Haunting Cases and the Illusion of Choice

[Amadeo]

Early game spoilers below.

A few years ago I wrote a post on the endings of Vampyr. The gist of it was that poorly designed endings undermined the moral complexity of the game. More specifically, you got the monster ending regardless of whether you embraced 2-3 individuals from every district or every human NPC in the game. Did you spend hours discovering clues about every person you met and trying to ascertain where to draw a line: should you kill only murderers, or is it OK to eat those who are attempting to kill others or working their way up to it; should people who endanger public health and safety be off limits; what about individuals who live in chronic pain or those who will commit suicide anyway? Well, that time was wasted because you're almost certainly going to be a monster anyway. So, you should have just embraced everyone to begin with.

So, apparently other people complained about it as well, and the developer heard us and decided to address this issue in their next game by... telling us about the ending situation early on. Apparently, we need to consistently make choice A to get the ultimate good ending or choice B to get the ultimate evil ending. They even make us swear an oath that we're not going to veer off this course very early in the game. So, once again, they are giving players moral complexity with one hand and taking it away with the other.

Did you just encounter a deranged cannibal who killed and ate his "friend," or did you meet a victim of starvation, as well as the supernatural forces at work in the colony, whose victim was intending to kill him anyway? Are you having a hard time making a complex moral choice? Forget about it! The choice that really matters is whether you want a certain special someone to ascend or to return to life. So, if you already decided that you're going to resurrect that individual, the crazy cannibal is going to answer for his crimes -- no hard thinking necessary!

Was the deceased a wife-beating scum who got what was coming to him, or was he a person with anger issues who was murdered by his wife's "friend" -- a career criminal and a fugitive from the law who's now pretending to be something he is not and endangering the entire community? What kind of question is that?! The real question is whether you promised a very special someone to help them ascend. If the answer is yes, the murderer is not going to answer for his crimes even if you think he really should. You won't even have the option to report him to the community leader. Same goes for a certain foreign spy and a saboteur, as well as every other NPC, regardless of their guilt or the danger they represent.

It's as if there were two teams working on the narrative at Dontnod. Once the first team comes up with some meaningful design choice for the game, the second team considers it a point of honor to undermine it with some random mechanic.

[Moojuice]

That is so true. Man why the hell do they do ♥♥♥♥ like this?? And also the "swear an oath and you get that ending if you stay on that way" why the hell do you tell the player about this?

[Alt]

Originally posted by Moojuice:

That is so true. Man why the hell do they do ♥♥♥♥ like this?? And also the "swear an oath and you get that ending if you stay on that way" why the hell do you tell the player about this?

Because it is a choice to do so? She knows a dark ritual that could bring her to life. It is a simple fact. But in what state it will bring her? And what price Red would need to pay for it? That is a mystery you will get to uncover as game goes on. It is a question of Morality.

Also, to the OP. You are a Banisher. You are not a cop, you are not a judge. Game tells you that clearly. Judging and blaming a person is not you job. Your job is to banish ghosts. Even ascension is almost never gets used by Banishers because it is a hurdle to do that. Better to just banish ghost you met outright without any investigation. THe reason why our couple does the investigation is because Red wants to do that. Not because it is required all the time. During the game you will find journals, notes questioning what Banishers do. Is it right to Banish every ghost? What really happens to Banished ghosts? Game later shows you that. Red becomes at some point disturbed by the fact.

There is no illusion of choice. As game goes on world and other characters react to your doings. Different small quests will pop up to show consequences of your actions. Im going a Resurrection route, completed around 80% of the game. And let me tell you, it is rough. Some of the blaming s and outcomes of them are very cruel. New Eden most likely will never recover after im done with it.

[Alt]

Also. Blaming is not just a regular killing. You destroy a soul of a living person and then use its life energy to feed character's wife. That is an awful thing to do, No matter how bad person is. From my experience, there is like only 2-3 persons in the whole game who could deserve such a thing to be done to them. Everyone else are either just your regular a*shole, a person who had to do a difficult choice for survival, a good person who done a bad deed out of fear or grief... or didnt do nothing wrong at all. Yes there are cases where no one did bad deeds, at all, not even a mistake. And those are when it especially hard to do the blaming.

