The Illusion of Choice in Gaming
Yesterday I made a post about the seven story-based games I think everyone should play. This got me to thinking about how most RPGs are filled to the brim with choices that just don’t matter.
Please note that this post will contain spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Telltale’s A Game of Thrones, The Witcher 3: A Wild Hunt, and the original Mass Effect Trilogy.
sure, Jan.gif
"Your choices matter."
"Your choices will shape the world."
How many times have you heard those lines while watching an interview with one or another RPG developer? A lot of them use one or both of these phrases when talking about their game(s). BioWare is particularly guilty of using this as a selling point. Telltale and Bethesda, too, seem to love the idea that they have allowed players to pick and choose what happens, or how the game will end. Except your choices don't matter. At all. The ending is going to be, more than likely, the same no matter what you do.
Did you help as many people as you could in Dragon Age Inquisition? Did you spend time showing the world your new organization was actually making a difference? Too bad. You'll still end up being hated by upset nobles who sat on their asses during a crisis, and your fate will boil down to disband or become a puppet for the Chantry. Neither option is truly ground-breaking, and I imagine when Dragon Age 4 does eventually arrive it won't have mattered much what you chose to do. Just like siding with the Mages or Templars didn't seem to have any real effect on the world.
In Telltale’s A Game of Thrones you still get ambushed like a chump despite sparing the traitor's life and finding out the Whitehills' plans. Your home will be destroyed whether you poison Ludd Whitehill or not. Mira's story will come down to marrying a man she despises, or choosing death. This happens no matter what kind of decisions she made throughout the other episodes. It makes the time I chose to play it safe instead of charging ahead and forging Margaery's signature feel cheap and meaningless. Mira couldn't help her family, and she definitely couldn't help herself. Nothing you do matters in the end. The only say you really have is who lives and dies - Mira, Asher and Roderick's lives depend on what you choose, but again, you will never be able to save both Roderick and Asher even when going in with eyes wide open. While that seems like a large amount of control, everything else still plays out the same. Your choices will never matter despite how much developers like to wrap up their game in a pretty little bow with the word "choice" hanging above it in screaming neon.
It's the illusion of choice. Sure, maybe a decision will have a minor impact on the immediate story, but overall you're headed for the same destination. And I get it. I really do. It's hard to make a game that will have true consequences to the various decisions made. But to say it's impossible would be a lie as The Witcher 3 did an admirable job of making your choices have a true impact on the lives of the people around you, as well as the possible ending you could get. Not only were there variations to the ending, even sidequests could shape the outcome of the world around you. Killing Radovid wasn’t part of the main questline, but if you left him alive? Well, more than a few people would suffer for it and the game’s epilogue wasn’t afraid to let you know that.
The worst is when a developer gives you a real choice, but they don't like the choice you made and retcons it for you. BioWare does this often. They love giving you an option, and then "fixing" it because your choice didn't fit in with their overall plans. Did you make Captain Anderson the Councillor at the end of Mass Effect? Sorry, but he quit because they needed to get him on Earth so he could be Emotional Sacrifice Number 3. You killed Leliana? Again, The Maker (BioWare) still had plans for her so magical, unexplained resurrection happened... even if you did decapitate her.
Mike Laidlaw, former Creative Director of the Dragon Age series, addressed these criticisms and promised that there would be no more of that. He mostly kept that promise. Except now path A and path B mostly just lead to the same place, except maybe with a few word changes. If you made Leliana the Divine, she lets the free mages have their own college, but lo and behold Vivienne will once again create a Circle that will stand in opposition. If you made Vivienne the Divine, then the Circle will be restored, but out of devotion to the Inquisition, she'll let the "free mages" have their own college. No matter which option you choose, tensions between the two groups "remain high." This likely means there will be no big change in Dragon Age 4, and we'll still have to hear about "free mages" and "loyalists" arguing about something. Throw in a new Templar order and nothing has changed at all from Dragon Age: Origins to Dragon Age: Inquisiton. Three games we’ve had to babysit these groups only for them to end up where they started.
There are so many other games that are guilty of this in some way or another. Both Dishonored 2 and Deus Ex Mankind Divided will ignore the previous games' possible endings, and instead go with a canon one chosen by the developers. One wonders why we were even given a choice in the first place?
Like I mentioned before, I do understand why it’s this way, but a part of me will always sigh and roll my eyes when it happens. It won’t stop me from playing these games, but damn a girl can dream of the day I make the decision to run my mouth in a delicate situation and the game will, somewhere down the line, truly punish me for it.
This is an amazing topic and I think it's one of the reasons the witcher series stands out as such a stable in RPG's now. I like games with a reputation system because it's a reflection of your choices in another manner, I just feel like many games with this don't implement it well; for example in kingdom come your reputation for the city goes down even if absolutely no one sees you steal/pickpocket from someone. I really like how the game reacts to your clothes/apearance/reputation and I just wish they took it that one extra step to make you feel like your decisions matter.
****Very early (first hour of game) and very minor spoiler ahead, I did keep it pretty vague too*****
Another example is near the very start of the game you have the option to try and rescue a girl, but even if you don't try to rescue her she still survives and you still have a chance to be with her. When it's happening, it really gives you this gut wrenching moral decision but no matter what you choose it just doesn't matter bc the outcome will be the same later.
It does sadden me though that the game only has one set ending because I feel like it just has so much potential with the scope of the story.
The Witcher 3 has become the one I compare all other RPGs to. It might be a little unfair, but CDPR set the bar really high with that one and I do think it's time for other developers to get with the program! :)
It does feel like the developers of KCD either didn't have the time to fine tune the reaction system, or don't have the experience for it? I know my reputation dropping whether anyone sees me stealing or not would drive me insane.
Urgh, I hate that! I hate it when a game ranks up the stakes and then goes "lol never mind," which completely takes me out of the experience. If the game doesn't really care about the decisions you make, why should the player? :(