With the release of Assassin's Creed Odyssey's latest DLC earlier this week, a heated debate has been reopened regarding player choice in role-playing games. To quickly get you up to speed, Odyssey forces your character into a certain situation that you have no control over, despite the rest of the game being built upon the concept of player choice. Some believe that Ubisoft has essentially stabbed fans in the back, while others think that the developer is well within its rights to tell its own story.
Of course, this isn't the first time that something like this has happened, and we doubt it'll be the last. Remember the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy? Player choice didn't mean much in that finale, as Commander Shepard's past actions were tossed aside and they were told to pick red, blue, or green. The backlash for that one was so huge that BioWare released an expanded version of the ending.
There are numerous other examples out there, but let's just try to boil this down to one simple question: are fans right to complain when player choice is taken away in an RPG that otherwise encourages it? Vote in our polls, and have your say in the comments section below.
Comments 46
thing is these are games and player choice is a great system BUT there will be times when it's at odds with the story the game is trying to tell, especially in narrative driven games like this and at that point the choice HAS to be taken away from the player in order to facilitate the story, it's why the player choice system ISN'T a real choice system but a superficial mechanic that gives the illusion of more control than we actually have
"Betrayal" is one of the most obscene and disgusting words that fanship can degrade a person to addressing a fiction creator with; one of the words that reveal the parasitic nature and innate ethical bankruptcy of fanship itself. So you can guess my votes in this case.
This is what happens when you try to please everybody and also score 'woke' points. At some point in time developers and publishers need to pull their heads out of their backsides and stop trying to please certain groups of people, or if you're going to go all-in on the talking points these days you better be prepared to face backlash because inevitably there will be something that upsets somebody and then you have what you have now. It's the 2019 version of what happened with Mass Effect 3 in 2012, and frankly I'm siding with the fans even if many of them are people who I disagree with on certain things going on in games these days. I love this game, but the choice aspect of it has been poorly implimented and frankly it started with the choice to be male or female. Kassandra is the cannon character, should've been the only one you get to play as and Ubisoft should've left choices like sexual relationships and all that out to focus on a good, linear story set it an open world. Unfortunately, developers seem to throw commonsense out the window all the time these days whether it's trying to find a way to rip more money out of gamers' pockets with predatory DLC practices or to get internet backpats for being so 'progressive' from mainstream websites like Kotaku and IGN.
Whats the use for these choices if it doesnt matter. And please dont use the SJW excuse. This is just a terrible way too use DLC. Dont bring a fake players choice and then just take it away. Just as terrible as the ME3 one.... 😑
@FullbringIchigo Then dont give the option thats what my personal opinion.
@nhSnork
That might have been the wrong word to use but honestly what did Ubisoft think would happen? It's like nothing was learned from other companies' mistakes in the past. The game was built and advertised one way, then you just flick the gamer off in the DLC which they paid for on top of the price for the base game. I agree that the reaction is overblown just like when Bioware got bombarded with hate for ME 3, but that doesn't change the fact this was a big 'oopsie' by the developers.
Yes, if player choice is a central part of the game...
BUT in AC Odyssey the choice system was broken. At least in what regards the character. It never had any impact on the character itself, but upon the world. Hence the reason I'm saying that people complaining about the protagonist getting a kid is stupid. Not one choice you take in the game settles a definitive aspect in regards to your character. ALL CHOICES YOU MAKE ONLY IMPACT OTHER CHARACTERS AND THE WORLD!
Supposedly you turned down any sex opportunity in the game, the protagonist always tended to get into flirty conversations with all characters regardless of the gender, which, obviously, defines the character as bisexual. The protagonist DOES NOT have a fixed sexual preference. MOST IMPORTANTLY, people in that era could not care less about that. They only wanted to enjoy themselves.
The protagonist having a kid plays into the canon of the series. Starting with AC Origins they are now adding canon story material in the DLC (which personally, I don't feel too good about that). The protagonist has to have a kid, because it's relevant to the other games, end of the story.
@Flaming_Kaiser same here
@FullbringIchigo Odyssey is based on choice though, and you know I agree with you about the direction of the Assassin’s Creed series, but the game shouldn’t set up player choice just to back out.
I haven’t finished Mass Effect 3 yet, but there are already some points in it that have been very disrespectful to my choices, and the idea the series is based on is choices carding from the beginning to the end. It gives me an idea of the problems the ending must have had.
