Do your Choices Matter in Games? My Experience with Narrative Games.

We all make choices every day, mostly small and unimportant ones, but they still do often feel important. What am I going to have for tea tonight, what games am I going to play, that kind of stuff! Not everything we have to decide on is going to be life changing. I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t often find myself sweating much of the small stuff, it’s often out of my mind as soon as I’ve made those kinds of decisions. Although the same can’t be said for when I’m sitting down to play a game as the choices, we can make in those are as infinite and complex as they come. Whilst Commander Shepard debates the fate of the galaxy and the dwindling human race, I’m deciding what outfit to wear out today. You tell me which is the more important decision! Whilst our lives may be full of choices that we often don’t dwell on. The many choices and locales that gaming offer are far more interesting and polarising. This very much depends on what game you choose to play; you’re not going to have many moral quandaries over a game of FIFA, but playing indie favourite Disco Elysium is a totally different ball game. Even when a game does offer choices to their players, it isn’t always presented in the same way, with some games being totally defined by their choices, whilst others may have only minor or even invisible elements that reflect player choice. I’ve tried to break these choice-based games down into 3 separate categories to make looking over them easier. It’s worth noting also that I won’t outright be discussing endgame spoilers, I will be touching on major decisions in said games.

So, I’ll break up the games I’m going to discuss into three sections, starting with what I have dubbed ‘All the Choices’ consisting of the games whose mechanics and gameplay hinge on solely the narrative experience. The next level is ‘The Game Changing Choices’ that are more well-rounded game, with a happier medium of gameplay and narrative choices. And finally, the last echelon of morality-based choices is ‘The Invisible Choices’ with games that perhaps you weren’t aware had hidden choices that help shape the ending of the game.

Games of Choice:

• Telltale’s The Walking Dead

• The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt

• Mass Effect 2

• Metro 2033/Last Light
  

All The Choices: The Tell-Tale Saga.

For a purely narrative game experience, you need look no further than many of the works from the now infamous studio Telltale. It was a shame to hear when the studio went under several years ago, but I hope the upcoming Expanse game is enough to set them back on top. My familiarity with the game’s studio began with the Walking Dead series in 2012 based on the works of Robert Kirkman. Whilst by no means its only popular game, I believe the world of the walking dead and the zombie apocalypse offers the most dramatic and divisive choices unlike some of the other games. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the games I do recommend you play all the episodes. It follows the story of an imprisoned man named Lee Everett on his journey to prison as the zombie apocalypse begins to kick off. He meets many new survivors, most notably a young girl who he is determined to care for until they find her parents. Honestly it is not only a rollercoaster of action and moral choices, but also an emotional journey between the two of them.

The core gameplay of all the Telltale games is light point and click elements, as well as some basic puzzles to break up the dialogue and cutscenes. The bulk of the game is deciding on certain dialogue choices, as well as making 5 important choices that shift the story that the game recognises. The game employs both stats at the end of the episode to charter how each player made the decisions, to see if you fall into the minority or majority of popularity. Unfortunately, upon reflection after a second playthrough, it often became the case that decisions that I had placed emphasis on earlier turned out to have no affect at all and boiled down to the same responses. The downfall of these games for the uninitiated is the binary choices you find yourself being drawn down, and ultimately knowing that you are restricted to the game design. I’ll give an example, and I’ll reiterate if you haven’t played this game, I am about to spoil it. Nearing the end of the game, the player character is bitten and struggling with the effects of onset ‘zombification’. You then have the option to cut off your arm in a vain attempt to try and halt the infection and have your character live. As you may have already figured out or learned for yourself, the game and its design rigidity couldn’t allow for such a differing path, and so therefore despite your decision things will always end the same. But this is true for many narrative games, and the fun of the game isn’t always diminished with the knowledge of how it’s going to end. The Telltale games hold a special place in my heart, and I still play them regularly, but not often twice. The Game Changing Choices: The Witcher 3Will

Moving on, these are the games where the story is not necessarily, but not limited to, being at the forefront of gameplay. This I would argue this is by far a more common and popular option, as you’ll some kind of limited decision making/morale systems in most single player games. One of my personal favourite examples of this branch of gaming is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, heralded by many for its many accolades. I’d argue it is the perfect mix of what makes gaming great, brilliant gameplay, surprisingly impressive graphics, interesting and nuanced characters, and what we’re most interested in, diverse and important choices. I’ll introduce the game briefly for those who aren’t familiar with the works of Andrzej Sapkowski in his original novelisation of the series, or the character’s portray by the brilliant Henry Cavil. You play as Geralt of Rivia, a sort of supernatural mercenary who kills monsters for a living but has no respect. In this game, he is searching for a young girl he has grown fond of and must find her before a supernatural army known as the Wild Hunt catches up with her first. The beauty of this game I find is the fact that it will recognise decisions that you have made from previous games, meaning that decisions you could’ve made years ago will have a lasting impact on a totally new game. For instance, in the Witcher 2, you will be tasked with apprehending a rogue Witcher known as Letho. You have the option to either kill him or let him go, and in letting him go, you will have an entirely new quest with him and even more choices! There are many more smaller choices like this that enhance the world and reward players for taking interest and paying particular attention, but I’ll talk now on the end of the game. One of the largest endings of the game is defined a side quest that the player can either ignore completely or take part in to make their choice. This decides which army waring over the region wins, and again has no affect on the main story or even the endgame, but if you are a fan of the world and universe, has massive ramifications. What I’ll say about the Witcher 3, you get as much out of it as you want to put in. If you want to blast all the way through the story and just reach the end, of course you can do that. However, if you want to explore every nook and cranny and enjoy every side quest you can do that to. This is with every side quest being handled different, such as the monster contracts, with it often being the case that you can reach some other kind of verdict (e.g., discovering a tragic story of the monster). I could gush about the Witcher all day, but I will move onto another facet of this game and commonly in other RPGS as well.

