Documenting Drowning in Video Games Is This Person's Quest

Have you ever wanted to watch a bunch of video game characters drown? Well, now you can do a whole bunch of that on YouTube, thanks to Mikhail Emmerich (aka Dextorin), who has documented nearly 80 instances of video game characters drowning.

Emmerich has been dedicated to archiving the underwater deaths for more than two years now, and he's collected them from games like Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64 to The Witcher 3 and World of Warcraft. The committed YouTuber shows the entire process: from diving into water, right up to the character suffocating.

GameSpot got the opportunity to talk to Emmerich about why he decided to archive video games' drowning animations and how it wasn't his original intent to dedicate an entire channel to aquatic asphyxiation.

"To be honest, I had no intention of having it turn into what it did," Emmerich said. "What started with a buddy and I screwing around with a capture card, suddenly turned into a channel where I was getting requests. One video turned into five, and then ten... next thing I know it is nearing 80. Much to the collective 'WTF' of the internet, as I am now finding out.

"And let's be honest, these are the kinds of scenes we all dread when playing games, so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise!"

Emmerich says he gets about two to three drowning animation requests a week--that adds up over the years. He notes that channels like GameOverContinue, which focuses on game over screens, exist, so the interest in specific video game animations doesn't surprise him.

As for Emmerich's future plans, he imagines that he'll continue his work of archiving these animations. He's received requests to cover other death animations, though he's adamant in sticking to drowning.

"I guess you can say the 'end goal' would indeed be to archive every single drowning animation in every single game," he said. "A lofty goal, and perhaps somewhat silly, but that would be the aim."

Emmerich isn't the first person to document drowning in video games. YouTube series Let's Drown not only shows drowning animations, it features all water-related deaths, including Aladdin falling into water and Terraria's pixelated gore explosion.