10 Video Games That Contradict Their Own Message

The player is the source of 90% of occurrences of ludonarrative dissonance, because they're the one thing the game can never truly account for. Constantly distracted, morally apathetic, and gleefully willing to pick apart every pixel of your game for any flaw they can exploit for the lolz, it's a wonder why people even try to make linear games anymore when titles like Skyrim offer the best compromise: just let them wander about until they get bored.

This only becomes a problem in the latter half of any main quests you're doing, whether it be for the dragonborn, the Imperials, or for the Stormcloaks. For much of the game, you really are just wandering around exploring the world and looking for something to do.

But once you're given concrete directions and the bad guys start making their move, you doing inane sidequests left and right becomes significantly less justified because Alduin The World Eater is about to do his job all over everyone's faces.