In Stalker GAMMA (survival version of Stalker where you have to assemble weapons and armor and even healing is not stightforward) you have various options related with death when starting the game. By default you just load a save. But also you can set 1,3,5 lives before perma death (=autdeletion of save files). You can also set that those lives pool regain by 1 every period of time (like 1,3,5,10days). So death is not as punishing but you can't abuse it either. You can also enable an Azazel mode where after death you spawn randomly in the body of very different existing Stalker. So theoretically you can regain access to your items from previous life (stashed ones but not body). But if you set your base in some camp (common practice) and new life faction is an enemy of your old faction then it could be hard or next to impossible.
So yeah there are plenty of options. Some people play with 1 life without regain - to get an achievement. But with so many threats and ways for insta death out of nowhere (mutants, anomalies, radiation, enemy factions, psycho storms, starvation/thirst and even insomnia) I can't imagine it as a fun. I always play with 3 lives with 1 life regained every 3 days
