Messed Up Things You Get Rewarded For In Video Games
Talk to some people, and you'll hear video games blamed for everything–from shootings and violence to creating an entire generation of people who have never seen the sun. They're critics who just don't get it, man, because they've never explored a virtual world, stayed up late fighting zombies, or spent way too much time working on their crafting skills. We know not all games are created equal, though, and if you do some digging into some of the things you've done just for an achievement, a trophy, or a shiny new bauble, you'll find you might just be a horrible person after all. Spoilers (for how awful you are) ahead.
Skyrim: Kill some innocents, get some unique weapons
We'll start with Molag Bal, and if you're familiar with Elder Scrolls lore, you know nothing good ever happens when Molag Bal gets involved. Head to Markarth and you'll come across the very worried Vigilant Tyranus, who kicks off The House of Horrors quest. At the end, you'll get the pretty sweet Mace of Molag Bal ... as long as you kill both Tyranus and Logrolf the Willful. Killing Logrolf isn't a big deal — he's just a priest of the evil Boethiah. But Tyranus is just trying to make the world a better place and defeat all evil. Not only that, but he's sworn fealty to Stendarr, God of Mercy, Charity, and a whole bunch of words Molag Bal has never heard of. Or at least, he is until you come along and get all stabby. But hey, you get a mace with soul trap, so good for you?
Boethiah's no better, and there's some horribleness you can opt to do for her, too. You can totally be rewarded with being appointed her new champion at the end of Boethiah's Calling, but only if you first sacrifice a follower to her. It's not as easy as it sounds, because you first have to go out, pick your victim, then complete their quests to earn their trust, loyalty, and the undying gratitude they'll have toward you until, you know, you kill them. Stendarr is so disappointed in you.
Dishonored: Give a woman to her stalker, finish the game without killing
One could argue the entire point of Dishonored is to play as an assassin and use all those weapons you have at your fingertips, but gamers have never played by the rules. According to an interview with co-creators Harvey Smith and Raphael Colantonio (via NBC News), they built a massive, game-wide Easter egg into Dishonored for exactly that sort of player. You could play the entire thing without killing a single character, but if you wanted to earn yourself that honor, you had to do something that could be arguably worse than murder.
We're talking about what happens at the end of Lady Boyle's Last Party, where there's only one way to complete your mission without killing. You'll have to find the insanely creepy Lord Brisby (via PC Gamer). He'll confess his obsession with Lady Boyle (along with acknowledging his "needs") and promise that if you bring her to him instead of killing her, he'll make sure she disappears. Forever. So, while you're not killing her, you are handing a woman over to a clearly disturbed, obsessed man who thinks nothing of carrying her away to do who knows what to her. Sure, it's non-lethal and you'll get bragging rights. Sure, Lady Boyle is a part of the wealthy upper crust in a world where everyone else survives by eating rats. But that's still pretty messed up.
Red Dead Redemption: Kill all the buffalo, get a trophy
We can all agree that the wholesale, wanton slaughter of an entire species of native animal is bad, right? Good, we're on the same page.
The minds behind Red Dead Redemption could legitimately argue they were only building some real-life history into the game when they added a secret trophy you can get for killing every single buffalo living on the Great Plains. The trophy is called Manifest Destiny, and if you want to try to get it by throwing some dynamite into the middle of the herd and blowing them all to smithereens, by all means, do. That's little better than what real-life settlers did when they climbed on top of their train cars as they headed west, shooting into the terrified herds just for fun and leaving a trail of corpses behind. If there's any comfort here, this one's proof that no matter how morbid video games get, real life can always do better. You can totally use that next time you get into an argument with Grandma.
BioShock: Kill the Little Sisters, get more stuff
Anything can be made more disturbing by the addition of some creepy little girls, and BioShock does exactly that with the Little Sisters. They're wandering around harvesting ADAM, and they don't really do much in the way of fighting back if you attack them.
Wait, how do we know that? Because we're monsters, and because, well, technically they started it first. You, Dear Player, have a choice to make. You can either rescue those Little Sisters, girls who have been mind-controlled and brainwashed, forced to perform some seriously disturbing tasks over and over again, doing things that would break the mind of a normal person. You could rescue them ... and you'll ultimately get some cool stuff down the road. But you know what they say about instant gratification. If you decide to harvest the Little Sisters instead of saving them, you'll not only get cool stuff right now, but it'll be enough for you to skate through the first few levels.
Oh, did we also mention that the Little Sisters are almost invincible because they heal so fast? That doesn't keep them from feeling pain, though, and if that bit of knowledge doesn't make you feel like a horrible human being, nothing will.
Heavy Rain: Execute a man, find out how to save your son
Sometimes games make you deal with some pretty dark stuff, and sometimes, they tell you a lot about who you are as a person. In Heavy Rain you're Ethan Mars, who's dealing with some serious trauma at the same time he's trying to find out where the Origami Killer has taken his son, Shaun. The schtick is that the killer gives the parents of his kidnapped victims tasks to complete in order to find out where their kid's been taken and, in theory, save them. It's essentially asking you how far you'd go to save your son. And in Ethan's Shark task, you have to decide if you're going to kill someone.
Brad Silver is a drug dealer, but there's a catch. When you threaten him, he pulls out a photo of his daughters, and there's the heart of it. You're a parent trying to save your son–so do you murder the father of two little girls? Even if you can justify the killing by saying he's a pretty bad guy, the girls are innocent.
Mercy is a deal-breaker, too. If you want to find out where your son's being held, you have no choice. Leave him alive and walk away, and you're going to have to hope someone else finds out where Shaun is, because you won't. Put a bullet in him, and you'll get the next piece of the puzzle. How far would you go?
