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[Darkmakaimura]

Whether through actions or dialogue or both, what games have the best "choices that matter" where eventa and even locations can change? For example, a decision that could bring you to a whole new location or locations.

Off the bat, I know choices in Bloodstained Curse of the Moon leads to a whole new hidden final stage and controllable characters.

 

[TintoConCasera]

The Witcher 2 had a very impactful one, when deciding to go with Iorverth or Roche at the end of act 1, which would affect how act 2 played out.

 

[Laptop1991]

Fallout New Vegas, also Dishonored 1 and 2

 

[BennyBlanco]

New Vegas

 

[Pataponpon]

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy.

The game is a mix of tactical rpg with visual novel storytelling, after beating the first route that doesnt present any choices you reach the "true game", a NG+ where all your choices will guide you through 21 ROUTES and 101 ENDINGS based on your choices, for example you can chose which team mate will do a suicide attack in a specific chapter and depending on who you pick you can experience a bad scenario where your friend failed and now the villains are the protags of the route, or it will be a success and other story beats will happen thanks to it. The game feels huge despite being text based in its story. Plenty of consequences to all the choices you pick.

Some of these routes can last from 2 to 20 hours, some being super important to the lore while others are a bit trolish.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Most crpgs like Pathfinder, Baldurs Gate, Rogue Trader, Disco Elysium etc.

 

[LectureMaster]

 

[uncreativename]

In Freespace 1 and 2 there are some branching paths depending on your performance, and stuff like certain ships not appearing in later missions if you fail to defend them.
Sid Meier's Gettysburg! also has branching paths depending on whether you win or lose engagements.

 

[Chuck Berry]

The final mission in Mass Effect 2 was the first thing that came to mind. One wrong choice and you could end up losing major team members.

Imagine starting ME3 without Garrus

 

[Aion002]

Way of The Samurai.

 

[Loomy]

Imagine starting ME3 without Garrus

I refuse

 

[calico]

Dragon Age Origins with its origins system.

Wrath of the Righteous with its mythic paths.

 

[Cert.in.Death]

RE9 Requiem

Tears or cheers, IYKYK

 

[KyoZz]

Mass Effect 1 - 3

 

[Lorianus]

The final mission in Mass Effect 2 was the first thing that came to mind. One wrong choice and you could end up losing major team members.

Imagine starting ME3 without Garrus

I mean it was a great mission but let's be real the game heavily emphasized and railroaded you in a manner where it just didn't outright say that if you dont send a techie into the tube people will die, if you dont let a soldier type hold the line people will die, it was very obviously telegraphed, so that you had to fail intentionanly to see "bad" scenarios.

I would call that illusion of choice.

 

[uncreativename]

This doesn't really count and I think I told this story already, but in Life Is Strange 1 I didn't realize you could save the goth chick, Alyssa. In fact I wasn't even really paying attention to her, so near the end when I finally did try to save her she was like NOO I DON'T TRUST YOU and ran in the other direction and immefiately died lol.

Oh right and um, whatsername, Kate, died too. Basically I only paid attention to Chloe through that entire game.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Disco Elysium

 

[bitbydeath]

 

[Holammer]

Fallout 1-2 had multiple solutions to a lot of situations and later consequences of your actions are listed in the ending.
Planescape Torment got massive amounts of choices and options, be smart enough and you can help Dak'kon with his circle of Zerthimon to upgrade his abilities. Evil players can make a deal with an evil grimoire by selling a party member into slavery and sacrificing another.



Here's a video where Someone does everything correctly to get the canonical ending of Fallout.

