Games Where the “Good Guy” Faction Is the Real Problem
In games that cater to player choice and offer role-playing opportunities, factions often play an important role. Siding with the “good guy” faction is meant to offer a way for the players to roleplay being on the side of good, doing positive things, helping people, and so on. Choosing the bad faction allows players to roleplay as evil characters, bringing destruction and chaos wherever they go.
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The following games stand out for forcing players to make tough decisions that can drastically change the story.
It’s not always black and white, however. Games that play around with nuance and subtlety make sure that the good factions aren’t all sunshine and roses, and the bad factions make compelling arguments that give their actions justifications. In some cases, the good guy factions even turn out to be the cause of strife, often because their good intentions start paving the way to hell.
Far Cry 4
The Golden Path
The Golden Path presents itself as the “good” faction in Far Cry 4, a coalition of rebels that aid the player in liberating the region of Kyrat from the oppression of Pagan Min. However, by the end of the game, it becomes apparent that while the rank and file of the Golden Path might be good guys, the faction leaders, Sabal and Amita, are equally terrible for Kyrat in Far Cry 4, albeit in different ways.
Sabal is too stuck in the ways of the past and hellbent on reviving traditions even if they will only bring more harm than good. Amita wants to modernize Kyrat, but in the worst way possible, by using opium, child soldiers, and ruthlessness driven by a thin veneer of practicality. If players help Sabal become the leader, he kills all those who oppose his vision in the Golden Path, saying that he is “washing away their sin in blood.” If Amita becomes the leader, she can be seen forcefully recruiting children at gunpoint to become a part of her army, no better than Pagan Min was.
The Stormcloaks
It’s easy to see the Stormcloaks as the good guys in The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, as, on the surface, they are an army of freedom fighters with the goal of liberating their homeland from the oppression of the Empire. Led by Ulfric Stormcloak, their goal seems heroic, noble even, but the truth is a lot more complicated.
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Putting aside the fact that the Stormcloaks are racist towards anyone that is not a Nord, and outright antagonistic towards elves, simply the fact that they are inadvertently helping the Thalmor by weakening the Empire is enough to prove that their actions are short-sighted at best. Ulfric Stormcloak seems to only care about putting himself on the throne, without worrying about what happens afterward. While it is possible to say that Skyrim might be able to fend off the Aldmeri Dominion without the Legion’s help, as the Redguards did in Hammerfell, Ulfric doesn’t appear to have any long-term plans to do so. In fact, a dossier on Ulfric found at the Thalmor Embassy says that the Aldmeri Dominion considers him to be an “asset,” as the longer the civil war in Skyrim goes on, the better it is for the Thalmor.
Dragon Age: Inquisition
The Chantry
The Chantry is the dominant religion in Thedas at the time when Dragon Age: Inquisition takes place, and is the closest thing to a “good guys” faction in the game, other than maybe the Grey Wardens. However, since the Grey Wardens don’t really play a large role in DAI, it’s hard to consider them a faction per se.
On the surface, the Chantry’s goal of spreading the Chant of Light and the message of Andraste is a good one. One needs to only look past the surface layer of holiness, however, to understand that the Chantry is, in fact, at the root of a lot of problems plaguing Thedas. Not because the Chantry is evil, but because it always thinks its view of the world is the most correct, and doesn’t hesitate to impose its will on everything and everyone. Perhaps the most evident example of the Chantry’s good intentions getting warped into something terrible is the Circle of Magi, the organization that is given unilateral authority by the Chantry to control mages as they will, often leading to tragic consequences.
Mass Effect
The Citadel
With the threat of the Reapers looming overhead in Mass Effect, one would think that the Citadel Council, the leaders of all sentient races in the Milky Way galaxy, would help Shepard and his crew in any way possible to deal with the threat, or at the very least get out of the way so the heroes can do their job without hindrance.
