Good, Evil and Moral Choices in Video Games

article was originally featured on Sleeperhit.net

Save the princess and be the hero. Since video games have been able to tell stories players have been tasked with being a kingdom’s hero. Now the industry has shifted in ideology to letting the player choose to be the hero and villain by the choices they make and the morals they keep. Morality as a game play mechanic is, more often than not, seen as something that’s polar. Either a player chooses the path of virtue and basks in the praise of the video game world, or players choose morally ambiguous path, where the virtual world scowls and shuns them for their selfish choices.

There are problems with this formula. For the majority of video games featuring moral choices, the first problem with morality games is the major morality deciding moment is placed in front of the players while the rest of the game stops and waits for players to decide. Second players are forced to pick between the two polar opposites: good and evil.

The most recent presentation of stop-and-decide game play is in Sony’s inFAMOUS for the Playstation 3. As players trot through the story they’ll run into moments where they must decide to be Empire City’s nine-volt hero or the electrical menace. InFAMOUS is a great game but these moments don’t help the story. The reason being is the choices aren’t the most life or death threatening decisions you’ll have to make. One morality moment had Cole deciding if he should save someone from being beaten to death by an angry mob or simply walking away because it would take too long. This decision isn’t a good or evil moment as it is good or lazy.

Another example of these clear-cut good and evil choices comes from Lionhead Studios’ 2008 flagship game, Fable 2. Like inFAMOUS, Fable 2 presented its moral choices in stop-action moments where players are given a moment to decide if they were going to be good or evil. A particular choice in Fable 2 is the choice about the young maiden who’s kidnapped by evil spirits and the hero must decide to sacrifice his dashingly good looks for the maiden or vise versa. The fallout of the choice was, well, there wasn’t any. If Players choose to stay a stud they would just need to grind positive morality points to gain back the repercussions of the choice. Otherwise there was no incentive to be, or not to be, virtuous.

This trend has become so ridiculous it’s now popping up in games that you wouldn’t expect. Don’t believe me? See Army of Two: the 40th day. The new Army of Two will feature a decision system that will have players make choices about certain characters and if they should be spared of executed. Regardless of choice players are shown the aftermath. Kill a crime lord’s wife you are shown the life of what will happen to her to young kids as they try to make it as orphans on the streets of Shanghai. Make the choice to spare her and you see the monster her son becomes when raised by his father.

The problem with this tried and tested formula is its structure. When the game stops all momentum to force a player into choosing an alignment then their actions are no longer candid. Meaning that players are actively choosing the alignment they want, which isn’t necessarily bad thing. But there are other options to make players decide on a moral alignment.

The second issue with morality games is the cut-and-dry decisions that are presented. Taking a look at our real world and the pop culture world it’s rare to have a true good and bad. This is because the notion of good and bad is subjective to the decider’s position on the matter and how they relate to it. And more often than not the choice is setup in the outlook of “is this in the need for the common good of the world?” instead of a deeper overlying theme.

A medium that has done this type of moral choice well is the comic book world and most notably the book you may know by the name “Watchmen.” As the USSR invades Afghanistan and the world hurdles ever closer to nuclear war the characters in the book are faced with a means-to-an-end choice: Fake a catastrophe and kill millions of innocent people to stop the nuclear powers in their tracks to save ten fold the amount you’ve killed or as Rorschach puts it, “Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise.”. This finale is awe inspiring because good is debatable. Is it right for one man to make a sacrifice of millions of lives for the common good or is it right to hold your principles and let humanity run towards its destruction?

Many games have tried for a momentous decision like the one in Watchmen but they are often presented too late in the game. Thinking back to games likes Fallout 3 and the Fable series, both series present a moral choice that their world. But both series offer the choice at the very tale end of the game when the repercussions of the choice are barely felt. This may work for other mediums where the consumer isn’t directly involved in the story, like movies and comic books, but video game choices should be presented earlier so the outcome of the decision can be played through.

Another problem with presenting the finale choice at the end of the game is that most games offer a cope-out deal to the player. Regardless of earlier decisions—good, evil or some where in between–players are presented a choice for all three alignments. Allowing players to drastically switch their affiliation to simply cash in on the ending they want—or all three if players save right before the choice is made.

There are ways to fix the flaws in this great game play style. First, have game developers present a world where players act independently from two warring factions. This would have a player’s actions indirectly influence the world and their moral stance. The next big step in fixing this genre would be to hold players accountable for their decisions and no longer offer a forked-road exit out of the game that ultimately compromises the character and story development.

Two games come to mind when I look at this improved formula. Both Deus Ex and Mass Effect did morality game play well because it made a player’s choice matter in the long run of the game. And in a series like Mass Effect where the choices of part one affect parts two and three, it should make for a compelling experience that is rarely seen in any medium, if it holds true to its ideals.