Morally complex/ambiguous games

[Fractral]

Crusader Kings 2: So You Thought You Were A Good Person.

Yes, you can arrange it so that you rule a line of just, fair rulers who grow the land and the people rich and wealthy off peaceful growth. However, what if the Pope calls a Crusade-better take part in that, just to keep him happy enough not to banish you from the church. Oh, and your heir has developed a lisp and is a bit too fond of being around other men? Well, if you send him to convert heathens, and they tragically kill him, there's no blood on your hands, right? And now a Count has tried to overthrow you? Well, the ethical thing to do is strip him of his lands. But now he hates you, and has a claim on your stuff. Well, you could castrate him, to prevent any children of his from inheriting the claims. Yes. That's what you need to do. It's for the stability of the land. That's what it's for. Yes. It's ok. Oh, and his wife's pregnant? While, if you just wait for the child, you can deal with it appropriately. And that count just killed your only son? Who's your heir now? Your daughter? But she's married in the wrong way-her 5 children are in her fathers family. Well, time to smother some babies and kill your son in law. IT'S FOR THE GREATER GOOD.
Oh, would you look at that-that count's wife just gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. But if you execute it, people will think you're a tyrant! Wait, there's the solution: http://imgur.com/xCcu70e

IT WAS FOR THE GOOD OF THE REALM, GAME, STOP JUDGNG ME

Yeah, but it's for your Vassals own good, right? That's what I try and tell them as they rise up for the umpteenth time because I assasinated a few dozen of them who didn't like me.
In one of the paradox developer videos they mention how, despite their best intentions, CK2 ended up changing from a historical feudal sandbox game to a historical feudal soap opera. I think it's the better way to look at it.

 

[deathbydeath]

With regards to "Morally Ambiguous Games", I can't think of any off the top of my head.

-Bioware's attempts at that are a joke, almost literally (with the exception of the Genophage/Mordin Solus, but that got so weighed down in politics it stopped feeling like that for me).

-KotOR 2 is more of a deconstruction of Star Wars morality than it is being morally ambiguous.

-Spec Ops is something I might be inclined to agree with, but from what I've seen the game is trying to make a political statement and because your choices don't matter, you the player are a terrible person no matter if you prove you aren't. (Haven't played it, but I've heard the whole nine yards)

-The closest I could come is Deus Ex 1&2, but those games are almost entirely ethical dilemmas that depend heavily on your philosophical/political perspectives. Still worth playing, though.

To clarify what I think "Morally Complex/Ambiguous" means, I'm thinking of works like the Eisenhorn Trilogy and Worm, wherein the protagonist is established in the beginning to be a good person, but as the plot progresses and events escalate the reader is shown the protagonist in a different light and suddenly the MCs are in the wrong, even they are though doing the right thing. Admittedly Worm is also a deconstruction of institutionalizing morality via superheroes and Eisenhorn takes place in the Warhammer 40k universe, where the only way to effectively fight the Enemy is to fight like the Enemy.

 

[ExtraDebit]

Planescape torment, they don't make games like it anymore. Baldur's gate to a certain extent.

 

[themilo504]

Some of the most morally complex games I?ve ever encountered are grand strategy games, even if you try to play as a benevolent and peaceful ruler you?re going to have to do a lot of bad things to survive.

Crusader Kings 2: So You Thought You Were A Good Person.

