It's not as simple as you may think.
When it comes to playing choice based games like Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Baldur's gate 3 and Starfield, evil paths are statistically rarely picked. In this video, we go in depth on why that is.
Special thanks to my friend Ian for making the channel intro. Find more of his work here: motian.graphics/
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It's hard to do an evil playthrough when all the truly hate-able characters are marked as essential and thus can not be killed.
Fable 2, Fable 3
Hence why fallout NV is the best fallout
Starfield
@@nathanu6759 Funny enough I just started playing it for the first time yesterday, I've straight up played every fallout but NV somehow
I am genuinely mad I can't kill the Paradiso group in Starfield.
Good character: Ok, I'll help this Town to get rid of some bandits for absolutely nothing. -You get valuable loot from the bandits -Earn reputation with the Town -Unlock more quests Bad character: I won't help this Town because i'm evil -You get nothing -You lose -Good day, sir
Unless there's an option to help the Bandits instead. Then you get to loot the Town!
@@dianabarnett6886and even then the loot is barely worth it
That's basically the Dragon Age Orgins Redcliffe choice, like, you want to be evil or in character for your rp, but you also don't want to lose out on all that juicy xp.
Oh hey Dirty Dan, it's DevourerOfContent
Play cyberpunk
13:20 I used to be a summer camp counselor. We had this thing where we separated the boys and the girls to do tasks for the first day. A young boy asked the girls if they needed help with something. They accepted and he helped with stuff. Other boys asked him why. He simply responded "it's nice to be nice". i remember the face, but i forget the name. i forget the year. i forget what the nature of the help was. it must have been over a decade ago, but it's always stuck with me.
Best of luck to both of you.
Did the girls sit laughing and pointing whilst the 'nice' boy did all their work for them?
@@AndrooUK stop visiting incel forums
@@AndrooUK Your so lammmeeeeeee
@@AndrooUKthat was whack bro. Why are you stooping so low?
In Fallout 3 you can actually max out your karma by selling slaves, and donating half the caps to the church. You'll get rich and get positive karma at the same time
Being evil in video games is usually being a cartoonishly evil mustache twirling villain
Not even. That would imply shenanigans. All you get is killing random npcs for no reason most of the time, and that's just not interesting
@@sketcher445I interpreted it more as in the logic is very much like a cartoon villain. No reason for doing evil things, they’re just evil because they’re meant to be. Their whole personality is just… being evil. Super one-dimensional.
This exactly there's almost no nuance I feel like baldurs gate 3 subverts this for the most part. You can be a mustache twirling villain, a realistic character who does good and bad, or just a murder hobo. It's pretty good for playing evil
@@sketcher445 Being evil in Dishonored is fuxking amazing and gives you 1000 more ways to fight. Morrowind is also fantastic at consequences and freedom. But yeah, most of the time. Yah.
Dont insult mustache twirling villains by comparing us to videogame murderhobos
I think the main problem with being evil in video games is that so many games being evil is a rewardless options which doesn't effect the story and is just a side activity of killing everyone and nothing else
Except in fallout and infamous*
Undertale:
Gore restrictions, no gibs or limbs being torn makes it hard - most games. Violence against kids restrictions. Toned down dark humour/dialogue - no really sick stuff. You're "free" to do eeevil, to a limit.
5 year old me on minecraft creative mode burning a village: bruh
@@gudgurl it's annoying asf that they just care about some blue hair weirdos bitching on Twitter so much that they've taken all these features out in the past 10 years
Two words: _Soul Nomad_ by Nippon Ichi Studios. You can only do the evil playthrough after completing the game normally, and oh boy, that context makes a huge difference. You only need to make a few decisions at the start that aren't really evil, they're just not overly self-sacrificial and altruistic. Then it catapults you into a story that _very explicitly_ changes because you're not showing up at places at the time you normally would have. While joke characters and affable goofball villains all become serious characters throwing aside their differences and conflicts to stop you, just making it to a certain town a few months later than you would have in your normal playthrough throws you a little context you weren't ready for. It makes you stop think about half the "good guys" you were helping before, and maybe decide that while you might be doing it for the wrong reasons, you might be doing the right thing when you slaughter them. You're evil, but not for no reason, or a stupid reason, and until the predictable out-of-control plot spiral into eating god that you really should expect from the Japanese by now, you can kinda jam with the evil route.
Woah that’s way more than two words
Fun little anecdote: In Bioshock you were originally going to be getting massive buffs after harvesting Little Sisters. And not just that, the game was going to be really hard, borderline unwinnable if you didn't get any ADAM. *HOWEVER...* fearing backlash, the devs decided to tone down the difficulty and then straight up just give you the ADAM you missed out on by not harvesting Little Sisters right before entering the final bossfight. It's kinda ironic how more and more games (and entertainment media in general) have abandoned the "evil for the sake of it" villain while making it so the only way for the player to be evil is to be evil for the sake of it. IRL 99% of evil people become evil not because they want to be evil but because being good is too much hassle. Yet it's the opposite in video games.
yea its something i noticed. the game clearly nudges you towards not sacrificing them since you get enough ADAM. i was wondering what if i actually was in a bad spot and had to do it...
At least in bioshock 2 the best way to do it is to harvest after saving a few for the first reward. As being good then bad gives you the most ADAM to spend on upgrades. And harvesting lets you just get everything while saving all doesn't until the big packages.
This was the core of how I ruined Vampyr for myself. Yeah I can eat everyone in a city to buff myself, but if I can just power through difficult sections I can feel weak and be miserable but hold true to my (and the character's alleged) morals and circumvent the moral choice entirely. It wasn't very much fun as a result. Maybe I should try to do an evil run of that game. I had a similar experience, albeit at a lesser scale, in Fable 3 way back when that came out. You're supposed to take over the country and then have to make difficult choices on how to fund your war against the shadows coming to kill everyone. That's cool, but I had already made so much cash as a landlord before taking over the country that I didn't NEED to make any difficult decisions to already be able to fund the entire war.
@@GrounderPlus ikr vampyr without feeding was hell especially once you reach the stage lady boss with her poison attack, a no feed playthrough become very difficult on that since the poison can just kill you instantly
For me the short version is that "evil" choices in RPGs usually boil down to "vicious self-destructive idiot", plus there's rarely ever any worthwhile rewards on evil paths anyway. Also, the good choice is usually too easy and too obvious. Often it involves going on guilt-free killing sprees pro-bono, yet the loot you get is worth more than the reward you turned down anyway. So the player gets their dopamine hit for being the good guy, while sacrificing nothing.
Idk man infamous made me a powerhouse for being evil
Disco Elysium really leans into that fact for its "evil play through"
Play Tyranny, it's a CRPG by Obsidian where all shades of evil are pretty well represented, from the reluctant "lesser of two evils" to the pragmatic planner to the evil tornado of death.
This, all of this. Plus, the only unique rewards I can recall for doing any of the evil options in Fallout 3 and New Vegas are a unique unarmed combat move you can get as a reward from a Caesar's Legion interaction (that requires only a bit of reputation with them and has no quest attached), and a single unique weapon you can find in the ruins of the Brotherhood Citadel in Broken Steel. It is a scoped .44 magnum, which admittedly is the most powerful handgun in the game, but by that point you should have a loooooot more powerful options in every other category. So they know how to attach unique rewards to picking the evil options, but most of the time they just don't and the ones they do aren't worth very much.
crime doesnt pay big fella
Being Evil in the inFamous games were somewhat rewarding. You could play the games twice and get something totally unique out of it as your powers change and the story and world changes.
Infamous is one of the childhood favorites for me; it also makes the Kessler fight feel much more personal on an evil playthrough as well; I just wish you could fight the beast on an evil playthrough
Ah damn. I just found out I could stream the first one on PlayStation plus, and fuck yeah, it still holds up
I think infamous 2 evil ending is a good example of how to portray evil in games, where its a moral dilemma that makes sense to choose the more evil side. but the choices through out the whole game arnt as impactful. so its evil for evils sake till you reach the end where evil is presented as morally grey.
Infamous is the goat
My first playthrough of infamous second son was an evil playthrough. It makes the game much easier too
The issue with evil playthroughs is that most directors/writers can not write a story that is multidimensional for an evil player. It’s almost always just being a terrorist with no conflict. You can’t grow your character because the story was written to be for hero’s, and the player given the option to be a killer.
The only game I can remember that not only does evil right, but does it fun, is Dishonored. Dishonored is an immersive sim where you are given a skill tree with various powers and gadgets you can employ in many different ways to dispatch your enemies and traverse the environment. It makes you feel like a demigod, summoning swarms of rats to eat your enemies alive, fling them to their deaths with powerful gusts of wind, and even bend time and possessing their bodies to place them in their own lines of fire, for example. You have a pistol, a blade, a crossbow with different ammunition types, grenades, mines, etc. But there is a catch. Dishonored's morality system is tied to your body count. The more you kill the worse the ending, so in order to do “good” you must avoid bloodshed. But the most powerful abilities at your disposal are quite lethal, and your non-lethal options are usually ill-suited for combat, so a low chaos run inevitably involves stealth, completing optional objectives to avoid murder and a quite a bit more patience. Fortunately the DLCs and the sequel added a few more non-lethal options to help you achieve that. But Low Chaos runs are still the most challenging ways to play the game, as opposed to wreaking havoc and killing enemies in gnarly and creative ways. And that’s what makes the “evil” in this game both fun and believable. Evil is more often about opportunism rather than pure sadism. People do bad things because it’s easier and more profitable rather than causing suffering for suffering's sake. And the abilities you get in Dishonored makes completing the objectives easier indeed. But abusing those abilities carry a price, not to you, but to the world around you.
A great thing about Dishonored is that both low and high chaos are narratively supported. Both playthroughs make you feel like Corvo is justified in his actions to the stakes and sheer betrayal and disrespect he faces. If he is above that all and willing to take the time and effort to clear his name with a clean slate, that makes sense, just as it makes sense for him to be so rightfully angry at those in power that he will stop at nothing to get his revenge and save the empress/his daughter. I don’t think dishonored 2 pulled this off nearly as well (the narrative makes more sense in low chaos for a number of reasons), but dishonored 2 does have better gameplay for both types of runs. Dishonored is also great because a low chaos playthrough rewards you with a lot more world building. You are encouraged to slow down and when you do so, you are more likely to find hidden parts of the map and listen to more npc conversations (which are well written and acted). Plus the ending is way more satisfying on the low chaos playthrough whereas its bleak with high chaos. That being said, you miss out on most of the game mechanics and gameplay options with low chaos, and you truly do not get the full experience of the game without doing one of each kind of playthrough.
