One of the things that make video games different from other media, is that you can often control what happens in the story. Sometimes the best games are ones that leave tough yet memorable choices with you.
Sometimes that choice will haunt you for a long time, other times you’ll hate the outcome so much, you’ll play again just to have things happen differently. These ten games have some of the toughest choices of all.
10
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The entire Witcher series is known for the tough, morally-gray decisions protagonist Geralt of Rivia has to make in his adventures. The first game is renowned for how it distanced the consequences of your actions from when you made the decision, so that you’d only find out hours later that your decision had led to disaster. Too long ago to reload a save and make a different choice.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is undoubtedly the best of the series so far, especially if you include the two fabulous DLC add-ons, which are meaty campaigns in their own right. In the hundreds of hours you’ll play through it all, you’ll have to make choices about who lives, who dies, who is betrayed, and who to support. Often with the choice being between bad and worse. Rather than right or wrong.
9
Mass Effect Trilogy
Mass Effect completely rewrote what a video game RPG can be when it first arrived on the Xbox 360. I remember seeing it for the first time at a friend’s house and thinking it was like playing an episode of Star Trek—moral choices and all.
The story spans three games, and some of the choices you make in one game carry over to the other titles. What’s particularly hard in Mass Effect is that you grow quite attached to the various characters, and if you don’t make the right choices, some of those friends won’t make it to the end of the journey—picture above very related.
8
Undertale
In most games we mow down our enemies without sparing a thought for the morality of your actions, but Undertale is a different experience entirely. It lets you kill or spare “enemies” as you wish, and there are various choices to make throughout the game, but in the end almost everything you do holds moral weight, and the game totally judges you for it.
7
Papers, Please
Papers, Please is one of the most effective ways I have ever seen to help people understand how corruption spreads, how people will do reprehensible things if ordered to do it, and how it’s hard to balance your own safety and happiness with those of others.
You play a border agent of a fictional Eastern Bloc country with a government that keeps imposing more and more draconian rules. With branching endings, and a creeping, relentless sense of dread, this one will give you plenty to feel guilty about.
6
Disco Elysium
Man, Disco Elysium is just one of the weirdest games I’ve ever played. I’ve yet to actually finish it, mind you, but so far it’s clear that this strange post-modern, philosophical detective RPG is pretty much all about choice. Or the illusion of choice. Maybe it’s about finding both your shoes and laying off the alcohol long enough to do your job. I have no idea, but it’s a hell of a trip and you’re in control of where this party is heading.
5
Detroit: Become Human
Quantic Dream has a long history of making “games” that are really just interactive movies with quick-time events so that you have some modicum of interactivity, but there isn’t really any actual gameplay.
Don’t let that scare you off though, because as interactive movie adventures, they tend to be pretty engrossing. Detroit: Become Human is without a doubt their best one yet. Not only is this title absolutely gorgeous, even on the dusty old PlayStation 4, the near-future world they’ve crafted with humanoid robots serving our every need is good enough to stand with the likes of Blade Runner. As for making hard choices, every Quantic Dream title is basically nothing but a series of hard choices, most of which lead you down a path you didn’t want to go. I love it!
4
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
This is my second-favorite Fire Emblem game next to Awakening, but while that 3DS title is pretty linear, Three Houses asks you to make a big choice at the end of the first part of the game that will send you down one of four paths. Here you can see my save files, where it took over 130 hours to complete all four routes.
Not everyone has the patience to play through the same game four times as I did though, so if you’re only going to make this choice once, the you’re choosing which characters become your enemy in the second part of the game, and you may even have to end up harming them in some way.
3
Life Is Strange Series
“Life Is Strange: True Colors”
This is another series of adventure narrative “games” that actually focus entirely on choices and their consequences. In Life Is Strange your character can rewind time and make new decisions based on their knowledge of the future.
Every choice you make has an effect. Sometimes the short-term effect seems positive, but the long-term ripples are not. In other cases, it seems no matter how much you try to change things, some futures are just inevitable. Bring the Kleenex for this one.
2
Baldur’s Gate 3
Tabletop RPGs are all about freedom of choice, and the infinite ways those choices can affect things. Baldur’s Gate 3 is probably the most comprehensive and extensive attempt at bringing the experience of a tabletop dungeon-crawl to video games, and it seems as if developer Larian has anticipated almost every single choice that players can make and how they interact.
Some choices are funny or of little consequence, but there are so many choices you can make that utterly transform the game, or really cause pain and anguish for some characters. Often inadvertently. I strongly recommend that you don’t save-scum for this one.
1
Dragon Age: Origins
In classic BioWare fashion, Origins puts you in a world full of warring factions, ethical dilemmas, and political landmines. Every origin story starts differently, but no matter your background, you’re asked to make choices that alter the course of Ferelden’s future.
From letting an ally sacrifice themselves for the greater good to deciding who becomes king, the game ensures you can’t please everyone—and living with the fallout is part of the appeal.
If you feel that you don’t get enough responsibility in real life, why not pick up one of these games and experience what it feels like to have someone’s fate hanging in the balance, depending on what you choose to do next? Fun!