The direction of morality in the future

Not right or wrong. Only consequence.

A while back I did a couple of blogs that floated around the concept of morality in video game storytelling. (A topic I find particularly fascinating.) First I spoke about how morality appeared in old video games, when storytelling was beginning to come into it's own, and then I carried on with the ways in which storytelling is presented nowadays, with choice and consequence. I want to cap this topic off by giving my predictions about how that concept will evolve in the future, both how I'll believe it'll grow and how I wish it will. Of course, that means this blog will contain pure conjecture on my part as I rattle off my hypothesis, but you're likely already use to that by now so I'll just get right to it.

Firstly, I will admit that I am dissatisfied with a lot of portrayals of morality that we see in modern day videogame storytelling, or maybe it's just with the concept in general. I look at it like a restraint upon the kind of stories that could be told and the manner in which we tell them, one that has become sadly commonplace in the AAA gaming market. (Indie games tend to be a lot more free and interesting when they tackle these concepts.) To establish what I mean, let's take 'Assassin's Creed: Rogue' for example. This was a game that was founded on an eye wateringly simple concept; Shay Cormac, the protagonist, used to on the side of the heroes (The Assassins) before he joined the antagonists. (The Templars.) A child could write this and make it somewhat interesting. And yet somehow, as though Hollywood's cowardice is catching, the game fails to go all the way.

Let me elaborate. Assassin's Creed is a series that sets itself in the midst of very important and complicated situations throughout history and dumbs everything down into a fight against good and evil. All the multifaceted and interesting folk of the era are whittled down to either advocates of freedom (Good) or pursuers of control (Evil), and as a result a lot of nuance that these games could represent gets lost. I think it is an exceedingly fantastic idea to jump throughout history and engross oneself into the story of the land, (fun and education, together at last) but Ubisoft often fail spectacularly in this regrade and denigrate their side characters into overblown caricatures. In Rogue, they seemed to have gotten around this by making the vast majority of the characters completely unique, (You still had fellows like William Johnson around, but Ubisoft had already done him justice in AC3 so I'm willing to let that slide) however it just highlighted the team's unwillingness, or inability to tell a tough story. Instead of having Shay turn against his brothers due to a genuine disagreement in personal philosophies or motivations, everything was just a huge stupid misunderstanding.

This actually reflects the way that morality is presented in a great many big budget Hollywood movies. There can never be any grey spaces, just absolute right and absolute wrong. Just look at Warner Bros' 'Batman V Superman'. The encounter that the movie was named after was based after a famous Batman comic known as 'The Dark Knight Returns'. It's a brilliant tale about an older Batman who has become obsolete due to his age and back injury, he retreated into his isolation and allowed the world to move on without him and America to turn into a totalitarian state. As events drag him back into the limelight, he ends up drawing the attention of the government as his brand of vigilantism undermines their authority. The last remaining active superhero, Superman, is dispatched in order to force Bruce back into retirement and the two decide to settle things with a battle. This story was so fondly remembered because it wasn't afraid to have it's hero's be anything less than absolutely right. Superman was still a hero that saved lives and represented America, but the country he stood up for had become bastardized and corrupt. Batman was still an anti-hero who's presence caused as much harm as good, but he became a symbol of hope to the people of Gotham who had resigned themselves to living under the thumb of local gangs. Neither side was ever completely right or wrong, making their conflict all the more dramatic. (I won't say that you ever had trouble deciding which side to route for because we all know who was more right. It's obvious. I don't even need to say it. You know who I mean. Batman. I meant Batman. You were thinking him too, right?)