That game was definitely an exception. They knocked it out of the park with that. Probably one of the few games where I was excited to do an evil play through.
They take everything from you and everyone is in the way of taking it back, it's fucking great. But sparing people also feels justifiable since the majority of people are lied to and truly believe you're the Empress' assassin. Both evil and good are extremely satisfying and justified in dishonored -- the first game you're silent, you can hear how it warps Corvo/Emily's personalities in the sequel as they comment on what they're doing
Reading this comment makes me realize the best way to know if a game did evil right is the reasons why somebody would choose to not be evil. I always chose low chaos in Dishonored because I’d feel bad about getting the bad/high-chaos ending. In FO3, I’d feel bad for blowing up Megaton because I lose everything Megaton has to offer in exchange for a handful of caps. One game makes me feel bad for being evil because of how it affects the story. The other makes me feel bad because it’s extremely stupid, why would I blow up an entire city’s worth of vendors and quests (likely with rewards greater than what I get for blowing them up)? Especially funny is in Skyrim you’re presented with a similar choice to Megaton. You can be evil and join the Dark Brotherhood (unlocking many rewards including a new base, 20,000+ gold, and Shadowmere the best horse ingame). Or you can be good and wipe out the Dark Brotherhood for a handful of gold. I always chose to join the DB for the same reason I’d never blow up Megaton.
Every time I replay Dishonored I say "this is it the high chaos run" but I just can't do it I end up being stealthy and taking the non-lethal route
I think the issue people have is how they define evil in games. I play a lot of Lawful Evil characters in games which, to me, usually means that I'm not a good person, but I have lines I will never cross normally. It seems like many people's idea of evil is just psycopathic murderer and nothing else
Agreed. The "Lawful Evil" is the reasonable, methodical, subtle kind of evil - the kind that takes advantage of people or circumstances for their own benefit, but doesn't go around being a rude jerk or violent monster just because they don't like someone. A Lawful Evil character is usually cunning enough to realize, that alienating or antagonizing people isn't likely to win them any favors. I like to play a lot of different characters, with different views and different morals - just because I find it fascinating to consider difficult situations or moral dilemmas from different perspectives, and try to reason why a person might choose to do something, that others might consider evil.
@@LadyDoomsinger I like playing Neutral characters because of the challenge of balancing light and darkness. Its so easy to be a hero or villian but something about the Grey area is not only more realistic it is a lot more interesting in every possible way.
Mercenary playstyle can be considered Evil too. I like playing games with my main goal not saving the world, but saving it in a way to make money. That does not matter if you are killing bandits or caravans if that brings you money.
And sadly, that's also the idea a lot of games with a "morality system" run with. The obsession with karma systems was a dire time for RPGs
I like to play a Lawful Evil character, whom is on the good side - just brutal and uncaring in a lot of situations where a traditional hero would be sympathetic.
I think the real reason evil doesn't often feel that fun in RPGs is because the choices are immoral as opposed to amoral. The evil choice is always explicitly cruel and malicious, as opposed to simply selfish and apathetic. And like... No one wants to really feel like they are actively a bad person.
I mean yeah. It's supposed to be evil, not neutral, after all If we take your definition of evil, there's a lot of evil playthroughs in games people often give crap for not having one. Fallout 4 with the brotherhood, for example
@@anna-flora999 brotherhood is cartoonishly evil in F4. Bad example.
@@Michael-bn1oi So is the Institute. Railroad is simply pointless. The Minutemen ending is only available if you kill all three other factions. I guess war truly never changes.
amoral is easily the worse evil. acting in an immoral way at least requires some conviction. on the other hand, all of the worst atrocities in human history were facilitated by the lazy, the cowardly, and the amoral nimbies.@@anna-flora999
I disagree with the last sentence (at least in terms of games) but I fully agree with the gist of the rest. We need more moral shades represented. Let me be immortal. Let me amoral. Let me be moral. Let me be something inconsistent.
Evil option in theory: Oh you want me to save you from bandits? Give me a very big reason to. Evil option in practice: Oh you want me to save you from bandits? Ok, I'll kill you myself. It's almost like rpgs just want to force players on the "selfless hero" path whether they like it or not
Yeah it’s based on the game, I think we can all agree that a game where you actually get to resort things and become some all powerful Villian is actually pretty fun.
The Bioshock games are a great example of the Evil Choice being "Bettern't". Harvesting little sisters grants you more Adam in the short term, but once you account for every gift you get for Rescuing them, the morally good choice is actually more mechanically beneficial to the player as well.
I think a lot of writers just make the bad route into the stupid route. Real evil is not just randomly murdering people to your own detriment. Real evil is enriching yourself to the detriment of others.
Evil route is chaotic stupid in most games.
🍑
Yes, but no one in real life actually consider themselves as an "evil guy" - instead, when doing something morally wrong, people always assume that they are good guys who deserve more and who have to make a living in a cruel world. To put it simply, being evil by definition requires from a person to be ignorant of real effects and consequences of their actions, or, in other words, to be a stupid person. So yes, the "stupid route" is exactly what a good writer can give you as a reward for choosing evil :D
It's hard to be 'evil' because games force you to be 'good' (mainstream normie). Because gaming corporations (and corporations in general) are very moral 🙄
@@bdleo300 womp womp
I think the "good vs evil" duality suffers from "good" being the point of reference no matter what. Good is meant to make things better and often unambiguously helps the people/place you're in; it's clearly the "right" option. Meanwhile, the "evil" option isn't an alternative viewpoint, it's just "I don't want to do the good choice" option, often with some money or other reward offered as a weak attempt to prop it up. It feels shallow and one-dimensional, because it's not a viable worldview but rather a petty "I don't want to be a good guy." You're not choosing to be evil as much as rejecting being good, and you can see how lopsided the results are.
That’s a really cool way to think about it
Exactly, that’s why, as cool as it sounds in theory, I see no motivation to act “evil”. It feels meaningless if being “evil” just means pointless murder, and since I’m not a psychopath that isn’t inherently fun to me.
It’s an issue in games because playing a game for feeling and experience and immersion vs playing for efficiency lead to good vs evil only being relevant to some people. People who want to play a game to experience a different reality will make decisions based on their own morality and what they would do in those situations, most people aren’t evil and abide by social norms so they will usually pick options that are good or options that have massive benefits People who want to play a character will pick options based on the morality of the character they play People who want to be good at the game will only pick options that benefit them and disregard morality When a game is not stimulating your feelings and only stimulating your monkey brain dopamine receptors you will not care about your actions and only pick efficient options, so making a good evil system requires that the game has tangible benefits to making immoral decisions, yet these benefits are outweighed by a genuine guilt built upon characters and environment and storytelling.
I think an interesting workaround is when doing the "Good" thing is absolutely the worst thing for you mechanically. Like not in the sense that you get a lesser reward. But in the sense that doing the right thing actively inconveniences you in some way. There's a game called "Lisa: the painful" where you're given a choice early on between letting a completely useless party member die or losing one of your limbs. And this isn't just a cosmetic choice. Losing that limb actively makes the game harder to play and it doesn't come back. I find the idea of making it hard to be good more interesting than the idea of making it profitable to be evil... but I also stopped playing that game shortly after reaching that choice because it was depressing. So it's very interesting in theory, but I'm personally too soft for it in practice.
Most games may, but in Infamous especially, that is not the case.
I love the shades of grey that Mass Effect used. There’s no good or bad. It’s heroic or ruthless, but both work towards the same goal.
Even then there are evil parts of Mass Effect that seem psychopathic just for the sake of it. A 100% Renegade run will have Shepard killing unnecessarily and being extremely cruel for no reason (I stopped a whole Mass Effect 3 playthrough after accidentally telling Legion that all geth deserved to die). It's not exactly the model of pragmatism and cold calculation that would have been far more appropriate for the savior of the galaxy. There are Renegade moments that are amazing - telling the Quarians to fuck off when defending Tali who's on trial for murder and treason is one of my favorite moments in the entire series. However, a Paragon playthough is consistently rewarding and feels inspiring. A Paragon Shepard feels like the kind of person who _can_ bring all intergalactic cultures together for the final fight against the Reapers. It feels far more credible to be Paragon than Renegade IMO, so I guess Paragon is how the trilogy is meant to be experienced.
@therealMrA ME 3 is such an outlier though. There are too many choices in that game that logically make little sense but are done for either shock value, written poorly, or shoe horned in for the sake of having that option. Huge example being renegade shooting Mordin when curing the Krogans as if you didn't play and entire game with the guy.
@@therealMrA i played mass effect before i even learn english(i played 2 on my cousin pc and 3 on my brother laptop} i thought i was being heroic but i end up getting all the worst outcome in the game. one of my core memory from the game is getting rejected by that chic that we play chess with
There's something extremely satisfying about exploring a world and seeing positive changes around you, or the absolute heartbreak of when something you thought was the right choice has horrific consequences.
ah, so you played Spec Ops: The Line
Faur
Like Judy telling you everyone at Clouds is dead... I really wanted to help the dolls in that questline, and it was so heartbreaking to find out that I could only keep he status quo if I wanted them to stay alive.. I think it hurt most because deep down, I knew that it would go wrong, but there was this blind hope that made me go through with the plan. It really helped to characterize Night City as the antagonist of the story...
AWE TRUE TO CAESAR
Return to Sender Fucked. Me. Up.
I think it just comes down to the fact that most "evil" options in gamed are bad options. The problem is putting the player character in a position in which an evil choice is also actually beneficial. You have to make good decisions harder and evil decisions easier.
