Morals and ethics in video games are hard to portray. a lot of the time your character will take part in senseless killing but will claim to be fighting for a good cause, and let’s be honest if someone is killing another person are they still morally good?
I mention this as I finished Fallout 4’s Nuka World DLC with the good ending. The DLC mainly focuses on being evil and so getting the option to instead of siding with the raiders I had the opportunity to kill them all and free all of their slaves. It’s certainly a huge task and was probably the toughest battle in the game for me. However once I did so… that was it. No cool and unique items for me to get, no real reward for choosing this option, all I got was the satisfaction that I did a good thing.
While many people see this as bad game design (and to be honest I also see it a bit like that) It’s perhaps the best representation of good and evil choices in any video game. Being evil means you get better stuff or deal with something in a much easier way however you do so by betraying your moral code and being vilified. Being good means that you stick to your moral codes and yet you don’t get the cool stuff that being evil would net you. It might be unsatisfying to be good in real life as it won’t get you to the top of anything (see most global corporations where the CEO’s have done at least once dodgy deal to get where they are) however you will still be a good person, and isn’t that the most important thing in the end?
Anyway what do you think of this way of thinking about the ending of Nuka World? Or do you perhaps think there could have been a better way of handling it? Be sure to let me know! That’s all for now, and as always. It’s not just a game, It’s a Life.