In the movie, Batman is introduced as a bad tempered psychopath who's happy to kill in order to get the job done. His entire issue with Superman is based upon a baseless risk assessment that spawned the iconically stupid line "If we believe there is even a 1% chance that he is our enemy we have to take it as an absolute certainty." They even took advantage of 'Man of Steel's destruction fetish to fuel this idea of Superman being a threat to humanity and give Bruce the justification to go ham on his ass. Lex Luthor then pulled some shenanigans and managed to set off a battle between the Last Son of Krypton and the Caped Crusader with little more than a tad of smoke and mirrors. And threats. Those too. As as result the entire movie rings hollow and feels like a vehicle to stage geekdoms most storied showdown. A showdown, I might add, which wasn't even that impressive. All these concessions and changes were made to the base material so that everyone could be in the moral right by the end of it. They could just pat each other on the back say it was a misunderstanding and it'll all be forgotten by the next movie. (Just like the rest of the DCEU.)

Unfortunately, this style of inoffensive storytelling has ruled the roost in the mainstream for a great many years now and it leaves us with a bevy of one-note leading characters. I'm not saying that every story should have the potential for an indepth character study, but a little bit depth would certainly help flesh out characters. I believe that this ambiguity is the key to pushing forward morality in the future of videogame narrative storytelling and, luckily for me, I have some evidence that might be the way things are going in the future.

In my last blog on this topic, I mentioned how the narrative storytelling for a lot of modern AAA games were leaning into the action-consequence model. (Although I would hesitate to call the model a modern construction) I find this preferable to the simple 'good guy- bad guy' layout as it forces the storytellers to expand their horizons beyond the obvious and into the world of the morally grey. Games that have pulled this off well, like 'Fallout: New Vegas', The Telltale games and the Dishonoured games, have managed to elevate their stories by removing preconceived notions of right and wrong and leaving that choice in the hands of the player. (Yes, 'New Vegas' still featured a Karma system but anyone can tell that was just a holdover from using Bethesda's engine. Obsidian clearly preferred going the morally grey route with the main story.)

The outlook does look positive that the mainstream may be picking up on this trend going forward. Later this month the hotly anticipated Western RPG 'The Outer Worlds' will drop, which Devs promise will be a darkly humorous game without restrictive moral paths. Last year's Red Dead Redemption 2 featured action/consequence prominently in it's story. (Although there was a rigid 'good/bad' system from face value, the maturity with which the story handled it means that I'll let it slide.) And the most anticipated game of 2020, Cyberpunk 2077, practically lauds it's amorality in it's very fibre. These are the kind of big games that start trends and I think it is fair to assume that various big games studios may be looking into this kind of storytelling in the years to come. (If they ever let the 'live-service' idea take a break...)

That being said, this isn't the only way for video game companies to deliver a powerful morally grey narrative. Just look at 2013's 'The Last of Us' and the way it used the background of an apocalypse to tell us a story about the extremes of human emotions. (A lot more succinctly than The Walking Dead is doing, too.) I won't spoil the events of the game, this isn't the right kind of blog for that, but needless to say that there are times that make the player question whether or not they are playing the good guy. (And from the looks of it, 'The Last of Us Part 2' plans to double down on that aspect.) We can even go back to games like Max Payne 2 and see glimmers of morality vs immorality baked into the core story. I think it's a lot harder to write a narratively linear story that challenges your perception of right and wrong like this, but the reward has been a generally more positive reception. (People liked 'The Last of Us' so much that most everyone ignored the iffy gameplay. Except for me because I'm a stickler.)

In my opinion, in order for the future of video game storytelling to grow stronger, it is essential that we abandon the concept of rigid morality altogether and delve deeper into the ambiguous, let the audience decide for themselves. Perhaps it's a little cliche to say, but some of the most memorable characters in my mind have been those that made choices that I wouldn't necessarily do. Those that act on whim or emotion and not always out of rationality or heroic compulsion. Those are the kind of characters ring with the authenticity that I find myself craving nowadays. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy an enjoyable jaunt about killing demons in which you don't have to think too hard (oh DOOM: Eternal, why must you be delayed?) but I feel that there is room for more challenging content in the future. (And I'm not just talking about the next From Software game. Although 'Elden Ring' does have me hook-line-and-sinker right now.)

