And when the choice is so neatly segregated into purely Good or Bad, you have a much greater tendency for players to lean towards the Good option. However, when a game offers players a distinct option between being a hero or a villain, more often than not players will gravitate toward what makes more sense in the context of the story. There’s no real choice to take a more morally righteous approach, and that’s why they are able to succeed as villain-centric stories. However, with each of these games, being a villain is the price of entry. Destroy All Humans, Overlord, Prototype - there are certainly a number of games that allow players to flex their more villainous tendencies. Grand Theft Auto V is one of the most popular games to ever exist, a game in which gunning down civilians and being a general scumbag isn’t just a feature, it’s a primary reason to play the game. Now, this isn’t to say that gamers are implicitly opposed to playing as more morally dubious characters. Even though you can progress the story in very similar ways whether you lean Paragon or Renegade, the reality is that when given a choice to be a good guy or straight-up villain, most players will choose to be heroic rather than villainous. Choosing to murder brainwashed colonists when you have the means to save them via sleep grenades isn’t a complex moral choice, it’s a litmus test for whether or not you’re a psychopath. Regardless of how you feel about bureaucracy, most people would probably agree that killing the entire galactic government is a bad long-term idea. And with this type of character, the loud-mouthed, arrogant, violent, and usually tactless dialogue options in the Renegade tree simply don’t match with who Shepard is. Shepard is a character who is meant to liaison with and oftentimes serve as a diplomatic figure for a multitude of alien races. While Renegade options are sold to the player as a way to make their Shepard a hard-ass who doesn’t play by the rules but gets results, many of these decisions simply don’t make sense in the grand scheme of Shepard’s role. However, that’s not the only issue that crops up with such a “this or that” system.
MASS EFFECT 3 CHARACTERS SERIES
The series would improve upon this issue in later entries, namely in the form of Mass Effect 3’s Reputation system that gained experience from both Paragon and Renegade choices. Splitting your decisions to have a more morally balanced Shepard sometimes ends up costing players significant late-game choices. If you want to access some of the late-game dialogue choices, you’ll need to have made significantly more decisions that lean heavily into one side of the spectrum or the other. From the start, players are discouraged from making their choices on a case-by-case basis. RELATED: 'Mass Effect' Ending Explained: You Just Saved The Galaxy, Now What?įrom a gameplay perspective, there are a significant amount of dialogue choices that require Shepard to have a specific level of either Paragon or Renegade points in order to access. And while many consider the system integral to the series, there is an argument to be made that such a binary system of morality limits the series in both its narrative and gameplay. Renegade Shepards, on the other hand, will be ruthless, selfish, and oftentimes unnecessarily cruel in their actions and demeanor. Paragon-leaning Shepards will be a virtue of justice, a symbol for the downtrodden, and have an overall heroic persona. The morality system in Mass Effect has been a staple feature since the series’ inception, with every decision and dialogue choice feeding into a system that determines what kind of person Shepard will be. But the greatest tragedy of all these decisions is that if you squint your eyes just right, all these seemingly varied choices basically boil down to a choice between two consistent options: Paragon or Renegade. Through Commander Shepard, players will make a variety of decisions that shape the fates of individuals as well as entire species and civilizations. And the way that most players will experience the bulk of the Mass Effect Universe is through the eyes of their player character, Commander Shepard. Mass Effect has always been built upon the foundation of the stories and characters it houses within its universe. However, it would be reductive to simply call it a 3rd-person action game. Mass Effect is a series with a variety of guns, a cover system, and a range of biotic/tech-based special abilities.
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