10 Toughest Video Game Moral Choices (And What You Picked)

10. Destroy The Geth Heretics, Or Rewrite Them? - Mass Effect 2

The stakes: A faction of the robotic Geth, the Heretics, have adapted a Reaper virus which they intend to use to compel the true Geth to fight for the Reapers against organic life.

As a powerful race who evicted their own creators from their homeworld, this could be fatal to the galaxy. As it turns out the virus is destroyed regardless, but what happens to the Heretics is left to the player.

The choice: Destroy the Heretics, permanently dealing with the threat, or rewrite them, forcing them to accept the true Geth’s viewpoint but at the cost of making the Geth as a whole stronger and raising a question as to their stance on organic life going forward.

The verdict: As per this poll (scroll down to Legion's quest) players chose to rewrite. Destroying the Heretics is considered genocide, something that would be unacceptable in the case of organics, so why should it be acceptable against synthetics?

And while rewriting them is ethically problematic – you are brainwashing a sentient species into accepting a viewpoint they are directly opposed to – doing so adds significantly to the Geth’s strength, which, if you can get them on side, would make them invaluable allies against the Reapers.