10 Most Intense Moral Choices In Video Game History

2. Restart The Whole Game? (Bastion)

Supergiant Games

After The Calamity, a world-ending seismic event hits the city of Caelondia in this 2011 indie game, the player is sent out on a journey to somehow revert the problems caused by the event's destruction, or failing that, round up the few survivors left to somehow make the most out of the situation.

However, at the end of the game you uncover a source of power which gives you a choice; reset the world until before The Calamity hit in an attempt to stop the event before it happened, however with the risk that history could inevitably repeat itself, or take the survivors you've discovered during the course of the title and embark on a new adventure to find a other surviving characters and hopefully a land untouched by the effects of The Calamity.

It's an ambiguous decision full of uncertainty, as both choices seem as risky as each other. If you've played the side-missions to uncover each character's backstory, it becomes especially clear that the fallout of the world-ending event has put the surviving characters through the most harrowing experiences of their entire lives, and it's unclear whether resetting the world would force them to go through it all over again. However, even that might be better than the potentially isolating and desperate existence that could come with trying to rebuild somewhere else.

Contributor

Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.