[Nelo]

To be fair - banishers should not deal with humans, only ghosts. This is the part of the job. You may be lifting a haunting on truety vile people, but that is the line - no killing since banishers obey the law and no essence draining since that goes into some really vile stuff. Lay the dead to rest and move on - its simply a job as any other

But I get your point and you are totaly right. They could have done something with the ascend\banish(they are victually the same) mechanic for you to get a decent closure.

[Mutharex - Allkeyshop]

Lol at me thinking the good ending was resurrecting the girl....

[nutcrackr]

I absolutely get what you are saying. They give you these moral questions and then tie it to an overall goal, so you already know what you'll pick. But also part of me likes that I know it actually links to the ending so I'm not second guessing myself as I play.

I think the two should have been unlinked. Maybe another story thread runs parallel to the cases that builds towards ascend / resurrect. Or just make it a completely unrelated final choice. The moral side of cases could have had repercussions (they already do per quest) but overall it could have been something else.

[CrashT]

When I played Vampyr I tried to be a pacifist and do the right thing for the community, and sometimes those came into conflict, so I embraced one person out of mercy and killed another who I felt deserved it. I was convinced the game would judge me a monster but I kept to the path of what I felt was the "most good" and in the end it was a relief to get a good ending.

I could have gamed it, and looked up exactly what I could get away with for the good ending but I didn't because the journey and the story were important. I fully expect this to be the same, I think they have you take an oath precisely because it is non-binding (they make this clear), so you've made a promise but can actually you keep it?

If you're not engaging with the fiction of the world then maybe you just min-max and go 100% one way regardless, but I just don't find that approach to a game like this interesting.

[Mutharex - Allkeyshop]

My only complain is that I cannot 'blame' everyone, even people who are just walking around and have nothing to do with the cases. They are alive, so surely they sinned at some stage and need purging!

[GWYNBLEIDD]

Originally posted by author:

Was the deceased a wife-beating scum who got what was coming to him, or was he a person with anger issues who was murdered by his wife's "friend"

Yes, this quest. I was so confused. Very poorly written, lacks depth. Sounds like a one-sided domestic violence Twitter thread. And this “good fellow” criminal, who has now taken the right path... Made the whole situation look like a joke. If the authors were so keen to talk about the problem of DV, they could have done a better job.

[WolfEisberg]

No illusion of choice at all. I'm going for resurrection path, but I'll only choose to kill the living if I feel the living deserves death, which means I'll literally be making moral/ethical choices.

[Wyrtt]

Originally posted by WolfEisberg:

No illusion of choice at all. I'm going for resurrection path, but I'll only choose to kill the living if I feel the living deserves death, which means I'll literally be making moral/ethical choices.

Than you will not get an edning. If you break oath ghost literary sends to the start of the game do to do everything again.

[WolfEisberg]

Originally posted by Wyrtt:

Originally posted by WolfEisberg:

No illusion of choice at all. I'm going for resurrection path, but I'll only choose to kill the living if I feel the living deserves death, which means I'll literally be making moral/ethical choices.

Than you will not get an edning. If you break oath ghost literary sends to the start of the game do to do everything again.

I don't believe you.

[Wyrtt]

Originally posted by WolfEisberg:

Originally posted by Wyrtt:

Than you will not get an edning. If you break oath ghost literary sends to the start of the game do to do everything again.

I don't believe you.

You dont have too. Everything is already documented by other players and youtubers.

[D-Black Catto]

your assessment of vampyr is wrong, you get evil ending not just for embracing 10+ citizens but for not stabilizing districts, in other words, not doing your job as a doctor. if you embraced several people but kept districts at stable or healthy then you'd get ending 3 instead. if you only embraced one or two people by accident you'd get ending 2, and if you embraced nobody you'd get 1.

This is perfectly fine ending design. Because the main dilemma of vampyr was doctor vs monster conflict. It was all whether Reid will embrace his vampire thirst or suppress it staying true to Hippocratic oath and healing people instead.

It doesn't matter if you told yourself a cope "I only ate bad people" you gave in to thirst too much, your eyes changed red and at least one district probably went to Chaos and that's why you got the worst ending in Vampyr. It's totally your fault not the game design.

[Zards]

Exactly my thoughts too. They took away the individual judgment from each case and made it that you should always choose Ascend/banish or always choose Blame to have the ending you oathed for.

I'm really liking the game so far, but it would've been so much more interesting if I could choose what I thought it was the right decision for every situation instead of choosing based on the ending I want.
It's like I saw an online tutorial and spoiled the ending.

What a bad choice they've made.