One of the Witcher 3's more controversial choices, to put the baby in the oven or not...

Companionships and relationships are the bread and butter of modern RPGs, as you’ll be with this party of heroes and adventurers for hours at a time. However, sometimes these relationships can blossom into something deeper and more romantic. It’s not always the case, but I feel it does take another added level of choice and customisation and can help players feel more engaged in the game. The game I chose to speak about on this topic is the Mass Effect series, renown for not only it’

s incredible storytelling and characters, but also for the relationships you can form with almost every character across the trilogy. But before we go there, I wanted to mention about the choices offered in these games, and again there will be spoilers. I think some of the choices in these games have been some of the hardest

I’ve had to make, with a correct choice presenting itself very rarely. It’s worth mentioning that you as a character are trying to recruit an army and allied forces to fight a supernatural alien army reaching earth, and so you are caught between morality and trying to build forces to win. This draws me to the choice that was mo

st interesting to me, but it is going to take some explaining. So, over the course of the three games, you are introduced to a race of aliens known as the Krogan, a race that was rapidly reproducing and quickly being a waring race that some viewed as a present danger to the galaxy. This other race of creatures, who viewed themselves as above them, neutered their race so that they could no longer reproduce with

something known as the ‘Genophage’. This brings us to Mass Effect 3, where you are tasked with curing the Genophage and the Krogan race, but the Salarians offer you their support and fleet in fighting the upcoming war for sabotaging the cure for good. What would you do? I know what I did, cured the Krogans! But the interesting part of this game as well is (I know I keep saying that, but it genu

inely is) that the dialogue and character relationships differ by the decisions you make on the mission and who you bring. If you bring along yo

ur companion Rex (on this mission) and choose to betray his race, he will prove hostile and demonstrably hate you for the rest of the game. Moving back onto character relationships, you can maintain a partner over the whole series, with a multitude of choices. Whilst this is only really a couple of extra new cutscenes with this character, I feel it goes beyond anything material and just makes

a playthrough feel more real and immersive. I’ve played the game persona 5 verging on 5 times at this point, and I pick a new relationship every time (but can never bring myself to cheat on even a video game character).

The Choices Between Choices:

This section of games may not be the manner of games that you may immediately relate to the topics I’ve already spoken on. These types of choices are more nuanced and are not going to target the player directly, more secretly through other mechanics that inform these choices. I think it’s best if I give you an example. The Metro series is again originally a novelisation but was born again as a gam

e’s series. It follows life after the catastrophic nuclear event that forced the Russian people into the underground interconnected train stations. All that survived were radiated animals and a spectacular new supernatural threat known as the Dark Ones. Now what is most interesting about this game is the hidden morality system that not many players

even know about. Basically, there are numerou

s moments in the game where if you go partially out of your way you can do nice actions for the civilians. For instance, you can donate bullets (in world currency) to an old man or fetch a teddy bear for a youn

g girl. You will then see a white light flicker across your screen along with a small audio cue that you could easily miss. Another contributor to your morality meter is enemy encounters, as there are many times in the game when you can abstain from combat entirely and merely sneak by enemies. I believe in this instance can be a lot more effective and telling than simply granting the player a binary button choice

in how to tackle an encounter. The genre of first-person shooting presents more of a rash and aggressive strategy, but it takes far more skill and deliberate decisions to slip through some of these encounters without being noticed. After all, if they’re shooting at you or a threat to you why would you not shoot? The reward for a more altruistic approach is the canon ‘good’ ending where the player character spares the ‘Dark Ones’ and instead befriends them instead of the nuclear option of the bad ending. Now I can very much understand the argument of perhaps players weren’t aware of these choices, and perhaps had they known they would’ve been stealthier. I think this comes down to perhaps a break in the fundamentals of the game, and wrongly comparing it to other games where the same thing may not be possible. The excellence of the original and the two sequels, I would argue this would only encourage a second playthrough and a better appreciation for the series.

Here are the dark ones I mentioned earlier, pretty spooky right?

So, do our choices really matter when playing video games? Honestly, no they don’t really, and I think if you asked my mum, I think she’d say none of it matters at all. Firstly, little bit rude as this is what I spend my considerable time on, but secondly that’s just it! Sure, to a lot of people it’s not going to matter who you romanced in The Witcher 3, or which faction you chose in Fallout 4 but if it matters to you and you get joy out of it then no one can stop you! It’s the same reason why I still struggle with a renegade playthrough in Mass Effect, I feel bad for the way the characters feel despite the fact I know they don’t exist. Ultimately, don’t let anyone tell you something like that doesn’t matter if it matters to you. I mean if none of it matters, I’d have nothing to write about. It goes without saying as well that if choice based visual novel types of games aren’t your kind of bad and you just like shooting or puzzling or just cooperating with friends that’s all good too. I just hope they keep making games like the ones I’ve spoken about today, as I love the level of agency and immersion and seeing my choices have impact on the game I’m playing. It’s nice to make it feel like your own.