I do worry, however, that in the years to come we may encounter a little more issues in progressing storytelling than we really ought to, for no other reason than that of abject greed. With that I am of course referring to the rising interest growing for 'Live service' style games due to the potential for substantial financial return that they represent. Just like MMO's, 'live service' games are built to facilitate recurrent gameplay rather than great stories with diverse characters. Think of them like TV series' that keep getting drawn out with season after season with no plan to end things. Perhaps there was a uncorrupted idea in there once upon a time, but it all gets sacrificed and thrown aside in the pursuit of ensuring that the story can perpetuate itself indefinitely. This usually means that the stakes start to shrivel and the characters grow increasingly shallow and/or repetitive. (I just realized that I described the Arrowverse. I didn't mean it Grant Gustin, I still love you!)

For an example of this just look at the poster boys for the do's and don'ts of live services: Destiny and Anthem. Both are games that are characterized by bland world's and lifeless protagonists who embark on so many tireless good versus evil crusades that the terms start losing all meaning. The Destiny team scrapped their early ideas of splitting their player base by revealing a cold truth about the godlike-entity know as 'The Traveller' and seeing which players picked which side. Instead they chose a 'villian-of-the-week' model which is easily forgettable and fails to engage the critical thinking of their consumers beyond the thought "Which gun should I kill this Hive drone with?". Anthem, on the otherhand, was so directionless that the team has completely abandoned their story plans, leaving the barebones of a narrative without any idea of whether of not an actual narrative will ever pick up. (Not to mention that the story that was there amounted to another 'destory the ultimate evil' plot.)

This is especially distressing because Anthem's developer, Bioware, should really be leading the charge when it comes to revolutionary storytelling in games. Once upon a time, Bioware were the crafters of choice based narratives that pushed the rest of the RPG industry to catch-up. Now they've lost their special spark and become a vending machine for boring storytelling. And if you're thinking 'Hey, that's just one game. Maybe they'll get their groove back someday.' First of all you're wrong, 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' was a similarly badly written game. Secondly, you're still wrong, leaks tell us that Bioware's next game, Dragon Age 4, has been retooled into being a 'live service' too.

Bethesda have gone the route of live services as well with Fallout 76, following hotly off the heels of the narratively disappointing Fallout 4. (Although, in their defence, Bethesda have never exactly been exceptional in the storytelling department.) And the long promised 'Beyond Good and Evil 2' has been revealed to be a live service before we've even had a chance to learn anything about the gameplay. It seems that there is a trend picking up for jumping on this bandwagon and, giving how potentially profitable this is, I fear it could otherthrow the positive example being set by studios like Rockstar and CD Projekt Red. (However, it must be noted, that the 'Live service' model was perpetuated by Rockstar in the first place. They are our saviors and our condemners.)

Given the evidence, I feel it's safe to say that live service games are certain to have poor narratives that refuse to take risks. (Just like Hollywood.) So the direction of morality in storytelling could be grim as we slowly slink back into the dark ages of good versus evil plots only this time with but a modicum of the passion thrown in. Although I suppose this is more of a critique of the industry rather than the storytellers themselves.

Morality has the potential to become really ascendant in the future or really basic, and that may seem very middle-of-the-road for me to say but I genuinely mean that we could be straddling between those two extremes. However if I make the bold assumption that the future of video game storytelling will be placed in the hands of the storytellers, then I can certainly hold some hope for the future. Directors like Neil Druckmann, Cain & Boyarsky and those Polish guys who's names I couldn't hope to spell behind Cyperpunk, all seem dedicated to evolving traditional morality into something subversive and transcendent, and that is something that I crave to see more of in my games. Whether we will be lucky enough to see this play out in the future of our games, is a matter of fate. And maybe a little bit of Karma.

Modern Morality aka Choice and Consequence

Your fantasies can never be quenched, can they!

A while ago I dived into the topic of morality systems in video games. Times at which the player is expected to go a certain direction or make a certain decision that proceeds to dictate their moral leanings. This was the way that Video Games tried to initiate moral discussions when developers were just starting to get the hang of telling branching stories. But we no longer live in that time of rampant experimentalism. Nowadays, video game storytelling has been whittled down to a fine art, so writers who really want to stand out need to do more than just institute a good/bad bar on your character sheet. In modern video game storytelling, the weight of a player's moral fibre is judged by more than just an 'evil bar' coupled with a bad ending. Discussing morality requires a tad more nuance than that. And so the marketing gimmick of 'action-consequnce' was born.