Developers need to stand by what they say the game will be and build the game on.
(But it stop doesn’t change the entire game being an offense to the AC series)
@Jaz007 i think the issue is that it's telling it's story and if we use a book as an example you don't get to a chapter in a book for it to say "now you have a choice if you want this to happen go to page 45 but if you want this to happen then go to page 76"
when something is telling a story then it can't have a full choice system which is why it should never have had one in the first place and it's why things like this or like the ME3 ending don't bother me because i know that in a story driven game when it comes to closing that story then i'm going to lose control because the thing can't have 10,000 endings to compensate for every possible choice that can be made
it's why even though you have the choice of say relationships in this game they were never anything substantial, because they can't be
I feel like the reason ME3 ending was so bad is because it was super confusing. Like, the choices were GOOD! BAD! And then the final choice - here’s 4 shades of gray. Enjoy 😂
Players have every right to complain, but Ubisoft is under no obligation to change their products based on said complaints if there's valid artistic merit to removing player choice.
I will say that I think, unless you're deliberately going for subversion, that it's a mistake to market a game as being about player choice and then removing a player's ability to influence how it develops or ends. I have no idea if Assassin's Creed does that, however.
If player choice is integral and the central way of shaping the game and it's world, it's definitely a problem if it's taken away from the player at a crucial point. It's very difficult to have a fixed outcome without potentially clashing with the choices players make. They want their choices to matter, and I understand that the development team wants to tell a story, but they need to account for that. Nothing's more irritating than carefully deliberating your decisions in a game, only to find out it means nothing.
I find these upsets are not something I can partake in. Its a computer game, choice is limited anyway, and there is always the choice not to buy the extra bit if you dont like the sound of it?
I realise there is a tendency in fandom for some people to start to feel a kind of ownership for the things they feel so passionate about, but this is a new game and the series isnt know for dynamic plot shifts according to choice, unless I'm mistaken.
I have the game and I'm enjoying playing it generally, might look at the extra dlc bits, but the idea of less 'choice' in the plot wouldn't really bother me, personally.
@ztpayne7
I saw it more like
1:Blue .A,B or C
Or
2.Red . A,B or C
As a gamer judging a game's mechanics, I don't really have an opinion on this specific situation. Developers are free to present their game however they want, and the era of DLCs and patches guarantees a constant evolution which I either love or hate, depending on each specific game.
But separately, as a gay man judging the underlying message being pushed by the developers in this case, I'm both disgusted and disappointed.
Simple answer? Think things through, and do better to understand the perceptions of others. But then that's how I expect everybody to act in every single aspect of life, so maybe that's my fault, for having higher hopes for humanity.
I really disliked ME3 because of this matter and because Shepard had a lot of auto dialogue which again felt like it was stripping away player choice. I was really angry at that but only because I cared so much about my Shep and her journey over the 3 games.
Player dialogue choice in the majority of games doesn't have any impact on the overall outcome, when a game does have multiple endings depending on player choice I find it's not as satisfying a story as all the different endings have been focused on rather than the developers focusing on a singular quality ending instead. Player dialogue choice in a game doesn't appeal to me and it also doesn't put me off a game. I think a lot of people get overhyped for dialogue options thinking it means there will be branching story paths and it is almost never the case.
I agree with the general sentiment: if the core game is promoting 'player choice' as one of its big attractions, it should carry over to the DLCs or expansions as well. It's not as if this game has that many different endings. Some of them are quite close so they could get away with just a few broader DLC paths, it depends on how they structure it. This just feels a bit sloppy and lazy of the developers.
Eh telltale gets away with it, or rather used to get away with it so why not ubisoft too.
Because the situation involves a discussion about sexuality, there are a lot of people bringing their own agendas to the debate. Then you get so much noise on either side it's difficult to know what to think.
For me, it's a case of Ubisoft being out of touch. Either they didn't realise the trouble they'd cause, or they realised and did it anyway.
One of those is worse than the other, of course. But it shows they're still a bit behind some developers when it comes to tackling mature themes
@sonicmeerkat
I think the fact that they closed down suggests they didn't get away with it in the end.