Nah, most people just hate being evil
@@Solaxe That may be a true point, but we won't ever get to prove it if we keep conflating evil and bad. Things look a lot different in more muddled scenarios, if the game makes you feel bad for choosing good and vice versa. If it's "optimal" to play good, even if it's a nice moral lecture from the game about how it always wins out in the end etc., you aren't really being good for good morals sake.
The good decisions harder and evil decisions easier is done EXCEPTIONALLY well in the Dishonored series. The more peaceful endings in Dishonored are generally harder to get as you constrain yourself with boundaries to stop yourself from murdering. The more chaotic endings in Dishonored are so much easier. You are free to do whatever your mind desires, much to the dismay of the people around you. It’s fun to unleash creative havoc on the world, but it’s also fun finding ways to slip by without hurting a soul. Both ways are fun, but the evil way allows more freedom with the game’s full technical depth.
@@Solaxe Yeah, that's true, most players will do good guy run especially on their first run because that's typically how games were intended to be played. However when it comes to evil runs, most of the time playing evil is just not that interesting because games like I said were designed to be good guy in mind, so being evil kinda comes off as afterthought. For example, in KOTOR1, before you get access to Force powers, if you play Dark Side all you will really do is steal someone's lunch money. It's simply not fun because your options to do Dark is very limiting and simply not rewarding. Even more modern RPGs have this issue, because like I said devs assume you're gonna play good guy.
Infamous did it better than most games
Stumbled across this and I really love the editing! Thank you for sharing 🙌
I think metro is an interesting take on a topic like this, because while being good gives you a better standing with the npc's and the best ending, its ultimately harder to do during gameplay without being able to kill the seemingly endless enemies trying to kill you. Making you have to think and plan what to do and being a lot more careful on how you play out scenarios
I think evil options not allowing for some pragmatism also has an effect. Like, you can be evil and still save a village from some bandits, especially if you're a Lawful Evil character who still believes in some semblance of order. You get loot, and a village in your debt that can be useful for your purposes. Another thing I think is that it's harder to justify an evil playthrough if you're a naturally empathetic person who has difficulty stomaching the thought of hurting innocent people just to "reject" the obvious good option. People don't often run on the good or evil binary; there's tons of nuance that video games just don't usually replicate effectively, if at all.
The absolute best way I ever saw what you're getting at summarized was this: "In a game with no sides, why are you still playing the Good Guys?" "Because my ultimate power fantasy is being able to help everyone."
Baldur's Gate 3 did a great job in doing what you've described imo. Without spoiling anything, this pragmatic approach you're talking about is completely possible, there isn't just an obviously good and evil choice but the outcome is determined by so many small choices along the way that you can shape it in pretty much any way you want.
@@AclibButLikeTheRealOne I had an opposite experience with BG3, I tried my second playthrough as villains in co-op and there's a lot of messed up stuff you can do with no real reason, and I'm speaking about dialogue/quest choices. More over, the game tries to guide you towards a heroic path right from the start, like you have no choice but to help in battle at the gates, even if you run away there, the NPCs gonna act like you're the hero who helped and you will have to actively ignore that, trying to justify things in your head, instead of having it justified in-game.
@@AclibButLikeTheRealOne Try being "pragmatic" about raiding the grove and report back on the ratio of chaotic evil to not chaotic evil options you found )or more importantly were forced to take). The first real and only evil "route" branching in the game is handled horribly, gives only one party member at the expense of three, and doesn't even let you relish in your own power WITH your companions willingly at your side. The entire evil "route" in BG3 is that of a psychopathic CE murderhobo.
@@ladywaffle2210 You got the quote slightly wrong it's "In a game with no consequences, why are you still picking the good side?". However this also gets down to the basic gist of why RPGs are designed like they are, people want to feel like the hero so games tend to cater to that.
When I played Knights of the Old Republic as a kid, I LOVED the Evil/Dark Side playthrough. Mostly because the more evil I was, the more cool powers I got, and the "evil" choice was usually fairly obvious, so I always knew what to pick to get stronger. That was one of the only games that I would do evil playthroughs of.
SWTOR is also amazing for nuanced evil. The light side sith aren't typically what you'd call likable, you could even argue they're not less evil just less cartoonishly evil. It's fascinating how much nuance they managed to put into the sith.
Agreed, KOTOR is a great exception to the rule. That game goes out of its way to give you nonstop rewards for evil choices, while being good often means extreme altruism. It makes sense given the lore.
Fable is also easy to be evil in. I mean, demon guy with cool sword is fun.
I can murder everyone in the vicinity but some choices like making Zaalbar kill Mission was too much
KOTOR 2 evil playthrough is very good. It made me feel like everything I did was pointless. At the end I thought "Why i'm doing this?".
The question is that usually the evil path is poorly done and it really punishes the player by making it a more boring and usually unrewarding path. But there are games and decisions where the evil path is well done or at least presents a difficult decision and not just the illusion of a choice, some examples are: For example in Outer Words, there are two main story paths, the first you become a revolutionary rebel trying to overthrow the corrupt corporations (Good) or you can choose to be a mercenary working for those corporations doing their dirty work (Evil). And the best of all is that you have this decision practically at the beginning of the game marking two totally different routes with different missions and events so that you feel rewarded by choosing any of the two paths. Another example would be Skyrim: Dawnguard. If you decide to go with the vampires, you have OP powers, vampires are cool and you can eclipse the sun. On the other hand, if you join the Dawnguard you can have an improved crossbow, a troll as a pet and marry Serana (if you cure her of vampirism). Who has chosen the Dawnguard a second time if not to marry Serana?
I vaguely recall serena not being variable after being cured.
I can no longer find the exact quote, but a lead dev on Mass Effect was once (in response to the topic of not as many people following the renegade alignment as paragon) quoted saying that all what ultimately matters is that the player had the choice to do what they did. The fact you voluntarily chose to do something and feel that impact holds power and is what ultimately matters. (Edit: grammar)
A malicious route (killing and destroying everything in sight) isn't the same as an amoral route (taking the decision of manipulating, lying and killing to your benefit).
Talking like a real manipulator
Murder and theft arent 'amoral', but there is a large gap between being a murderhobo, being a psychopath, or an opportunist
@@incendiary6243 Let´s try to prove murder and theft are indeed amoral, first from a basic syllogism, then through the ethymology. Animals hunt each other, that´s murder. Porperty doesn´t exist in the natural world, that´s theft. Sexual coercion and domination exist in multiple animal species including ducks, penguins, ducks and great apes -to name a few- that´s rape. So, the syllogism is as follows: Animals don´t have morality Animals steal, kill and rape Murder, theft and rape are amoral. Now on to the ethymology: a-moral from Greek ´a-not/lack of´ and Latin ´moral/moralis-manner or custom´ however moral was first used to translate the Greek ´ethikos´ Amoral an adjetive that means "ethically indifferent," first coined in 1882 by Robert Louis Stevenson (or so they say) as a differentiation from immoral. The term immoral would apply better to the player that´s just a "murderhobo" or serial killer, just killing for the sake of killing, given the circumstances you could also call an amoral player someone with a flexible ethical code or with a colorful pragmatism.
@@user-oc1ph6xm5i Thanks I appreciate it
@rodrigocoockiemonster4460 humans kill other animals too, and that's not murder. Killing and murder are not the same. Property not existing and therefore being theft makes literally no sense. If animals cannot have property, then they cannot be stolen from, and then theft cannot be 'natural', whatever that means. If your character chooses to lie, cheat, and steal because it benefits them, that is immoral. It is an intentional act to harm others. It is also immoral to murder indiscriminately. But the prior scenario has a lot more room for character development and nuance, but is often not done justice because it is hard to make a story and characters fit so much content well
I think the reason is that often times the evil playthrough just doesn’t have any story behind it, you’re just going around being sinister for what boils down to no reason, the evil playthroughs just aren’t realistic
Pretty much my thinking. I just cannot imagine why I - or anyone else - would do anything that cruel.
KOTOR is the exception to this. If you know the story, it makes sense why you might be evil. But the characters are so well written that you actually feel bad if you are evil towards them.
Exactly what I was thinking, there isn't much incentive to being evil in many games. Which from a moral standpoint is understandable but from a gameplay and freedom aspect it is a major drawback and limiter. A game where you can be a hero or evil but there is only benefits to being a hero
@@AutomaticDuck300I was going to say the exact same thing when I saw this comment, KOTOR was a game I could happily role play being evil because there is a reason.
I think it's related to how the audience like us (that enjoys critique of stuff we enjoy and watch video essays on the matter online) usuallt dislikes character archetypes of being pure evil just for the sake of being evil but then on the other hand, if you immerse yourself and think your actions are justified and right in the grand scheme of things, it might not feel evil at all. Not everyone can even consider their actions from their victims' perspective not to mention label themselves as evil. It's a deeper topic about morality as a whole, but in essence you can't really look at your actions (in game obviously) as evil if you have a reason, unless of course you just want to foreet immersion and just have fun (games like GTA or Postal belong there). Most humans in our society are not brought up to be truly bad people and are instead taught empathy, so as soon as we immerse ourselves in the game's world (and that's often the goal of RPGs) it's very hard to justify evil actions, especially if the game in question is not written properly in the first place.
"It's hard to be evil in video games" *Me casually installing killable children mods in skyrim*
that dont work anymore lol
I believe the evil path would be more tempting if the rewards would be greater. But games usually try encouraging good by making good rewards better, so it's practical to be good. I'm making a heroes of might and magic campaign with moral options (the game wasn't designed for that, so it doesn't have a fully committed possibility). Making "the end justifies the means" choices is usually more rewarding, making the campaign easier but the story keeps track on that. Being good basically handicaps you but the reward is feeling more good about your actions (or just making the campaign more challenging).
Evil path as a greater challenge sounds like a great idea!
I always really liked the narstive behind the binary choices in bioshock 2, maybe because I am a parent. The way your daughter would rationalize your choices and see them as the correct and even morally right path to take regardless of what you choose really hit home just how impressionable a child who idolizes their parent can be. In the end, you aren’t making arbitrary good or bad choices, you’re setting examples for the potential hero or monster your child will end up becoming when she escapes out into the wider world.