I'm treating it with some flippancy but I do believe that the way we handle morality in games now is leagues better then the way we used to. At the end of the day, the concept morality is little more than a societal construct, and when you have that in mind then there becomes little weight in wagging a finger at the player and telling them they made the wrong choice. Narrative stories needed to start confronting players with the cold, undeniable reality of consequences. This evolution helped to create some of the most memorable and divisive moments in gaming. Players no longer just argued about 'the good option' and 'the bad option', now they had a springboard to engage in discourse about their fundamental views on the issues. Or at least that is the intention. 'Action and consequnce' can be turned into a meaningless gimmick when half-assed just like anything else in life. The key is to dedicate thought and passion into giving players the freedom to see themselves reflected in the decisions and mistakes they make.

The wider gaming world has very readily adopted the 'choice-consequnce' model and it has become somewhat expected for RPG's to have some form of choice at some point in their narrative. Whilst once this was a huge selling point, worthy of sticking on the back of the box, now it is a requirement for any big budget game. Even Red Dead Redemption 2 had some vague elements of consequence throughout it's story, although that has as much to do with respecting the overarching themes of the series as much as it has to do with ticking that particular box. Modern role playing just doesn't feel the same anymore unless we can make the story our own, diverge from the path that our friends took, and then argue about it with them the next day.

One game that captured the 'Choice/conseqence' craze beautifully, was the excellent: Dishonoured. In Dishonoured, players were put in the boots of disgraced royal protector: Corvo Attano, who was framed for the murder of his charge; Empress Jessamine Kaldwin. Who was also his lover and the mother of his child. (Talk about conflicted interests.) The player is then tasked with unravelling the conspiracy that led to her assassination by hunting down those that seized power after her demise, utilizing Corvo's substantial stealthy skillset alongside a whole host of otherworldly powers. Choice and consequence come into the picture in two distinct ways.

The First way is obvious. As you hone in on your targets, you are presented with two possible ways to proceed. You can straight up kill you target and get it all over and done with; or you can pull some strings in order to set up a special event which will also succeeds in eliminating the target. These events can range from having your target kidnapped by their secret admirer, to branding their face with the mark of a heretic ensuring that they will be cast out of the sect in which they reside. There is no morally pure choice to pick, either you kill the target or ruin their life; the focus in on the consequences. Sometime these consequences are left to the imagination of the player and over times you are shown them directly.

The second method that Arkane used to realise your consequences is actually quite brilliant. You see, Dishonored is a stealth action-adventure game, (My favourite sub-genre!) which means that the player can go through levels without being spotted and killing as few or as many people as they so wish. This is wrapped up in the lore through a rat-carried plague that is rampant in the game's setting: Dunwall. Rats are well known to be attracted to rotting flesh and so the game actually keeps track of how many enemies you've killed by proportionately infesting the city. If you are a cold blooded mass-murderer, Dunwall will become a plague ridden hellscape by the final level and even your own allies will start fearing you. This also ties in with the endings that you receive. The higher the chaos you cause, the worse your ending will be. Nice 'anti-violence' message in your game about assassinating people, Arkane.

Now onto somewhat of a contentious figure. David Cage has had bad rap with gamers over the years for making a slew of games that some people would argue aren't games at all. Through his studio, Quantic Dream, Cage and his team have pioneered the interactive storytelling genre, providing games that feel like movies. So what exactly is 'interactive storytelling'? Well, by David Cage's definition, it is a medium wherein in the player is presented with events in a story and they are tasked with making choices to guide the narrative. Sounds like everything I've been discussing today. The trick is that these games feature no actual 'gameplay' like one would traditionally imagine, just choices and the occasional quick time event. Some people would call these glorified DVD games, but I do enjoy the games for what they offer. As long as a compelling narrative comes attached.

