Open-World Games Where Some Choices Will Haunt You Forever

Key Takeaways

• Open-world games feature morally complex choices, leading to haunting quest outcomes that torment players for years.
• Skyrim, Fallout, Dragon Age, The Witcher, KOTOR, and Baldur’s Gate offer traumatic quests with devastating consequences.
• Hard decisions about who to sacrifice in quests spark questions about morality, humanity, and the consequences of player actions.

Open-World Games often have a lot of morally complex choices, some of which can haunt players forever. For the sake of giving the ultimate player agency experience, some developers have gone as far as to outright turn us into mass murderers, or the most heinous villains of the story. And it often comes down to one single choice: the line that divides good from evil is very thin, and makes us wonder if we really took the right decision.

But no matter the results, we know it’s fiction, and as such, we are in a safe place to make those morally complex choices. This, of course, doesn’t exempt us from suffering some traumatic experiences when things get out of control. In this list, we explore some of the games with the most traumatic quest outcomes, some of which can torment players even for years. Trigger warning: Readers should proceed at their own discretion.

Warning, spoilers, and traumatic content ahead.

It Has One Of The Worst Possible Outcomes In A Sub-Quest

Skyrim is one of those games that has a lot of player agency, and while not every choice in the game leads to a dramatic outcome that can re-appear over and over again in our worst nightmares, there’s one particular choice that has been haunting players dreams for over a decade. It is about the “Mourning Never Comes” Dark Brotherhood Quest, in which the Dragonborn turned Assassin needs to travel to the WIndhelm and slay his former lover, Alain Dufont, who is holed up in a bandit hideout not far from there.

As an optional objective, the “client” also asks the player to kill Nilsine Shatter-Shield. Those who were not paying attention to Windhelm’s lore, will perhaps miss the detail of the tragedy of the Shatter-Shield family, reduced to poverty, losing several family members alongside their Thane status. The grand matriarch of the family, Tova is often seen in the market, haggling the price of every item and stubbornly fighting against other denizens for every penny Septim she has left. Her elder daughter Friga was also murdered by a mysterious serial killer, and if the player also decides to kill Nilsine, her only remaining daughter, Tova will decide to end her life. This succession of tragic events hit unaware players really hard, even those who are playing an “evil run.”

7 Fallout: New Vegas

Hard Luck Blues Hands Down Most Traumatic Quest

Many Fallout fans have seen the series hitting up the screens through Amazon Prime, and there’s a famous scene in the show that depicts one of the most notorious quests in Fallout: New Vegas that has become fuel for the nightmares of millions of players. The Hard Luck Blues, is a quest that makes the player choose between the denizens of a poor town that desperately needs a Power Core, but by robbing it from a nearby Vault, they are dooming the entire population of that vault to die.

The Courier has the power over the life and death of several NPCs on many occasions in the game, but this quest here is what separates human beings from simple wasteland wanderers. Some think the Vault Dwellers deserve to die, and that they always have the choice to evacuate and live on the surface like everyone else, while others say that Bethesda should have designed the quest with a third option (there are plenty of Power Cores around to be honest). Be it as it may, this has been a traumatic choice for many fans of this Open-World game.

6 Fallout 4

To Be Or Not To Be Human

During our Fallout 4 run, we might get in contact with several factions, many of which are at odds with each other. But the truth is that the Steel Brotherhood (the Space Marine version of Fallout) players come into contact with a character named Danse, a Paladin of the Brotherhood who is quite ruthless and discriminates against other sub-species, especially Super Mutants.

The Paladin Danse Dilemma, as fans have named it, starts when the sole survivor is sent to perform a quest named Blind Betrayal, which outcome reveals that Danse is not who he says he is. Turns out he is a synth created by the Institute, and when he finds out about his own “inhumanity,” Danse is tremendously distraught. Then comes the choice: Put him out of his misery, letting him live and rebel against the Brotherhood high command, or convince them to let Danse live and send him to his exile. This is one of the most morally complex quests in the game, and turns out, plants the question in the players’ heads: What does it mean to be human?

5 Dragon Age: Inquisition

Abandoning An Old Friend In The Fade

At some point between chasing down the Venatori through Thedas in search of Corypheus and murdering innocent High Dragons who peacefully “grass” around the world, players will come with a difficult choice in the game. Perhaps the most difficult one they’ll find in the whole franchise. The Dragon Age series has allowed players to carry the outcome of their decisions throughout every game, and it has given us many memorable characters who have a special place in our hearts.

Two of these are Alistair, a Grey Warden directly linked to the Origins game, and Hawke, the protagonist of Dragon Age 2. Dragon Age: Inquisition will make us decide to abandon one of these in the Fade to die. One has to surrender his life to “save the party,” and the other protagonist, so they can stop the big bad evil who is about to lay waste to the world. So, who did the players choose? It’s an impossible choice to be honest, and one that will surely torment players forever.

4 The Witcher 3

Save Anna Or The Children?

CD Projekt Red did a splendid job depicting Sapkowski’s taste for bitter ends and impossible moral choices, and in The Witcher 3, this is perfectly reflected in the outcome of the Questline handed by the Bloody Baron. After Geralt investigates the tragic past of the family, including the Baron’s inclination for alcohol and violence which led to nearly destroying his family, it all comes to two terrible choices: Geralt (aka The Player) must decide between saving Anna or all the missing children from the nearby villages who have been kidnapped by the Crones.

If the player picks the first option (the most logical since Geralt needs Anna alive to track down Ciri) the evil witches will eat the children alive. If the players decide to save the children, this will have a tragic outcome as well, since Anna will be transformed into a Swamp Hag, and then will die at the hands of Geralt, breaking Tamara’s heart and swearing to never see his father again. After a while, the Baron will hang himself, making everything in Gors Velen much worse, since without the Baron to keep them checked, the murderous bunch who used to be his sworn bannermen will turn to pillaging, murdering, or worse.

3 Star Wars Knights of The Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords

Spare a Cred For a Beggar, Face The Consequences Forever

Bioware has a track record of making us feel bad even if we are being Light Side-aligned Force Users. In KOTOR 2 after landing in the perilous city of Nar Shaddaa, the Exile will see a man approaching, asking for a few credits to feed his family. If the player decides to give this poor soul some creds, Kreia will reprimand the player, lecturing them about the ripple effects every choice has, and showing us a cutscene where we see the poor fellow getting robbed and killed by some thugs.

Needless to say, this doesn’t end up here: if players took this choice, they would later discover two children and a woman in one of the lower sectors of the city, who seem to have lost their home due to her father not being able to come back with the credits he promised. Kreia’s lesson taken to heart will make the hearts of the players shrink, and maybe they will think twice before being good. What was the saying? The path to the Dark Side is paved with good intentions.

2 Baldur’s Gate 3

Fighting Against Squirrels Is Wrong

If players have ever played an open-world game, they might be familiar with things escalating pretty quickly, especially after a bad decision. But in the case of Baldur’s Gate 3, this maxim is taken to the extreme by Larian Studios, who, for some reason decided that the players can fight against a squirrel in plain daylight. If the player has the skill Speak With Animals or drinks a potion that grants this effect, they will probably feel a little threatened by the murderous rodent.

Be it as it may, the players can also assert their two-legged supremacy over the poor creature by propelling it with a rough kick. This will quickly turn into a carnage scene that is hard to forget, and even those playing the evil run must feel something afterward. A hard reminder that actions have consequences, in the most gruesome form. To top it off, if any of the Duirds in the Grove ends up witnessing this, the whole place will become hostile to the players, which will lead to further bad decisions. So, don’t kick the squirrel, there’s nothing to gain from it.

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