One of the most enduring traits of video gaming that is not shared by other entertainment forms is the gift to choice. I mean actual choice, not like those terrible interactive adventures that DVD's tried to lure us in with in the early 2000's. Choice to go where we want, converse with who we want and make the decisions we want to. It's one of the ways in which this medium can transcend from being a passive experience into something truly engaging and immersive. However, designing a story around the idea of consumer choice and input is an incredibly demanding undertaking and despite nearly two decades of choice-based gameplay, the industry is still reiterating on the core concepts. I want to explore one of the earliest ways that video games implemented choices in gaming: Through morality systems.
Morality systems are rather self explanatory. They are a process in which the actions of the player are given a value dependant on how moral that action is perceived to be in order to determine how virtuous or evil that character is. This is often coupled with consequences both small and big, so that the player feels the impact of their moral choices. Think, the Karma system from Fallout or the Renegade/Paragon choices in Mass Effect. It is a simple way of inserting choice into the a script without overhauling every scene to reflect any number of small choices you made along the way, through limiting the effect of your actions to one variable; was it good or was it bad. In the early days of modern RPGs, developers adopted morality mechanics readily, as makes sense for a 'role-playing game', and the industry standard for choice-based gameplay has been set time and time again by the examples of the RPG market.
One such game to pioneer this concept was the classic Xbox adventure game; Fable. When it released, one of Fable's most touted features was the Alignment System. As you went along your journey and interacted with the people, the morality of your actions was added up and displayed to you in your Alignment bar. Fable tried to figure out how Good/Evil you were as well as how Pure/corrupt you are, with the goal of pinpointing down your personality and rewarding/punishing you accordingly. Throughout all the Fable games, however, this didn't amounted to any more than changing your visual appearance. (Oh, and your attractiveness points. Musn't forget about those!) A saintly person would emanate blue, heavenly light whereas an evil wretch would sprout horns, a goatee and just generally start to resemble a cheap Satan cosplayer.
Key story beats were less influenced by your choice of morality and more acted as contributing factors to your morality. In some ways this was disappointing, as many elements of Fable were, because the story refused to reflect how much of a scoundrel you were. The hero of Albion could whore around and kill puppies in their spare time and, barring snide remarks from the townsfolk, no one really got on to you about it. From another point of view, this can be seen as somewhat liberating. By divorcing morality to the story, the game allowed you to play the game how you wanted without locking you down 'the good path' or blocking you off from 'the true ending'; heck, in Fable III you even got a sick pair of wings for being evil. But then, when morality is meaningless like that is there any there any real reason for having a morality system at all? At the end of the day it really comes down to how immersed you are within the world of Albion to decide whether or not you care about the way you lean towards good or evil. Lionhead Studios wanted to make a game wherein morality wasn't baked into the world, it was just a garnishing for that world.
For other properties, however, morality is very much baked into its fiber. Just look at the world of Star Wars. When it comes to Star Wars games, the vast majority revolve around joining the ranks of the iconic space wizards: The Jedi. It makes sense, anyone who has every seen a lightsaber is afflicted with the incurable desire to wield one; so here comes gaming to save the day and feed our utmost desires. However, with the territory of becoming a Jedi comes the moral issues presented by the force, represented by the Light side and the Dark side. So you can bet video games took advantage of that. One of my favourite 'jedi-simulators' would be the Jedi Knight series starting from 'Dark Forces' in 1994 and concluding with 2003's 'Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy' (Great name, not redundant at all.) Although, not every game in this series had Light side/Dark Side choices. (The first one didn't even have a lightsaber.) But as gaming evolved, so did the series to provide a loving, original Star Wars tale with a little bit of choice and consequence thrown in.
'Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II' (Again, these names.) recognised the potential of combining morality and gameplay in a way only possible in a Star Wars setting. Lucasarts knew that fans would want to use force powers as much as they wanted to use lightsabers, and so they included a simple RPG system whereupon the player could level up their Jedi: Kyle Katarn, and teach him new Force techniques. Of course, the coolest powers in the Star Wars lore are exclusive to the Dark side; but 'Dark Forces II' didn't discriminate, allowing you to learn techniques from the light and dark side of the force with impunity. Apart from when there was punity. As you learned more Sith techniques and killed friendly NPC's, (Completely accidentally, of course.) the game kept track of you travelling further and further down the path of the Dark Side. By the end, the finale you see is dependant on your alignment to good or evil; lending actual weight to your actions during the game.
This time, the game allows you to customise your force powers with actual impunity and tallies up your points based on quest choices you make. As a result, the player navigates through one of the best Star Wars tales ever told whilst feeling like they are leaving a tangible impact in that story. Like I said, the gold standard of choice and consequence.