If the game is marketed that way, then yes. Nobody would complain about the lack of players choice in games like shadow of the collossus or god of war.
i cri evry tiem
If player choice is a big part in a game, and then it's suddenly removed, then I'd agree it's poorly executed.
Does picking dialogue options until an npc has sex with you really count as 'romance options'? Can you interact with any of them outside of this? Go on dates? I haven't played it but it seems drastically blown out of proportion.
Creative director had this to say in an interview about the game:
“Since the story is choice-driven, we never force players in romantic situations they might not be comfortable with,” Dumont says. “Players decide if they want to engage with characters romantically. I think this allows everybody to build the relationships they want, which I feel respects everybody’s roleplay style and desires.”
I think it depends on whether the game was advertised as an RPG where all your choices really matter. It was, but Ubisoft was naive at worst, as crafting RPGs where player choice has a real effect on the narrative/ending is hardly one of their company's USPs, and tbf then they did a pretty good job with that in the main game (except with romances, which going by the relevant dialogue all seemed to be written for laughs more than anything!) So I don't think Ubi has betrayed fans - just been naive with its advertising in an area that is pretty new to them, but ultimately I think they still deserve credit for trying to innovate in the base game (for a change re Ubi games! 😛), and maybe they'll learn that they should probably spend more time at the storyboard next time thinking things through when making RPGs, as in this age of rampant social media then the power of mob outrage is not to be taken lightly! 😂
I don't think comparing this to ME3 is appropriate in this situation. Your character in AC is the walking definition of "get paid, get laid" in just about every situation in the game. ME3 took away your choice at the very end.
@RedMageLanakyn You're right in that they're different when taken as individual cases, but they're still both ending scenarios that don't take your previous role-playing decisions into consideration.
Do you mean fallout 76?
Ubisoft done goofed, but it's not the end of the world (not for me anyway, after 90 hours I was way too fatigued to play it anymore and have no intention of jumping back in anytime soon).
The romances (while a welcome addition I thought) were pretty half baked anyway, as soon as you slept with someone that was it & then that character just became a non-interactive NPC for the rest of the game, even if you had them in your crew - if Ubisoft are going to continue adding this feature into future games then they need to work on it a bit more.
@Neolit Very interesting (and long!) read - thanks. I find human psychology really interesting and think this chap speaks a lot of sense. Unfortunately relatively few of the folk who end up with power care about longterm consequences of stuff is the conclusion I long ago reached...probably why I'm a bit of a nihilist at heart! 😉 Haha anyhoo, back to the subject of games...
@Strathnaver1 That sounds stupid so sex and done not even some special chats?
@Flaming_Kaiser
Nope, nothing - once you've woo'd them it's all over, no actual relationships or opportunities to talk to them again afterwards, they just become just blank slate NPC's & it's like nothing ever happened. Definitely not like a Bioware game for instance.
To be honest there are so few games in which player choice has any meaningful impact anyway and is one area where games haven't evolved as far as many reviews would have you believe. In fact I only really remember The Witcher 3 as a game in which I felt I had any real contribution to the story and world around me and to a lesser extent Skyrim, in most other games choice is superficial at best
@nhSnork Could not agree more
@Neolit i read it just now... its scary. We will bow for the intollerant it seems. This also explains how the nazis or the communists came to power
People will complain about anything. Gamers doubly so.
@ShogunRok Except for me, when playing through ME1-3, I felt like I actually HAD a choice all the way up to the end. In AC, your choices are "are you horny or not so horny" for a majority of what I've played. They feel contextually different.
I'm disappointed on Ubisoft for apologizing for this nonsense but that's what they get for trying to appeal to that community
@Neolit I tried to read that article but it made my brain hurt.
@Strathnaver1 Why even add the options if you will do if like that. 😑
Oh good grief, let it go. It's a non-event. Don't feed the sense of entitlement.
The point of an RPG is to play and shape a character how you want. There is nothing wrong with linear narratives and AC was a linear series from the outset. Switching gears like this was bound to cause issues. They have to bend in a pretzel needlessly to make a game that isnt an RPG...feel like an RPG. Trying to jump on the mass effect/fallout 4 bandwagon wasn't needed, either tell the story you intended to tell or make player choice mean something. Straddling the fence weakens the narrative for everyone involved. Devs and players.
I mean the whole game is an insult to the old fans so.. not much changed there, The lack of direction is really showing off in odyssey
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