With the rise of open-world games more and more emphasis has been put on moral choices, and having players craft their own experience. Some of the most popular games of the last decade have been heavy on moral choices; Mass Effect, The Witcher 3, Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Fallout 3, and more.
Moral choice was a huge step forward for games, but over time they’ve become formulaic. Too often morality feels rote and forced in games, although some do it better than others.
For moral systems to advance in video games they need to become more complex, and games need to drop the way they section off content into specific moral paths.
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Games Need to Make Each Moral Path Equally Important
Typically in games with moral choice players are presented with good or evil options, or something along those iterations, such as the Paragon and Renegade options of Mass Effect. The cinematic designer of Mass Effect, John Ebenger, recently shared that 90 percent of players chose the Paragon option in the Mass Effect games. While this might seem initially surprising, games have always favored the good choice, and it makes sense why.
In stories, audiences always want to see the good guys prevail, and video games generally reflect this by making the “good” option the easier one. Choosing a good option generally comes with fewer consequences, as player’s characters are saving the day and trying to help everyone. Most players generally default to the good option and go back later to see the evil option. Another issue that compounds this is that games don’t always make it clear what the “evil” action will do. For example, a Paragon action in Mass Effect is always going to have a positive effect, but a Renegade option could result in many things, whether it’s as simple as insulting someone or punching a reporter in the face. It just isn’t clear what the consequences will be.
Perhaps a bigger issue is the simple fact that games separate decisions into these two opposed ideas. There’s a growing idea that games need to represent morality as shades of grey, rather than black and white. Titles like The Witcher 3 further this effort by trying to make each conflict not have a right or wrong answer, as well as consequences, but all too often the neutral path is ignored. Even with multiple moral options, games generally reward players for being good or evil. Take inFamous for example, as making moral choices rewards you with good or bad karma, which in turn unlocks new abilities and powers. The problem here is that great powers are locked away for players on either end, cordoning off gameplay based on your moral choices.
Video games need to make more of an effort to make any choice matter for players, and if they decide to go back and forth between good and evil, that should be represented, not discouraged. Things are seldom black and white, and for games to represent that properly there needs to be incentive across the board, whether the player wants to be good, evil, or anything in between.
Decisions In Games Don’t Always Need to Be Dramatic
Moral choices can shape the landscape of game worlds, even killing characters or entire races. Yet, choices don’t always need to be so dramatic or earth-shattering. Characterization is important for making huge decisions, but the smaller day-to-day decisions often have a bigger impact on fleshing out characters.
One series that excels at this is Life Is Strange, which is made up of a series of tough decisions, both big and small. For example, in the first episode of Life Is Strange 2, players have to decide if they’re going to have the main character, Sean, steal a candy bar out of an open window, to give to his hungry brother Daniel. It’s a small decision that can have lasting effects, especially in the way Daniel’s own morality develops, and how he views his brother. More importantly, however, it helps form a player’s opinions on what kind of character Sean is, but it can go either way. Sean might be seen as a caring brother trying to help his starving sibling, or a selfish protagonist only looking out for his interest.
Video games don’t always need to have high stakes for their decisions. Even games like Mass Effect or Grand Theft Auto could benefit from implementing smaller choices that really only matter to a character’s personality or a player’s conception of them.
