Games Really Let You Make These Choices
Video games usually cast you as the hero, but that doesn’t mean you have to be the good guy every time. In fact, some games openly encourage you to make the most messed-up choice just to see what will happen. So, whether you’re destroying a settlement or sacrificing loyal followers, these 20 options can leave you staring silently at the screen…wondering if your morals are where you thought they were.
1. Use a Cat Suppressor in Postal 2
Postal 2 is basically what happens when you give someone free rein in a world without rules. It was never shy about pushing the envelope, and it even lets you attach a cat to the end of certain firearms and use the unfortunate animal as an improvised suppressor. The game treats it with the same crude humor that defines nearly everything else happening, but even by its own standards, it’s uncomfortable.
2. Detonate Megaton in Fallout 3
Early in Fallout 3, Mr. Burke offers you a nice chunk of change to activate the unexploded bomb sitting in the center of Megaton. You don’t have to turn him down. In fact, accepting allows you to watch the entire settlement disappear from the balcony of Tenpenny Tower. Though a cash prize reward is hardly worth knowing that you erased everyone.
Derek Springer from Los Angeles, CA, USA on Wikimedia
3. Harvest Organs in RimWorld
You have a choice to make about the prisoners in RimWorld: treat them as potential colonists, release them peacefully, or turn them into sources of replacement organs. A sufficiently ruthless player can remove body parts and sell them or install them in injured settlers. The game’s clinical menus somehow make the process even colder, too—everything becomes another calculation.
4. Remove The Pool Ladder in The Sims
Okay, after those last examples, this hardly seems worth mentioning, but we’re going to anyway! For years, players became notorious for directing characters into swimming pools and then deleting the ladders. Earlier games left trapped Sims with no ability to climb out, turning an ordinary backyard feature into a grim trap. Why? Why did you do that?
5. Harvest Little Sisters in BioShock
After defeating a Big Daddy in BioShock, you then need to choose whether to rescue or harvest the Little Sister he protected. It’s not as easy as it sounds…at least, for some players. Harvesting provides more ADAM immediately, giving you faster access to powerful abilities at a serious moral cost.
6. Complete the Bad Route in Undertale
Most enemies in Undertale can be spared, but you always have the option to hunt down every creature in each area. Pursuing the Genocide Route empties locations, changes the soundtrack, and literally causes surviving characters to recognize what you’re doing. By the time familiar faces start begging for mercy, that so-called fun run is just stubborn cruelty.
Toby Fox and/or Temmie Chang on Wikimedia
7. Sacrifice Your Own Spouse in Fable
Did you know that the Chapel of Skorm accepts human sacrifices in exchange for points and rewards? Well, what’s a “hero” to do when they’re on an evil playthrough? That’s right—bring followers to the chapel, including their own partner, and hand them over to its priests. And to think they trusted you.
Sergey Galyonkin from Raleigh, USA on Wikimedia
8. Sell Legion to Cerberus in Mass Effect 2
After recovering Legion, Commander Shepard can activate him and eventually gain a thoughtful new squadmate. Or, you know, you can sell his body to Cerberus for a small number of credits without ever hearing what he has to say. Trading away one of the most important characters feels especially nasty once you know how much perspective he adds to the conflict.
Alex from Calgary, Canada on Wikimedia
9. Rob a Defenseless Couple in This War Of Mine
One location contains a poor old couple who have plenty of food and medicine…and little ability to defend themselves. Well, to an opportunist, that’s just free pickin’s. You can steal their supplies while they protest, then return later to discover the consequences of leaving them with nothing.
10. Feed Enemies to Rats in Dishonored
Corvo can finish Dishonored without actually taking anyone’s life, although the game supplies plenty of disturbing alternatives for any curious players. An unconscious guard can be dropped near a swarm of plague rats, allowing the hoard to remove both the person and much of the evidence. It’s effective for hiding bodies, but that doesn’t make it any less unpleasant.
11. Trap Souls Inside an Object in Skyrim
Using a black soul gem, you can capture the soul of a human character after snuffing them out. That soul may then be used to enchant something ordinary, like boots or a kitchen knife. The game rarely comments on this fate, too, leaving you to walk around wearing equipment powered by your misdeeds.
12. Betray the Emerald Grove in Baldur’s Gate 3
Those poor tieflings are just trying to get by. They also need your help surviving an attack by the Absolute’s forces. Instead of defending them, you can reveal their location to Minthara, open its gates, and participate in the assault. Several companions are horrified by the betrayal, but at least Astarion would approve.
13. Introduce Special Diets in Frostpunk
Life isn’t easy in this bleak world, and Frostpunk isn’t shy about reminding you of what it takes to survive. When starvation becomes severe, the city’s leaders can adopt an alternative food policy: dead bodies. It provides raw food and may keep the remaining population alive, but citizens can also get sickened by what their society has accepted.
14. Send Children to Danger in Frostpunk
If we’re going to mention Frostpunk, we have to mention that the same frozen city can legalize child labor when its workforce becomes too small for essential needs. At first, they may be stuck in safer workplaces, but another law puts them in hazardous jobs with the rest of the adults. Get out there, Timmy—we need mines.
15. Turn Captives Into Food in The Forest
Survival in The Forest involves hunting animals, gathering plants, and defending yourself against hostile people. However, it doesn’t take long for you to become hostile yourself, especially since the game also allows you to cook and eat parts taken from defeated enemies when supplies get low.
16. Drown Unhappy Guests in RollerCoaster Tycoon
Did that guest just puke? Are they upset by the prices? Oh, we have something special for you. Players discovered they could use the landscaping tools to drop whiners into isolated pools of water with no route back to land. It doesn’t improve your customer service, but it certainly prevents that guest from filing another complaint.
Sam Jotham Sutharson on Pexels
17. Sacrifice Villagers in Black & White
As a god in Black & White, you can do all sorts of stuff that big whigs do: protect your followers, provide food, and encourage your creature to behave kindly. Or, you can pick villagers up and throw them into a sacrificial altar to generate prayer power.
Michael Kolesnikov on Wikimedia
18. Drain an Entire Community in Vampyr
Dr. Jonathan Reid gains experience in Vampyr by feeding on the citizens of London. Learning about someone’s history increases the experience gained from snacking on them, which means the game rewards you for earning a person’s trust before betraying them. Do it too many times, though, and you might just destabilize a district, causing everything to collapse.
19. Abandon Your Own Children in Crusader Kings III
Hey, this is the Middle Ages—your family is a political resource, not people. If you want to play it heartless, you can disinherit children, imprison relatives, arrange lethal schemes against siblings, or send unwanted heirs into dangerous situations.
20. Leave Someone on Train Tracks in Red Dead Redemption 2
If you’re gung ho about playing as low-honor Arthur, you can capture NPCs with his lasso, place them on horseback, and carry them almost anywhere in the world. We said anywhere, though, and that means leaving a captive on railroad tracks and waiting for a train to arrive. Nothing requires this behavior, either, so the game offers no objective or narrative excuse to soften this (though we wouldn’t blame you for dumping Sonny here).
