Why is it so fun when a video game throws a nail-biting narrative decision at you? There’s something about that feeling of hopelessness; not that you can’t make the right choice, but that there’s no way to figure out what the “right” choice is before you make it. It feels more like real life, where you just need to make a decision and hope for the best.
Great Games Where Your Decisions Truly Matter
The following games stand out for forcing players to make tough decisions that can drastically change the story.
In the case of these next games, that’s not so easy. Sure, you can make a careless decision and see how it plays out — that’s the consequence-free beauty of video games — but if you’re fully invested in these games and their stories, then these decisions are going to make you very uncomfortable as you grapple with the potential fallout of making the wrong call in a crucial moment.
Blow Up The Shuttle – Prey (2017)
They Might Be Mimics, But They Might Not Be
For a non-essential side quest in Prey (2017), “Shuttle Advent” sure does push you to make a tough choice. The worst part is, you’ll never know if you made the right choice or not, although there is a hint for those players who are clever enough to spot it. A space shuttle has departed the Talos I station and is headed for Earth. It claims to be transporting a crew of humans to safety, humans that you helped save, but Talos was unable to fully scan the ship before it took off. You know that those humans could be Typhon, the alien threat that has boarded Talos I and can imitate anything from coffee cups to real people.
You have a choice: let the shuttle land, or blow it up. Obviously, the cold-tactician solution is to blow it up because the risk of letting aliens loose on Earth is too great, but morally, can you bring yourself to do it without knowing for sure that those people aren’t real humans? However, you may notice that the Do No Harm trophy in Prey, which requires you to beat the game without killing humans, can still be unlocked even if you blow up the shuttle. That’s about all the reassurance you get that you made the right call, and you’ll only get it long after you made your choice.
Save Wyatt Or Fergus – Wolfenstein: The New Order
You Just Met These People; Now Choose Which One Dies
In Wolfenstein: The New Order, you’ve barely met Fergus and Wyatt before you’re asked to choose which one of them dies at the hands of General Deathshead. You’re given just enough time to start to like both of them, and then you’re looped into an impossible choice with only one escape: choose one to die and one to live.
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The crazy part is that this decision has a significant impact on the rest of the game, determining whether you receive more Health or Armor upgrades, as well as granting access to some closed-off doors while preventing you from ever accessing others. What’s more, this is a decision that will impact not just the rest of The New Order, but will ripple into Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus as well, and you have to make this call during the game’s first mission.
Release Or Destroy The Tree Spirit – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
This Thing Talks A Good Game, But It Looks Terrifying
The town of Downwarren is plagued by an evil spirit living in the Whispering Hillock that turns the local animals against them, killing many a citizen and making the rest live in fear. In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Geralt comes to the rescue. He investigates the events and discovers the spirit of an ancient druidess trapped in a tree. When he speaks to it, the spirit begs Geralt to set it free, and in exchange, it will rescue the orphaned children held captive by the Crones of Crookback Bog.
However, this tree spirit looks… freaky. It’s all thorny and misshapen, and something about the way it speaks feels off. It professes altruism, but who in this world is truly selfless? You can either kill the spirit or set it free, but neither outcome is particularly good. If you free the spirit, it will keep its word, in turn freeing the orphans from the Crones. However, the spirit will then slaughter every person in Downwarren, as well as the Bloody Baron and his wife, Anna. If you kill the spirit, though, then you’ll never see those orphaned children again.
Save Chloe Or Arcadia Bay – Life Is Strange
Do You Feel Like A Hero?
Right from the beginning of Life is Strange, Max is having visions of a massive storm wiping out Arcadia Bay, her hometown. Max has the power to travel through time, but this storm is a whole other beast, and she has no idea how to stop it. It turns out that this storm is a very literal butterfly effect, and Max has a way to stop it, but at a cost.
That cost is Chloe, Max’s best friend and the person she’s been trying to reconnect with throughout the game. There is a moment in Episode 1 where Max saves Chloe from getting shot by Nathan. This choice ripples through the rest of the game, eventually resulting in the storm. Therefore, you can do one of two things: send Max back in time and make sure Nathan shoots and kills Chloe, or let the storm destroy Arcadia Bay. There is no right answer here, no good ending. Episode 5 makes a compelling case for why letting Arcadia Bay go isn’t as bad a decision as you might think. Still, choosing Chloe over the lives of thousands is an undeniably selfish act. It’s really a matter of whether you want Max to be happy or to do the right thing.
Fire Sonar Or Coupe – Dispatch
This Has Supervillain Origin Story Written All Over It
It feels weird when Dispatch thrusts you into a mid-level managerial role while you try to corral a group of unruly reformed villains into some semblance of a superhero team. That includes admonishing them and, to make sure they know that they don’t have carte blanche to do whatever they like, firing one of them, whoever is performing the worst.
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For a while, it seems like that person will be Invisigal, but at the last moment, she pulls off a tough job and climbs the team ranks. That leaves two Z-Team members tied for last place, Coupe and Sonar, and you have to pick one of them to cut loose. It’s a tough choice for several reasons. One, they both bring something to the team. Sure, they may not be top performers, but they can both fly. Sonar is both charismatic and powerful (depending on whether he’s in bat form or human form), and Coupe is fast and deadly. Coupe just has this vibe that they may still be a bit evil, while Sonar is… well, kind of an idiot. Regardless of who you pick, it’s impossible to shake the feeling that, without the Z-Team, they’ll go right back to villainy. Sure enough, come Episode 5, that’s exactly what happens.
