Summary
There are so many RPGs and especially JRPGs in the world of gaming that force players to confront difficult problems that may not have a clear solution. From simple decisions that only affect the game in minor ways to major choices that can lead to various different endings, there are many ways that players can be rewarded or punished for their choices in these games.
Related:Open-World Games With Unpredictable AI
Most of the games that offer such choices are open-world by nature, allowing players to affect and change the world as they see it throughout their journey can make for some of the very best gaming memories that players are left with.
7The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The Witcherfranchise has always tasked playerswith a series of important decisionsthey must make throughout each game, with each of the decisions having consequences later on.The Witcher 3does the best job of this, allowing players to choose a lot of things, from who they romance as Geralt to what choices they want to make canon from the secondWitchergame.
Geralt deals through both the main quest and side missions, choosing whether to spare cursed babies and whether to save the mages, with these decisions seeming obvious but having complexities in their consequences. Players even get to choose who will end up ruling the Northern Kingdoms if they wish, seeing the different problems that can arise from each type of leader being in charge.
One of the most morality-focused game franchises of all time, bothRed Dead Redemptiongameshad fascinating choices for the playersto make over the course of the runtime. Being a member of the Van Der Linde Gang presents near-constant moral dilemmas and players can end the story with Arthur Morgan being an honorable or horrible person.
There are many chances to help people throughout, and the poignancy of the endings, good or bad, leaves players with one of two tastes in their mouths regarding their actions. The moral complexities ofRed Dead Redemption 2are more in the story itself, narrative strength makes the challenge of doing evil things all the greater for most players, simply put, they genuinely are made to feel bad for choosing evil paths.
5Death Stranding
Death Strandingis a game that is totally focused on rebuilding and morality, more so than perhaps any game in history. One of the major messages of the game is that humanity will always find its way through hard times, which is a beautiful message to focus on for such a huge game.
There are a lot of surprisingly philosophical themes and ideas throughoutDeath Stranding, although the choices that players make don’t have as many actual consequences as in other games,since there is just one ending really. The story is told so specifically and with such vision, that it could hardly have ended in another fashion.
4Mass Effect
The fascinating thing about decisions that players make throughoutMass Effectis that they carry over, players who do something wrong can live with the guilt of that decision throughMass Effect 2andMass Effect 3, the entire trilogy continuing to bring up the choices made in various ways.
Related:Most Immersive Open-World GamesWhether players choose to recruit and make allies with various alien characters, for example, can affect their relationship with Shepard in later games. There are even some decisions, for example, waiting until more mission worlds have been completed in the first game before finding Liara, that players may not realize they’re making but which can affect her very sanity. It is crazy how many smaller consequences are felt throughout theMass Effecttrilogy.
3Infamous
Infamousis a fascinating game about morality, given that the player character starts out by receiving lightning-based superhero powers and has to constantly make choices over the course of the game about whether to behave more like a hero or a villain, affecting his standing in public, andit deserves to be remembered betterthan it has been.
People on the streets will react to every decision that players make for good or evil, the karma system being fairly regular and simple to navigate but prompting players to question how they would respond to gaining such powers for themselves, being forced into behaving responsibly in-game to answer the question of could they be equally responsible or destructive in real life.
2Vampyr
Vampyris another conundrum of a moral question, as the players take on the role of a recently turned vampire who is also a doctor. To play through the game, players generally will have to consume some blood, but in doing so, they break the doctor’s Hippocratic Oath not to harm anyone.
This dilemma is simple, as players simply shouldn’t eat people, but they are pretty much forced into doing so because of how much weaker the character will become if they choose to keep him hungry, reducing his powers and making the game hardly playable at times, and leavingmany thinking it could have been better.
1Fallout 4
All theFalloutgames have some level of choice and consequence, but some of the strangest and most surprising choices must be made over the course ofFallout 4. After the lone survivor makes their way out of the vault in search of their son, they make the incredible discovery that their son is now an old man, in charge of the very Institute that had taken him as an infant.
Among many fascinating choices throughoutside missions and minor moments out in the Wasteland, this leaves players with the horrible choice of engaging with the Institute and their shady activities that the rest of the world seems set against, or betraying the long-lost son they set out to search for in Sean. Filled with horrible dilemmas, even more so in theFar Harbor DLC,there is a great deal of incredible choice inFallout 4.
