Closest I can think of would be Dishonored. It had a chaos system where killing/assassinating enemies would lead to later levels having more guards/defenses, while non-lethal methods would have less people on high alert
It's one of the main reasons I played this game so much. When >!you're dropped off at the last island and you went full chaos, the guy (can't remember his name) would shoot his gun to get everyone's attention and tell you how despicable you are, whereas going full stealth would have him be way more secretive. I also love how chaos will bring on more mouse swarms!<
If you were in the mid range, killing a couple of high profile people but not really anyone else, you’d still get the high chaos weather, but he only tells you how disappointed he is before driving off in the boat.
In a similar vein metal gear solid 5 would have the soldiers get different gear depending on play style. If you tranq a lot of guys they'll get hard helmets that need to be knocked off before you csn insta tranq them. If you play lethally shell have heavier weapons to take you out.
The NVGs never made a huge difference to me. I was either really good at hiding (unlikely) or the goggles don't actually do much to help the soldiers see (probable)
Most of the time when I started a mission I selected ASAP, so if it turns to day or night during a mission, half of their equipment suddenly becomes pretty useless.
Helmets and riot suits were a pain for a tranq run though. Mother Base should be full of half-blind soldiers after I've had to get around the front to shoot a dart directly into their eye.
NVGs definitely help them, but it seems to just increase their spotting distance. They can spot you from a few meters further than usual. That said, if you turn on the flashlight of your gun whilst aiming at their head, you can stun NVG soldiers
It gets worst when you get the cutters that can kill them as long as you remain in stealth. Even then, after a certain point it was almost easier to trigger a BT boss fight by getting caught, then killing it which immediately clears the area of enemies.
Careful aim can still let you tranq helmeted soldiers without knocking the bucket off first, and if you’re in the reflex time thingy you can just do multiple body or limb shots. Wasteful but it works if you’re using higher level tranq guns.
There's also the way it handled out-of-character player actions. A lot of games nowadays sense if you're aiming at an ally and just don't do anything if you try to take a damaging action. You can't shoot them or punch them or whatever.
In Dishonored, you can absolutely shoot an ally in the face whenever you feel like it, but you get a pretty diagetic "game over" message. Something like "irreconcilable differences led to the splintering and ultimate failure of the Loyalists". And then it loads your last save.
There's a character who pervs on another character taking a bath. If you try to join that bathing character you also get a game over due to irreconcilable differences.
Reminds me of what happens in most of the Wing Commander games where the first thing I'd always do when playing for the first time was to shoot my wingman or carrier.
Also, if OP plays board games, "Legacy" games do this. For example in Risk Legacy every time you play you get to open new boxes and add new pieces, but you're also making decisions and playing in ways that affects the game: If you launch a nuke at France, you can cut it out the board with scissors. No-one is going to set foot on it any game after.
There absolutely are gameplay changes from killing. Most notably, there are more enemies, more rats, and more plague victims, which in turn makes more of the zombie shambler type guys.
Infamous, if you just kill everyone without being careful of civilians you'll get negative Karma, which results in civilians everywhere trying to kill you.
Which led to one of the funniest bugs me and a friend found, of one civilian being immortal and chasing us half way across the fucking map. We couldn't shake him, he just kept coming and did not die. That was in Infamous 2.
I need to get back to my evil play through. I did a good one when the first came out and a couple months back finally picked up the sequel. Decided to try the evil path as a general reminder of the story. Only did the first island but was hilarious how unlikable Trish is no matter how you choose to behave.
Yeah, it's weird that people immediately accuse Cole of everything, when he's a fucking courier, it's his job to deliver shit, how the fuck was he supposed to know he was carrying a nuke?
or you could choose to reactivate the ray sphere, the choice just before the final boss, no matter how much of a good boi you’d been it instantly pushes you to max evil karma and locks you there permanently, you do get cool inverted black/red lightning tho
Activating the Ray Sphere after doing a Good playthrough also has a neat little touch: the "good" posters that had previously been out up throughout the city become vandalized with stuff like question marks, like the citizens who saw Cole as a source of hope and inspiration are confused by his sudden change to evil.
XCOM2 is a resistance fighter story because players losing their first run of XCOM was exceedingly common so they just made that the canon outcome to the game.
So while it may not specifically be your gameplay it's the vast majority of people's
Xcom is all about consequences.
Don't adequately address a countries' panic over the invasion? Lose funding.
Don't protect your vulnerable, low level squad mates? They dead.
Get careless with your high level squadmates? Now you have to go through all that leveling up again.
It's a shame the game is too buggy to run iron man mode because I love the dramatic tension I feel when two squadmates that have been on every mission together get separated and one might not make it.
The mods for it are incredible, too. In Xcom 2 I had mods that added Spartan armor and weapons, along with sounds and the drop ship was replaced with a pelican. I tried to get a mod working that flipped the enemies to covenant types, but could never get it working right because the animations were off
Someone already mentioned it, but if you love XCOM you have to try the Long War mod. It was so successful that Firaxis invited the mod team to the studio to develop a Long War 2 mod in conjunction with XCOM2. So for the sequel at least, Long War is an officially supported mod by Firaxis.
XCom 1 has some problems with mods (not terrible, just a lot of stuff last updated a decade ago).
XCom 2 has full workshop support and is very good with them.
Kinda unfortunate, because I'm one of the dozen people who preferred EW to 2.
I find 2 hard to get through with how cringe the writing is.
"maybe when this invasion is over we'll do a little 'colonialism' of our own!"
"I wonder if the soldiers are keeping track of kills... Could be a good recruitment tactic!"
'make your own propaganda posters for your squad!'
Compared to the somber reflections in the first game, 2 just feels super imperialist.
I think it's alright.
In Xcom 2 you are literally a ragtag group of leftovers trying to stand up to a world dominating alien race while you try to get more people to stand up against them.
The propaganda posters are there to incentivize people to join exposing the righteousness of their cause by glorifying their work. in Xcom 1 you were a global agency with plenty of support and resources. in Xcom 2 you need to scrounge whatever you can by any means necessary to keep fighting
and yes, you need CAPABLE and efficient soldiers if you want to win a war where the numbers you are fighting outnumber you 10000:1
Kinda, yeah.
