9 Smartest Video Game Decisions (That Still Got People Killed)

4. Destroying The Alpha Relay - Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2's Arrival DLC set the stage for Mass Effect 3 in a major way with Commander Shepard's climactic act of colliding an asteroid into the Alpha Relay, destroying it in order to prevent the Reapers from using it to invade the galaxy.

Shepard made the only logical choice when the entire fate of the galaxy was at stake, but his decision certainly wasn't without a major cost, as the resulting explosion killed more than 300,000 Batarian colonists.

Shepard ended up on trial for his actions in Mass Effect 3, though destroying the Alpha Relay did stall the Reapers by roughly six months, and so with trillions of lives at stake, sacrificing "only" 300,000 was most certainly worth the time it bought.

It was an impossible decision, but the only one Shepard could conscionably make given the variables at hand.