And man, it also makes the Neutral Good ending the most narratively satisfying and interesting, Eleanor sees these contradictory behaviours from Delta and has to try and come to terms with why he acted the way he did and why in his final moments he chooses to die rather than make her a worse person. I think it only hits as hard as it does because you are given the option to take these other parts and the ending doesnt really care about why you take the complicated path you do, it's about her coming to terms with the complex nature of her idol.
It really missed the mark with me as i remember saving every little sister except 1 because i was really close to an adam upgrade, and then your daughter will turn up evil because i didn't saved 100% of the little sisters
@@arielmatiauda5110 bruh you just told on yourself. She only turns evil if you kill the bosses instead on showing them mercy. Otherwise if you show mercy on the bosses and somehow miss a sister then MC just dies.
@@Pocket_Crab i remember a scene, where she has the option to save or kill someone and said something along the lines of exactly how you thought me and then she harvest the girl, and i remember only doing "good karma" except for a single little sister harvest
Most plots do evil the wrong way. It's far more compelling when the choice isn't "Help people or screw them over for your own benefit," but "Help people, but at additional risks that may undermine your efforts in the long run and require sacrifices that make you question whether the ends justifies the means." One game I remember that I felt did this well- Tyranny.
YES! Making people choose between two different wrongs, or a wrong for the right thing is much better. I can't count the time I thought to myself "This is a wrong for the greater good."
Oh yeah onenof the best gray area games of all times where really...there wasnt a good choice more like the lesser evil then evil and sometimes that wasnt what you thought it was.
Wasteland 3 did it well with the Denver questline. Brainwash valor for the Gippers and they give oil back to Colorado Springs but angers the Patriarch and he doesn’t reward you and you’re also alienated by the Machine Commune, Capture Reagan for the machine commune and you get valor alive but have to kill the Gippers and Colorado Spirngs doesn’t get oil back, Hold Reagan hostage and you get Valor alive but you’re alienated by both the Gippers and the Machine Commune but you also turn the oil back on for Colorado Springs and you’re rewarded, or kill Valor just for the lolz. Personally I took Reagan hostage because everyone survives and I still get my rewards and turning the oil on is a step for the “best” ending is for Wasteland 3
I agree very much. Doing the right thing is very easy when it also benefits you more than doing something else. True character is only shown when somebody chooses to do the right thing even when it doesn't seem beneficial to oneself.
I think it should be more along the lines of: Being evil should actually be the one that give you good short term and personal rewards (direct upgrades to yourself and your equipment), but can bite you in the back really hard when you least expect it, and it can close a lot of doors with relations with normal people but the doors it does leave open allow you to network with powerful people and without constraint. Being neutral is the smart play where all doors remain open to you, but has the problem of being impossible to maintain in the long term, and leaves you very much alone without the relationships and the benefits the other two bring. Being neutral can slowly break you down into evil as well, as sometimes one must acknowledge the injustice inaction can cause, and that avoiding engaging with your emotion and human side isn’t healthy. being good can allow you to form some good long term investments through relationships with people, but you loose a lot of the personal benefits as you sacrifice more of your time, resources, and relationships with others tearing yourself apart for the short term feeling of “it feels good”. It can pay off sometimes, but a lot of the time you get absolutely nothing in return
So glad the algorithm showed me this, I'm definitely gonna subscribe and check out everything else cause that's the good decision here
Excellent job on this one! Subbed
Even if very few people take the evil path, the fact that you could have been cruel and selfish but choose not too means so much more to the fantasy of most RPGs than if you'd never been presented with that option at all. It definitely adds enough value to the experience to be worth putting into the game.
In KCDeliverance there is a brilliant questline with the Inquisition, you can be selfish and greedy, but there are consequences...
That's part the Ubdertale charm I believe, the knowing that you could be killing characters but choose not too is what gives the pacifist route its value, if the only other option was the neutral ending it wouldn't mean as much.
No if being Evil gave you a Weapon to one-shot everything and Cash like crazy and interesting interactions not just everyone hunting you people would do it without thinking about it.
It should always count for something.
I get your point, but at the same time, it can warp the game by including evil options. What I mean is, the writers and voice actors and everyone now have to do twice the work because there's twice as much "game" to be made. So, naturally, each individual playthrough gets less development and is shorter. It can be even more difficult to actually make the evil options fit into the game and not break the narrative. So while what you're saying is true, that there is a positive aspect to allowing a choice, it also has alot of costs that quite possibly outweigh that benefit.
I think the real reason is for most games you aren't meant to be evil so it's more of an after thought. Like in baldur's gate 3, no matter how evil you want to be at the end of the you still need to go against the actual evil guys or in Skyrim. You can do all the evil quests and stuff but some npcs will still treat you like you are the hero and you still need to actually be the hero to finish the main story
Baldur's Gate 3 has a good evil ending, especially with the Dark Urge.
BG3 has a valid reason though, if anything I like their approach to evil. (Spoilers for evil route) In both good and evil playthroughs you still ultimately have to fight the ones in charge of the Absolute, but the huge difference is WHY you fight. In a good run you want to stop evil guys from being evil. In an evil, non murder hobo playthrough, you are trying to seize *control* of the absolute for your own benefit. Alot of people take issue with the fact that we can't be in good terms with the Chosen the whole way through, but it makes sense as by this point in the story you know that the Absolute is a mindflayer plot to begin with and everyone infected is a planned pawn for the Chosen to use, taking control of the Absolute both protects you from the Chosen subduing you and it also grants you unbelievable power
Me when I loot everyones homes and use quicksave so I dont get thrown in jail:
In previous BG's playing evil clearly wasn't an intended route, even starting companions from BG2 suggest a good "canon" playthrough. Less money, less experience, choices were often just to be mean, without some sort of benefit or logic behind it, etc. It also goes for many other games.
I mean how else would you be able to finish Skyrim? You don't have to be a hero to kill someone who is a threat to you.
In infamous games, the evil playthrough is more fun since you get slightly better powers and well, you can kill people without worrying. Yet the devs said that most people chose to be good in their first play through.
this is so well edited
I think a huge reason most games evil routes fall so flat regardless of the narrative built around them is that it takes individual agency to commit meaningful acts of evil, and that current game design and structure, especially the "quest giver" centric formula arent really able to allow players that kind of agency over their actions.
To me it's really just the fact that being "evil" really just means going around and killing everyone you see and eventually it gets boring there is no depth to your evil deeds its just do you kill and steal from everyone or not and most RPGs are like that. Also the fact that you actually get rewarded for being a good person most of the time
Darkest dungeon
See Trevor and all the other player characters in the GTAV campaign. No depth, all evil, and you are REQUIRED to be evil. And in multiplayer, you get MORE GAME if you are bad than if you are good. Play it good and you have a sub par driving game and dolls house. It isn't the same sort of game as Fallout3.
My complaint with being evil in games is how shallow being evil is, you decide to be evil to see what happens, but nothing really happens.
Have you played BG3? I initially planned to do an evil playthrough and was having good success with it 20 hours in eithout massaccring people for no reason. Currently I'm trying to redeem my character however the games gives you A LOT of options to be a goddamn evil piece of shit and actually incentivizes you to do it. BG3 is probqbly that one rpt that is an exception to this.
No shit. True evil has no depth. That's the whole point. That's why evil should be rejected, irl or otherwise. It's shit, shallow and fake all at it's best.
Skyrim's a great example of how the game's design drives moral choices. You're given the opportunity to destroy the Dark Brotherhood, but doing so basically boils down to clearing out a bandit camp. Siding with the Dark Brotherhood gives you one of the better-designed questlines. Even when I try to make my character "the good guy" I always end up joining the Dark Brotherhood because to do otherwise is to miss out on content.
The best evil choice I've seen was in Baldurs Gate 3. In act 3, a pirate captain will reward you 4000 for killing a woman who tore up hell in the pirates bar while looking for her son. However, if you're a rogue (like i was) you can ask for double that. So there I was, with 8000 gold in my face, which for some context, was 4x the money I had at the time, with the price being killing a mostly innocent woman and dooming her son. I was playing a good character, but holy hell did I sit on it for a while. Money really is the root of all evil lol
Part of the problem is that most of us play roleplaying games to connect with and integrate into the world. But most evil decisions effectively drive a wedge between you and the rest of the world. You miss out on quest lines, you miss out on companions, you miss out on chances to ROLEPLAY in a ROLEPLAYING game, and it becomes "you versus the world" instead of "you being a part of that world." It's fantastic to have the option, and I'm never going to complain about a game giving us more narrative freedom, but evil playthroughs typically undermine most of the core strengths of a roleplaying game.
Which is sad because there are other evil people who are part of the world, why can't you interact with them?
Most of the time is when you made bad choices that lead to have a different ending and perhaps a bad ending too.
I get what you're saying, but ironically, maybe that's what evil gets you
@@iwuanadie1058maybe in real life, but if an unkillable merciless bandit rode into town I would expect respect and fear, to have the effort and time that I put into my status be rewarded in some way. Being evil is just not profitable at times, and is actively unfun to do, so why would I play a game that isn't fun?
There are ways to make evil playthrough's work for those of us who enjoy them. In Bound by Flame, your character becomes more powerful if you succumb to the demon. In Bioshock, you reap heaps of Adam if you harvest the little sisters. In Infamous, you get access to highly destructive powers when you go evil. Ofcourse all these have their own repercussions such as bad endings. This however is a step in the right direction. As an evil agent, I expect shortcuts to power, and wealth. Perhaps missing out on a side quest but gaining money as a result. The problem with RPGs is they seldom reward you for evil, which makes no sense because the world doesn't work like that. You don't always prosper because you're good, and you don't always suffer because you're evil. Sometimes it's quite the opposite. I don't see why this can't be incorporated gameplay wise instead of making me miss out on content and loot coz I'm a "jerk" As for companions, just have evil companions too. Companions who people who choose a good playthrough get locked out
There are games that have an interesting twist on this.Take This War of Mine for example: in that game, food and essential supplies are very hard to come by. So one day you might encounter an old friendly couple only protected by their single son. Will you beat the son to death and take all the food they have, leaving the old couple to die, or do you spare them, and come home empty handed? But what about your brother who is deathly ill at home? The old couple have the medicine you need, but they are not willing to part with it as they need it just as much themselves. What now? Who is the good and bad one? The choice just got a whole lot more interesting now.