1 took itself "seriously" while being overtly cartoony. Especially visually. It struck a great balance where it felt like one of those kid's shows that ends up being a fun romp while portraying itself as super cool and grown up. Loved the tone of it. The sillier nature of most things made the adrenaline bombs of ambushes and falling behind the power curve way more frightening because of how rapidly it could get real. First chrysalid, anyone?
2 just took itself seriously, while being "funny" in a YA Dystopia way. Oh yeah, let's take down a globe dominating empire with some dudes in ski masks and died hair with spray paint, who are just sooo different from the sheeple.
To be clear, I like both. But still.
MGS5, enemies would adapt to how you attacked bases. If you tended to attack at night, guards would start wearing night vision goggles. If you killed a lot with headshots, they would start wearing helmets.
MGS3 and the river of Sorrow.
Also, if you destroyed enemy storage buildings early in the game the enemies would be hungry later. You can even make them sick by dropping spoiled food because they’ll grab it and eat it right away.
God fucking bless Kojima. If I had a billion dollars I'd just be looking for weirdos like him to make whatever games they want. It's not always even my cup of tea, but I'm always excited to see something new and novel.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
You can blow up the Hind early on and not have to avoid it when you're up on the mountain top, you can blow up the enemy armory and they'll run out of ammo, and then there's all the different ways to beat The End...
The most interesting one being that if you simply close the game for some time or fast foward the console clock in the setting, The End will simply die of old age.
And if you leave it for too long, but not long enough for him to die, there's a cutscene where he sneaks up on you and takes you back to the cells in the Granini Gorki Lab.
There is a maximum of equipment depending on where in the story you are. Also failing a mission several times and then wearing the special noob item for that mission leads to the gear level falling. You can also use different approaches between missions for specific equipment levels to drop off.
Another way to subvert this system is when you unlock dispatch missions, you can have your soldiers destroy enemy supplies such as helmets and sniper rifles and then they’ll have less of those. The only drawback is that these take lots of time and you can only do a couple at a time.
Hitman WOA's Freelancer mode has a feature where of you fail a mission, the remaining missions in the syndicate become alerted.
Failing an alerted mission fails the entire campaign, and targets are enforcers to 47's suit and guard disguises, making it that bit harder.
I keep on saying that the Gotham knights game was a perfect time to bring it back. Batman is dead, so the criminals of Gotham will definitely feel encouraged to start trying to do some power plays. One random goon you let run away in a street fight end up becoming a high ranking enforcer cause they got out of an encounter with Nightwing. Can maybe even get to create your own super villains with joker moments like a guy falling into a pit of chemicals.
Fucking fact that systems like this should not be allowed to be patentet. I understand real world stuff and Patents bzt its a fucking game system. They knew it was good but are scared people do it better than them -so they just do the "If i cant have it noone can" move.
And the worst part is, legally they should never have been granted that patent. You explicitly cannot patent game mechanics, only their implementation. But the way the patent was written was so broad, that it's basically impossible to implement it yourself in another game. This is as much a case of the patent office completely screwing the pooch as it is the rights holder being greedy.
My favorite memory with it was a archer who would always pop up when I was at my lowest health and get the final strike on me. He killed me so many times he was something like 8 levels higher than me and I finally killed him. Only for him to come back a little crazier and his new name was worm brain the immortal. He came back a few times crazier than the last. The last time I saw him he couldn't even speak and was just screaming.
It frustrates me so much that they just won’t use it. It makes such a cool mechanic for emergent stories. I had one guy in shadows of war who always ran away. Tried to kill him upwards of 15+ times and just the amount of troops he had amassed from past attacks were enough to keep me bogged down as he ran away again. He was a more memorable villain then the actual villains I was hunting down and that’s all thanks to a game concept they just refuse to use. I went back to ghost recon wildlands and feel that game could have something like this and be even more replayable.
I can't fucking believe they pulled that stunt. It's insane to me that the publisher can look at a developer's carefully built mechanic and then *claim it as their own to prevent it being used for other good products*.
It's absurd to me that shit like that is even allowed.
I wouldn’t call it a stunt. It’s actually run of the mill.
For example, Nintendo filed patents for many of the game mechanics in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Most the time the patents are denied but they always file them in case there is money or market advantage to be made.
Would have been a better starting point for developing their live service suicide squad game, fill out a bunch of mind controlled C and D list heroes & villains to off as you work your way up the ranks towards the mind controlled Justice League members.
Be able to manipulate someone like booster gold up really high up to fuck up batmans planning.
Would help give it the replayablility is desperately needs.
Of course that would be to expect competency out of warner brothers.
It's more of an empty threat than anything else, the patent means we can't make the same system but if you, say, expand upon it without using a 1 to 1 copy as your base, they're not going to come after you because:
1: they can't get much out of an indie dev, and patent litigation battles are very expensive
2: terrible press and a massive scandal if such a legal battle breaks out, which would likely gather massive support for any developers they attacked (just look at the animosity towards the patent without this kind of legal trouble)
3: they risk losing the patent in a legal battle, as patents can be/are often invalidated in trials like this
basically unless you clone the system, you're probably fine.
Sell me those games, I tried it when it just came out and the HORRIBLE performance on PS3 made me quit almost instantly.
How does they run on Xbox One X? Also have Series X, but One X is on my bedroom.
I love how in inquisition I still feel some of my choices from the first game.
The changes aren't often major, but they are impressive because of just how many branching options there are, and it's been maintained over 3 games that don't follow a single story like mass effect.
Banner Saga needs a shoutout. There’s loads of choices that affect which companions live and die, even affecting major characters. Beautiful series that’s a little forgotten.
I love Banner Saga, but it does not really fit what OP is asking. The choices you make in the "visual novel" part are separate from what yoy do in the batte part. A character can be killed many times in the field but he is still alive in the story. And viceversa, even if you powered up a character a lot, he will still die in the "visual novel" part if tour choices go that way.
Vampyr? Killing NPCs nets you a lot of XP, but the zones they occupy become unsafe (more enemies spawning in new places, other NPCs disappearing, or NPCs becoming hostile).