That isn't the only time when Bioware flexed their morality system muscles. Indeed, early Bioware seemed to have built their entire brand around choice based gameplay in one way or another. A great example of this is within the world of Mass Effect; through the prime example of moral alignment represented in games: The Paragon/Renegade system. On paper, the system is leaned less towards something as black and white as 'Good guys are Paragons, bad guy are Renegades', and more towards the concepts of being a role model or an anti-hero. In game, it is kind of still about good versus evil but to a far lesser degree than Fable, like just being a dick or just being nice. Choices in missions and cutscene-interjections can range from pushing someone out of a window to their death to just making a snide remark. Afterall, Mass Effect is unwaveringly a story about a space hero; You just get to decide how nice that space hero is.
Not to say that Mass Effect is devoid of meaningful choice. Far from it, Bioware set the bar once again with the compelling way in which the narrative morphs itself to fit the choices you make. Off hand things you did in the first game, like letting that pirate go in order to save those hostages, end up circling around again to greet you in the third game. No game before or since has marketed itself so heavily on the premise that player choice matters. Andromeda even removed the Paragon/ Renegade option entirely in order to focus on the nuance of choice. Now, if only Bioware could nail nuance in their dialogue choice we'd really be cooking with gas.
One last series that has been fairly influential when it comes to the development of video game morality is, of course, the Fallout franchise. Since 1997, Fallout has been presenting players with moral quandaries about the ethical ways one can go about surviving in a surreal, post-apocalyptic hell scape. When Bethesda took over for Fallout 3, they made the moral choices a lot more comprehensive with the Karma system. Much the same with other games we've discussed, Karma is influenced by story decisions and player actions, and influences story outcomes and some dialogue paths. Where Fallout 3 and New Vegas innovated, was in the quality of the moral choices offered to you.
Fallout would offer you choices with consequences that reach far beyond what the player character will ever live to see. Such as poisoning the Project Purity's water purifier in order to slowly kill off the mutant population of the wasteland. Or deciding which of the factions battling over New Vegas should ultimately run all of the Mojave Wasteland. At the time the player is given a Karma bump to make them feel good or rebuke them in the moment, but these are the kind of choices that can wrack a mind hours after you put the game down. At this point the question of morality transcends the game world and is placed in the hands of the player. Where the decision really belongs.
Often games are blamed for over-simplifying moral choices with simple karma systems like the ones I've described. Breaking down a complex issue into 'do I get plus points or negative points'. But the way I see it, Karma systems were just a way for the RPG experiences of the day to translate the reaction of the world into a manner that the consumer can understand. When creating an RPG it is imperative to be aware that, if the player does not believe in the world in which they inhabit, they will not care about the actions they perform. The building of worlds relies on the ability of the consumer to give themselves to the fiction and fully immerse themselves in that fiction. Morality systems were merely how the gaming world helped it's playerer achieve that back when gaming was not as main stream as it is now, when people did not take these games as seriously as they do now.
In today's day and age, I can agree that morality systems are and should remain dead. Both Fallout and Mass Effect have shed theirs in their latest entries and newer projects are just ignoring them all altogether. Outer Worlds and Cyberpunk 2077, are both two big upcoming games featuring choice-based narratives that have forgone traditional morality bars in favour of more tangible consequences. This allows stories to focus on the nuance of a scenario without distracting the player with meaningless status updates. As the gaming world matures, the way games present morality should also mature.
Morality is a hugely subjective concept and the best stories will lean into that angle and show a story within which no side represents ultimate good; just like 'Fallout: New Vegas' did or 'The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt'. My definition of 'moral good' vastly differs from yours and I'd imagine that yours differ from others you know. When you apply that personal touch to your decision making it can evolve a simple good/evil choice into a duel of fundamental values. When I'm presented with the option of kidnapping a baby in Fallout 3: The Pitt; more factors are in play then the immediate actions. The people who want the baby need to test it's blood to synthesize a cure to a viscous plague; but the parents can synthesize the same cure, it will just take a lot longer and a lot more people will die in the mean time. The people who want the baby are strangers and a little bit too terse for prospective foster parents; but the baby's actual parents are slavers who own said prospective foster parents and treats them like cattle. The back and forth nature of a tough ethical quandary is the lifeblood of great stories and the future of video game story telling. I will always have a little nostalgia for the old moral progress bars we use to have but I am confident that from their sacrifice comes a brighter future for video game RPGs. Or should I say, a greyer future.
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