Why is it Hard to Be Evil in Video Games?

[Music] in RPGs we play to be the hero of the world but sometimes you play to be the monster of it many games give us the freedom of choice we want to go on a killing Rampage in GTA we can if we want to disarm anuke and become the town savior we can you did it did you you disarmed that thing want to arm and detonate the nuke well we can do that also our playthrough can be whatever we want them to be good evil it's up to you embarking on a good playthrough is easy be nice to everyone don't kill innocent civilians don't steal you get the idea but taking on an evil playthrough is the opposite of that in some games it's easy to do these things GT ta is a prime example of a game that allows you to be a Sinister character and not feel awful about it in that game killing spree of innocence is hilarious no way I'm not going to do it I'll do whatever you want being chased by patrol cars and helicopters as you've reached five stars is thrilling what the [ __ ] stealing cars is a joy in pointing guns at people gives the player an incredible sense of power even though these things are downright Horrible no one thinks about that players are smart enough to understand that it's just a game and can disconnect their real life morals when playing it but for some reason the same cannot be said for other games in games like Fallout 3 you have that same freedom but the feeling is entirely different you can kill everyone in steal whatever you want but it comes at a high price Living Dangerously In These RPGs isn't really what players want to experience so it got me thinking why is it easy to be evil in games like GTA but hard in other games like Fallout 3 in New Vegas why is it so hard to play the evil route and is being evil in games even worth it the answers aren't as simple as you may think we'll start with the first question in games like G it's easy to forget about morals when you commit crimes like mass murder and theft oh that's depressing why the people you kill are random NPCs NPCs that have no effect on the story you play nor do you interact with them in any sort of way oh just on my way to my man's house I'm going to surprise him cuz I need some sex okay so when you kill one sure you end up getting a star and a couple of officers sent after you but that star can easily be removed by just leaving the area the game doesn't punish you at any point in the story for this so you can continue to commit these crimes and not have to worry about it there are no real consequences morality is non-existent but in games like Fallout 3 in New Vegas it's a different story so why is it hard to be evil in those games but not in GTA to answer that question we're going to talk about one of the biggest moral choices in gaming history and that choice occurs in the post-apocalyptic RPG known as Fallout 3 in Fallout 3 you play as the lone Wanderer of the capital Wasteland a character that for the first time in their life emerges from a pre-war Vault and into a post-apocalyptic World set in the future the objective at first is simple meet people around the Wasteland and hopes to find Clues on the whereabouts of your missing f father oh your daddy passed through here all right here and gone got what he came for and then left I'm assuming you'll do the same correct when you're thrust into this world you're likely to make your first stop at Megaton a city made of and surrounded by metal scraps the sheriff and the people of the city welcome you in with open arms the citizens there seem friendly they acknowledge your Vault uniform and understand that you probably have no idea what's going on many of the Town citizens are rather fascinated by your arrival and want to know more about you this helps the player feel attached to the city as you gain a sense of belonging from their kindness now not everyone is nice to you you have your handful of those that don't take kind to your presence and to those you detest while you're talking to people in hopes of getting in on what your father can be an ominous man in a suit stops you he informs you of a nuke in the center of town that can go off any point and that there is another town filled with Rich folk that wants it blown up with the people surrounding in return you're promised lots of money the offer is essentially immoral the sheriff hesitated but he also requested you to work on the bomb only instead of detonating it he wanted it disarmed to save the people he couldn't offer much money because there wasn't much to give the town isn't exactly Rich so you're given three choices one you can help neither and just let it be yeah but uh no one no one really does that two you can detonate the bomb killing hundreds of Innocents and getting rich off of it or three disarm the bomb and leave the town forever in your depth as they worship you as their savior this is one of the biggest moral choices you make in the game on one hand you're completely broke and could use a large sum of money but on the other hand you just met these people who welcomed you and were friendly towards you you had time to get to know the citizens whereas you have no idea what the other people are like in this other town when you make the choice to disarm the nuke the town's people are forever grateful you're given keys to a house every now and then the citizens will stop you to show their gratitude by giving you all sorts of loot your good deed doesn't just stay within the town your kind act circulates across the Wasteland as radio stations spread the news your character also gains a large amount of Good Karma which will help you in many interactions later on in the game there's a lot to gain from doing this but the same cannot be said for the latter [Music] Choice 10 Penny Tower is a wonderful place to live you're not getting in let me in godamn it again with the ghouls it was all a matter of time they were told they can't live here I complained off hand one day about how I thought that heap of metal on the horizon was a bit of an eyesore I assure you they're worth 10 times as much in death as they are in life think of it is helping speed along the process of natural selection don't lose any sleep over [Music] it my friend is beautiful well done Mr bur what a grand display of fireworks I almost wish there was another nuke we could detonate you don't see that very often I'm glad