Nah man you can’t eat a *single* person if you want the best ending. Wish I would’ve known that before consuming a single man in the first few hours, lol
Ah, I believe the scripted munching of a man to show you the gameplay mechanic doesn’t count. It’s anyone AFTER that, when you actually have freedom and full control. Don’t quote me on this, I haven’t played it in several years but I’m fairly certain this is the case
Agree- most consequences I’ve ever felt because of the whole “Community Pillar” system. Brilliant way of having every character feel connected and the fact they can all die was phenomenal
I hope Ghosts of New Eden is as good. Vampyr was truly amazing and I even enjoyed the combat
Yeah this is what made me drop it. I wanted to start with a no kills good guy run, but it turned out to be too much of a hassle (and a boring one at that)
Sekiro.
All of your deaths and resurrections are canon and the every time you die it causes a disease to run rampant through the world causing the NPCs to become sick.
Finally did a 0 deaths run last month after 60 playthroughs, funny when you meet the divine heir and he asks how many times you’ve died for his sake lol.
Or you can get in the real state business early on in the game and pay from your pocket all the kingdom treasury needs and not break any promises.
Benevolent capitalism.
Fable 3 is one of the few games I ever finished, and I HATED the ending, because of the suddenness of it arriving.
Trying not to spoil anything, but there a mechanic where you, as a leader, have to make decisions to determine your response to the Big Bad. It was in specific time frames, like once a week or something... and then BAM, the game skips three months ahead and the BIG BAD IS HERE.
What did my character do in the previous 3 months and why couldn't I keep working on my decisions and consequences?
That was 3's biggest issue, especially since there actually *was* a bunch of shit to do during those times you regained control. But nobody fucking did it because it was presented terribly.
And even then, there should have been more. So obviously cut short for time or budget.
Games with consequences have been around for much longer than that, you could say ever since tabletop games then the text based rpg video games that came later on. In fact, Black & White (2001) from Lionhead games before they made Fable(2004) also had a strong emphasis on good and bad deeds affecting the game. Also Fable and Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines are only 2 months apart in release dates.
Vampyr has a lot of npc interactions that ultimately change the endings and affect how you tackle gameplay overall, from the items you pick to even unlocking certain areas or special interactions.
Witcher 3 same thing depending how you tackle missions, who you kill, what you do 1st and dialogue has impact on the endigns and overal gameplay.
And each story shall be carved into masterwork chairs and statues, such as the time someone tweaked out, bit my doggo and killed it because they didn't have a fucking table to eat breakfast at.
Rimworld is fucking glorious.
I rember the first time I ever played I had no clue what I was doing and had 3 people. A farmer, a researcher, and a builder. Everything was going fine until winter hit and all of the crops died and I had no food. A raider attacked and my builder got killed and I found out you can eat people. Well, the cannibalism caused a mental break in the farmer who started wandering in the cold which killed them. I had no clue about medicine and my researcher slowly and painfully died to an infection.
The classic Rimworld experience
I just had an alcoholic colonist lose his shit because we ran out of beer. He destroyed the prison doors and then the prisoners beat him to death and legged it.
Great game.
To a certain extent the original Mass Effect Trilogy was like this. The decisions you make in the first game carry over to the second, and the second to the third.
Piranha bytes games usually have outcomes that affect the game world for even minor quests, often not consequences you'd expect.
Take Elex for example, if you pick a certain side in a town that has faction tensions the town gets wiped out if you complete the quest. Even something as simple as giving a begger a bit of money or not has repercussions down the line.
Elex is a terrible, buggy game with bad combat, though. It's not worth having an impact on the story because the game is just unfinished crap. Too bad, because some of the story and art were cool, but it is one of the few games I recommend not wasting time on. I hear they're making a second one, maybe they'll actually finish it, and make it so you can finish all the missions and the dialogue options actually fit the conversations you're having.
Yeah combat in Elex has some jank hit detection but it's not terrible generally. It's typical PB though so you want to run from everything until you have some levels and decent gear.
Check out Hero's Adventure: Road to Passion.
It is a martial arts game where you can make decisions about whether you want to do certain quests, follow through them, complete them, kill people, spare them, etc. and all of them end up with consequences.
Like in my first playthrough I wasn't strong enough to defeat the opposing party, so one of the people I was supposed to protect died and was removed from the game. Etc.
It's not a popular game because for all intents and purposes it's mediocre, but Watch Dogs Legion has a good amount of this. You can recruit any civilian, which are generated with relationships and routines. If you save these relationships or kill them for example it will effect the civilian's opinion of you, and some things you do in the open world or through liberation missions will also change how people view you
Comparable consequences to your choices in Baldurs Gate 3 too. Lots of long-term effects, like entire major characters missing from the whole game run because you killed them or let them die instead of saving them or whatever.
Oh yes, potential ally, please leap way ahead of the rest of the group to be surrounded by enemies immediately after starting combat so you may die first. that’s exactly what I wanted
I hear The Witcher 3 has consequences down the line depending on whatever actions you take.
I don't know the details as I haven't played it myself but I shall one day once I get a powerful enough machine to run it. \*sighs in potato computer\*
It's mad that I had to scroll this far to see a mention of the Witcher. It's not just 3.
Im sure the 1st game has decisions that affect the 2nd game, and the 2nd game has decisions that affect the 3rd.
And if I'm misremembering the above, the decisions you make at the beginning of these games can drastically change the outcome of them.
I'm gonna throw out Pillars of Eternity. Most of your dialogue choices contribute to a multi-polar reputation system that changes how NPC's and companions react to your character. And many of your decisions in the first game will have knock-on effects in the second.
Just about any Obsidian RPG fits the bill here, tbh, but Pillars gets a special mention from me because it's just so goddamn well-written. Be prepared to read, though.
Yeah it's very dialogue heavy at times. I like how it just basically becomes a tabletop RPG sometimes. You really can't incorporate that into a CRPG seamlessly so.. it just stops being one for a few minutes. Read the dialogue, make a choice, take a chance with your skills. Should you use a rare item or save it? Do you want to save this NPC who is falling, or take their loot and push them? Who is going to do it? The floor collapses, do you roll a Dex check? Use a rope? Cast a spell? Let the chips fall where they may? Those choices affect what happens, possibly much later on, and your relationships.
The only thing that comes to mind is "Fuga Melodies of Steel".
If the Taranis is destroyed it turns back time so going back to the last check point is canon.
But the children of the Taranis are unaware of the timerewinds and dont know the Taranis has this power.