The Bard's Tale: Betray the person you've been trying to save, save the world
If you haven't played The Bard's Tale, go play it now. Or don't–but either way, we're going to spoil the ending for you, because it's seriously messed up.
You spend the whole game getting visions of this damsel in distress. She's being held captive by some creepy old dudes with serious head tattoos, guys who attack you at every turn, waving around their human skulls mounted on sticks. Clearly, this princess needs rescuing.
It's only at the very end that you talk to the last wizard, who claims they aren't the bad guys after all. You've been killing the good guys (he swears), and if you free your princess, you're going to release all kinds of evil into the world. Sure, you could point out that you've just been fighting skeletal horses, zombies, invisible demons, and a whole bunch of nasty wizards on your quest to free her, but ... ugh, why does morality have to be so complicated?
The only way you're going to get out of this one without being turned into an eternal slave is if you go turncoat. Choose rescue and chivalry, and you'll bring about the end of days. The creepy guy is telling the truth, and in this case, it turns out throwing your honor out the window is exactly what gets you a pat on the back and a happy ending. Who needs honor, anyway?
EverQuest 2: Kill kittens, get a new title
Titles are important. How else do people know what you've done, how much you've achieved, and in one case, that you're a kitten-killer?
There's not much that's messed up about EverQuest 2, and even if you play as an evil character, it's pretty straightforward. There's one sick pirate hanging out in Moors of Ykesha, though, and if you want the title of Swabber, you'd better have a strong stomach. Grak Liversplat is sick and tired of all these adorable little kittens running around, and you'd better get to killing if you want to be on his good side.
What? We also have to point out this is in the middle of a quest, so you have to finish this somehow. The game gives you another option, if you don't feel like felling the felines. You could opt to stuff the kittens in a sack and hide them, but seriously, that's weird, too. If you convince him you've eaten the kittens — or if you kill them and bring him their bodies — you'll get kudos, a title, and to continue on in the quest. We don't want to play anymore.
Skyrim (Hearthfire): Kill some parents, adopt their child
Skyrim showed just how far a game could go down the road of realism, and part of the attraction was the fact you could play it any way you wanted. You could spend your day picking flowers or collecting butterflies, or you could kill some parents for the sole purpose of adopting the children you just orphaned.
The game sees nothing wrong with this, because even if the kids see you actually killing their parents, they'll still let you adopt them. Even stranger, you'll still get all the perks of having kids, including the random chances they'll come home with a new pet, give you random gifts, and give you a buff called either Mother's Love or Father's Love. It's a hugely practical effect that increases the healing done by potions and spells, and if you give them a present or an allowance, you'll get a bonus to your persuasion abilities.
Seriously, if you kill someone's parents right in front of them then still manage to get them to live with you, call you Pa, and bring you things, you shouldn't just get a permanent persuasion bonus. You should also get a permanent black mark on your soul.
The Last Guardian: Watch someone poop, get a trophy
If you're checking out someone's PlayStation trophies and you see one for The Last Guardian that's called "Call of Nature," you know that person's either extraordinarily lucky, or a creepy, poop-obsessed voyeur. According to PlayStation Trophies, you'll need to catch your beastly companion Trico actually pooping to be awarded this particular trophy, and it's not easy. He's not going to poop if he knows you're watching him, because he's presumably not a weirdo like you are. He's not going to poop while he's in combat or sitting on a pillar because he's not an idiot. He needs privacy, and that means you're going to have to be Sneaky Pete to catch him in the act. There's no guide, and no tips aside from the hint that if you find some green blobby things, those are his poops, and you're going to have to wait a while before he needs to use the little monster's room again. There are so many video games out there, endless possibilities ... and you're spending your time trying to catch a bird-dog-monster pooping. You're weird.
Red Dead Redemption: Hogtie a woman and leave her to die, get a trophy
Everyone loves unlocking achievements, but just how far would you go? If you find out someone's scored the Dastardly achievement in Red Dead Redemption, you should probably get the heck out of Dodge. Clearly, they're not right in the head.
Basically, you have to pull out your trusty lasso, hogtie a random woman, and throw her on some train tracks. Any train tracks will do, but it's not enough just to tie her up and leave her there. Someone might come along and untie her, after all–someone who's a better sort of person than you are. If you stand there and watch until the train comes and runs her over, congratulations, you've unlocked an achievement that says a whole lot about your character ... or at least the sort of things you like to do in your spare time.
Fallout 3: Commit complete genocide, save your father
You're the Lone Wanderer in Fallout 3, and you're living your contented, Vault-Tec Corporation-controlled life when your father suddenly disappears. You head out to find him, and, eventually, you're going to find your way to Vault 112 and into a VR simulator that was named Tranquility Lane with all the irony the game can muster. Your father is trapped in the simulation, and in order to free him you'll have to play the bizarre game. Inside the simulator lives Betty, and Betty has some issues. She wants you to do some pretty terrible things, starting with making a little boy cry and escalating into killing Tranquility Lane's unsuspecting residents. There are a few different ways you can do it, but you'll have to make sure they're bloody enough for Betty.
Whatever you do, you're a horrible person. You'll beat someone to death with a rolling pin, set off an explosion that'll kill another neighbor, or put on a mask and go slasher-movie on the neighborhood. There is a way to get around going through Betty's increasingly awful tasks, and that's to basically trigger a failsafe invasion by Chinese soldiers and cause the perma-deaths of everyone on Tranquility Lane. That's ... the good ending? It certainly gets you good karma, and no matter what kind of awfulness you go through to complete it, you'll be rewarded with your father's freedom. Just wipe the blood off your hands before you give him a hug.