Top 20 Most Difficult Decisions in Video Games

Top 20 Most Difficult Decisions in Video Games

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What to do, what to do. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the Top 20 most difficult decisions in video games. For this list, we’ll be looking at some of the most difficult decisions we’ve ever had to make in a video game. These decisions must be choices that the player is forced to make, so false choices and decisions that the game ends up making for you will not count.

#20: Your Starter Pokémon

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“Pokémon Red & Blue” (1998) It’s an age old question - who do you pick as your starting Pokémon? This debate has been raging for ages, mostly because it boils down to personal preference. Do you go the fire route and choose adorable little Charmander? Do you douse fire with water and pick Squirtle? Or do you go with grass and choose Bulbasaur? Who you pick depends largely on how you want to play the game. Well, that and how cute you find the respective Pokémon to be. This choice defined who you were as a child and led to many an argument.

“Game of Thrones” (2014) This being Telltale, and this being a video game based on the “Game of Thrones” world, it was quite obvious that there were going to be some hard decisions to make. One of the playable characters is Mira Forrester, who is taken to King’s Landing while serving as the handmaiden to Margaery Tyrell. At the end of the game, you are left with a horrifying choice - marry Lord Morgryn and sacrifice Tom or face execution. So, you either marry the man you despise, who threatened your life, and who took away your power (not to mention sacrificing Tom), or you die. Yay. No one said “Game of Thrones” was chipper.

“The Outer Worlds” (2019) The toughest choice in “The Outer Worlds” comes at the very beginning, when you are forced to side with Edgewater or the Botanical Lab. Edgewater is a total hellhole that is run entirely by a mega corporation, is plagued with deserters and a literal plague, and is filled with slaves who live in appalling conditions. The Botanical Lab is run by Edgewater deserters, who are able to grow their own food … by stealing dead bodies from a graveyard to use as fertilizer. Your ship needs power, and in order to get it, you need to steal power from either the entire town of Edgewater or the deserters in the Botanical Lab. This choice largely depends on your morals, do you sympathize with those under oppression? Or the ones living independently under nefarious means?

#17: Batman or Alfred

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“Batman: The Telltale Series” (2016) Once again we have another Telltale game, and once again we have a really tough decision. At the end of season two, Alfred suffers a crisis of faith and decides to leave Batman’s employ, fearing that their vigilantism is only making things worse. You then have the choice to let Alfred go or give up being Batman. If you let Alfred go, he regrettably bids you farewell and returns to the United Kingdom. If you decide to give up being Batman, you...well, give up being Batman. You’re choosing between companionship and justice, and it’s not an easy choice to make.

#16: Yennefer or Triss

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“The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” (2015) “Witcher” fans will forever remain split on Yennefer and Triss. Yennefer of Vengerberg has romantic ties to Geralt and is a mother figure to Ciri. Triss Merigold, or Merigold the Fearless, is a close friend of Geralt and helped Ciri at Kaer Morhen. Do you like Yennefer’s strong (and sometimes belligerent) independence and ice cold personality, or do you prefer Triss’s sweeter disposition and more traditional heroic tendencies? What do you think about Triss taking advantage of Geralt’s amnesia? Is Yennefer heartless and cold or just a powerful Mama Bear? Those are just some of the questions you’ll have to grapple with throughout “The Witcher 3” and no you can’t choose both.

#15: The Drug Dealer

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“Heavy Rain” (2010) Quantic Dream and David Cage are well known for their story-driven and choice-based video games, and “Heavy Rain” is arguably the greatest of them all. In the game’s Shark Trial, Ethan is commanded to kill drug dealer Brad Silver in order to save his own son. However, Brad shows Ethan a picture of his two daughters, Sarah and Cindy, in a last ditch attempt to play on Ethan’s sympathy. How it works is entirely up to you. You can either spare Brad and lose out on a clue to your son’s location or murder Brad, deprive his daughters of a father, and score a clue. It’s a philosophical conundrum for the ages and a brilliant thought experiment in desperation.