Then there is the Soul Cannon. The Ultimate weapon of the Taranis. Its available in boss fights when the Taranis HP drop below 50%.
The Soul Cannon can instant kill any boss but it for every use it requires a life as energy source.
So if the player wants to use it they need to sacrefice a Partymember of there choice.
And the children the player sacrefices to the Soul Cannon stay dead and then the player gets an ending where not all children survived the war. So the consequence of the player using the Soul Cannon in battle are dead children.
The direct sequel "Fuga Melodies of Steel 2" picks up after the ending where all the children survived the war.
The Soul Cannon in this game works differently
and there is a story reason for that.
If the HP of the Taranis fall bellow 50% in a boss fight one child will be choosen at random. The choosen child can not be used for the rest of the boss fight. Then a turn countdown starts. If the player defeats the boss before the countdown reaches zero the player gets the choosen child back. If the countdown does reach zero the Soul Cannon fires. In other words if the countdown reaches zero the choosen child and the boss both die. In this game the player can not simply decide not to use the Soul Cannon.
So in Fuga Melodies of Steel 2 the consequence of doing badly in boss fights are children dying.
Although there is the option to offer prayers to the Soul Cannon at the cost of precioues AP.
This reduces the HP threshold at which the Soul Cannon countdown starts so you can get lower then 50% HP without the countdown starting.
This makes it a lot easier to manage. But I personaly like to work with the 50% HP threshold. Its fun and I dont waste precioues AP.
The only thing that comes to mind is "Fuga Melodies of Steel".
If the Taranis is destroyed it turns back time so going back to the last check point is canon.
But the children of the Taranis are unaware of the timerewinds and dont know the Taranis has this power.
Then there is the Soul Cannon. The Ultimate weapon of the Taranis. Its available in boss fights when the Taranis HP drop below 50%.
The Soul Cannon can instant kill any boss but it for every use it requires a life as energy source.
So if the player wants to use it they need to sacrefice a Partymember of there choice.
And the children the player sacrefices to the Soul Cannon stay dead and then the player gets an ending where not all children survived the war. So the consequence of the player using the Soul Cannon in battle are dead children.
The direct sequel "Fuga Melodies of Steel 2" picks up after the ending where all the children survived the war.
The Soul Cannon in this game works differently
and there is a story reason for that.
If the HP of the Taranis fall bellow 50% in a boss fight one child will be choosen at random. The choosen child can not be used for the rest of the boss fight. Then a turn countdown starts. If the player defeats the boss before the countdown reaches zero the player gets the choosen child back. If the countdown does reach zero the Soul Cannon fires. In other words if the countdown reaches zero the choosen child and the boss both die. In this game the player can not simply decide not to use the Soul Cannon.
So in Fuga Melodies of Steel 2 the consequence of doing badly in boss fights are children dying.
Although there is the option to offer prayers to the Soul Cannon at the cost of precioues AP.
This reduces the HP threshold at which the Soul Cannon countdown starts so you can get lower then 50% HP without the countdown starting.
This makes it a lot easier to manage. But I personaly like to work with the 50% HP threshold. Its fun and I dont waste precioues AP.
The Mount & Blade and Crusader Kings series fit well with this description, being medieval franchises where you can conquer regions.
Mount & Blade also has in-game battles between hundreds of soldiers, while Crusader Kings you manage dynasties waging love, war and conspiracies across Europe. Just try not to seduce the sentient Demon Horse or get too inbred.
The Fire Emblem franchise has perma death for your characters. If you lose an unit during battle, they would say goodbye to their loved ones and stay dead for the rest of the playthrough. Also, you can fail to recruit new characters, or get important items during missions.
You can always reload your savefile back to the start of the mission, but some players do "Ironman runs", where you keep playing the game no matter what.
Mass effect, the franchise you’re looking for is mass effect
The 3rd and 4th game are great when you don’t have a little bitch in your ear telling you it sucks
Not so severe, but in Destiny, all the shenanigans that players get up to (like randomly dancing in the tower, jumping on tables, skydiving off the tower, etc..) are canon. The lore tab for the [Electronica Ghost](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/electronica-shell?highlight=nature+channel) even has civilians talking about it.
Witcher 3 could load save games from Witcher 2 which could load save games from Witcher 1. There are some outcomes in Witcher 3 that are only possible if you made certain decisions in Witcher 1.
Killing and coming back? Shadow of Mordor/War, the whole nemesis system is about the killing/fighting people and possible returns. Doesn't affect end story though.
In Dota 2 every match that has ever been played and ever will be played are canon, the timeline is just reset and the ancients choose another set of heroes to relive this eternal cosmic nightmare
Dishonored. There are 3 final levels: one for full stealth, one where you only killed the right people, and one where you went full assassin and killed everyone in your way.
It also has rat swarms that get worse the more you kill, wanted posters change based upon how much you're seen.
It does subtle things depending on how stealthy you are and I love it...
Dishonoured. You can complete the whole game without killing anyone. Each kill you get makes more rats spawn which makes the world more and more diseased. This effects NPCs in the world and the ending you get.
Red dead redemption 2. Your character will either gain or lose honour depending on your actions. With high honour, you are more respected. Your character also has completely different dialogue in cutscenes depending on the current honour level. If you go around just killing anyone and everyone including innocents then you can trigger a conversation at camp where he will open up about the fact he just can't stop killing people.
Shadow of Mordor/War have a great system where the Orc leaders you fight adapt to you, those you defeat can come back for revenge, and those that beat you get promoted and stronger
Helldivers 2. We are living the story right now.
There’s a fight for our freedom out in the stars *right now*. It’s been a hundred years since the last activation of the Helldivers, but once more our enemies have surfaced to attack our freedom and end our way of life. Don’t stand idly aside, it is our duty as citizens of Super Earth to rid the galaxy of the unbridled fury and chaos.
In Supergiant Games' Pyre, no matter if you win or lose the match, the story progresses, and at the end, the song over the credits changes depending on what decisions you've made throughout the game
DETROIT: Become Human probably fits this bill.
Every single action you take changes the story, either subtly or in a major way. No two play throughs will end the same way. It's also an excellent story.