Due to the choice-based gameplay that this genre is defined by, consequence is prevalent everywhere. Throughout all of Quantic's games; 'Indigo Prophesy', 'Beyond: Two Souls' and 'Detroit: Become Human', there are numerous moments when action or inaction results in branches through the story. Although the game that everyone remembers for it's consequences would have to be 'Heavy Rain'. Anyone who followed gaming at the time heard all the fuss around 'Heavy Rain' and the fact that, if your character died in the story, they would remain dead. 'Permadeath' was unheard of in this time, so many found the novelty absolutely fascinating. Of course, all those trailers conveniently left out the fact that, in order for a character to suffer permadeath, the player would have to be so hopelessly incompetent at quick time events that they manage to fail a ludicrous amount of them consecutively.

Yeah, the games didn't exactly exude the intense 'life or death at a moments notice' vibe that David Cage seemed to be going for, but the game itself did excel when it came to branching narratives. Big choices had the chance to completely shift the road that your character was on, thus changing the path of the story. This meant that many key scenes featured dozens of possible permutations depending on the route you took to get there. Never before did players feel like they had shaped the events around them quite like they did during 'Heavy Rain'. Following that, many successors would come to pastiche and mature this formula.

One such successor would be supernatural high school simulator: Life is Strange. Whilst you could argue that Don't Nod Entertainment borrowed more from Telltale to adapt their gameplay, I would refute that both owe some degree of their popularity to 'Heavy Rain'. Narrative wise, Life is Strange is a little bit a mess. The story follows the tale of a high schooler, Max Caufield, as she discovers that she has the power to reverse time and... just sort of lives with it for a while. Max goes through the process of reconnecting with her old friend, Chloe, and starts developing their relationship together for most of the game. Only near the end of the game does she realize that Nature is trying to 'final destination' Chloe, and Max must save the town or something, whilst simultaneously dealing with a pervert teacher who is also a murderer. As I said, it's a little bit of a mess.

Where 'Life is Strange' shines is in the strength of it's choices. Whilst it is true, the ability to turn back time kind of takes a lot of the weight out of the decisions you make, some of the most potent consequences you are subject to exceed the range of your powers. (Almost makes you wonder why you even have them in the first pl- okay, I'm not going to get into it here.) On the surface the gameplay experience is very similar to the 'Heavy Rain' brand of interactive storytelling, but the focus on character led drama adds a very personal aspect to the choices you make. Sometimes 'Life is Strange' presents you with a decision you make for emotional reasons rather than pragmatic ones. I find that this makes the consequences of those choice all the more reflective.

Another choice-driven interactive story that garnered attention in recent years is the star studded: Until Dawn. Supermassive Games themed their interactive story around the cliches of slasher movies, so people went in expecting a high body count. What we didn't expect was the heavily reliance on 'The butterfly effect' and all that entails. This meant that the smallest of actions could lead to violent, unavoidable consequences down the line. Some may call this a little cheap, but I see it as a little refreshing. You see, Until Dawn came out in 2015 and by that point everyone had already got a pretty good idea of what this genre entailed. When you go through every scene waiting for a 'gotcha' moment it becomes easy to spot narrative hooks and predict results in advance. Until Dawn threw that all to the wind. Did you throw a snowball at the butterfly? Boom, icicle to the head. Things literally got that random.

But let's step away from interactive story games and move to a game that features traditional gameplay but still manages to deliver doses of potent 'choice/consequence' to the player. Let's take a look at 'The Witcher'. Off the bat, CD Projekt Red were in a good place adapting 'The Witcher', as the story existed in an adult morally grey world. All they had to do was accurately translate that world into the medium of gaming, and I think the general consensus is that they pulled it off rather nicely. 'The Witcher' revolves around the character of Geralt, the titular Witcher. Much like Garrett from the Thief series, Geralt plays the role of an observer to a world in flux. Sure, he takes part in events, even has some 'save-the-world' moments. But for the most part, Geralt just tries to live in the turmoil of warring nations.

