10 Video Game Side Missions That Let EVERYONE Down

When done right, a side quest can be every bit as good - or even better - than the main story. Games such as the Witcher 3 and the Mass Effect series have some great examples of side quests done right, where you feel like you're actually doing something of importance.

Alas, that's not to be for every game. Throughout history, there's been a lot of side quests that have been absolute duds. They're the missions that after you've played them, make you feel completely let down and that you've absolutely wasted your time.

Whether they took absolutely ages, had no particular decent reward attached to them or were just an exercise in frustration, there's so, so many tedious side quests to be found in games from practically any genre.

In honour of these godawful missions, I'm delving into 10 of the very worst examples of side missions I've ever encountered. We're talking about specific side missions from games, not side quests types as a whole here (although anything which involves escorting an NPC should just be committed from a game on principle).

If you've ever encountered any of these, I feel sorry for you. I've been through it too.

There's so much to see and do when playing Breath of the Wild, but, if we're being honest, the side quests really did let it down. Most of them have negligible rewards and are glorified fetch quests; the exception to the rule is the shrine quests, which generally involve you doing something a bit different to unlock a shrine (like strategically placing a metal object on top of a suspicious mound so it's struck by lightning, revealing a shrine).

However, there's one shrine quest which is just the absolute WORST. We're talking about the one in Korok forest, where Link is tasked with stealthily following a tiny Korok through the woods, without being seen.

There's so much to hate about this mission. First of all, the Koro in question is tiny, and routinely runs off through really tall grass. Secondly, the stealth in BOTW just really isn't that good. Thirdly, the Korok will seemingly randomly turn around for no reason and spot you when you thought you were safe.

What happens generally here is you'll end up doing the exact same mission over 10 times, each time thinking that this would be so much easier if you could just chuck a remote bomb at the Korok and remove him from existence.