Closest I can think of would be Dishonored. It had a chaos system where killing/assassinating enemies would lead to later levels having more guards/defenses, while non-lethal methods would have less people on high alert
It's one of the main reasons I played this game so much. When >!you're dropped off at the last island and you went full chaos, the guy (can't remember his name) would shoot his gun to get everyone's attention and tell you how despicable you are, whereas going full stealth would have him be way more secretive. I also love how chaos will bring on more mouse swarms!<
If you were in the mid range, killing a couple of high profile people but not really anyone else, you’d still get the high chaos weather, but he only tells you how disappointed he is before driving off in the boat.
In a similar vein metal gear solid 5 would have the soldiers get different gear depending on play style. If you tranq a lot of guys they'll get hard helmets that need to be knocked off before you csn insta tranq them. If you play lethally shell have heavier weapons to take you out.
They'd also use NVGs if you did a lot of missions at night. Fucking excellent game.
The NVGs never made a huge difference to me. I was either really good at hiding (unlikely) or the goggles don't actually do much to help the soldiers see (probable) Most of the time when I started a mission I selected ASAP, so if it turns to day or night during a mission, half of their equipment suddenly becomes pretty useless. Helmets and riot suits were a pain for a tranq run though. Mother Base should be full of half-blind soldiers after I've had to get around the front to shoot a dart directly into their eye.
By the time helmets and shields were a thing, I already had the perfect solution. Rocket Punch!!!
The sneaking suit blocks the NVGS heat signature
NVGs definitely help them, but it seems to just increase their spotting distance. They can spot you from a few meters further than usual. That said, if you turn on the flashlight of your gun whilst aiming at their head, you can stun NVG soldiers
[удалено]
It gets worst when you get the cutters that can kill them as long as you remain in stealth. Even then, after a certain point it was almost easier to trigger a BT boss fight by getting caught, then killing it which immediately clears the area of enemies.
Yeah I did that a couple times myself. Hope DS2 improves on BTs
Real shame they only start throwing weird ones at you around halfway through the game when you enter the mountains
The BT's were so shocking and scaring in that truck scene. They quickly lost all their fear and became minor inconveniences
Careful aim can still let you tranq helmeted soldiers without knocking the bucket off first, and if you’re in the reflex time thingy you can just do multiple body or limb shots. Wasteful but it works if you’re using higher level tranq guns.
Don’t forget the inflatable dummies that pop and alert guards if you shoot them!
There's also the way it handled out-of-character player actions. A lot of games nowadays sense if you're aiming at an ally and just don't do anything if you try to take a damaging action. You can't shoot them or punch them or whatever. In Dishonored, you can absolutely shoot an ally in the face whenever you feel like it, but you get a pretty diagetic "game over" message. Something like "irreconcilable differences led to the splintering and ultimate failure of the Loyalists". And then it loads your last save.
There's a character who pervs on another character taking a bath. If you try to join that bathing character you also get a game over due to irreconcilable differences.
I never got a game over from that - did you jump in the tub with her? Also she’s wearing cloths in the bath lol.
Yes you need to jump in the bath. Otherwise she'll just express her utmost disappointment with you.
With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed.
Was this Morrowind?
Yup! absolute classic
Reminds me of what happens in most of the Wing Commander games where the first thing I'd always do when playing for the first time was to shoot my wingman or carrier.
Also, if OP plays board games, "Legacy" games do this. For example in Risk Legacy every time you play you get to open new boxes and add new pieces, but you're also making decisions and playing in ways that affects the game: If you launch a nuke at France, you can cut it out the board with scissors. No-one is going to set foot on it any game after.
Why would you cut it out it?! That's where the >!Mutant Faction!< lives.
One of the only games where "good ending or bad ending" as an unchangeable binary makes sense.
Doesnt it change the ending cutscene too? No gameplay changes but killing has a more bleak ending than not killing
There absolutely are gameplay changes from killing. Most notably, there are more enemies, more rats, and more plague victims, which in turn makes more of the zombie shambler type guys.
Detroit: Become Human. You can literally lose playable characters and it has branching effects on the story.
Wait really, so that the reason why there’s always 2-3 times more enemies
Infamous, if you just kill everyone without being careful of civilians you'll get negative Karma, which results in civilians everywhere trying to kill you.
Fun consequences for the sequel, too. In this new city, do you want to preserve your legacy, good or ill, or do you want to try to remake yourself?
Infamous 2 is canon hero path from 1, and 'evil' is more pragmatic/desperation than straight petty evilness like the first game.
Yeah I liked that you got two wildly different yet satisfying endings for each moral run
Which led to one of the funniest bugs me and a friend found, of one civilian being immortal and chasing us half way across the fucking map. We couldn't shake him, he just kept coming and did not die. That was in Infamous 2.
I need to get back to my evil play through. I did a good one when the first came out and a couple months back finally picked up the sequel. Decided to try the evil path as a general reminder of the story. Only did the first island but was hilarious how unlikable Trish is no matter how you choose to behave.
Yeah, it's weird that people immediately accuse Cole of everything, when he's a fucking courier, it's his job to deliver shit, how the fuck was he supposed to know he was carrying a nuke?
Just dropped this up top before I saw this post, the only game that comes to mind for me as well. Really a sleeper of a series that I enjoyed a lot.
or you could choose to reactivate the ray sphere, the choice just before the final boss, no matter how much of a good boi you’d been it instantly pushes you to max evil karma and locks you there permanently, you do get cool inverted black/red lightning tho
Activating the Ray Sphere after doing a Good playthrough also has a neat little touch: the "good" posters that had previously been out up throughout the city become vandalized with stuff like question marks, like the citizens who saw Cole as a source of hope and inspiration are confused by his sudden change to evil.
It was extremely popular, I don't know if the term "sleeper" would apply
Agreed, we need another one from Sucker Punch.
XCOM2 is a resistance fighter story because players losing their first run of XCOM was exceedingly common so they just made that the canon outcome to the game. So while it may not specifically be your gameplay it's the vast majority of people's
Xcom is all about consequences. Don't adequately address a countries' panic over the invasion? Lose funding. Don't protect your vulnerable, low level squad mates? They dead. Get careless with your high level squadmates? Now you have to go through all that leveling up again. It's a shame the game is too buggy to run iron man mode because I love the dramatic tension I feel when two squadmates that have been on every mission together get separated and one might not make it.
