So thinking a bit about choice in historical video games..., we've got a fair bit of evidence that most players - like 90%+ - when given a choice play games as the 'good' character.
'Evil' gameplay choices thus mostly exist to give weight and consequence to the 'good' choices.
'Evil' gameplay choices thus mostly exist to give weight and consequence to the 'good' choices.
I think that puts a burden on developers to either 1) make it really clear why 'evil' options were chosen (@PdxInteractive is, I think, pretty good at this) or 2) not hide all of the historical cruelty behind 'evil' choices no one is going to take.
If your game has the player doing imperialism, you can't have the character of it depend on their choices, because most players are going to choose the 'good' option and thus you get a game that presents relatively benign imperialism, a thing which didn't really happen.
It doesn't absolve the game if the player can produce historically bad imperialism by clicking the 'evil' options *because most players won't do that.*
And if the problem then is that gameplay would become too alienating with players doing all of this imperialism...well then maybe don't center your games on people doing imperialism?
There are other stories!
There are other stories!
Anyway, this thought brought on by the juxtaposition of Expeditions: Rome, which has this problem (but not as bad as AC:Valhalla) with CK3...which is often really blunt with how morally horrible 'optimal' play is.
The game Tyranny is also worth noting here (go play it!)
The game Tyranny is also worth noting here (go play it!)
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