Game Design | Ethics
Do You Kill? How Games Craft Emotional Narratives through Moral Dilemmas
Have you ever stopped during a game and thought, “Wow, I should not have made that choice.” You don’t even realise it until it’s too late; you’ve just chosen one’s death over another. It’s painful, like you really lost someone in real life.
How do games evoke such strong emotions from our moral dilemmas? Why are we obsessed with games that let us change the course of fate?
In this article, we’ll explore how games masterfully wield moral quandaries to craft emotional narratives and experiences. From “good cop, bad cop” dichotomies to true ambiguity, we’ll examine the techniques developers use to make us question our values and wrestle with impossible choices.
Time is Running Out
My first experience with a Moral Dilemma in-game was probably The Walking Dead. Do I save a young boy? or a friend? This type of gut-wrenching decision, with no clear right answer, really encapsulates the essence of the moral quandaries present throughout the Walking Dead series.