Yes, you can arrange it so that you rule a line of just, fair rulers who grow the land and the people rich and wealthy off peaceful growth. However, what if the Pope calls a Crusade-better take part in that, just to keep him happy enough not to banish you from the church. Oh, and your heir has developed a lisp and is a bit too fond of being around other men? Well, if you send him to convert heathens, and they tragically kill him, there's no blood on your hands, right? And now a Count has tried to overthrow you? Well, the ethical thing to do is strip him of his lands. But now he hates you, and has a claim on your stuff. Well, you could castrate him, to prevent any children of his from inheriting the claims. Yes. That's what you need to do. It's for the stability of the land. That's what it's for. Yes. It's ok. Oh, and his wife's pregnant? While, if you just wait for the child, you can deal with it appropriately. And that count just killed your only son? Who's your heir now? Your daughter? But she's married in the wrong way-her 5 children are in her fathers family. Well, time to smother some babies and kill your son in law. IT'S FOR THE GREATER GOOD.
Oh, would you look at that-that count's wife just gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. But if you execute it, people will think you're a tyrant! Wait, there's the solution: http://imgur.com/xCcu70e

IT WAS FOR THE GOOD OF THE REALM, GAME, STOP JUDGNG ME

yep, personally I don?t even attempt to play as a benevolent ruler, I freely admit that I try to eliminate anybody who gets in my way, I?m also a massive imperialists who spends most of his time plotting to annex other kingdoms, we can have peace when I own the entire world.

 

[jhoroz]

I'm getting tired of the standard good guy/bad guy arrangement. It's a perfectly servicable way to tell a story, it's just that the standard good vs evil setting, especially when it comes to fantasy, is overused to the point when I'm starting to get quite tired of it.

Lol, the current market is over saturated with "morally ambiguous" games (e.g. Walking Dead, The Last of Us etc.). If anything, I miss the whole black and white, good vs. evil storylines that used to be so pervasive. Modern games are 2edgy4me

 

[giles]

Baldur's gate to a certain extent.

The original?

I thought the originals main plot was as straightforward as you can get. Basically all that was missing was the protagonist saying "Hello. My name is CHILDOFBHAAL. You killed my father. Prepare to die.". The second one allowed you to be a bastard to a certain extend by giving you a villain that a character of any alignment would want to kill (either to get revenge for him toying with you/torturing you or because he, well, kinda wants to murder everything in his path to get back at the elves), but it wasn't all that deep on the questions of right and wrong.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'm getting tired of the standard good guy/bad guy arrangement. It's a perfectly servicable way to tell a story, it's just that the standard good vs evil setting, especially when it comes to fantasy, is overused to the point when I'm starting to get quite tired of it.

Lol, the current market is over saturated with "morally ambiguous" games (e.g. Walking Dead, The Last of Us etc.). If anything, I miss the whole black and white, good vs. evil storylines that used to be so pervasive. Modern games are 2edgy4me

I would agree. I love both The Walking Dead and The Last of Us, but it'd be nice to get some proper nobility back in our game protagonists again. It's one of the reasons I really loved Wolfenstein: The New Order.

 

[Godhead]

Papers, Please and the often mentioned Planescape: Torment.

 

[Denamic]

I'm surprised Wasteland 2 has not been mentioned yet. The premise is that you are of the 'good guys', sure, but are you really? Ultimately, you're just pushing an agenda, seeking to protect people. But who you protect or who you kill is up to you. Do you talk down bandits, or do you mercilessly slaughter them? Do you pay the toll, or do you force your way through? Are there other options? There usually are, but whether they're better options isn't always clear.

 

[Prime_Hunter_H01]

Pick any of the main series Shin Megami Tensei games.

They always have a Heaven vs Hell plot line but places each side into a purely grey light.

The best ones that really make you think are SMT Nocturne/Lucifer's Call (if you are in Europe), SMT Strange Journey, and SMT IV

SMT Nocturne has a 6 way struggle between 4 Ideals of different utopia's plus complete destruction and a return to the status quo and each side does have good reasoning for wanting their own "utopia"

SMT Strange Journey goes further and hits you with the extremes of Order and Chaos but also paints the world as is, in a negative light. I would not say hopeless exactly but its a near future that is a commentary on our world now, and the end result is to side with one of the 3 really making it a choice of the lesser of 3 evils unless you are really optimistic or could agree by one of the two sides.

While I have not finished SMT IV yet it is seeming to take a similar complexity with all sides having their good bad and grey.

