Games that force you to make hard choices

Hey all!

I’d like to request recommendations (spoiler free!) for games where you need to make choices, take sides, kill or not kill someone, follow or do not follow orders, but where the consequences actually matter - and most importantly, where the choices aren’t “obviously good choice vs obviously bad choice”.

Give me games where I can choose to side with one kingdom or another, but there’s no clear moral high ground, or where I need to decide to save someone dear to me at the cost of innocent lives. I do not want things like “save all the children and get the happy ending and make flowers grow” versus “kill everybody and everything blows up and the world gets all its water replaced by acid”.

What games fit this requirement?

TheEighthDoctor,

Sometimes Always Monsters

OhFudgeBars,

An indie game called OneShot from the Undertale knockoff genre has only one choice that matters, but god damn what a horrible choice, particularly since a child has to make it. And by the way, the game is called OneShot because it’s designed to be played exactly once. If you want to play again, you have to mess with some files to do so.

lawrence,

Believe or not, Cyberpunk 2077. There are a few very hard ethical and moral dilemmas.

MasterPraetorian,

My playthrough of cyberpunk I found that they had these choices, but the effect was identical regardless of what you chose (except the very end of the base game, and the DLC) I enjoyed the game, but that was my biggest annoyance

solitaire,
@solitaire@infosec.pub avatar

Citizen Sleeper. It’s a short game about precarity and human connection. There are a few off ramps out of the current, desperate situation you’re in that are usually weighed against letting someone go or leaving things behind. It’s unique in games with difficult choices for so rarely about being given compelling reasons to do bad things, just choices that are hard for their emotional consequences.

Eccitaze,
@Eccitaze@yiffit.net avatar

I’m going to go a little against the grain and recommend Fuga: Melodies of Steel and its sequel. It’s not exactly what you described, but the game is very adept on forcing extremely difficult and impactful choices on you naturally through its gameplay.

Squizzy,

I made the choice in GTA that let me continue the free roam unhindered despite it not being what was best in game.

MSids,

Every game on Steam that uses the publisher’s launcher.

hark,
@hark@lemmy.world avatar

Triangle Strategy. I hit a number of points where I had to think hard to make my decision and even then I wasn’t sure if it was what I should’ve gone with. Trying to save and reload to pick something else is futile since I’d just run into another tough decision down the line which modifies things further and it’d take too long to play through multiple key points. It’s an amazing strategy game as well.

daniyeg,

i’m gonna blatantly disregard your “but where the consequences actually matter” and recommend most of telltale’s games (The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us are the better ones).

besides them and the suggestion of others i would also recommend Tyranny. great CRPG made by Obsidian.

ByteJunk,
@ByteJunk@lemmy.world avatar

Depends on the kind of games you enjoy.

While not particularly about consequences of decisions, I highly recommend Frostpunk. It always feels like any decision is about trying to choose the less horrible one, but without ever knowing if it will work out or not. The atmosphere of that game is just superb.

DwightAllRight,

Witcher 3, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, Nationstates.net , all are excellent options along this line.

Dagwood222,

[off topic]

Daemon by Daniel Suarez. A persistent computer virus develops a game where the only way to win is to kill off your team mates. The people who show the greatest willingness to backstab are recruited for missions in the real world.

Carsonian,

My favorite of all time for exactly this is Spec Ops: The Line. Its a third person shooter and really fun, but its main selling point is making super tough morally gray decisions. Still one of my favorite game stories ever. You can usually get it really cheap and its just perfect for what tou described.

keyez,

Was also going to mention this! Love that game and have played it twice. I even remember two set pieces in the game like a movie and sometimes recant them to friends as if it were from a movie cuz they probably wouldn’t understand.

Blubber28,

A bit of an obscure one is Roadwarden. If I remember correctly, it was made by a single person. The grafics are pixelated style, which is usually a bit of a turn off for me (I don’t need hyperrealistic, just don’t like big pixels), but the gameplay is amazing. It is a combination of a graphical novel and an RPG where choices matter. It does not have spicy real-time combat or a leveling system, but your choices in the story and of your class matter.

To give a quick introduction to the story: You start as a roadwarden, someone tasked with keeping the roads safe. You are tasked by the elite in a rich city to assess the trading prospects with a poor province up north; assess its people, infrastructure, and resources that they offer. You have a limited time to complete your task, as autumn and winter are closing in, and the nights are too dangerous to venture on the roads.

In this game, you cannot help everyone. Helping one group can condemn another, and actions that may be noble in spirit may fail spectacularly. I’ve had a lot of fun playing through this, and it is my recommendation if you don’t really care for real-time combat.

Chip_Rat,

“Passage” is a very short one. But the choices matter.

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