Yeah agreed. I think playing as a morally grey "evil" with solid motivations behind their fucked up actions is a lot more compelling then just being a mustache twirling villain who just does bad stuff for the sake of being bad.
It's not a hard choice. If you have to commit a crime against someone who's done you no wrong, you're the bad guy. What gives you more right to survive than these people? Because you're the protagonist? No. They have the right to live, and enjoy their property without someone thinking it's ok to murder them, because they have a need too. Sure, it's a video game, it doesn't matter, do what you want, but if you carry that mindset into reality, you get Portland during the BLM riots.
'You' are still the evil one for killing an elderly couple's son and potentially the elderly couple whilst also stealing their medicine. At least that's how I see it. A horrible act is still a horrible act regardless on the justifications we can put on it. To be honest I find more enjoyment in characters who are just straight up evil than one's who are morally evil. Morally evil characters annoy me for the most part. Its like a game of who can play the biggest victim.
@@KDB349 What's the difference between straight up evil, and morally evil?
@@gwourubased on the comment i think they define morally evil as the side thats evil with motivations that theyre willing to appease "by any means necessary" while straight up evil is a trope called Pure Evil
I think for a lot of games that have choices to be made between good and evil playthroughs is that there is normally already a "canon" such as with Mass Effect, there's certain events that have to happen, and normally the pre-determined canon that the developers have made is usually the good playthrough, so it kinda invalidates the whole of the "bad" playthrough. The best evil playthroughs are in games where it shows evil winning, such as in BfME 2 where in the evil campaigns, Sauron wins and conquers middle earth, where as most evil playthroughs in general still have a positive end
I remember Fable's mortality system, and did two playthroughs back to back, one being good and the other bad. Other than gaining your EXP at a faster rate, as well as other rewards (can't remember exactly) in the Evil playthrough, I felt bad during the run. Ended up deleting the Evil save after doing the minium.
Bet you didn't felt bad when eating those live chicks to enter the temple, huh?, did you lad?
the problem, for me, is that usually its not even worth it to be evil, because the things you do makes npcs react to you by fighting and you have no choice but to kill em, which will make you lose a lot of side content. so im always worried that ill lose content by being evil. if we got a whole branch of sidequests due to the things ive done, it would be worth it
Yep, even in Fallout2 (one of the best RPGs ever imo), they give you an option to be a slaver... but then the game severely punish you in every possible way, basically ruining your playthrough. So why bother, it's not worth it.
Heres the thing though, thats kind of the point. When you do evil things, people are obviously gonna dislike or even hate you because of those evil actions. Thats how it is. If you want to be evil, part of that is knowing that near everyone around you is *going to* hste you.@@bdleo300
@@bdleo300 you literally become a slave owner ofc you would be get hated by great mayority of the world what did you expect
My biggest thing is that being "evil" in a lot of games equates to just being mean. You don't need to explicitly be an asshole to have bad morals, and its moreso (to me) an issue of me just not wanting to be explicitly rude to people. If there is going to be an "evil" option it shouldn't default just be your typical schoolyard bully, there should be more nuanced options that allow for more sinister and devious play that allow you to put on the facade of being good while furthering your own evil goals.
Agreed. The truly evil route in Fallout 3, for instance, could be the player taking over Megaton themselves - perhaps holding the people there to ransom with the threat of the bomb. "I'm in charge now. Do as I say, or this whole town will disappear!" And you wouldn't get there by simply being mean. Far from it - you'd need to ingratiate yourself with the town to get close enough to the bomb and set everything up. You'd need to be NICE to them. Hell, do it right and they may even gladly accept you as their new leader; they're halfway to that already with the "good" ending.
This is part of why I love Baldurs Gate, you can be "nice" for the sake of making things easier for yourself and be evil whenever it's beneficial. (And evil is more nuanced than "kill everyone you meet", unless you don't want it to be)
You can kinda do this in SWtOR. I was playing my bounty hunter character with 3 rules. 1: Always take the job, no matter what. I'm a bounty hunter, not a moralist. 2: Never betray the original employer. Reputation is everything. 3: Always prioritize credits except when doing so would break the first two rules. The opening planet for bounty hunters has you working for a Hutt, and that Hutt sends you to track down and kill a scientist and bring proof of the kill to strongarm the dude's wife into doing what the Hutt wants. So I took that job and tracked down the scientist. The game gives you an option to either kill him, accept a bribe from him to let him leave but say you killed him, or lie to him and accept the bribe but kill him anyway. I did the latter option, not because it was necessarily evil (because it was, especially when I took his head back to his wife), but because it netted me the most credits without betraying my original employer... the Hutt.
Too many of these games with moral decisions encourage either an "evil" or "good" playthrough. To an extent, this should happen. There should be benefits to pursuing a playstyle. However, it typically leads to both evil and good playthroughs removing the RP aspect, the "deciding based on how your character would act," and instead just choosing whatever seems most extreme in hopes of pushing that alignment bar in one direction or another. Ultimately, I think the issue is hiding content behind some otherwise arbitrary measurement of your morality. What's needed would be a massive increase of data, more paths that open up based off individual decisions rather than some made up number value. And making it absolutely clear to players that your decisions, your individual decisions, have more impact. Perhaps a three-way path towards the beginning with no choice inherently good or evil options based off one important decision. Side comment. Make sure the player largely knows the effect of their options. Even if seeing, "Dark Side Points Gained, Light Side Points Gained, Influence Gained: Kreia, Influence Lost: Kreia" is meme-worthy.
Na, renegade Shepard is the ‘evil’ way of playing me but it’s not evil it’s just getting the job done any means necessary
Evil is not about just killing people who don't deserve it. It's about making them believe you care about them while your taking advantage of them. All evil characters only care about survival and their own best interest. For exemple. An evil character will join a resistance only to sell them out at the upmost important reach.
I struggle to be evil in games where you play as an actual character, but I will happily purge 20 billion people in stellaris lmao
A closer comparison would be Red Dead 2 and GTA. Like GTA, Red Dead has the generally nameless infinitely respawning NPCs that don't mean anything to the story. But with Red Dead, you can see the impact of your mindless killing with Arthur. How he talks about feeling violent with the people at camp and how he hates the man he's becoming. And you see what being evil is doing to Dutch and the gang and everything falling apart. I want to not be evil in Red Dead so Arthur can redeem himself and live the rest of his days as a good person.
The game has a story about failed or flawed redemption. It's a not an RPG and Arthur is set to die.
@@Lucas_Antar I wouldnt say gta is an RPG either. And sure arthur is set to die but you can choose how he dies
As a side, read dead 1 feels like it has 2 endings based on your morality. Good= a man with a bad past turns good and the government broke its promise because of corruption and malice. Evil= government broke its promise because you were a monster who couldn’t be left alone. Same ending but one feels just
Being honorable in RDR2 is tedious and unrewarding gameplay wise. Besides, you can be an evil SOB 90% of the game and gain back most honor in the last part of Arthur's story.
@@woodlefoof2 I never really thought of it like that but it makes perfect sense
Most games just allow you to be cartoonishly evil. I would love it if AAA games had story content like Tyranny, where evil is nuanced and varied and not the standard chaotic evil or a robinhoodesque "evil" that turns out as good in the end.
Exactly, Tyranny definitely was unique in that regard.
Hearing about Tyranny almost makes me wish for a nuclear winter. The game is so unique despite being a small budget gem yet there'll never be a continuation of its ideas :(
It sounds like you need to give crusader kings 3 a go
I wouldn't really call it cartoonish, as that would actually be fun to play as a over the top silly cartoon baddie. Most games give you a watered-down, half baked villain following the hero's story and saving the day, with the good and bad ending. Let's pick between the red or blue option. I mean, I'd love to play a game where you can follow a hero or villain path that's actually it's own path. I think being an actual cartoonish villain would be a lot of fun. If games gave you that option without crushing your experience with constantly punishing you for doing a villain playthrough
I think the Old Republic allows you to be evil, but not in a cartoonish way.
Amazing editing
When 90% of players play Good first then Evil second, its not a choice at all. You've just made the game longer. Then both plays end up feeling hollow because neither ever mattered. Moral decisions lose all gravity when you know they're gamified, or 'this is the only way to get ____'
I think one big problem is that so many morality models in games portray evil as cartoonishly evil, when you could easily tie a progression system to stepping on others to get ahead or manipulating your way to the top of the food chain. There should be a distinctively different payoff for both paths as well, making the evil path worth it, or enticing enough to also make the good path an actual moral decision
Play shin megami tensei
@@Vanity0666 I was scrolling through the comments looking to find a mention of SMT.
In Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous the evil options are supported by the fact they give you access to a lot of exclusive content. In the game, you are supposed to lead a crusade against the demons. However, midway into the game you can choose to instead turn yourself into a demon (or a lich, if you did the right quests). Being a demon unlocks more content in a later chapter of the game where you have to infiltrate a demonic metropolis in the Abyss. Since as a demon the demon queen of that realm personally invites you there instead of you having to sneak in, you get somewhat of a VIP treatment right off the bat, and can even do quests that you can't do otherwise, such as one that lets you overthrow various demon big shots to steal their followers. Your quest turns from ridding the world of demons to usurping the demon lords that are currently leading the invasion. The Lich path likewise has some great characterization, with the main character being criticized by their followers for trying to defeat an evil with another evil. You have the option to just pull rank and shut them up, or rationalize it as sacrificing your own morality to save the world, whether it's a lie or not is up to you. All that while opening up extra options when interacting with undead characters that let you use your necromantic powers to unlock more options and even gain more playable characters by reanimating certain enemies. Being evil feels good because you're not just burning bridges with the "good guys", but the ones on the side of evil are rational and welcoming to a degree. You still have to rise through the ranks and earn their respect with force or trickery, but you can end up with as many, or even more options than playing the good routes. Also you can choose to instead turn into a hive mind of billions of sentient bugs if you completed all of the hidden requirements for it, which makes literally every single NPC in the game, including the other playable characters, turn against you in disgust. But since you now have basically infinite power, the endgame turns into an all-you-can-eat buffet of curb stomping enemies and former allies, where even the main villain of the campaign is utterly disgusted by your choices. In a game that's so heavy on the role playing aspect, having such a big change is truly a huge twist. If you can stomach, pun intended, eating everyone that has been helping you through the entire game (and your little dragon, too!).