Whilst this approach may seem like it precludes significant choice and consequence, in practice it actually paves away for more meaningful decisions. 'The Witcher' is unique in that it presents a high fantasy world, and then tells personal, character driven stories with that world. Geralt isn't leading armies and fighting elder gods, he's hunting monsters that disturb the local town life. He isn't the perpetrator of world changing events, he just gets pulled along by them. I love this subversive approach to fantasy storytelling and think it lends wonderfully to the choices that the player is left to make. They get the chance to see the world from Geralt's level and so it makes it easier for them to make the choices they believe he would make. It's a powerful use of perspective that I'd imagine should be credited more to Andrzej Sapkowski then CD Projekt Red. But those writers did manage to utilize that tool to great effect and so I will praise them both the same.

Finally, I would like to bring up one of gaming's classics. Often referred to as 'The greatest PC game ever made', I'm talking about Eidos' Deus Ex. The original cyberpunk gem, Deus Ex situates players in a world fraught with conspiracy and hyper-surveillance as they try to free the people from the grip of a tyrannical secret organization who is not the Illuminati. (They're in the game too, but this particular ultra-shady secret government isn't them.) Choice and consequence is handled the same here as in any other game, every now and then you are presented with a choice between a number of actions and must pick one. The important thing to note here is the fact that this type of gameplay was completely unheard of. Released in the year 2000, Deus Ex was the first action-oriented game to prominently feature branching narratives as a result of player choice. Players were enamoured by the concept and it's one of the many reasons that the game is still widely loved today. I still see fans arguing over that final choice as though debating warring philosophies; which, in hindsight, I suppose they are.

2011's 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution' didn't have the benefit of being the first, but Eidos still found a way to make it's choices stand out. Instead of just giving players clearly marked sections where their specific actions matter, 'Human Revolution' also put players in situations where their inaction can affect the story. Did you stop that terrorist but fail to clear out his hostages beforehand? They're as good as dead. Did you stay your hand from applying lethal force on his men? Then he might be willing to work with you in the future. All this culminates into a ending that put Eidos in an impossible position. They had to provide the player with a meaningful choice whilst baring in mind that this game was a prequel and therefore cannot change the events surrounding the original game. What resulted was one of most igneous set of endings that I've ever seen pulled off by a game. (Which was then ruined when 'Mankind Divided' came along and just picked one of the endings to go off from. But I digress.)

In the modern age of game narratives, traditional depictions of morality is mostly a thing of the past. Light sides and Dark sides are concepts that seem outdated in a world that is more coloured in shades of grey. Although I do sort of miss the old tally-based morality systems, I recognize that these systems worked to constrain storytelling and play styles. That's the reason why so many games that use to champion these systems have since abandoned them. 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' shed it's iconic 'Paragon/Renegade' mechanic, Fallout 4 dropped their 'Karma points' and Respawn have even come out to say that the upcoming 'Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order' will not have any 'light side'/ 'dark side' choices. (Although that may just be hinting at a more linear direction for the game.)
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Going forward I expect to see more clever uses of choice-based gameplay as we move into the next console age. The Outer Worlds and Cyberpunk 2077 are two games to keep an eye on for this kind of stuff, their developers love challenging players with unforeseen repercussions. And there's also 'Life is Strange 2' for lovers of Interactive Storytelling and Supermassive Game's upcoming 'Man of Medan' for fans of chaotic consequence. These types of games aren't going away anytime soon and I, for one, couldn't be happier about it. I just can't wait to see how narrative morality evolves in the near-to-distant future. Who wants to guess how long it'll be before 'Ender's Game' happens?

A post-mortem of Morality Systems

Halo or Horns?

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.

That is not the only Star Wars game with morality paths, however, and I would be remiss to not mention my third favourite game of all time in this blog; 'Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic'. Bioware used to be the gold standard when it came to choice and consequence in games and they were far ahead of the curve when it came to accounting for branching narrative too. The backbone of morality in KOTOR is the Light/Dark side system, like one would expect, however this also co exists alongside genuine moments when choices you make directly impact events of the narrative.
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.