you're pleased I had help of course quite right and you are to offer him the reward we discussed now all this bright light and wind has given me quite a thirst where's as my Scotch to them what you did was a show a grand display of lethal fire that reached the skies was viewed with beauty rather than horror the thought of the atrocity they committed went entirely over their heads they didn't care about the people that died because they never really met them but you did say we [Music] promise you're thanked for the job by being given your own room in the hotel and the loads of caps that were promised to you once you receive those things you're off to continue your journey in the Wasteland over the radio broadcast there are the suspected reason that the bomb went off Regulators Wasteland Vigilantes that Target the evil in the area begin chasing after you on rare occasions in your travels you'll find Megaton refugees that attempt to kill you for Revenge besides earning double the Caps Megaton would have offered you there really is isn't much to gain from taking this route the consequences are far greater and while the reward may seem big at first you'll realize how insignificant the amount you earned was as you earn more caps throughout the game you lose out on some minor quests that are exclusive to megaton but the main ones are still completable somehow oh yo bro I must displ something well you know what at least I don't got to see that one lady no more what the you're still alive now that you're caught up with the example let really answer the question why is it so hard to be evil in these games compared to something like GTA in games like Fallout when you kill an NPC in a town you kill them for good what have you this is hopeless they don't spawn back like they do in GTA your actions will have consequences until you improve your karma and depending on the action you commit it may take some time to get it back up until it improves you reap what you sell the NPCs are also interactable unlike in GTA you feel like you build connections with many of the people that pass by you depending on how you immerse yourself they feel like real people and that's all due to the writing that goes into these characters even with all that said the game still gives you the Liberty to go evil but why is it still a challenge to take that path knowing we're going to take it what makes it so difficult if we look at the option of choosing evil we'll notice that with this choice the consequences far outweigh the rewards you get caps in a room but with it you gain infamy that will forever haunt your playthrough even if you switch and only make good decisions afterwards when you finally meet your father and get a chance to speak with him he asks about what happened at Megaton and when you tell him about it he can't help but be disappointed with your actions I raised you to be better than that better than the wastes we'll talk more about this later there's too much work to be done now to let let this get in the way wait wait huh that's it you also lose out on exclusive loot there are these things that you collect all over the map called bobbleheads and the strength bobblehead can only be found in Megaton if you blow up Megaton without retrieving it it's gone forever there's also a companion by the name of Jericho that will die in the explosion unless he joins you before blowing up Megaton he's considered to be one of the best companions in the game a lot of these things you can get before blowing up the city but if it's your first time playing you're unlikely to know this the pros of being good however are more beneficial compared to evil the city stays alive and Views you as a savior 10 Penny Tower can still be accessed but it's just not immediate like the other option you're able to keep a whole city alive for trading although they're small you're able to complete more quests your karma gets boosted leading to better interactions in the world when you make the evil decision you get the opposite of all that you play in a world that absolutely abolutely hates you and depending on how bad your karma is you lose out on certain companions like Fox who I would argue is the best companion in the game in terms of dealing and receiving damage of course if you were to play good you would still miss out on Jericho since he'll only join you if you're evil but if we compare Jericho and fox fox easily Takes the Cake as the better companion as a player when you look at the perks of each Karma level it's fair to say Good Karma typically has better Rewards and we all want better rewards during our playthroughs we want to experience more rather than be barred from it due to our evil doings and obviously being evil just isn't Fun for many people maybe it is when we've played a game after a number of times but rarely do we ever play an RPG and make our first playthrough an evil one I did a poll with some of you guys asking what type of playthrough you enjoy playing first good or evil a part of me thought I was the only one that didn't enjoy playing evil but I was greatly surprised when I saw that many of you thought the same as me 90% of you guys said good and 10% said evil Peg left to comment stating that being nice makes me feel nice not to mention that my favorite RPGs such as disco elium don't exactly incentivize me to choose chaos over kindness this comment really reinforces my point most RPGs reward good behavior rather than bad Bethesda games fall prey to this level of writing as there really isn't much depth in an evil choice this statement is made obvious when we look at Fallout 4 when you pick evil you just say horrible things to people or cause Havoc for the sake of it in Fallout 3 while you can choose to be evil you can't side with the evil factions in the game one of its biggest villains are the enclave and just when there seems to be an opportunity when you can join them they shoot you in the face it's not out of character for them to do so in the context of the scene but the fact that we can't join them is disappointing for those doing an evil playthrough it's another reason why I don't pick evil maybe if there was more complexity to making an evil choice or playthrough it would cause me to further contemplate my decisions thank you a quick shove should do it and then there's Fallout New Vegas [Music] the choices aren't