People just play games when everything is a form of social control. Thank you for sharing this exemption to the rules. Interesting and appreciated I would of never known this was the case.
Thank you for sharing ! Now that's morally interesting.
YES!!! This perfectly describes why that is my favorite game of all time. They also give you a ridiculous amount of options for character and class customization which just makes the experience even more fun.
You got me interested in this game
Dawg wrote an essay
I've always found when I go back to all my old favourite RPGs with moral choices, fallout, fable, dragon age etc, I do two playthroughs at the same time and switch between till I'm satisfied with both ends. That way I can jump into the villain role when I'm bored of being the hero, and jump back into the hero role if I start feeling guilty. It also allows you to do different quests and storylines without making the PC feel like an empty vessel. In oblivion for example, one character to play the main story, fighters/mages guild and knights of the nine, another villanous character for dark brotherhood, theives guild etc.
inFamous is great because you get different powers and storylines based on whether you choose good or evil. Its pretty fun to play evil because you get to act like a complete psycho and you are rewarded for it. When playing as a good guy, you have to be careful to not harm civilians or do evil actions, but it makes you feel good when people start to like you.
Undertale has one of my favorite evil routes, because it actually unpacks the trauma you're inflicting on the characters. You hear their desperation to live, their desire to protect the people they love, their grief when they fail. When you grind all of that into pulp under your heel, you make a barren world without love or joy, and you _feel like_ the kind of monster that should've been stopped. “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring.” ~Simone Weil In most games, evil actions _cut off_ content. You get less game for your game. The best evil routes are the ones with _the presence of a story,_ rather than the absence, in the aftermath of your actions. Something to say about cruelty, instead of a nihilistic sandbox full of paper dolls. And as others have said, this is even more compelling when you have more nuanced options than, "Attacking people on-sight."
I totally agree. It's a slow build that requires more and more purposeful acts of cruelty to get the evil ending. The first time I did it, I was able to dissociate just for the sake of curiosity, but even by the time you get to Snowden, it gets to be almost too much. The whole town is abandoned or in hiding because of you. Papyrus, the goofy guardian who just wants to be friends, is powerless to stop a real villain. The characters that you can grow to love are only safe if they never meet you. But on the other hand... Megalovania?
All this for a shitty pixel indie game lol
Spongebob roller coaster scared.
I think the whole access to content debate is why evil usually feels so cheap. Developers don't want to go to the effort of making a whole area of their game that only evil people will explore, so you always end up with this cheap system where you can sort of do everything despite the way you treat people around yourself. Gamers are also part of the problem, because they complain constantly when the are locked out of content based on morality. If done correctly, you SHOULD be locked out of experiences, character interactions and areas, but you should be given alternatives. Undertale gives you these alternative interactions with the characters that really make you feel the terrible things you're doing, that's another big part of it. Morality shouldn't be treated like a game, you are hurting people and that should always be abundantly clear to the player. It often isn't.
That's not good evil as well lmao that's just a game forgetting being evil can be nuanced which by your example is clearly missing from the game ,being evil can be just as joyous and exciting as being good it's not black and white and if you think it is your just wrong being being evil =/= 1layer person who does retarded acts
I’m sad Baldurs gate three dark urge was not brought up more because there was a lot of rewards for the nasty things you had to do and I thought that was a really big change from fallout and other RPG’s. It really gave you a reason to be terrible, so that there is a dilemma of doing it or not.
Dude trust me I’m upset with myself that I didn’t include it more too. I had about two to three minutes of dialogue where I raved about Baldurs Gate evil path but I cut it out of the video because a lot of what I said matched the same thoughts I expressed for New Vegas, just with more examples unique to the game. It got to the point where I felt like I was repeating myself, so I didn’t want the pace of the video to get dragged down by it. I should’ve written it better to combine the two at the end more, but because I wanted to keep the comparisons tight with the just the fallout franchise, the result was what you watched.
@@StrictlyMediocre understandable to keep it between the two games anyways cause they are fundamentally different when it comes to to morality I just saw Baldurs really reward you for being evil and punishing you for not I’ve not seen that in a lot of other games and it was quite refreshing and it’s really something I hope I see more in RPGs because it added a lot of depth to being good and having to scrifice yourself for the greater good instead of being rewarded
Don't know about the dark urge path, but doing evil stuff like siding with the goblins, etc, felt really underdeveloped to me in bg3. Felt like there was an expected path that was mostly good. The more I deviated from that path, the more quests I became locked out of, and the more the party hated me. Maybe I should give dark urge path a try, I suppose.
@@sithmorpheus9747 you definitely have to accept the dark urge path for a while, but once you get further into it if you go back on what you promise you get really punished for it and if you continue, there’s really cool rewards so you get stuck doing terrible things
@@sithmorpheus9747 Overall, the game still rewards you far, far more often for playing good vs. evil, even as the dark urge because yeah, you get a few neat things but you lose out on so much more in the process that it's not really worth it if you're aiming to make a playthrough as fulfilling as possible. BG3 has a better "evil" route then some RPGs but I wouldn't call it particularly good or satisfying when you're still left feeling like you're shooting yourself in the foot both gameplay wise and narratively.
"Why is it hard to be evil in Video Games?" erm... it was pretty easy for me in Baldurs Gate 3
I think that the best way to handle good/evil in RPGs is for the path of "good" to be more difficult, possibly even frustrating at times, only to provide satisfaction later on, while evil is easier, more immediately gratifying, but at the very end leaves you with very little at all.
It's hard be evil in games because the options are often too binary and safe. There's usually no convincing factions to join, no ways to truly affect the world, and a lack of a satisfying ending.
Pretty much this which is why I like the reputation system in New Vegas better. Plus, a lot of the time it's a con to be evil in video games with a morality system.
Try Obsidian's RPGs like Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny, or even better Planescape: Torment, those games definitely wouldn't qualify as "safe and binary" and being evil in them is actually really engaging and fun.
@@ivancar555 neverwinter nights 2 also has plenty of evil options, you can even kill all your companions at one point
Maybe that's because most people don't actually want to be evil bastards. There's plenty of evil to do IRL and sometimes it's not even intentional. Evil is the state of the world. In games being good is easy and evil is more difficult most of the time. In real life the opposite is true. Being good is hard, even more so to be altruistic. Most of the things we do are neutral to lawful neutral at best most of the time. Doing TRUE good requires work, often a lifetime of work. It's all to easy to dive into evil and malice. A stupid driver, a bad day, or even just a conversation gone horribly wrong. It may seem trivial to be a "good" person, but in reality, your probably not doing anything that could be considered truly good. Mass Charity, housing the homeless, saving people in war, stopping wars entirely. Those and much more are truly good. The rest below it are, as valuable as they are, are the product of being a decent human being. Simply put, not having adequate rewards for an evil playthrough is that there are already plenty in real life. Why invest one's self in recreating the tragedy and trauma that we already go through?
@@TheBlackAntagonist But the thing is, Games aren't real. Why can't I indulge in something I can't do in the real world? That's why play video games, to do things you can't do in real life.
For me, the difference between being evil in GTA versus Fallout is that one is you playing as a character and making them do evil things and the other is playing as an evil character. Going on a rampage in GTA doesn’t really effect the story. In Fallout, these actions have consequences and can change how you go through the main story.
Play cyberpunk
And because in GTA the humans are just moving targets while in RPG'S the humans are.......well......humans
Play RDR2
@@jessethorns121I thought this exact thing and reinstalled after two years and it runs even worse than in 2020 lmfao
@@skaterzrule4 objectively a personal problem crazy that you liked it more when you fell through the map after any strenuous action on your old gen console
The only game I’ve played where being evil was funner was interestingly stellaris.
The problem with evil playthroughs is that they involve way too much murder for you to be truly evil. The dastardly villain who twirls his greasy moustache shouldn't be above murder, but also shouldn't have to RELY on murder as the default. The point of being evil should be that you're benefitting from others suffering. And as such the best evil choices should ALWAYS have the best rewards, and make you feel like a dick. True evil is being lazy but cunning enough to know how to live the easy life, and get away with it. You the player should feel evil while everyone in the game likes you.
14:13 I'm sorry, but the way he just ragdolls off the edge caught me way off guard and almost made be spit my drink.
I legit feel bad when I’m mean to video game characters. I know it’s just a game but the level of depth given to characters in games makes me see them as real. I know that video games will only continue to get more realistic and I hope that the percentage of people that are good in video games continues to outweigh the percentage of people that pick the bad route. I know that it probably won’t always be that way but I’m happy to hear that the percentage of people that are good in video games is the majority.
I agree. Me and my girlfriend were playing gtav and she ran over everybody and laughed. I then showed her Red Dead Redemption 2 because I enjoy it more. When I wanted to kill an npc, my girlfriend was so mad at me because she didnt want me to kill that innocent man. Thats what I like about Rdr2, the world feels realistic and all my actions are impactful
@@fallapi6 I haven’t played RDR or RDR2, I know that that game series is the complete opposite of GTA since your actions impact the game, GTA is merely a playground to do whatever you want with little to no consequences
I'd feel devasted if I lost some marines when I used to play Halo as a kid. Sometimes I would even restart the whole level if I couldn't save them by reverting to last checkpoint.
@@jrc1606 I have never played any fps games and I guess it’s because if I lost anyone in my brigade I know I’d feel bad
@@jrc1606 Same. I’m playing Fire Emblem Three Houses on classic mode, meaning that if any of my characters reach zero hit points, they die, and are out of the game. Even characters that I hate, never use, and are more burdens than assets I still reset for, because I want them to live.
I think it might be hard for developers to make an engaging evil playthrough possible because they would essentially have to program and script two games in many cases.
funly enough you can make one central story where both parties try to reach the same goal and you are the one who will tip the balance for good or ill sure is still extra work as it requires both paths to be interconected so you dont make 2 games in one but well is less than 2 games in one
isn't that the point Role playing games, to make your choices matter?