“Mass Effect” (2007) The “Mass Effect” series is widely known for containing some tough and emotional choices, and the first “Mass Effect” game contained a doozy. With the bomb about to explode, you have the choice of saving either Kaidan Alenko or Ashley Williams. Choosing Ashley makes for a better story and more satisfying character development, but choosing Kaidan is a good idea if you lack in tech and biotics. It’s kind of a weak choice in retrospect (at least compared to some of the later choices you’ll have to make throughout the series), but this was really tough at the time!

#13: The Factions

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“Fallout 4” (2015) Throughout “Fallout 4,” you have the option of joining different factions. Each faction has their own objectives and belief systems, and choosing between them depends on how you want to approach your character and story. The Minutemen just want to live peacefully and will side with whoever helps them out. The Brotherhood of Steel are a violent faction intent on adhering to pre-war tech and wiping out the synths. The Railroad believes in synth rights and autonomy. The Institute are regarded as mysterious villains but aim to restore humanity through scientific advancement. “Fallout 4” asks you what and who to value in times of apocalyptic distress.

“Fire Emblem Fates” (2015) “Fates” opens with a killer choice. Right out the gate, the game demands that you choose between your blood relatives of Hoshido or your foster family of Nohr. And it’s not like one side is inherently evil and the other inherently good. Nope, they are both supportive and loving, making your choice all the more difficult. Once you make your choice, the losing family labels you a traitor, and you are forced to do battle with them. Choosing between family is never an easy option, especially when it results in violence!

“Fallout: New Vegas” (2010) “New Vegas” is a brilliant “Fallout” game (aside from the myriad technical issues), and Vault 34 remains one of the toughest moral dilemmas in the entire series. The gist is that Vault 34 is leaking radiation, destroying crops, and starving the citizens of the Wasteland. You are tasked with stopping the leak and saving the day. The only problem is that Vault 34 is still filled with people, and stopping the leak would guarantee their deaths. You can choose to rescue the inhabitants, but this means continued radiation and a more intense famine. Or you can choose to seal the radiation, effectively saving the crops but dooming the vault dwellers. Now that’s a moral dilemma if we’ve ever seen one!

“Far Cry 4” (2014) The fourth “Far Cry” game sees you helping The Golden Path overthrow the regime of Pagan Min. There are two important members of The Golden Path - Sabal and Amita. Sabal wants to conserve Kyrati tradition, whereas Amita wants to modernize and bring them into the future. If you side with Sabal, he turns Kyrat into a bloodthirsty theocracy and “cleanses” the area by killing dissenters. If you side with Amita, she turns Kyrat into a totalitarian drug state that conscripts children warriors and murders Bhadra. Either way, both you and Kyrat lose.

#9: Love, Sacrifice, or Wealth

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“Fable II” (2008) “Fable II” ends with a three-way choice. Two of them are quite difficult. Theresa grants you one of three wishes - love, sacrifice, and wealth. For “sacrifice,” you resurrect thousands of people who were killed making the Tattered Spire but you never see your family again. For “love,” your family and dog are resurrected in exchange for the thousands of innocent lives. And wealth is one million gold coins. Ok the money choice is kind of silly but still. Do you want to be remembered as a hero who selflessly resurrected thousands of lives, or do you want happiness with your family? It’s the ultimate battle between selflessness and selfishness, and it makes for a true character-defining moment.

“Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent” (2006) What is more important to you? Friendship or duty? These are the questions that “Double Agent” asks when presenting you with the Lambert conundrum. An undercover Fisher is ordered to shoot Colonel Lambert. Doing so will obviously kill a friend but will maintain your secret position within John Brown’s Army. Sparing Lambert and shooting Washington will obviously spare your friend but reveal you as a traitor. What is it that you value? Are you willing to blow the entire mission to spare a single life? It’s these types of tough moral dilemmas that make spy fiction so tense and exciting.