as simple as the other Fallout entries mentioned each choice you side with has its positives and negatives the writing in the game is incredibly layered with the amount of choices you can make I can go full in depth on Fallout New Vegas but for the sake of the video's length I'm going to focus on the factions in the game in Fallout 3 you only have one faction to side with which is the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout New Vegas you have four different main endings you can choose in the end of this game you fight for control over the Hoover Dam you can either side with Yes Man Mr House the NCR or the legion what makes this choice so difficult is that you're able to understand the faults of every choice so it's a matter of weighing out which Choice feels right to you there isn't one option that is purely evil even the most moral and immoral factions have their issues NCR being the quote unquote good ending can be seen as problem atic as taking over the dam means even more stress added on to the Army their forces are already stretched thin as is before the end of the game so by having them cover more ground leaves them in the towns they occupy even more vulnerable you kidding me man our things they're all [ __ ] up that's how things are everyone is either starving or dying out here left out to dry by the rest of the NCR they're also a faction that is trying to revert back to the same governing way that was before the Great War a democracy that led led to the Great War and caused the death of billions they boast on how they're going to be different though so take that how you want to but from a moral standpoint they beat out the legion tfold with the legion one of their ways of keeping order is through sexism and slavery they kill whoever disobeys and rely on the guidance of one man kaisar while he can be viewed as a villain for operating in this way he backs his reason with a surprising amount of intelligence he isn't just some guy a Roman outfit he's a man that knows how the NCR operates and sees through the cracks of it through many real philosophical readings he's learned what Humanity needs in the world a full reset where guns and Technology are removed from society a way of life that prevents the likes of another great war from happening if we look at the Yes Man ending we see New Vegas a city that the NCR and Legion have desperately W control over become independent from either party while it's nice to live without any outside party governing the city it won't be sustainable for long as the forces they'll use to protect it the secons are limited the same can be said for Mr House's ending but his ending is rather morally bankrupt as he would have no care for the citizens that live inside the city and outside of it he's more hellbent on himself as you can see there's no clear-cut good ending in this game no faction is entirely good a comments on the poll said it best honestly I try to choose the ending that I feel like I would choose if I was in that situation the ending you choose is whatever you feel is best for the Wasteland it's these kind of decisions that are the most thought-provoking because they focus on what you morally believe you could pick the legion but at least here you won't feel entirely horrible about it because you believe in some of the ideologies they present but then again uh SL is like not cool obsidian themselves have made it obvious though that siding with a legion is evil anytime you do any sort of job for them you gain Bad Karma so it really cements where you'll stand morally if you side with them and to top it all off Megan Starks senior narrative designer over Obsidian Entertainment emailed to wired that about 97% of its players prefer to align with the good path over an evil one quite a similar statistic compared to mine while we can talk about Which choice provides the better reward or game experience for the player the biggest answer to the central question is obvious but still the most important playing evil just isn't Fun there's nothing really attractive when it comes to the sociopathic nature of an evil playthrough when we play an RPG we play with the intent of putting ourselves into the game's world we want to make decisions that we would make instead of what the game wants us to make it's that freedom that players love most that they play for I like to think all of us gamers are good moral people in real life so when we're presented with a good or evil option we typically pick the good one because we all want to be the good guys even though evil paths are statistically rarely picked developers of these games are actually okay with that Stark stated in the email we could say Well then why bother making a less morally good path at all that's a lot of time in resources to develop a choice that most players won't ever experience but having the choice itself is what's important RPGs wouldn't be what they are if these evil choices didn't exist if a game only consisted of good choices the game would linear when that's not what RPGs are meant to be it gives the game more playability and a greater sense of Freedom While most of us only enjoy the good paths without the risk of wrong in morally great areas there's no sense of conflict and when a game lacks that it lacks a purpose for the gamer to play it evil choices are never meant to be easy if they're easy to you you probably need to evaluate yourself or maybe you're just able to disconnect your real life morals without an issue if it's hard to make evil choices in a game I don't believe that is an issue if you make one and you feel absolutely horrible about it after that's good because it means that the game did its job in providing you the freedom to do whatever you want

Channel: Strictly Mediocre

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Keywords: Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 4, Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield, Telltale games, Choice based games, evil choices, good choices, Fallout: New Vegas video essay, Fallout 3 video essay, Fallout 4 video essay, Bethesda, Obsidian, The Outer Worlds, Video game essay, Fallout, Detroit: Become Human, Fallout Show, Fallout Prime, Fallout Season 2, Fallout TV show, Fallout Video Essay

Id: 0kYDGmw2gFQ

Length: 20min 20sec (1220 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 28 2023