@@gawkthimm6030no, it's a feature many market thenselvs around but in the end, is rpg by definition is just a Game where you play the role of your characters, even in the olden and new TTRPG campaings can be pretty linear, it's just that, most of the times, you wont see the railroad you are following.
EDIT: it seems people misinterpret what i said.. no i didn't say Skyrim or Undertale set the standard for anything, just that AAA games felt threatened by the success of Undertale, which affected the way modern RPGs are made today.. if i'm wrong i'm wrong, if i'm right i'm right.. but i'm tired of debate culture and people arguing against points i'm not making.. so i'm leaving this thread to touch grass..
@@guilhermeadfl This is correct. I think what makes it so noticable in Bethesda RPG's is the fact that you play a self defined character without a preset moral compass. You wouldn't go full evil in the Witcher for example because that's not keeping with the character of garalt. Bethesda games don't give you an archetype to follow so it's easier to bump into the "guardrails".
It's actually because I'm doing an evil playthrough irl so I'm good in games to change things up
It was really hard for me to make any evil decision in a video game until I committed to an evil playthrough of the first dragon age. That game straight up desensitized me to the anxiety you feel before picking an evil option cause the characters reactions were worth it Everytime. Brilliantly written game.
I have noticed the same thing with baldurs gate 3 lately. Even when I played a character I characterized as evil, I would still mostly use good choices, because most evil choices were either irrational, where the benefit was far outweighed by the drawbacks, not only from knowing how the game would unfold, but also from a characters point of view, or just the cowardly "don't involve me in this" kind of response
Being evil in baldurs gate 3: (Trade Karlach and Wyll for Minthara) Can’t do it sorry. It’s act 1 and already not worth it
@@desertheat4u but wyll and karlach is boring tho, i will take a elf waifu even tho minthara is also kinda boring.
well, I actually disagree, evil playthroughs don't lose more XP than a good playthrough and you get the same loot anyway. my first play-through of BG3 ended up just me starting to kill everyone cuz it's very boring to talk. and if i just start murdering everyone i get more combat encounters.
@@USERZ123XD holy shit that's actually such a psychopath line of thought, you really want to get your money's worth of combat for your first playthrough XD
That's why in this one area Dragon Age Origins wins. You can be an extremely evil SOB in that, and even get rewarded for it.
That’s why I like Dishonored. Choosing to be evil makes the game much easier, but it also visibly makes the world around you a far worse place. But the easy ending, although difficult to achieve, is highly rewarding for your efforts too with a satisfying outcome for every character.
Yep. Totally random but this is also why I like Frostpunk. That game will turn you into a monster in order for the city to Survive especially on your first playthrough and first time trying to beat the game.
The easy ending is difficult to achieve? What?
@@steponme661 They meant the good ending.
Isn't it kind of the opposite of this? If you kill a lot of people, and put the game into "high chaos" mode, the game puts more enemies and obstacles into future levels. Everyone's on high alert, and they're bringing the big guns. Not that I see this as a punishment, exactly. In my experience, the high chaos versions of levels are actually a lot of fun. But just sneaking around the easy version of levels for the good ending definitely isn't the "hard" path.
@@epsteindidntkillhimself69 The game is very easy when you make use of everything the game offers like instantly hiding dead bodies, strong weapons like explosives, guns and even using the basic sword makes the game ultra easy
When a game forces you to choose between two evils, like battlefield 4’s campaign forcing you to sacrifice either Irish (your long-time friend) or Hannah (a female refugee fighter who joined your squad) to end the mission, you lose the ability to choose self-sacrifice as squad leader, and thus all good options are taken. Hannah has been helpful the whole time, providing useful information, and Irish has been your best friend. Who do you sacrifice? I didn’t want to kill either, so I never finished the campaign. Apparently though, EA said that Hannah was supposed to die, because Irish is in a sequel game, Battlefield 2042.
"Good is just more interesting, more complex, more demanding. Evil is silly, it may be horrible, but at the same time it's not a compelling idea. It's predictable. It needs a tuxedo, it needs a headline, it needs blood, it needs fingernails. It needs all that costume in order to get anybody's attention." -Toni Morrison
i think Red Dead 2 is probably the best example of morality in videogames. When you kill certain people and loot them, you can find wedding rings, letters to loved ones; and even (once or twice) be confronted by their widow who will say how you murdered her husband. Plus with how alive the world feels, being evil feels evil, and being honourable feels honourable.
Was looking for this comment. Red dead 2 definitely does a better job at making you feel bad for killing npc’s there’s a genuine low honor high honor system and being evil with Arthur is hard for a lot of people to do.
New vegas does the approach well as well but the conplete opposite, being evil or good doesnt matter bcs its a post apocalypse
I love how Red Dead 2 forced me to beat up that guy so Arthur could get sick, I didn't feel bad for his family.
@@griffore6404 felt bad for the son but only after when we go to the mine same as arthur is portrayed feeling for him
It’s also definitely not boring playing evil (the Wolf). Having to keep yourself from being recognized to avoid having bounties and lawmen chasing you wherever those bounties lie, people who could’ve been helpful if you were honorable with them are now avoiding you or even hostile. No discounts in shops, and scavenging becomes more viable than risking being seen in town to get supplies, but also can be exciting getting in and out without drawing attention. Then the camp. You literally feel alienated going back to it and like you no longer belong there, unless you actually are an A-Hole.
I can tell you right now why being evil isnt fun its because games don't let you actually be evil. Either the characters are protected or doing one bad thing makes the whole town attack you. I personally think its limitations of how quests/storylines are implemented.
Yep, fallout doesn't let you be truly evil. If it did people wouldnt be very happy, for example the children are invincible
@@ShatteredSightthere’s mods for that luckily
Sounds like someone accidentally stole a spoon in Oblivion.
Read dead readeamptean
@@ShatteredSightfrom what i hear letting your game have killable children or even show children being hurt all has to be offscreen as if it’s shown your game is banned
everygame i try to play evil first because im not attached to any characters yet. so its easier. but then when you play good its like a completely new game thats so wholesome you could die
Being "evil" in GTA really isn't being evil because once you get away from the cops or die you're back where you started, it doesn't affect your character at all. While in other games where there is actually a choice, doing the evil things usually just isn't as fun and you don't gain much, if anything, from doing those choices.
Baldur's Gate 3 actually does an alright job at providing options for playing as anything from a greed-motivated mercenary, an apathetic jerk, someone struggling with an internal demon, or just being a completely murderous bloodthirsty monster, and it provides unique dialogue and interactions for each path you take. Yet another reason it's GOTY.
Yeah, BG3 really raised the bar. I'm almost afraid to play it, fearing that I won't enjoy other games as much afterwards.
@@lightworker2956 No, trust me, it won't ruin your ability to enjoy games. BG3 raised the bar, yes, but it's also a very specific KIND of game that was pushing for that kind of freedom of play, and it isn't at all reasonable to expect that level of quality and effort out of every single game that comes out because that was a huge gamble and incredibly expensive to create. Enjoy BG3 for what it is, and enjoy every other game for what they are- don't let what one does better ruin your ability to enjoy what another game does.
too bad evil path goes the same route and you can just swap between good or evil endings XD
@@lightworker2956 It won't ruin your ability to enjoy other games because the actual quality of the story is not great. It has lots of good roleplaying and is fun to play, but there are many other rpgs with much better writing, worldbuilding and characters.
Does it tho? In the end your options are still varying degrees of being a jerk or not being a jerk.
I want to add on to this because I think it's really interesting: Keeping "evil" options isn't just for the players who wish to play an evil route. Rather, it also allows for each player's run to be a bit more "tailored" to their own morals, which vary by age, culture, faith, political standing, etc. For example, let's look at assassinating President Kimball in Fallout: New Vegas. Yes, you can assassinate him as part of a Legion play-through. BUT, there are plenty of arguments from pro-NCR players as to why Kimball needs to be removed from power. Therefore, some could argue that the morally-gray/"evil" choice of turning a blind eye or just straight up killing him yourself is actually a morally righteous choice.
Lemme guess, you work for the CIA. "No, no. We killed Kennedy for your own good, it was the best option!" ¬¸¬
That sounds more like mental gymnastics, to me...
@@lorenzocassaro3054 poor thing, he can't think
That's why New Vegas outshines Fallout 3 in terms of moral choices because unlike Fallout 3, the choices in NV are much more morally grey and it forces the character to really think what the right choice is rather than good vs evil
@@CapProGames yes!
As a red dead 2 fanboy im gonna point out that it has the best honor system without a doubt mainly because it has a system😂,but it completely changes the game and story missions
Alpha Protocol, despite its flaws, had some interesting dialogue. Instead of good or evil it's more about getting the mission done, and choosing what consequences you think you can handle, even if some of them only are known long after. Less of a black and white choice, more of an ambiguous gray zone up to your own ratioanlization. Makes sense it was made by Obsidian also :)
One thing I didn’t see you mention is the narrative cohesiveness of a specific story by playing a good or bad character. When I play Red Dead Redemption 1&2, I want to be good because both main characters are trying to redeem themselves, so I feel compelled to do what I think those characters would have chosen to do. Even in a game where it’s “easy” to be evil, like GTA V, I tend to not act like a psycho unless I’m playing as Trevor, as I don’t think Franklin and Michael would do many of the things Trevor would.
With RDR2 I prefer going with low honour until the end of chapter 5 and then helping everyone you can through chapter 6 makes Arthur's redemption more satisfying. That way you get to experience both evil and good.
