest tropes in the world. The timing of why you are seeing these articles could just be because journalists want some new theme to talk about to promote upcoming games.

Losing a loved one and the grieving process is a very common story trope and is quite prevalent in many game stories every year. God of War 2018 is about Kratos and Atreus getting over the death of the mother Faye with the story beginning with a journey to lay her ashes at the top of the mountain. Spiderman Miles Morales is about Miles getting over his dad's death along with becoming Superman and 2 emphasizing that rivalry with Mr. Negative as a result. The trope itself is not unusual in stories.

A handful of games among thousands of monthly releases do not constitute a trend...

Uh, some of the earliest games were about loss of a kind, be it a kingdom, self, or life in general.

Missing parents/unknown destiny?

I hear old uncle ShakySpear had a few of these tropes....pffft....tropes can never be good ;)

It's to get you ready for the unavoidable future. When loss hits you, it's heavy. And if you have no preparation for it, it can leave you broken.

Life hurts more than it makes you happy.

But that isn't really a new trend, is it?

Wasn't "To the Moon" (2011) at least similar in theme?
Or "Brothers: A Tale of two Sons" (2013)?

One title, that I'll probably never forget: "That Dragon, Cancer" (2016) - if only because, after reading about it (on RPS?/Polygon?), I thought to myself: "the parents have all my sympathies, but that I will never "play" this".

I'm just pointing out and wondering aloud about the sudden influx of games that focus solely on a lovey dovey pair with one half being dead. Yes the theme is common and has existed for years but there seems to be a huge spike in use of the theme in the past few months with several indie games having articles written about them and the title of the article/advertisement is always: "Insert Game Title Here: a story about loss."

Reminds me of how disney will have the MC either have a single parent or be an orphan. "fun times"? Some think we're all dead and this is either hell or purgatory. The near constant slew of indie games with washed out pastel colors and (meh quality) cat games gog releases lends a bit of credence to that theory.

This is the only time I have ever seen "artsy fartsy" used properly. Yee haw!

Perhaps the world did end in 2012, I have not felt alive since then. In Japan they marry dolls, pillows and holograms. Why am I no longer surprised anymore?

Ah, desensitization.