“Spec Ops: The Line” (2012) Walker grapples with his own conscience after realizing that he created Konrad in an effort to deflect his guilt. You are then faced with numerous choices. You can live with your atrocities and remain forever shellshocked and traumatized, or you can commit suicide. Should you stay alive, Walker requests extraction and you are left with yet another choice. You can choose to relinquish your weapon and embrace rescue, or you can fully embrace your evil side, become Konrad, and attack the convoy. How do you react to your blatant war crimes and fatal atrocities? How do you view Walker’s potential suicide? How you choose largely depends on how you view the characters and themes of the story.

#6: The Freedom March

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“Detroit: Become Human” (2018) While playing as Markus, you recruit numerous androids to take part in the Freedom March. However, this assembly draws the attention of law enforcement, who order you to stop and disperse. You are then faced with three options - take a stand, attack the police, or run away. If you take a stand, numerous androids will die, maybe even Markus, but you will gain massive respect from the public. Attacking the police will obviously cause the public to turn on the androids. And choosing to run away will brand you a coward, and the police will fire on the crowd anyway. There’s no easy way out here, and androids will die no matter what you do.

“Life Is Strange” (2015) “Life Is Strange” is another exercise in selfishness, and it asks big questions about how far you are willing to go to save the one you love. The ending presents you (as Max) with two difficult choices, each with wildly different outcomes. You can bow to fate, go back in time, and allow Chloe to be killed by Nathan, effectively reinstating the status quo. Or you can give the finger to both fate and Arcadia Bay and allow the storm to decimate the town. Would you sacrifice thousands of innocent lives to save one? Or would you make the ultimate selfless sacrifice by allowing your love to die?

“Deus Ex” (2000) There are three endings to “Deus Ex,” and all of them are equally unpleasant. The first is The Benevolent Dictator, which sees JC fusing with Helios and ruling Earth as an absolute God. New Dark Age requires you to initiate the meltdown, effectively freeing the world from the Illuminati but initiating a complete technological blackout. The third, titled The Invisible Hand, requires you to trigger the Infusion Control Switch and allow the Illuminati to rule the world. Do you want to become a computer and rule with omniscient power, allow the Illuminati to flourish unopposed, or regress civilization? Yes, those are your only options. You see why this was so difficult.

“Grand Theft Auto IV” (2008) “GTA IV” was a major tonal departure from “Vice City” and “San Andreas,” and this was made abundantly clear in its dour ending. To set up the ending, Jimmy Pegorino asks Niko to help with a lucrative heroin deal. In exchange, Jimmy will pay Niko $250,000. The only problem is, Niko must work with his nemesis, Dimitri Rascalov. Do you listen to Roman and take the deal in the hopes of a happier and more prosperous life? Or do you make things personal and kill Dimitri? No matter what you do, the results are catastrophic with a certain loved one getting the bullet. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario. There are no happy endings in “Grand Theft Auto IV.”

“Mass Effect 3” (2012) Remember how we said that the “Mass Effect” series contained more difficult decisions than Kaidan and Ashley? Yeah, this is what we were talking about. At the end of Priority: Rannoch, you are left with the choice to either allow the upload or stop Legion. If you allow the upload, the Quarian race goes extinct with the destruction of the Migrant Fleet. In turn, Tali will commit suicide. If you choose to stop Legion, the Quarian bombardment will annihilate the Geth. There is an option to save both races, but this requires a complex set of instructions for the player to follow, including choices transferred from Mass Effect 2. It’s not easy choosing which race to make extinct. Imagine that.

“The Walking Dead” (2011) Telltale returns for a third time with “The Walking Dead,” a game that pulls zero punches and is not afraid to leave you a blubbering mess by the time the credits roll. That’s largely due to the most heartbreaking ending in video game history. As a sick and dying Lee, you can either tell Clementine to leave you behind to turn into a zombie or kill you and put you out of your misery. Either way, Clementine loses her father figure and you die. Like “GTA IV,” there is no happy ending to be found here. The only question is - how do you want to go out?