Flashback Friday: The, "Mass Effect," Games Handled Morality in a Clever Way

A lot of video-games with, "Choices," like to brag about how you can be good or evil. The thing is, being good means you're the nicest, sweetest person ever who only hurts villains. Then, being evil means you are over-the-top hilariously mean for no reason. It's like when a game shows you a puppy and you can adopt it and love it forever or kick it as hard as possible; the so-called choices are just two extremes. Plus, a lot of data shows, that if players can choose to be evil or nice, most just select to be pleasant. Being a baddie can cause folks to feel guilt--it isn't a real puppy they kicked, but we've still got that darn empathy. That is why when I think of a game that handled morality in a clever fashion I often think of the, "Mass Effect," series.

In the, "Mass Effect," trilogy you play Commander Shepard (there was a later game with a new cast but nobody liked it and it removed the morality system). Shepard can be male or female and have a variety of backgrounds you select, and there are plenty of choices in the game, but they aren't good versus evil! In a clever twist, you can be a renegade or a paragon. No matter how you play, "Mass Effect," you are the commander of a ship who wants to save the Universe. The question is if you'll do it while behaving like a gun-ho renegade who throws rules out the window because the ends justify the means or as a by-the-books and ethical paragon who sees the best in even in the worst people. Throughout the, "Mass Effect," series you always are the, "Good guy," but whether you're kind of a dick or pleasant to interact with is up to the player. You would think this theoretically constrains player agency, but it works extremely well.

If players will rarely choose to be evil, why not have a game where they're objectively good but can go about saving the Universe by means they deem required (guns a-blazing) or while trying to use calm reasoning and dialogue when it is at least an option? It results in the, "Mass Effect," games having extremely different possible plots (a lot of characters can live or die along the way/be romanced/etc.) but the end result is that you're going to try to save the Universe from whatever is threatening everybody in each game. I'd argue the renegade and paragon system is a rare example of a morality system done extremely well with more nuance than we normally see. It is something other games could learn from.