In practice, however, the Citadel holds Shepard back at every turn, putting up bureaucratic hurdles for no reason other than willful ignorance and the inability to accept that their world view is not the most correct one. In Mass Effect 1, they dragged their feet at every opportunity until finally accepting that Saren was mind controlled by the Reapers. Fast forward to Mass Effect 2 and the Council becomes outright hostile to Shepard, refusing to accept that the Reapers are really approaching to eradicate them all, severely damaging the war effort. If the Citadel Council had been more accepting of Shepard’s version of events and taken the warning more seriously, they might have been better prepared for the Reapers when they finally arrived in Mass Effect 3, which would have saved millions of lives, if not more.
Fallout: New Vegas
New California Republic
In the Fallout universe, the New California Republic stands for democracy, the rule of law, and equal rights for all. In actuality, the NCR proves itself to be an expansionist force hellbent on acquiring territory and resources, imposing taxes, and forcefully inducting people into its brand of imperialistic rule. And if they wipe out a few colonies that don’t take well to being told what to do, well then that’s just the price you pay for civilization.
In Fallout: New Vegas, the ultimate decision in the hands of the courier is who they want to side with in their bid to rule Mojave. The three factions in New Vegas are House, who only wants to focus on his business, the Legion, who are set to implode as soon as Caesar is out of the picture, or the New California Republic, who want the resources of Mojave for their own ends. There is an argument to be made that siding with House is the better choice overall. Even though he only cares for himself, he is a businessman at heart and only wants to turn the Vegas Strip into a successful venture. He isn’t interested in expanding into other regions, and while he certainly won’t care about the people in the region, at least he will put the region’s needs first.
Horizon Zero Dawn
GAIA
The AI GAIA was the culmination of the efforts of Dr. Elisabet Sobeck in Horizon Zero Dawn, meant to safeguard humanity on planet Earth in the wake of the Faro Plague, an extinction-level event where innumerable robots went rogue and started devouring everything around them.
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While GAIA succeeded in neutralizing the rogue robots, an unknown virus turned its subordinate functions like HADES and HEPHAESTUS against her, forcing her to self-destruct. Without her there to oversee and organize the terraforming efforts for Earth, the subordinate functions turned rogue. By the end of Horizon Zero Dawn, players find out that the hostile machines that make the world so dangerous were actually made to be their protectors. They were supposed to be humanity’s biggest helpers, meant to help them reattain the heights of the Old Ones. But because GAIA was attacked by the virus, these good guys became humanity’s worst nightmare.
Divinity: Original Sin 2
The Divine Order
In the Divinity universe, the Divine Order was initially formed to fight the Black Ring cult, practitioners of dark arts and foul magics, bent on resurrecting the Lord of Chaos. Anytime the residents of Rivellon were threatened by Voidwoken, Demons, undead, or any other manner of existential threat, the Divine Order’s Magisters, Seekers, and Paladins were the ones to deal with the threats.
In Divinity: Original Sin 2, however, most of the Magisters of the Divine Order blamed the appearance of Voidwoken on Sourcerers, saying that the usage of Source magic summons these beasts and that is why all Sourcerers must be rounded up, imprisoned, and Source-Muted. The Divine Order’s leader, Alexander, was also the one responsible for releasing deathfog into elven lands to purge the Black Ring, a cataclysmic event that wiped out all life from the region, including innocents.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The Northern Kingdoms
The major conflict brewing in the background of The Witcher 3 is the war between the Nilfgaardians and the Northern Kingdoms (Kaedwen, Temeria, Redania, and Aedirn). At first glance, it appears easy to classify the Nilfgaardians as the bad guys, since they are the aggressors from the south trying to conquer the Northern Realms simply for the sake of conquest. But like everything else in the Witcher universe, it isn’t quite so cut and dry.
The people in the Northern Kingdoms are exceedingly racist against anyone not part of their society. Elves, Witchers, and any other race of sentient being that isn’t an accepted northerner is fair game. That is not to say that the Nilfgaardians are any better, but their faults aren’t any worse than the Northern Kingdoms from an outsider’s perspective. It could even be argued that the commonfolk of the Northern Kingdoms may even benefit from the iron fist and rule of law that defines the Nilfgaardian Emperor’s reign.