 

[Durin]

Dishonored 1 - High Overseer Campbell assassination
The game won me over here, due to how it sets up the situation . You learn exploring the level doing sub-objectives, about a non-lethal route to get rid of him. Then you get setup with a situation where he is going to poison someone he's with using wine. You could just attack him directly, but also you could just switch the glasses so he poisons himself. Instead, I just shattered the glasses, he walks in confused and frusterated, leading his guest to a hidden room downstairs. I scrambled to hide all the knocked out guards on the floor, grabbing them, and dropping them on shandeliers above him. As I follow him down, I see Campbell point his guest towards a painting, then proceed to back up, grab a blade, and backstab him. Without thinking, without the game prompting me rigidly, I just quickly tranq dart him, and his guest. Then haul him off, take him to the interrogation chair I discovered, and brand him as a heretic to be sent away instead. Then just bailed, no one died.

Other games:

1. Other Immersive Sims: Thief, System Shock, Deus Ex, Prey, etc. give you so many neat controllable gameplay actions you can perform, the systems have clear rules, and they can intersect with other systems to produce these emergent feedback loops. Those game worlds just feel alive, wish more sold better.
2. Larian Games: ever since Original Sin 1, they just fill their games to the brim with systems, and all kinds of neat reactions to what players do to make it feel like you're in a digital tabletop RPG.
3. No Man's Sky: The game just does procedural scope better than anything else, which is nuts for such a small team. Every few months it seems like they come out with a new update to give more reasons to come back, and if you start right now there is just so many choices to make.

 

[Shifty1897]

The Witcher 2 had a very impactful one, when deciding to go with Iorverth or Roche at the end of act 1, which would affect how act 2 played out.

I was absolutely floored by this in 2011 and it made me a huge Witcher fan.

That and you could talk your way out of the final boss fight if you wanted.

 

[Chuck Berry]

I mean it was a great mission but let's be real the game heavily emphasized and railroaded you in a manner where it just didn't outright say that if you dont send a techie into the tube people will die, if you dont let a soldier type hold the line people will die, it was very obviously telegraphed, so that you had to fail intentionanly to see "bad" scenarios.

I would call that illusion of choice.

I don't feel like it did. My first time playing through it in 2010 I definitely lost Tali (and I think someone else) on top of a bunch of crew members like Dr Chakwas. I wasn't trying to fail intentionally. I sincerely chose those members thinking they would get the job done at the time. I wasn't using a guide.

I was pretty bummed out that I was gonna start 3 without a couple of the OGs. It definitely wasn't an illusion.

 

[Ferdimage]

What game is this?

 

[semiconscious]

supermassive is very under-rated. love their games...

 

[bitbydeath]

What game is this?

Until Dawn

 

[uncreativename]

I don't feel like it did. My first time playing through it in 2010 I definitely lost Tali (and I think someone else) on top of a bunch of crew members like Dr Chakwas. I wasn't trying to fail intentionally. I sincerely chose those members thinking they would get the job done at the time. I wasn't using a guide.

I was pretty bummed out that I was gonna start 3 without a couple of the OGs. It definitely wasn't an illusion.

The only one I lost was Kelly Chambers, but I felt really bad about that .

And then Tali died in 3, but that was my choice lol because I'd had enough of the ungrateful Flotilla fucking with me.

 

[calico]

There were many ways to lose someone on the ME2 mission, and plenty did without doing so intentionally. Illusion of choice would be if the outcome was the same regardless of your decisions.

 

[MayauMiao]

I remember being suprised that Marly Silverburgh was alive on MGS4. I asked myself how the hell was she alive in that game when she was clearly dead in MGS.

Later I learn that one torture scene in the first game made a huge impact to the way MGS ended. The bad ending with Marly's death left a long lasting impression on me that to this day I still see Marly as a "dead" character even though she is very much alive in MGS4.

 

[calico]

Another cool one from Dragon Age, was if you wanted to stick with your Origins character having sacrificed themselves at the end of game, you could play as a different character in the expansion.

 

[intbal]

Telltale Batman.

Probably all of the Telltale games, but those are the only ones I've played.

 

[EverydayBeast]

I thought they mattered in ME2 but they don't, just give the game a choice and it advances, if you think about all the choices and outcomes you'll go crazy.

 

[Polaris]

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.