Spare Or Kill Lord Shimura – Ghost Of Tsushima
How Far Do You Stray From The Code?
Jin Sakai’s struggle with maintaining or casting off the samurai code is a prominent theme throughout Ghost of Tsushima. He employs tactics that fly in the face of that code (such as stealth and deception), but he also tries to fight with honor, because that sets him apart from the Mongolian invaders who are trying to conquer his homeland. This internal struggle comes to a head following Jin’s final confrontation with his uncle, Lord Shimura.
After defeating his former master, Jin has two choices: kill Shimura, upholding the samurai code and giving him an honorable death, or spare his uncle and embrace his Ghost persona. While it dictates what ending you get, this choice really boils down to how you view Jin as a character. Was his intention to return to being a samurai once the fighting was over? Or did he stray too far to ever return to his old self? It’s a crisis of conscience more than a struggle with potential outcomes, but it perfectly captures the theme of the entire game in one last gut-wrenching decision.
Who Becomes A Mind Flayer – Baldur’s Gate 3
Someone You Love Will Never Be The Same
For the grand finale of Baldur’s Gate 3, your job is to defeat (or take control of) the Netherbrain. However, doing this requires someone to turn into a Mind Flayer, one of the tentacled eldritch creatures who put the worm in your brain in the first place. You are given all kinds of options for who you sacrifice for this duty, but none of the choices feel particularly “right.”
You can try to save Karlach from her exploding heart by making her do it, but becoming a Mind Flayer effectively kills the original person, with the Mind Flayer simply imitating the previous person’s personality. The same goes for Astarion. This doesn’t feel like a very good outcome. You can make Orpheus sacrifice himself, but he’s on the verge of leading a Githyanki rebellion against the god Vlaakith. You can get the Emperor to do it, effectively sparing your entire party, but do you really trust him after all the lying he’s done? Or you can do it yourself, turning your character into a Mind Flayer and sparing everyone else. This isn’t just an agonizing choice because of how many options you have, but because you have to give up someone you’ve grown close to over Baldur’s Gate 3’s lengthy campaign. Sacrificing any of these characters feels wrong, but sacrificing them to a fate this ugly is an awful dilemma that’s impossible to grapple with.
Shooting Hugo – A Plague Tale: Requiem
Is There No Other Way?
Hugo’s life in the A Plague Tale series is just one tragedy after another. First he loses his parents, then his illness manifests as the ability to control the swarms of rats that are taking over France. He and his sister flee to a far-off island to try and keep him safe, only for the rulers of that island to kidnap him. Unfortunately, during that kidnapping, Hugo thinks his sister, Amicia, was killed, and when he loses all hope of being rescued, he goes off like a bomb.
The good news is that Amicia isn’t dead. The bad news is that, by the time she makes her way back to Hugo, it’s too late. He’s too far gone, has destroyed the city of Marseille, and has surrounded himself with literal tidal waves of deadly rats. Amicia can’t get through to him, can’t even get close enough for him to hear her, but she can get within slingshot range. She can at least save Hugo by ending his misery. The sad part is that there’s no way out of killing Hugo here. You either make Amicia do it or stand down and make Lucas do it for you. No matter what choice you make, A Plague Tale: Requiem ensures that you’re in for one of the most depressing video game endings ever.
Verso Or Maelle – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
One Last Selfish Act
Given the brutal gut-punch moments that happen throughout Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, it feels inevitable that there’s one more coming at the end. Sure enough, when Verso finds his way into the heart of the canvas, and Maelle follows, that’s exactly what you get. There, Verso finds the piece of the real Verso’s soul that is holding the canvas together and keeping painted Verso trapped there. He wants to destroy the canvas and end his life, but the canvas is Maelle’s only connection to her dead brother, and she’s desperate to preserve it.
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In the end, you have to pick which character you’re going to side with, resulting in the “death” of the other. Choosing Verso also means killing Verso, along with every other painted character you’ve grown close to throughout the campaign, while sending Maelle back to a life of pain, loneliness, and grief. Choosing Maelle means preserving a false reality that lets her hide from her grief. She brings everyone back to life and controls the canvas as she sees fit, but Verso is trapped there forever, performing eternal piano concerts for his sister and her friends. There’s no true “good” ending here; it’s just a matter of which character you feel deserves to be selfish in this instance. Your choice will affect so many things that it feels almost impossible to consider everything, or to feel completely happy with what you pick.
Fighting Alexander – Elden Ring
The Great Alexander Lived As A Warrior To His Last
This one really hurts. There aren’t many truly “good” characters in Elden Ring, but Alexander is definitely one of them. He’s a noble Jar warrior who wants nothing more than to be a hero. That’s what all the Jars want, but Alexander actually lives up to the title. He’s strong, gifted in battle, and will defend his friends at all costs. The only issue is that, because he’s so big, he keeps getting stuck.
Naturally, you want to help him, so you get him out of these situations time and time again. In return, Alexander helps you in the fight against Radahn. He continues to appear throughout the majority of your journey until you finally encounter him in Crumbling Farum Azula. Here, Alexander admits that he sees you as a formidable warrior, one of the few he considers an equal. Then, he challenges you to a duel. You don’t technically have to fight him, but it’s the only way to finish his questline. Defeating him brings no satisfaction, either. Alexander was one of the few great heroes who still exist in The Lands Between, and you just struck him down. The sad part is that your only other choice is to shun him and disrespect him as a warrior. No matter how much it hurts, there’s really no choice here at all.
8 Player Choices That Completely Change The Game’s Story
The following games feature tough choices that will significantly alter their stories.
