[Spoilers] What were the major choices in the game?

[himmatsj]

So I just finished it last night. Really good game. Took me an awfully long time to complete (over a month), but I really liked it. Best single player narrative driven game so far I'd say this year. My sole issue with it is that the optimization is kinda sad and I had the game crash on me a fair few times which always made me wary of playing it.

Anyways, on the topic of choices, can somebody help me list down all the major ones?

Off the top of my head, I can think of:

- Killing the old robotic version of you after you get your new suit
- Killing Sarah or allowing her to continue suffering
- Possible (?) to not poison the WAU (if so, what happens with Ross and your hand?)

Those are the only ones I can recall. I know at times you could choose to send/upload/delete messages from the terminals and I won't consider those major choices.

Can you please add on to what I've missed? I played this game over a long period of time so I perhaps can't recall the choices that were made early on.

Finally, do any of these choices have a payoff at any further point in the game?

Thanks!

[MrMuffinz]

Heres ALL of them:
-Killing Carl Semken painfully (switch) or let him die without knowing (turn off power)
-Kill Sarah or let her sit there for the end of her days
-Killing one of the helper robots on the way to Theta (crazy robot or your "little buddy")
-Deleting the legacy copy of Simon so the WAU can no longer make other confused lonely Simons.
-Deleting... Kevin? So that he doesn't have to live in that room for eternity.
-Killing off the first (known) copy of Simon by unplugging his battery.
-Letting the last human die or suffer in her chair.
-Fist the WAU and kill it, or reject Johan Ross by exiting through the way you normally exit. He will try to stop you, but you must persist (you also keep your hand).

[velkito]

A little reminder please. Who were Sarah and Kevin? And where did we learn the identity and role of Johan Ross and how he connects to the story?

[Elovan]

I'm pretty sure you mean Brandon Wan, not Kevin, the guy in the simulation you get the code from. You choose to either keep his data around so he can be "revived" again and again, or delete his data so he isn't tortured anymore.

Sarah Lindwall is the last living human who is guarding the ARK in Tau.

Johann Ross you first meet and find out about mostly through computer terminals in Omicron, he's the guy who pops in and out of existence who wants you to destroy the WAU.

There's also two more choices that you missed. Outside of Theta is a robot with Robin Bass's consciousness, connected to a port. You can either leave her alive and deluded into thinking she's on the ARK, or you can disconnect her power. You also need to decide to whether or not to kill Amy Azzaro at Upsilon-B, the shuttle station. You can unplug just one tentacle and keep her alive, or unplug both so she dies.

[velkito]

This might be an interesting commentary sort of thing about me, but here goes: I felt pretty bad about killing Carl painfully, but being a newbie at horror (and finding out it's not really my thing), I felt like I had to do it to avoid that overdesigned but positively scary monster robot at the start. I also unplugged only one of Amy's tentacles. I did however shut down Simon's old copy at Omicron, I think, the place where you get the "A New You" achievement. He seemed more like a robot and I thought I'd be sparing him some existential confusion about waking up locked in an unfamiliar place with no living thing to share its existence with.

[nickwithtea]

Allow living robots/people around map to live
Allow old simon scan to live
Destroy WAU
Answer survey questions

or don't

That's about it

[Larry]

There isn't really any to be honest given it has no effect on the game itself. I would more class them as minor choices given no matter what you do the outcome is the same.

One could argue they present a moral dilemma to the player but simply placing someone on front of you and saying "Kill or Live" doesn't really add much but a shallow choice with zero repurcussions or rammifications or even a slight reference later on in the game. Amy for example: She's never brought up, like ever. You can choose to kill her for your own safety or let her survive but at your own cost however the game doesn't differentiate between either choice: It's the exact same throughout. Same could be said of Sarah or the WAU, they're never really addressed or have any impact.

I can see people saying it's "deep" but the reality is any game could plop random things like it into the level design and say "This is a moral dilemma" but never refer to it or address your choice in any shape or form. If your actions have no impact they cease to be important.

Originally I thought entire levels or how you got around the game would change significantly such as killing Amy would allow you to use the transportation system from station to station or at least bring you all the way to Theta however it simply doesn't change anything. The same could be said of the WAU but it just doesn't matter. Same instance, same path, same running away, same everything regardless of the choice you made. Having your original copy survive has no impact. I would have thought the ending would show your second clone trying to escape the last base and try get to the surface, that the original copy would wake up and help you out if you chose to let him live or not if you killed him. Or saving Amy and letting Sarah know she wasn't the last human alive would give her hope and make her want to live.

I really think the devs had a lot planned but it was just too ambitious and would add too much work to the project so they scrapped it. Still, the game is great but think what could have been if they had of made choices have an impact... It certainly would have added replay value to say the least...

[PBR]

Originally posted by Dr.Larry:

There isn't really any to be honest given it has no effect on the game itself. I would more class them as minor choices given no matter what you do the outcome is the same.

I can see people saying it's "deep" but the reality is any game could plop random things like it into the level design and say "This is a moral dilemma" but never refer to it or address your choice in any shape or form. If your actions have no impact they cease to be important.

I imagine these decisions don't change the ending or impact the game much intentionally. I thought the same thing you did, that unless you were immersed in the game each choice would be no big deal. Thing is each choice is personal, both to the player and NPC's. Some want to die, most don't. They're clinging to life hooked to or inside machines when there's no future. They can't have children, and eventually their bodies will break down or the power will fail. The world ended and there's nothing anyone can do to fix it yet they can't accept it. Your choices are yours and yours alone. Let the last of the human race exist as digitized copies inside cold metal shells without purpose or future, or pull the plug.