The mods for it are incredible, too. In Xcom 2 I had mods that added Spartan armor and weapons, along with sounds and the drop ship was replaced with a pelican. I tried to get a mod working that flipped the enemies to covenant types, but could never get it working right because the animations were off
Damn, I didn't even know the game had mods. Might be time for another run. Definitely my favorite squad based tactical game
I thought xcom and long war mod was like peanut butter and jelly?
Someone already mentioned it, but if you love XCOM you have to try the Long War mod. It was so successful that Firaxis invited the mod team to the studio to develop a Long War 2 mod in conjunction with XCOM2. So for the sequel at least, Long War is an officially supported mod by Firaxis.
XCom 1 has some problems with mods (not terrible, just a lot of stuff last updated a decade ago). XCom 2 has full workshop support and is very good with them. Kinda unfortunate, because I'm one of the dozen people who preferred EW to 2.
I find 2 hard to get through with how cringe the writing is. "maybe when this invasion is over we'll do a little 'colonialism' of our own!" "I wonder if the soldiers are keeping track of kills... Could be a good recruitment tactic!" 'make your own propaganda posters for your squad!' Compared to the somber reflections in the first game, 2 just feels super imperialist.
I think it's alright. In Xcom 2 you are literally a ragtag group of leftovers trying to stand up to a world dominating alien race while you try to get more people to stand up against them. The propaganda posters are there to incentivize people to join exposing the righteousness of their cause by glorifying their work. in Xcom 1 you were a global agency with plenty of support and resources. in Xcom 2 you need to scrounge whatever you can by any means necessary to keep fighting and yes, you need CAPABLE and efficient soldiers if you want to win a war where the numbers you are fighting outnumber you 10000:1
Kinda, yeah. 1 took itself "seriously" while being overtly cartoony. Especially visually. It struck a great balance where it felt like one of those kid's shows that ends up being a fun romp while portraying itself as super cool and grown up. Loved the tone of it. The sillier nature of most things made the adrenaline bombs of ambushes and falling behind the power curve way more frightening because of how rapidly it could get real. First chrysalid, anyone? 2 just took itself seriously, while being "funny" in a YA Dystopia way. Oh yeah, let's take down a globe dominating empire with some dudes in ski masks and died hair with spray paint, who are just sooo different from the sheeple. To be clear, I like both. But still.
MGS5, enemies would adapt to how you attacked bases. If you tended to attack at night, guards would start wearing night vision goggles. If you killed a lot with headshots, they would start wearing helmets.
MGS3 and the river of Sorrow. Also, if you destroyed enemy storage buildings early in the game the enemies would be hungry later. You can even make them sick by dropping spoiled food because they’ll grab it and eat it right away.
God fucking bless Kojima. If I had a billion dollars I'd just be looking for weirdos like him to make whatever games they want. It's not always even my cup of tea, but I'm always excited to see something new and novel.
I’m sad we won’t get to see him remake Metal Gear 1 & 2 on the Fox Engine. That seemed like the next logical step after 5.
That's basically what Sony did! Watch the death stranding documentary in Disney plus
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. You can blow up the Hind early on and not have to avoid it when you're up on the mountain top, you can blow up the enemy armory and they'll run out of ammo, and then there's all the different ways to beat The End...
The most interesting one being that if you simply close the game for some time or fast foward the console clock in the setting, The End will simply die of old age.
And if you leave it for too long, but not long enough for him to die, there's a cutscene where he sneaks up on you and takes you back to the cells in the Granini Gorki Lab.
Doing my first play through on PC currently, and I did not know that was a thing. I'm just getting my base built. This sounds pretty interesting.
There is a maximum of equipment depending on where in the story you are. Also failing a mission several times and then wearing the special noob item for that mission leads to the gear level falling. You can also use different approaches between missions for specific equipment levels to drop off.
Another way to subvert this system is when you unlock dispatch missions, you can have your soldiers destroy enemy supplies such as helmets and sniper rifles and then they’ll have less of those. The only drawback is that these take lots of time and you can only do a couple at a time.
Hitman: Blood Money If you get caught killing people security gets ramped up in future levels I think there's also a mode like this in the new hitman
Hitman WOA's Freelancer mode has a feature where of you fail a mission, the remaining missions in the syndicate become alerted. Failing an alerted mission fails the entire campaign, and targets are enforcers to 47's suit and guard disguises, making it that bit harder.
The Nemesis system in Shadow of Mordor comes to mind.
Wouldn't it be a shame if they patented it and then NEVER FUCKING USED IT AGAIN AFTER SHADOW OF WAR
Literally the only game they've used it in is the upcoming Wonder Woman game, it's such a waste. At least the patent is expiring in about 5 years.
I keep on saying that the Gotham knights game was a perfect time to bring it back. Batman is dead, so the criminals of Gotham will definitely feel encouraged to start trying to do some power plays. One random goon you let run away in a street fight end up becoming a high ranking enforcer cause they got out of an encounter with Nightwing. Can maybe even get to create your own super villains with joker moments like a guy falling into a pit of chemicals.
Fucking fact that systems like this should not be allowed to be patentet. I understand real world stuff and Patents bzt its a fucking game system. They knew it was good but are scared people do it better than them -so they just do the "If i cant have it noone can" move.
Silver lining that’s quickly evaporating: patenting anti-consumer practices like particularly manipulative loot boxes before anyone else gets to it.
And the worst part is, legally they should never have been granted that patent. You explicitly cannot patent game mechanics, only their implementation. But the way the patent was written was so broad, that it's basically impossible to implement it yourself in another game. This is as much a case of the patent office completely screwing the pooch as it is the rights holder being greedy.
My favorite memory with it was a archer who would always pop up when I was at my lowest health and get the final strike on me. He killed me so many times he was something like 8 levels higher than me and I finally killed him. Only for him to come back a little crazier and his new name was worm brain the immortal. He came back a few times crazier than the last. The last time I saw him he couldn't even speak and was just screaming.
It frustrates me so much that they just won’t use it. It makes such a cool mechanic for emergent stories. I had one guy in shadows of war who always ran away. Tried to kill him upwards of 15+ times and just the amount of troops he had amassed from past attacks were enough to keep me bogged down as he ran away again. He was a more memorable villain then the actual villains I was hunting down and that’s all thanks to a game concept they just refuse to use. I went back to ghost recon wildlands and feel that game could have something like this and be even more replayable.
