One of the best things about gaming is having choices. There are a ton of video games where you can make decisions that affect your character, side characters, and the entire story. Not every choice is that of a hero, however. There’s some pretty messed up stuff that you can do.
Related:The Best RPGs Where You Can Be Evil
Whether it’s an RPG, a streamlined story, or a simulator, you’re bound to ruin some lives along the way. You’ll inevitably do a playthrough where you go down the path of evil and flip a character’s life upside down. At times, you might even be forced to.
Beware of spoilers for some of the games' plots featured here.
8Extending The Apocalypse In The Last Of Us
The ending ofThe Last of Usis one of the most shocking finales in gaming history. As Joel Miller, you’ve spent plenty of time and energy taking Ellie to the Fireflies. With her immunity to the Cordyceps, there’s a chance a cure can be made.
Well, the game doesn’t let that happen. It is revealed that Ellie will have to die for the potential cure. Joel isn’t happy with that idea. He intends to keep Ellie alive by killing all the Fireflies.His fatherly feelingsfor Ellie send him on a murderous rampage that keeps the apocalypse intact. While he may have saved her, he ruined the lives of everyone still kicking and hoping for a cure.
7RollerCoaster Tycoon With An Amusement Park Of Horror
You can ruin a lot of lives inRollerCoaster Tycoon. Gamers that want to be a little twisted in their virtual world have flocked to RollerCoaster Tycoon for years. It makes it very easy for you to do so, too.
There are many life-ruining options at your disposal. You can leave a coaster unfinished and send its riders flying to their doom. Maybe you’ll remove the exit, so they’re trapped in your park forever? Or perhaps you are one to delete any food vendors and starve your patrons during what should be a lovely family vacation.
6Loot The Car In Telltale’s The Walking Dead
Telltale’s The Walking Deadis full of choices that alter how the story unfolds. One set of choices, however, doesn’t really change the outcome of the situation. In Season 1, you and your group stumble upon an abandoned car. You canchoose to loot it or decide not to, where your group will do it themselves anyway.
Related:Games Where Your Choices Have Actual Consequences
Regardless of if you join in on the looting as Lee, the owner of the car appears and is angry about his supplies being stolen. His whole family is gone, and he blames Lee’s group for everything falling apart. It all led to him kidnapping Clementine and eventually dying by your hand.
5Set Off Megaton In Fallout 3
Megaton is a settlement inFallout 3named after the megaton bomb that rests at the center. It has becomean iconic landmarkof sorts within the town, as the population believes it to be dormant. That isn’t the case. The warhead is still capable of detonation.
You have the option of leaving it be or setting it off on behalf of Allistair Tenpenny to remove the eyesore. If you choose the latter, you’ll sit back and watch as Megaton is destroyed. Most of its residents perish with the rest dealing with a nuclear fallout inside a nuclear fallout.
4Robbing A Poor Woman In KOTOR
Knights of the Old Republicis often regarded as the greatest Star Wars game ever. It has a slew of choices for you to make as Revan, opting to walk the path of the light or the dark. Near the start of your adventure in Tatooine’s Anchorhead, you can gain some quick darkside points.
Related:Great Games With Branching Decision-Based Stories
A woman is pleading in the streets for anyone to help her after her husband, a hunter, has passed. She has a wraid plate from his hunting days that should fetch a decent price. you may buy it from her or sell it for her and give her the credits. Or you can steal it, sell it, and keep the credits for yourself. This takes her last memory of her husband and her last chance at financial stability, leaving her and her children with nothing.
3Mass Effect 3 And The Genophage Cure
Mass Effect 3is the culmination of a fantastic sci-fi gaming trilogy. Save files from the first two can be carried over so your choices from those games still matter. Then, of course, you’ve got some life-ruiningchoices to makein the third one, such as stopping a cure for the Genophage.
The Genophage was a biological weapon to prevent Krogan reproduction. With Wrex, a Krogan, as a party member, a potential cure is a huge story element. The cure can be stabilized after outside sabotage, but you’ve got the option to let the sabotage take place. This starts a devastating chain of events, ruining (and ending) Wrex’s life along with the entire Krogan species.
2The Possibilities Are Endless In The Sims 4
If you’ve playedThe Sims 4, you know how heartbreaking it is when one of your Sims passes away due to old age. You also know that old age isn’t the only way tobring the Grim Reaper knocking. The game has a multitude of ways for you to torture and end the life of a Sim.
Your Sim might start a fire while making dinner if they aren’t the best cook. Quickly delete the doors. The Sim could go for a swim, and you could remove the pool ladder only to watch them drown as they lose stamina. After that, the Sims' loved ones will mourn them for the rest of their days. That’s a lot of brutality in such a family-friendly game.
1Ruin A Lot Of Lives In GTA 5
Grand Theft Auto 5is the game where you can arguably ruin the most lives. If you think of the NPCs as real people with real things to do, the list just keeps growing. It may not even be intentional on your part.
Steal a car, blow one up, or block traffic because of a shootout with police. That could cause an NPC to be late for work and get fired.Rob a bank or a convenience store, and you’ve given the worker a bad time to deal with. Go on a random killing spree and maybe you’ve taken away someone’s parent, sibling, or best friend. The deeper you think about it, the worse it sounds.
