For a long time now, choices and consequences have been framed as the core of any decent role-playing game, including open-world RPGs. Indeed, when stepping into a vast living interactive world, it’s only natural to expect it and its inhabitants to react to player actions. Easier said than done, though. Rare exceptions aside, very few of the consequences in RPGs matter outside a particular quest and the NPC who gives it to the player. Only a handful of open-world RPGs embrace this concept fully, creating lasting consequences that may, at times, stick with players for an entire playthrough.
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Better yet, some open-world RPGs allow for player mistakes and wrong choices with surprising depth, at times dooming key NPCs, locking players out of entire questlines or endings, or even creating permanent world-state consequences and destroying entire map regions for good. Returning to such places after one fatal choice can become a truly special moment for players, highlighting just how meaningful their own actions can be. Below are some of the best examples of open-world RPGs where players can indeed ruin entire regions accidentally or by choice, alongside the most memorable examples.
Warning! For obvious reasons, the text below contains spoilers for the listed games. Proceed with caution.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
Players Can Accidentally Doom The Entire Starting Region Of Kefalonia
The Assassin’s Creed series first ventured into true open-world action-RPG territory with Assassin's Creed Origins, but it wasn’t until Assassin’s Creed Odyssey that the series went fully RPG, featuring the player's choice of two playable protagonists and offering branching choice-based quests and dialogue rather than static cutscenes. Even with all that, few expected true depth from AC Odyssey, which actually played to the game’s benefit, catching some players off guard and delivering a spectacular illustration of player-driven consequences in the opening hours.
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Choosing either Kassandra or Alexios, all players start on the small island of Kefalonia, spending the first hours of the game tackling quests and errands for the locals. During the quest called "The Blood Fever," players meet a family quarantined due to the plague, with a choice of either killing or sparing them in the hope of finding a cure. If they choose mercy, players unintentionally doom the entire island, which will be consumed by the epidemic off-screen. Some players might never even know the consequences. However, if players choose to return to Kefalonia later in their story after sparing the sick, they will be welcomed by a desolate graveyard full of skeletal corpses and abandoned homes. Subtlety works wonders in this case, as it’s an entirely optional side quest that Assassin’s Creed Odyssey players may miss or skip, and the game never forces them to return to witness the aftermath.
Dragon’s Dogma 2
Hidden Dragonsplague Mechanic Can Turn A Playthrough Into Hell
Familiar on the surface, Dragon’s Dogma 2 approaches many typical open-world RPG mechanics differently, including its own take on companions (known as Pawns), no instant fast-travel options, and a distinct separation of day and night, impacting gameplay and exploration. Dragon’s Dogma 2 doesn’t reveal all of its secrets to the player, so many will probably be caught off guard by its Dragonsplague mechanics. This Pawn-exclusive sickness is caught randomly from dragon fights, and players can even unwittingly hire infected Pawns with no obvious signs. Over time, more symptoms of sickness become visible, but they’re quite easy to miss. If players aren't paying attention to their comrades, they risk unleashing Dragonsplague in all its dread, resulting in their Pawn transforming into a berserk dragon going on a rampage, slaughtering entire towns or settlements while the player rests.
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Many players report how shocked they were to encounter Dragonsplague for the first time, turning bustling hubs into ghost towns littered with corpses, with all NPCs and their quests gone. With the game’s auto-saving mechanics, it’s impossible to reload and avoid the shocking consequences, adding to the memorable nature of such events. On top of Dragonsplague, Dragon’s Dogma 2’s endgame is also special, thrusting the players into the dark Unmoored World where monsters constantly attack settlements and towns, capable of permanently demolishing them and all their inhabitants on a timely basis. All the side content of the area will vanish if players are slow to provide help or are busy exploring elsewhere.
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Fallout 3
What’s A Nuclear Post-Apocalypse Without Blowing Up An Extra Nuke?