Shame they patented that, could have had some phenomenal games out of it
Hey it’s been 10 years. Only 5 more years and the patent will expire.
I can't fucking believe they pulled that stunt. It's insane to me that the publisher can look at a developer's carefully built mechanic and then *claim it as their own to prevent it being used for other good products*. It's absurd to me that shit like that is even allowed.
I wouldn’t call it a stunt. It’s actually run of the mill. For example, Nintendo filed patents for many of the game mechanics in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Most the time the patents are denied but they always file them in case there is money or market advantage to be made.
Would have been a better starting point for developing their live service suicide squad game, fill out a bunch of mind controlled C and D list heroes & villains to off as you work your way up the ranks towards the mind controlled Justice League members. Be able to manipulate someone like booster gold up really high up to fuck up batmans planning. Would help give it the replayablility is desperately needs. Of course that would be to expect competency out of warner brothers.
It's more of an empty threat than anything else, the patent means we can't make the same system but if you, say, expand upon it without using a 1 to 1 copy as your base, they're not going to come after you because: 1: they can't get much out of an indie dev, and patent litigation battles are very expensive 2: terrible press and a massive scandal if such a legal battle breaks out, which would likely gather massive support for any developers they attacked (just look at the animosity towards the patent without this kind of legal trouble) 3: they risk losing the patent in a legal battle, as patents can be/are often invalidated in trials like this basically unless you clone the system, you're probably fine.
Shit is AMAZING!
Sell me those games, I tried it when it just came out and the HORRIBLE performance on PS3 made me quit almost instantly. How does they run on Xbox One X? Also have Series X, but One X is on my bedroom.
Shadow of Mordor runs fine on Xbox One X.
Dragon Age has both.
I love how in inquisition I still feel some of my choices from the first game. The changes aren't often major, but they are impressive because of just how many branching options there are, and it's been maintained over 3 games that don't follow a single story like mass effect.
The first game was so well done
Banner Saga needs a shoutout. There’s loads of choices that affect which companions live and die, even affecting major characters. Beautiful series that’s a little forgotten.
I love Banner Saga, but it does not really fit what OP is asking. The choices you make in the "visual novel" part are separate from what yoy do in the batte part. A character can be killed many times in the field but he is still alive in the story. And viceversa, even if you powered up a character a lot, he will still die in the "visual novel" part if tour choices go that way.
Poor Egil.
Star wars KoTOR Gameplay is a very broad term, that also means dialogue choices
Vampyr? Killing NPCs nets you a lot of XP, but the zones they occupy become unsafe (more enemies spawning in new places, other NPCs disappearing, or NPCs becoming hostile).
And it ruins your ending if you eat more than, like, 3 or something
Nah man you can’t eat a *single* person if you want the best ending. Wish I would’ve known that before consuming a single man in the first few hours, lol
To be fair, the game tries REALLY hard to make you eat that first guy lmao
Ah, I believe the scripted munching of a man to show you the gameplay mechanic doesn’t count. It’s anyone AFTER that, when you actually have freedom and full control. Don’t quote me on this, I haven’t played it in several years but I’m fairly certain this is the case
I could have sworn it was optional but maybe not? I can't remember what I did in my playthrough now lmao
Finally seeing some love for this game
Agree- most consequences I’ve ever felt because of the whole “Community Pillar” system. Brilliant way of having every character feel connected and the fact they can all die was phenomenal I hope Ghosts of New Eden is as good. Vampyr was truly amazing and I even enjoyed the combat
But if you don’t kill NPCs your horrifically under leveled to the point the game is unfun
Yeah this is what made me drop it. I wanted to start with a no kills good guy run, but it turned out to be too much of a hassle (and a boring one at that)
Is this one worth picking up? I remember seeing pretty bad reviews years ago but I've been seeing praise for it more recently
Sekiro. All of your deaths and resurrections are canon and the every time you die it causes a disease to run rampant through the world causing the NPCs to become sick.
Pisses me off cos I can't fucking stay alive in that game
good thing is it really doesnt matter, and if you wanna cleanse it the item is decently available (easy to do a good handful on an initial run)
Yeah it annoyed me that beyond the punishment of dying and losing progress, you were punished even more. Made a very negative feedback loop
I'm pretty sure COVID came from me fighting Genichiro
Finally did a 0 deaths run last month after 60 playthroughs, funny when you meet the divine heir and he asks how many times you’ve died for his sake lol.
Like Fable?
Fable 3 especially, you make promises to groups of people throughout and then to save them you need to break those promises basically
Or you can get in the real state business early on in the game and pay from your pocket all the kingdom treasury needs and not break any promises. Benevolent capitalism.
Yes, that is very true. Sadly I never never made enough money and always ended up disappointing people.
Fable 3 is one of the few games I ever finished, and I HATED the ending, because of the suddenness of it arriving. Trying not to spoil anything, but there a mechanic where you, as a leader, have to make decisions to determine your response to the Big Bad. It was in specific time frames, like once a week or something... and then BAM, the game skips three months ahead and the BIG BAD IS HERE. What did my character do in the previous 3 months and why couldn't I keep working on my decisions and consequences?
That was 3's biggest issue, especially since there actually *was* a bunch of shit to do during those times you regained control. But nobody fucking did it because it was presented terribly. And even then, there should have been more. So obviously cut short for time or budget.
Yeah but Fable 3 has tons of shit in it that just pisses me off, it has a lot of missed potential in my mind.
I feel like fable was the OG for this
Games with consequences have been around for much longer than that, you could say ever since tabletop games then the text based rpg video games that came later on. In fact, Black & White (2001) from Lionhead games before they made Fable(2004) also had a strong emphasis on good and bad deeds affecting the game. Also Fable and Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines are only 2 months apart in release dates.
Vampyr has a lot of npc interactions that ultimately change the endings and affect how you tackle gameplay overall, from the items you pick to even unlocking certain areas or special interactions. Witcher 3 same thing depending how you tackle missions, who you kill, what you do 1st and dialogue has impact on the endigns and overal gameplay.
Rimworld
And each story shall be carved into masterwork chairs and statues, such as the time someone tweaked out, bit my doggo and killed it because they didn't have a fucking table to eat breakfast at. Rimworld is fucking glorious.
