See also Death Skills
In the World of the Living Dead, death is never the end of a player's journey, though it should always be their primary fear.
A survivor being reported as dead. Notice that they first had to go through the two stages of injury.
Survivors are not immortal. They are not multi-gun wielding Rambos that can take on anything and everything. They have limits, and when reached, they can and will die.
Factors[]
The death of a survivor can be caused by various things. Firstly, injuries are the only straight forward cause of death. However, injuries in turn occur from the various factors that lead to them, and then death.
The first is fear. Each survivor has a fear level, shown as a percentage. When your fear goes up, your survivor become more prone to injuries, whether it's by flesh-hungry zombies or getting jumpy and hurting themself. Another factor in survivor death is fatigue. If not in any safehouses, your survivors are more than likely to tire.
The details of a survivor and the area they were in before they died. This helps player's know what went wrong.
Also shown as a percentage, fatigue is always something to keep an eye on, as it is constantly going up. When a survivor or entire squad is 100% fatigued, a mad dash to the nearest safehouse is recommended. Otherwise, injuries are very likely to occur, and death following suit.
Another reason for survivors kicking the bucket is z-density. This is a big one. Not only does z-density affect the danger of an area, but it also increases fatigue and fear simultaneously.
Thirst and Hunger[]
Failing to keep a survivor supplied will result in their death. Any survivor who's thirst or hunger level reaches 100% will die the next day unless they are fully supplied with their food and drink needs.
After-affects[]
When a survivor dies, their profile is gone forever. That means all their personal text, information, and such, all disappear. Their items however, do not. When a survivor dies, all objects they were carrying are dropped on the ground. A new marker is created, stating that somebody on that point of the map has died, and their items are still there. That area where they died becomes a temporary location, in which the lost items will show up at the inventory screen. This means you can take back items you lost upon a survivor's death. However, you'd better do it fast, as anybody else can see the new location of a dead survivor's items, and they could very well get to them before you do.
If a survivor dies and he/she has no items on their person at all, a location will not be created.
Upon any survivor's death, many of the Survival Points invested into that specific survivor are lost.
Complete death[]
If the worst occurs, you can end up losing every single one of your survivors. For lack of a better term, this is called "complete death". In complete death, all squads are empty, the survivors lying dead in the streets for whatever reason. The World of the Living Dead has won. What now?
When the last of your survivors die, you'll probably be able to tell. Your map will be updated, and in the middle will be a notification stating SCUGS will give you new survivors so you can start off again. This comes at a price. The only things you can keep from the previous survivors are infocards, and a little bit of the Survival Pointsthat you spent during your time with them. Also, you have to wait 3 minutes until you can get a new squad of starting survivors.
When this happens, there's nothing you can do but restart. It'll be tough rebuilding a squad of survivors, but that's life in the World of the Living Dead.