10 Video Games That Punish You For Making The Ethical Choice

6. Frostpunk

These next two games are actually both made by the same developer, 11 Bit Studios, so when it comes to ensuring you have to stay in the ethical grey realm to succeed lest you be punished, they’re kind of the experts.

Frostpunk is a 2018 survival game where you’ll need to make some brutal choices to ensure you keep your city functioning and keep your people alive.

Given this is a cutthroat strategy game where climate change has pushed humanity to its limits, trying to make all of the ethical choices will run your city into the ground very quickly. The stakes and challenges are incredibly high and keeping your citizens fed, warm, and content is a constant battle. On top of that, you’re called on to establish laws as the leader of the city and some of these really go places.

For example, you can build a cemetery which is a good and ethical thing to do, but burials will take time away from your workers' already limited daytime work hours. You can also make a law that signs off on child labour, adding to the number of people working in the city, but obviously not being an ethical choice at all. If that wasn’t hard enough, you’re met with personal requests where meeting someone’s individual needs might hurt everyone else.

You’ll have a far easier path through the game being a tyrant, but sleeping at night might be tricky.