Hey all!
I’d like to request recommendations (spoiler free!) for games where you need to make choices, take sides, kill or not kill someone, follow or do not follow orders, but where the consequences actually matter - and most importantly, where the choices aren’t “obviously good choice vs obviously bad choice”.
Give me games where I can choose to side with one kingdom or another, but there’s no clear moral high ground, or where I need to decide to save someone dear to me at the cost of innocent lives. I do not want things like “save all the children and get the happy ending and make flowers grow” versus “kill everybody and everything blows up and the world gets all its water replaced by acid”.
What games fit this requirement?
The X-COM series is pretty much these choices all the time, though less in a moral sense and more a strategic risk and reward sense. What do you use your limited time and resources on, how much do you risk when the stakes are high, etc. It’s a little different than the sorts of decisions you’re thinking of, but quite interesting.
I would second Xcom and add: unlike other strategy games, where each character is a nameless unit, Xcom names your units. Not a big deal, but it is a big enough change where you start to create your own stories, even in your head, for the characters. Playing the game in a not easy game mode, causes you to lose soldier from time to time. This really heightens tension when certain characters die, whom you remember, and when some miraculously live. Its a very small, yet somehow meaningful addition to what would otherwise be an endless sea of soldiers.