oh come on, how many times are you gonna set up a comrade needing to be saved and then dying anyways after getting rescued. death games are fine but this is gratuitous emotional manipulation. worse, its boring and predictable. people say theres no stakes when theres no deaths in a story. it works the other way too. theres no stakes when no one ever survives. nothing is worth getting invested in, ever. the MC will make it and the cast will rotate out like theyre being served on a sushi conveyor belt, and they'll never matter.