Hey all!
I’d like to request recommendations (spoiler free!) for games where you need to make choices, take sides, kill or not kill someone, follow or do not follow orders, but where the consequences actually matter - and most importantly, where the choices aren’t “obviously good choice vs obviously bad choice”.
Give me games where I can choose to side with one kingdom or another, but there’s no clear moral high ground, or where I need to decide to save someone dear to me at the cost of innocent lives. I do not want things like “save all the children and get the happy ending and make flowers grow” versus “kill everybody and everything blows up and the world gets all its water replaced by acid”.
What games fit this requirement?
You must log in or register to comment.
Disco Elysium is a fantastic one. There are an insane amount of choices that shape how you go about the investigation of the hanged man and ultimately what happens beyond that investigation. Choices of who to side with, how to side (openly or playing multiple sides, etc.), choices that ultimately define what kind of detective you are (by-the-book boring, superstar douchebag, violent tough guy, Sherlock Holmes-esque genius, etc., including my favorite: Twin Peaks Lynchian detective that bases their decisions off of dreams, intuition and imaginary conversations with the dead body), and even how failing or succeeding at something can lead to progress in very different ways. If you fail to hit that person you tried to punch, or miss that shot with your gun, or utterly fail to convince someone to help you, you progress through in very different ways so that failing your way to the truth is just as satisfying and entertaining as succeeding your checks to get there.
And of course Fallout: New Vegas. Whether you choose to support the New California Republic, Caesar’s Legion, Mr. House, or a truly independent New Vegas, none of them are perfect. Each succeeds in an ideal society in some ways but completely fails at others, leaving you to decide which imperfect system you feel is the right one for the world instead of shoving an obvious answer in your face.
Or maybe I am some kind of supercop… 🤔
Disco: Elysium really is an absolutely fantastic game. Hard to describe how much it moved the goal post for these games.
I’m wildly surprised that no one has suggested “Papers, Please” yet.
Mani bet this plays fine on Steam Deck. I am going to fire this up today.
Papers please is so much fun.
For sure! Fun but also very heavy in its themes.
Every game on Steam that uses the publisher’s launcher.
The 3 series is the best at this.
The first game in the series is Mass Effect 3, which is followed by Witcher 3 and the sequel to that is Baldur’s Gate 3.
Can’t wait for the next one, I hear it’s gonna be called Half-Life 3.
If you like randomly made stories, you can try Rimworld.
You will quickly find yourself asking very difficult questions. Is taking on the cripple something you can afford to do? Is using medicine on a less valuable colonist smart? Do you let some of your colonists starve, or start a war with friendly neighbors? Cannibalism will make your neighbors hate you and some of your colonists might rebel over it, but that’s better than some of them starving… right?
I should play Rimworld one of these days. Always heard good things but just never got around it.
Disco elysium. Made me want to start it all over again several times.
And there’s a lot of things that are just up to chance too. My friend somehow managed to die to the ceiling fan in 2 separate runs.
It’s really easy to do, I died constantly at the beginning
Life is Strange (any of them, favorites are the 1st and True Colors. Both could be played without the other (separate stories)).
Mass Effect (I started with 2nd) is among the best imo.
Detroit Become Human
Heavy Rain - this one had my first immersed quick decision that I was like, “holy shit I just did that” and it made me question if I would’ve acted that way in real life given the scenario.
I’d also add Beyond: Two Souls to the list
Life is Strange hit me so hard. A content warning for people unfamiliar, but a core theme of the game is suicide. It comes at the topic a few times with different contexts that had me crying more than once. Highly recommended.
I made some shit ass choices on my first playthrough of ME2, during the final mission. Precious Tali took a bullet to the face because of it. I forced myself to live with it and made more sensible choices the next time around. I don’t believe I lost anyone the next time, but when it came to the Kaiden (accidentally called him Carth there for a moment) vs. Ashley, I definitely let Ashley go boom on that second playthrough and every consecutive time afterward as well. Kaiden is moody and a little annoying to have around, but at least he’s not a fucking dickhead like Ashley.
I love me some Mass Effect, but it’s less “choices matter” and more “illusion of choice”.
A good chunk of comments have spoilers, so if you read this first beware. I guess people like to brag about game knowledge more than they like having other people experiencing stuff.
Annnnnd now I close this post.
I’m a big fan of Tyranny by Obsidian Entertainment. Classic CRPG, isomorphic for the majority of it. The game starts with you making decisions that set the initial state of the world as you lead the army that finishes your evil overlord’s conquest of the world. Then the game truly starts and goes on to be one of my favourite CRPGs of all time.
The word you’re looking for there is ‘isometric.’
If you use Steam you can search on the category “Choices Matter” FYI
Frostpunk. That game gave me anxiety with the tough choices sometimes.
This War of Mine. Honestly can’t believe nobody else has mentioned it.
You play as a group of civilians in a war torn country. By day you craft things needed for survival like a stove for cooking, guns for protection, barricades to prevent raiders. At night you send one person with a backpack to scavenge an area of your choice for things like food, medicine, supplies etc. The others will either sleep or guard the property. Things you do while scavenging have real effects on your characters. Decided to rob an elderly couple? Your characters will react based on their personality.
Things become grim fast if you decide to start robbing supplies or get attacked. Your players get sick, become depressed, starve, get hurt etc. I’ve never made it to the end.
It’s a great way to understand the struggles of being a civilian in a war. The Polish government actually recommends it for educational purposes and the devs have donated a lot of proceeds to charities serving people impacted by war, including Ukraine most recently.
I was going to mention this game, +1.
Trying to desperately survive in a world that’s upside down, fighting the hopelessness and trying to survive just one more day and slowly realising the you’re just one day closer to death…
Man, it’s a really great game, but I can’t play it again anytime soon.
Deus Ex? The original one
Pathologic 2 - Stress Simulator, decide what to do with dwindling resources. Notoriously difficult.
Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You - The information you pass on, is going to really affect the story. A couple of times, I really felt conflicted about the decision.
This War of Mine - Do you rob innocent at the cost of your humanity or fight those bandits who are looting at the cost of your life
I’ll second This War of Mine. It draws from the experiences of civilians during the Siege of Sarajevo in the 90s. The choices are hard, and they have real consequence, and what you pick will haunt your dreams.
this war of mine is gold, Jerry gold even.
My favorite of all time for exactly this is Spec Ops: The Line. Its a third person shooter and really fun, but its main selling point is making super tough morally gray decisions. Still one of my favorite game stories ever. You can usually get it really cheap and its just perfect for what tou described.
Was also going to mention this! Love that game and have played it twice. I even remember two set pieces in the game like a movie and sometimes recant them to friends as if it were from a movie cuz they probably wouldn’t understand.