Another I wish to recommend is Digital Devil Saga, while the plot is straight forward Us Vs Them, the surrounding reasons and scenarios during the journey do take grey tone and while most of it matches with Hindu philosophy the last thing I would classify it as is straight forward Good vs Evil.

Note: I know you said 6 systems but you did not list them so you will need the ability to play PS2, DS, and 3DS games for these.

 

[JagermanXcell]

Dark Souls and the Shin Megami Tensai series.
But since my pal above me Prime_Hunter_H01 pretty much did his explanation on SMT for me, i'll just go on with Dark Souls.

The basic premise of the story is that you're a locked up undead in the middle of a kingdom's falling to solve an issue with your kind. You are let out of your cell to fulfill an ancient prophecy to "link the fire" and continue further undead rule... it may seem all fine and dandy, but then you realize all the effort being put in your path just to prove to you that it's apparently the right thing to do. Illusions are placed to tell you "linking the fire is cool!" but seeing your fellow undead go hollow isn't exactly a life worth fighting for. It's even constantly referenced that even if the fire is linked that the problem will be anew again when the fire fades AGAIN, so more suffering, more "prophecies" to be literally re-fullfiled just to keep things from being human and dark. Even noting as far as to say that maybe one day it will inevitably all just be dark.

But then there's the ambiguously "evil" side of the spectrum that assumes that feeding off the humanity of others for that oh so terrifying age of dark is the real just cause; a rule of man but at the cost of embracing said dark... now that seems better than never dying and going insane right? Weeeell in the TWO areas of the game (one being most of the DLC) you find what happens when a small kingdom goes for that option. That instead leads to either A. a massacre requiring Noah and the flood like proportions or B. a kingdom and it's people discovering cataclysmic like sorceries that could bring about other kingdom's fallings and turning it's inhabitants into monstrosities far worse than undead because they thought it was a good idea to poke at a single powerful man's humanity.

Now if you want morally ambiguous, go for Dark Souls because EVERYTHING is awful in that world. It's great.

 

[BoxCutter]

Fallout New Vegas for a more straight forward morality system that isn't as black and white as others. Spec Ops the Line for a more linear taste of the grey and gray. The Banner Saga is a good one as well, it pits survival against your notion of nobility. There is no actual morality system in the Banner Saga, but the entire game is about you making decisions.

Just stay away from Bioshock, inFamous, and any Bioware game.

 

[Theminimanx]

For morally complex situations I can point you to the Fallout series (except 3) and from time to time Mass Effect. But if you want a world filled with shades of grey, you're probably out of luck, especially if you don't want a clearly defined antagonist. I'd blame action game design for this, because the mooks you fight need to come from somewhere.

 

[Westaway]

New Vegas, but ethics/morality are not heavily emphasized. The main themes are the futility of politics and history.

 

[Demonchaser27]

I would argue that the old Gothic games and Risen 1 are morally ambiguous. These are games where the only things that the player considers when making different decisions are not whether it will give you good points or bad. It's about what you really feel is right or wrong. Or if you prefer, what benefits you or those you consider friends in the game vs. what detriments there are. There isn't any kind of end goal of seeing the "good" or "bad" ending. Just choices that have effects.

 

[RiseUp]

snippity

Papers Please is among the best games I can think of in that department, in that its gameplay revolves completely around distilling life or death choices into a mundane task that you have to complete to keep your family alive. Just a few of the choices the game presents you with: a choice of whether to aid a revolutionary group or turn them away to avoid drawing attention to yourself, a choice of whether to detain a human trafficker despite the fact that he's clear to enter the country, a choice of whether or not to separate a husband and wife because one of their papers is missing, and the option to receive a bonus for detaining people, that you may very well need to feed your family. It's a fantastic example of what you're looking for, even if the Arstotskan regime is un-ambiguously evil.