For me it all comes down to the fact, that evil playthroughs often feel underdeveloped in comparison to good ones. While there are many reasons, why it happens, it boils down to two main factors: 1)The main problem, I notice especially frequently, is the loss of pragmatic aspect in roleplaying villains. Most RPGs treat good deeds as the ones most rational in current situation. You may think, that beeing good will make your life harder in dark settings, your story is played in, but eventuallly following the path of good brings you the best companions, best resourses, best equipment and doesn't require you to sacrifice anything when fighting for greater good. Evil path on the contrary leaves you in a much more poor state, striping you from material benefits of good walkthroughs. The best example is Mass Effect, where you can easily achieve best endings and unite the Galaxy simply by being pure Paragon throughout the trilogy. Meanwhile, playing pure Renegade, you are basically doing the Reaper's work for them, sucessfully ravaging your Galaxy at the worst time possible. There is no reason for a rational hero to behave like a villain, because it hurts him more than helps. 2) Beeing good guy, you keep your reputation high, get the best loot from killed bandits, get additional quests, which provide you additional experience to upgrade yourself. Needless to say, you also get lots of new entertaining content to experience, thus enjoying the game longer. Evil runs however tend to kill those questgivers, cutting their content off and leaving nothing for you in return. It happens, because most evil runs are written more like a loosely connected chain of alternative mission outcomes, rather than a full-fledged history, normally presented in good runs. The recent example is Baldurs gate 3, which is a real blast in a good run, giving you an epic heartfelt adventure to experience. However, when trying to play game as a villain you quickly find out, that you lose tons of content by abandoning the path of good without adequate replacement in evil runs. As a result you lose money to buy new weapons and xp to achieve new levels, thus making the late game unnecessarily difficult, compared to the good path. In the end of the day, it comes to the fact, that you don't have any rational pragamatic reason to dive into evil paths, both as a player and a character, you've created. So, the only option left to play the game as a villain for you is literally "evil for the sake of evil". Should I mention that most bad people irl will find this motivation boring at best or irritating at worst? Narrowing the description of evil in RPGs to "evil for the sake of evil", writers tend to take away most of villainy flavour from their games to the point, when even bad characters will blend in good walkthrough more naturally. Sadly, there are not many games today, which have enough guts to give pragmatically evil options to roleplay, without being afraid to show the good side less profitable, undermining the moral message behind the plot.
I almost always go through any game with moral choices as "evil" the first time I play them just to see how far the game mechanics lets you take it...
Thats the nail on the hammer really it's just killing content being the bad guy. I wipe the town out so now I lost out on a town with vendors, loot, quest givers. Maybe I loot the town before or after sure but again you lost vendors generating new items, maybe you do the quests before killing them all off but sometimes they offer repeatable quests gone now if you commit to the evil playthrough. And the loot from killing them isnt worth it if you dont have anyone to sell your spoils to lol.
@@cjpkallday5233 thats a simplistic "kill everything idiotic evil" - I prefer the "make all the worst choices presented" evil option play-through. I want to see what mechanics the game designers have implemented and how they used to limit the player
You kill that ONE GUY and boom, there goes 57 quests inaccessible now. Hell, you might not even be able to beat the game in some cases. You also have to factor in the image of the devs... A game that lets you torture people? Rape, and pillage? Kill kids? Hell people lit their hair on fire over that mass shooter game that I played like once...
On your first point, Undertale had an interesting take on this design, in the good playthrough you don't level up at all or gain any new equipment, so your character is very fragile. Only in the evil playthrough do you actually level up and gain increasingly powerful gear, eventually being able to one shot most standard enemies. You're right though, most games don't offer much in terms of motivation toward the "evil" options.
This is where CDPR is king in terms of main and side quest writing. It's all grey and it's up to the player on what is the right decision. Sure, some quests are "evil" choices or clearly the "good" path but it's usually more due to the player's choice of choosing greed over finishing the job like in Cyberpunk 2077. Plus, there are more than a few small choices that aren't telegraphed to the player at all, don't reward any xp or any loot. Phantom Liberty takes this grey morality scale to even greater heights and there are arguments to be made for both (or all) sides.
"Laughs in Rimworld"
In my opinion, THE HARDEST game to be evil in is Star Wars: The Old Republic. I remember a mission where i killed a father in front of his son just so that that child would be sent to the Sith Academy on Korriban. It felt terrible and was a VERY hard choice to make, but had to be done. (Long Live the Sith Empire)
What's interesting about that one is its a bit more nuanced than your typical Good vs Evil system. Since you can play as a Sith but still be light. My favorite one to play was my light side Sith inquisitor. I was forced to be "evil" a few times, but it really makes you question the morality of the Jedi you encounter. There was one mission where I needed to retrieve an artifact from a Jedi's vault. Obviously one option was to just wade in kill the Jedi and take the key to the vault. Instead I took the option where I very nearly ended a massive blood feud. I snuck into the Dark side faction and talked to the leader. And I got the story about how she had this feud going because the Jedi stood her up at the alter. I got the two of them to a meeting and the Jedi remarked "You have more light in you than I do." I get them to agree to resume the marriage thing and the Head of the assassin's would be willing to stand down and end the war that was consuming the planet. I nearly achieved peace, asa Sith. Not once did I mention the artifact to anybody. Even openly refused a reward until I had no choice but to accept when the Jedi insisted I go to his vault to take one item as a reward. I go to the Jedi's vault and... am betrayed by the Jedi. He ambushes me and I'm forced to defend myself.... so I handily wipe him out thus restarting the blood feud on the planet. So the Jedi, decided to betray the person who helped to end a blood feud war on the planet and achieve peace... because they're a Sith. Wasn't the only time either. Several times you try and play nice with the Jedi, help them with a problem and they backstab you. Playing a good guy as a bad guy was a lot of fun.
Many times being evil on the Sith side just felt...counter productive. On the third planet you find out about some force sensitive children the Republic resistance were trying to smuggle out. While on your mission to capture them for Sith training you find out that all of these children were only mildly sensitive, so little that even the Jedi didn't think they could sense the force enough to train them. Your option is to send them to Korriban anyway, knowing they would be a waste of resources, time, and all end up dead or let the Republic take them so that they would be forced to feed 'useless' mouths. The Light side option, from a war stand point just made more sense, let the 'useless' orphans become a drain on the Republic's resources.
When I think of a truly evil player character, the evil Sith Inquisitor character in SWTOR is one my mind is usually naturally inclined towards remembering. As an evil Sith Inquisitor, there are plenty of opportunities to go beyond mere casual cruelty. There are choices to deceive, manipulate, and use other characters, and cause them unimaginable suffering once their usefulness has run out. By the end, if one has made the decisions necessary to achieve this outcome, the evil Sith Inquisitor will have lied to, cheated, stolen from, betrayed, tortured and/or murdered nearly everyone they've met on their path to power. Even the two of their companion characters who aren't also insane or evil (or both) will hate them, secretly or openly.
SWTOR is an outlier though. You get rewarded for the good and the evil choices mostly the same, the consequences are usually only narrative, cause you can't do huge world or gameplay changes in an MMO. That leads to a lot more people preferring the evil path than in other games. I'm usually someone who does choose the good path, but when I first played the game I chose the evil path for all the empire factions, cause they're the bad guys so you've got to play the bad guy. Yeah, if you think about it you usually feel bad after you make the evil choice, but sometimes... you just don't think too hard about it. Though if you're not a fourteen year old like I was you start to see that the factions in that game aren't exactly black and white. Another reason to play evil in SWTOR is, that there are some really hilarious interactions on that path.
Nah it’s definitely bg3 if you decide to kill the teiflings in the grove you’ll lose 3 companions and a lot of content just for 1 companion that doesn’t even have a questline
To make the choices between good and evil interesting, its important to have the outcomes variable and the situations nuanced...like real life. When you do something good, sometimes nobody cares. Sometimes you become an instant hero. Sometimes your positive action actually makes things worse. When you do something bad, sometimes you get rich. Sometimes you get imprisoned. And ironically, sometimes you become an instant hero.
1:10 why did this make me laugh so hard😭
We all need a good evil playthrough from time to time
When I played Fallout 3 for the first time, I explored around a bit when I left the vault, then found myself in Megaton. Met some people, got some quests, then found that guy who asks you to detonate the bomb for some bunch of rich shmucks over in Tenpenny Tower. I listened to him, heard him out, and then when he finished.. I stood up, looked around, got out a revolver I'd found, and shot him in the head. There was a sudden firefight and I'm not sure who all died there, but by the end of it I was on friendly terms with Megaton, and a lot of bounty hunters wanted me dead.
That quest is a wonderful example of Bethesda doing such a bad job that this guy made this video and applies that trope to everything. Even if you do "blow up the town" the tutorial quest giver Moira is still there in the same place and has the exact same voice lines and isn't even mald at you she's just a ghoul now. She wants you to do the exact same tutorial quests. It's truly babbies first fallout. I'll never stop hating 3. 4 isn't so bad not because 4 is some pinnacle of fallout but because 3 is there and exists.
Often, it is because the world is just way better, and you have a bigger impact on fixing issues that are happening. Sure, you have the freedom to cause chaos, but it is often the worst ending or thing you can do in most games. Plus, being shamed or having character, especially ones you are close with be disappointed in you just hurts a lot more than you'd think.
when i tried doing the no mercy run in undertale i had to quit after papyrus because it just made me way too sad 😭
@@sierranicholes6712 It's hard to be evil in those type of games because the characters feel like people like they don't just have a one off line and then never talk to you again which is why games like that are great because it makes you feel that your choices actually have an impact on the world and characters in it.
I think what makes Morality trivial in most games is that being a good person is just as rewarding as being evil, there’s literally no reason not to be good, they should make it that good choices will have a significant cost while bad decisions will make things much easier for you, games with morality systems should be asking the player, would you do the right thing if there’s nothing in it for you.
Infamous had to be my favorite balance of power game and the choice really made u think about it I did the good cole which is blue but when I got older I played the game again and being evil in that game man I felt empty afterwards
The issue is usually that being evil is an afterthought, it was never a real choice. That and rarely the good choices actually challenge you, there's no real reason to pock the bad options.
A good game with evil choices is one where you can unlock another way of playing. Instead of you getting punished, you get to experience stuff you couldn't with a good playthrough. I think the infamous games do a really good job of this, especially Infamous 2
Absolutely
The greatest evil playthrough I have ever experienced is probably in BG3 with the dark urge character.... It was very interesting to see the game from an altogether different perspective and to be in the boots of a character that was in a sence destined to become the evil murder lord. Usually games are not designed around telling the same story from a twisted perspective.... and ultimelty this is what really makes an evil playthrough fun and satisfying. No amount of gold or super powers can give you the same satisfaction as playing out your role.
after playing RANCE-SAMA's adventures in japan, i have been enlightened that and spec ops the line... and watched pathologic