We’ve talked about permadeath a lot before here. The key to making it work is that there should be enough interesting gameplay at the start that you’re having fun again immediately.
What jsnell mentioned sounds like they went with more of a progression roguelite design where you do the same stuff but slowly make progress in the metagame.
I don’t plan to play this. I just like to talk about it because I see progression roguelites as a failed design.