Fallout 3 entrusts the player with plenty of agenda. Its reputation system allows them to commit good or bad deeds, each with their own benefits for certain roles. True to the game’s twisted world, players can do really horrible things, including wiping out entire cities and settlements. Like in many Bethesda open-world RPGs, players can choose to kill almost every NPC in the game, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are many grander twists available for evil geniuses. One of the most memorable moments in Fallout 3 is undoubtedly the optional side quest "The Power of the Atom," which allows players to detonate an atomic bomb resting at the center of Megaton city, one of the first hubs encountered in the game.
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Although it’s hard to claim that players can trigger the destruction of Megaton accidentally, as the game reveals all the cards prior to that point, this world-altering event still stands out in the genre. Following the bomb's detonation, an entire town will be gone from the map, turning what was once a bustling settlement into irradiated ruins, vaporizing dozens of NPCs alongside their quests, and even triggering specific random encounters if players choose to do so. Some major Fallout 3 characters, when learning about it later, also give their perspective on the player's actions. Hey, at least the explosion looks pretty cool. From a safe distance, that is.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Geralt Is Meant To Kill Monsters — Not To Trust Them
The creators of The Witcher series always value choices and consequences, even going to extremes in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. The game delivers a completely alternate portion of the game for a large part of Act 2, all depending on players’ early choices. As a result, players end up in different regions of the world, surrounded by opposing allied forces. Due to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s true open-world structure, the trilogy’s grand finale doesn’t offer a comparable non-linear sequence, but almost every quest has more than one solution, constantly painting moral dilemmas with only the player as Geralt choosing what the right thing to do is. What’s more, The Witcher 3 pushes its world’s complexity through ambiguous situations, where players can rarely foresee how their moment-to-moment decisions will backfire or how significant the consequences will be.
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In The Witcher 3, players can restore many small settlements, freeing them from bandits and monsters and then observing as people return to their homes, but the other way around is also possible. During "The Whispering Hillock" quest, players find a tormented, seemingly innocent spirit trapped in a tree who promises safety to orphan children. If players think compassion is the way to go here and decide to free it, the spirit unleashes a rampage that slaughters everyone in the nearby Downwarren village, leaving it a smoldering ruin of corpses and destroyed huts for the rest of the playthrough. On top of that, this mistake can significantly impact the outcome of the larger Bloody Baron quest arc in The Witcher 3. After all, Geralt is meant to kill monsters, not help them, so there’s a valuable lesson here.
STALKER 2: Heart Of Chornobyl
Everything And Everyone Can Be Lost To The Dangers Of The Zone
While STALKER 2 has some decent RPG elements, it’s still not a full-blown open-world RPG. Nevertheless, its example is too strong for a list like this not to include.
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl is primarily an open-world FPS game, but it still offers some decent RPG mechanics, such as branching quests, dialogue choices, a faction system, several endings, and far-reaching consequences for many of the player’s decisions during their playthrough. Playing as Skif, players can choose their allies and enemies at almost any given moment, and there are several opportunities to switch sides entirely or even betray certain factions. In addition, throughout the story, several major events unfold that dramatically change large areas of the game, like Wild Island, SIRCAA, and Duga.
While the majority of STALKER 2’s key world-shaping events are unavoidable, there are also cases that depend on player actions (or inactions). One of the most impactful and memorable events happens around halfway through the story, when the brainwashed Monolith returns to the Zone, simultaneously attacking the camps and bases of stalkers and the military. Players get a request for help from the very first friendly hub in Zalissya, where the Monolith unleashes a full-fledged assault on rookie stalkers’ positions. The game doesn’t directly specify that this quest is very time-sensitive, and if players decide to go somewhere else first rather than rushing to help Zalissya, soon the assault will be over, and almost every friendly member of the camp will be killed, leaving what was once a peaceful village a grim graveyard for the rest of the playthrough. It turns out that too many STALKER 2 players learned that lesson too late, losing one of the better bases in the game as a result.
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