Reaching a particular point in Fallout 4 recently made me think more generally about the choices made in other games, and the effect they have on both the plot and me. Me as in, actually me, not just my avatar.
For the most part, decisions in games were, until relatively recently, minor and mostly plot-irrelevant. Which route Sonic took through a level. Which members you chose for your RPG party. That sort of thing. However, in the last five to ten years real world changing choices have been much more commonplace. Of course, there have been choice-based games for decades, but around this time the outcomes started to have more impact and emotion.One of the first games I recall having this level of decision making as a core element was Knights of the Old Republic. The story (spoilers, sorry) centres around how you’re a guy (or girl, I think – you’ve the option) in the Star Wars universe who is suffering from amnesia. In your quest to find out who you are, and defeat the evil Darth Malak, it is clear your fate is somehow linked to the death of Sith Dark Lord Revan, Malak’s master. As the story progresses and you build a party of allies, you are able to complete missions in both “light” and “dark” ways, and even each of your friends is aligned in some way to good or evil.
Ultimately, as you reach the finale, you realise that the reason you can’t remember who you are is because you are, in fact, Dark Lord Revan himself. Reprogrammed by the Jedi to be a force for good, but his actual actions and allegiance decided by you, the player.
Being good or bad is a pretty simple way of offering clear choices to players, so it isn’t surprising that it’s how many of these games implemented it. Obscure Sega God-sim Doshin the Giant gave you the choice of either being nice to the islanders, flattening land for them for example, for them to worship you with love. Or, you could handslap them all into oblivion and become Doshin’s evil alter-ego Jashin – who is worshipped with fear.
More recently, choices in some games have become much less black and white. Sometimes the “bad” decision might be necessary to get the “good” outcome. Sometimes all the options appear equally good or bad but have unforeseen opposing outcomes. Other times it’s not clear.
In Fallout New Vegas, there are two main factions: the NCR and Caesar’s Legion. At some point in the game you are forced to make a choice between the two, or strike out against both. By broad definition, the NCR are the good guys and the Legion are the bad guys, but it’s not quite so clear cut when you actually get to know them. Still, as I generally try to play as a goodie when given the option, it wasn’t difficult to choose the NCR and decimate Caesar’s army. I went back to an earlier save later though, to see the other possible endings.
Fallout 4 has a similar setup, with two main factions – The Railroad and The Institute. The plot goes that The Institute are building an underground utopia for the good of mankind (well, the subsection of mankind they consist of, at least) and are creating android human replacements, called synths, to act as their labourers. The Railroad are committed to helping those synths who want their own lives, and find new identities for any that escape The Institute.
It raises moral questions. Should synths have human rights? Are The Railroad right to endanger humans in the quest to liberate synths? Why can’t we all just be friends?
Things are complicated as it is discovered that The Institute is actively kidnapping humans and replacing them with synth clones. It seems some of these clones may not even be aware they are synths. If they’re not, does that matter? Then there’s some (spoiler!) family loyalty to consider between your protagonist and the director of The Institute.
And what about the less important (plot wise) groups in the game – the Brotherhood of Steel and the Minutemen. Each seems “good” and noble in their own way, but their ideals conflict with each other and both The Institute and The Railroad, and not always in obvious ways.
Here lies my difficulty with some games like this now. Indecision. I reached the point recently where I had to decide between The Institute and the Brotherhood. Until then, I was still toeing the line for all Commonwealth Wasteland parties, but in order to progress the story I had to make a decision. I chose Institute solely because I’ve barely invested any time with the Brotherhood, but I still regretted essentially declaring war on what, on the face of it, are a relatively good faction. Maybe if I’d got to know them better that may have changed my opinion.
Which is part of the problem I’m having. Even if my decisions appear to be aligned with my intended moral direction, I can never be sure I won’t uncover something that that will make me regret it. Or, worse, all possible choices are against my will. I’ll agonise over outcomes, reload saves to check alternatives, and self-hate a bit because I couldn’t do exactly what I want.
This is currently building to “what the hell am I going to do” regarding choosing Institute or Railroad. The Railroad seems to be the “correct” selection as they’re freedom fighters, underdogs, and appear to be morally good. But the Institute are perhaps the best choice to create a new Eden in the Wasteland, and if (under my leadership) I could share their skills it could rebuild society. I don’t know what to do.
The best recent example of decision based gameplay is, of course, Life is Strange. I’ve already written a lot about that game, so am not going to repeat here, but the entire series is filled with decisions. Simple, possibly meaningless ones (water a plant or not?) through minor ones that don’t necessarily affect the story but do affect how you’re perceived (who do you blame for Kate’s suicide attempt?), to the Ultimate Decision right at the end.
So much agonising in that game, and so few of the options are clear cut. There’s frequently no way of telling, at the time, if a choice is game changing or irrelevant. I genuinely worried, in real actual life, about the possible knock-on effects of what I’d decided to do. No game had affected me this way before, and it was interesting to look at myself and how I tackled it. I think, in the end, I was happy with the major choices I made but it wasn’t exactly what I’d envisioned.
It’s a new world of grey vagueness. It’s more clever that before, more engrossing, and more emotional. But so much harder to deal with. I’m really interested to see the direction this trend goes, though. Hopefully towards ever more granular choice, becoming more realistic on the way.