Shameless plug: I'm working on a project right now with the same moral tone, where the entire game is driven by interaction between characters and the AI running their interstellar colony. No villain, no hero, just four people and a sardonic computer trying to go about their tedious lives, explore the planet, and discover a much larger story that exists at a level higher than any of them. The main thing I'm going for is isolation and loneliness, but if you're looking for games independent of the villain-hero dynamic it might be able to satisfy you. I could let you know if I ever manage to finish it.

 

[Sarge034]

-Spec Ops is something I might be inclined to agree with, but from what I've seen the game is trying to make a political statement and because your choices don't matter, you the player are a terrible person no matter if you prove you aren't. (Haven't played it, but I've heard the whole nine yards)

So then you have literally no business talking about an experience you haven't EXPERIENCED. Odd how that works. There are some political statements being made but, just like the game, they're conflicted and only as deep as you wish to think about them.

To clarify what I think "Morally Complex/Ambiguous" means, I'm thinking of works like the Eisenhorn Trilogy and Worm, wherein the protagonist is established in the beginning to be a good person, but as the plot progresses and events escalate the reader is shown the protagonist in a different light and suddenly the MCs are in the wrong, even they are though doing the right thing. Admittedly Worm is also a deconstruction of institutionalizing morality via superheroes and Eisenhorn takes place in the Warhammer 40k universe, where the only way to effectively fight the Enemy is to fight like the Enemy.

Then you'd love Spec Ops... The military was in Dubai to evacuate the civilian populous and refused to abandon them when ordered to. The PC and his team is sent in to investigate when a distress signal is received from that lost force. Because of spoilers I'll say shit happens that you didn't mean to and people change, did you? The game doesn't tell you to shoot that crowd of civilians, just like in "No Russian", you did it instinctively. What does this make you? Is this normal? Is this okay? The game lets you do bad things on your own without even realizing the escalation occurring, but worse... it doesn't punish you for it or tell you there was another way. Worse yet, sometimes there isn't another way.

OT- Anyway, if you're looking for something really close to The Witcher, you're gonna have a bad day. There are a bunch of games out there that can raise moral questions IF you choose to think about them, but not many that push it in your face like The Witcher. There were some good titles already suggested so I'll throw in... Dishonored, Gears of War, and Bioshock. Dishonored tries to push the morality in your face, but Gears and Bioshock are a little more subtle.

 

[Random Gamer]

CK2 is obviously a game that is massively ambiguous. Others like EU4 or Victoria might be a bit, but to a lesser extent since you don't make decisions about individual people's fate.

Dishonored has some of this, but it's far less far-reaching and less subtle and complex than the Witcher - Witcher 2 is specially good in that there's just no *good* path, you're screwed whataver you do, you're just less screwed in some cases.

Morrowind: your character can be a douchebag, but the really morally ambiguous part shines not with your character's actions but when you dig into the past and try to sort the truth from the pack of lies surrounding ancient history.

Someone mentioned Geneforge. I really should play that series one day. I remember the original Exile series, specially Blades of Exile - who was mostly a scenario editor, and though most player-made scenarios were mediocre, a few were absolutely brilliant and had scenarios that would beat 99% of all released games' stories - and some were really tricky and ambiguous.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

Shameless plug: I'm working on a project right now with the same moral tone, where the entire game is driven by interaction between characters and the AI running their interstellar colony. No villain, no hero, just four people and a sardonic computer trying to go about their tedious lives, explore the planet, and discover a much larger story that exists at a level higher than any of them. The main thing I'm going for is isolation and loneliness, but if you're looking for games independent of the villain-hero dynamic it might be able to satisfy you. I could let you know if I ever manage to finish it.

Please do, that sounds fun! I'd like to get updates on that.

You essentially described what I was looking for with the 'independent of the villain-hero dynamic'. That's really what I'm looking for in a game. a story that creates conflict and suspense without having to rely on establishing a hero and a villain. Perhaps I phrased the title wrong.