Summary
Video games and ethical dilemmas are no strangers to each other. Entire studios,like Telltale Games, have built their brand on orcing the player to make difficult decisions. Questions like who to save in a moment of crisis are often the most iconic of these choices.
However, these choices between A and B are often telegraphed. This list seeks to celebratethe more subtle forms of moral choices; those that are baked into the game’s DNA and force the player to make tough choices via the game’s mechanics and its unrelenting difficulty. Much like real life, these types of games force their players into disadvantageous positions, where there are good and evil choices, but making the right decision can often be hard, unrewarding, and costly.
Potentially the most political game on this list,inSuzerain,players assume the role of Anton Rayne, who’s tasked with running the fictional Republic of Sordland. It’s the President’s job to lead the country out of a recession after a civil war signals the end of the previous authoritarian regime.
Half RPG, half strategy game,every decision players make mattersinSuzerain. Much like real-life politics, there are many invested parties telling the player what to do—and there’s no pleasing everyone. The game’s difficult systems will often encourage the player to slip into corruption, or forgo the moral choice in favor of a better trade deal. With at least nine endings, it’s important to make the right decisions.
Moving forward, politics is going to be a recurring theme in these games, as moral choices embedded within a game’s systems are coincidentally the most qualified to explore systemic issues within society.Papers, Pleasehas players take the role of a simple immigration officer in a fictitious country inspired by Eastern Europe.
In the game, people often challenge the immigration officer’s morality, coming to them with sob stories that require them to be on the other side of the border at any cost. The problem is, most of these people do not have sufficient paperwork to cross into Arstotzka, something that grows more and more complex as the powers that be expand the country’s entry requirements nearly every day. Although players can bend the rules to help people in need, they will be harshly penalized for doing so, and the player has a family to feed.
DefiningArcois difficult. Its gameplay isa mix of real-time and turn-based combat, and its polyphonic narrative lacks a singular focus on one character. Thematically, the game is about invaders, revenge, and being burdened with guilt.
Guilt is a literal game mechanic. There are choices the player can make that may benefit the party in the short term, but that same party will be haunted by guilt. Guilt manifests as ghosts that turn up to hurt the player during combat, and the more guilt the player carries, the more ghosts will spawn. This eventually culminates in an ending that determines if players have acquired small, medium, or high guilt, andArcowill judge them accordingly.
Most war stories are about the army, but Polish developer 11 Bit Studios decided to prioritize the stories of the civilians during the siege of a city inThis War of Mine. The resulting game is ahorror story about desperationduring the bleakest periods of humanity. Players are tasked with taking care of the survivors. Their characters' needs will constantly run down as the player scavenges through ever-diminishing sources of supplies as the war rages on.
As people grow hungrier and more desperate, the player will be encouraged to take shortcuts or do depraved things to keep surviving. One of the most infamous sequences involves pillaging from the elderly whilst they beg the player not to steal anything more from them. Hopefully, this trend of cruel, depressing Eastern European games has reached its zenith.
Russian developer Ice-Pick Lodge’sPathologicis about a group of healers being powerless to stop a plague sweeping through a fictitious Russian town. Players race against time to do everything they can to stop the plague, and time is not on their side; they simply won’t be able to do everything they need to.
On top of this, players compete with draining resources like hunger, thirst, and reputation whilst defending themselves from penniless muggers. They also have to handle their money, which is much simpler because they usually have none. Players will have to make split-second decisions about who they want to give medicine to, and who they are content with losing, including main NPCs. Even still, luck plays a big part in this game, and fate may have other plans. BothPathologic 1and2are modern classics, andPathologic 3has recently been announced.
Darkest Dungeonis a turn-based horror roguelike game that encourages players to think like an executive. The core of the game is aboutmanaging a group of heroesexploring ever-shifting dungeons, and dealing with the insanity inflicted upon them by the Lovecraftian horrors within.
In this case, the insanity they experience is quantified by a stress meter. The more stress an adventurer endures, the less effective they will be. While the player could invest in fixing these issues, it would be much cheaper (and more efficient) to dispose of the traumatized adventurer and replace them with a fresh one who has no idea about the horrors they’re going to face. Then again, that suffering adventurer may also be the most capable fighter in the party. Decisions, decisions…
11 Bit Studios returns to this list with another merciless game. In this instance,Frostpunkis a city builder about surviving the apocalypse. Eternal winter has set in, and it’s the player’s job to keep New London—the last city on Earth—afloat, lest humanity go extinct.
During the player’s desperation, they may be tempted by a few questionable policies; things such as child labor or the reuse of corpses for sustenance suddenly become best-case options. They’re not exactly the most moral of policies, but they’re potentially necessary, depending on how players build their cities.
BeforeFear & Hungerbecame popular, it was an obscure game with a dedicated fandom exclusively in Russia. Given this list’s trends, it’s easy to tell where this is going.Fear & Hungeris a game that hates the player. In return, the player has to become a hateful person to even stand a chance of surviving.
Perhaps the game’s most infamous mechanic is its coin flip. At almost every opportunity, there’s a 50% chance the player could make the wrong call, followed by something horrific happening. This gameintegrates immersive sim elements into the RPGto push players to desperation, handing them the tools to do some truly heinous things for a slight advantage in the game. Child sacrifice isn’t necessary, but it is recommended.
