10 Most Harrowing Decisions We Made To Progress In Video Games

Damn these games for messing with our morals.

Over the years gaming has let us wield a huge variety of dastardly weaponry and mystical powers, from chainsaw-mounted machine guns to fingertips that spew jets of flame, yet it's only been in the last decade that varying degrees of weight have been applied to our consequences. All of this in the name of maturing the medium to such a degree that it finally be taken as seriously as the other artistic heavyweights such as film, physical art, and the written word. It seems nothing will divide interpreters of a particular experience or sequence more than literally letting them effect the outcome of morally gray areas, for example the death of a character or the doling out of punishment among a group of wrongdoers where only one can take the fall. As Stan Lee struck a chord in realising that if he put Spider-Man right in the middle of a moral dilemma, for example juggling an impending citywide destruction at the hands of an evil villain against getting home in time to give Aunt May her life-saving medicine, so to have video games. With their unique player agency to a given game world, they allow for those sorts of passive decisions to not just be represented on the page, but for an active outcome to be on none other than your shoulders. Thus while a list comprising all the moral quandaries that exist within the pantheon of gaming is one for much more than just 10 entries, this is one that narrows the focus to those games that offered you no way out, should you wish to experience the majority of the story. These are the titles that handed the shotgun of repercussion over to you, and laid out the choices in front of your (hopefully) unwilling hands, Old Yeller-style. Spoilers will follow for each entry on the list.
Gaming Editor
Gaming Editor

WhatCulture's Head of Gaming.