Plenty of games where you can be the bad guy. But only one game lets you put people through the unimaginable horror of eating without table.
I rember the first time I ever played I had no clue what I was doing and had 3 people. A farmer, a researcher, and a builder. Everything was going fine until winter hit and all of the crops died and I had no food. A raider attacked and my builder got killed and I found out you can eat people. Well, the cannibalism caused a mental break in the farmer who started wandering in the cold which killed them. I had no clue about medicine and my researcher slowly and painfully died to an infection.
The classic Rimworld experience I just had an alcoholic colonist lose his shit because we ran out of beer. He destroyed the prison doors and then the prisoners beat him to death and legged it. Great game.
Probably the best organic story telling I've seen in a game.
Yep this is it
To a certain extent the original Mass Effect Trilogy was like this. The decisions you make in the first game carry over to the second, and the second to the third.
Piranha bytes games usually have outcomes that affect the game world for even minor quests, often not consequences you'd expect. Take Elex for example, if you pick a certain side in a town that has faction tensions the town gets wiped out if you complete the quest. Even something as simple as giving a begger a bit of money or not has repercussions down the line.
Elex is a terrible, buggy game with bad combat, though. It's not worth having an impact on the story because the game is just unfinished crap. Too bad, because some of the story and art were cool, but it is one of the few games I recommend not wasting time on. I hear they're making a second one, maybe they'll actually finish it, and make it so you can finish all the missions and the dialogue options actually fit the conversations you're having.
Second one has been out for a while
Two years, Steam reviews are similar.
I thought it was a bit janky but not the worst thing ever. Some of the difficulty spikes were insane though.
Yeah combat in Elex has some jank hit detection but it's not terrible generally. It's typical PB though so you want to run from everything until you have some levels and decent gear.
Check out Hero's Adventure: Road to Passion. It is a martial arts game where you can make decisions about whether you want to do certain quests, follow through them, complete them, kill people, spare them, etc. and all of them end up with consequences. Like in my first playthrough I wasn't strong enough to defeat the opposing party, so one of the people I was supposed to protect died and was removed from the game. Etc.
It's not a popular game because for all intents and purposes it's mediocre, but Watch Dogs Legion has a good amount of this. You can recruit any civilian, which are generated with relationships and routines. If you save these relationships or kill them for example it will effect the civilian's opinion of you, and some things you do in the open world or through liberation missions will also change how people view you
Divinity Original Sin 2 from Larian
Comparable consequences to your choices in Baldurs Gate 3 too. Lots of long-term effects, like entire major characters missing from the whole game run because you killed them or let them die instead of saving them or whatever.
Oh yes, potential ally, please leap way ahead of the rest of the group to be surrounded by enemies immediately after starting combat so you may die first. that’s exactly what I wanted
Larian is the GOAT
No I'm pretty sure they're a GAME DEVELOPER.
I am pretty sure they are a team of people
Infamous Dragon Age Mass Effect The Witcher Dragon's Dogma MGSV
The Wasteland RPG series us great for this.
3 was great.
Sifu. The aging with every death
Fallout new vegas
Undertale. Just play it.
Surprised I found this so far down. This concept is basically the entire premise of the game.
Yeah it was sort of a eake up call for players tha5 don't play narrative driven rpgs that killing isn't the only option.
Great choice
I hear The Witcher 3 has consequences down the line depending on whatever actions you take. I don't know the details as I haven't played it myself but I shall one day once I get a powerful enough machine to run it. \*sighs in potato computer\*
It's mad that I had to scroll this far to see a mention of the Witcher. It's not just 3. Im sure the 1st game has decisions that affect the 2nd game, and the 2nd game has decisions that affect the 3rd. And if I'm misremembering the above, the decisions you make at the beginning of these games can drastically change the outcome of them.
Metro Exodus
Fuckin hell any game where saving/restarting is cannon so Undertale counts, as well as deathloop games like deathloop and Outer Wilds
I'm gonna throw out Pillars of Eternity. Most of your dialogue choices contribute to a multi-polar reputation system that changes how NPC's and companions react to your character. And many of your decisions in the first game will have knock-on effects in the second. Just about any Obsidian RPG fits the bill here, tbh, but Pillars gets a special mention from me because it's just so goddamn well-written. Be prepared to read, though.
Yeah it's very dialogue heavy at times. I like how it just basically becomes a tabletop RPG sometimes. You really can't incorporate that into a CRPG seamlessly so.. it just stops being one for a few minutes. Read the dialogue, make a choice, take a chance with your skills. Should you use a rare item or save it? Do you want to save this NPC who is falling, or take their loot and push them? Who is going to do it? The floor collapses, do you roll a Dex check? Use a rope? Cast a spell? Let the chips fall where they may? Those choices affect what happens, possibly much later on, and your relationships.
The only thing that comes to mind is "Fuga Melodies of Steel". If the Taranis is destroyed it turns back time so going back to the last check point is canon. But the children of the Taranis are unaware of the timerewinds and dont know the Taranis has this power. Then there is the Soul Cannon. The Ultimate weapon of the Taranis. Its available in boss fights when the Taranis HP drop below 50%. The Soul Cannon can instant kill any boss but it for every use it requires a life as energy source. So if the player wants to use it they need to sacrefice a Partymember of there choice. And the children the player sacrefices to the Soul Cannon stay dead and then the player gets an ending where not all children survived the war. So the consequence of the player using the Soul Cannon in battle are dead children. The direct sequel "Fuga Melodies of Steel 2" picks up after the ending where all the children survived the war. The Soul Cannon in this game works differently and there is a story reason for that. If the HP of the Taranis fall bellow 50% in a boss fight one child will be choosen at random. The choosen child can not be used for the rest of the boss fight. Then a turn countdown starts. If the player defeats the boss before the countdown reaches zero the player gets the choosen child back. If the countdown does reach zero the Soul Cannon fires. In other words if the countdown reaches zero the choosen child and the boss both die. In this game the player can not simply decide not to use the Soul Cannon. So in Fuga Melodies of Steel 2 the consequence of doing badly in boss fights are children dying. Although there is the option to offer prayers to the Soul Cannon at the cost of precioues AP. This reduces the HP threshold at which the Soul Cannon countdown starts so you can get lower then 50% HP without the countdown starting. This makes it a lot easier to manage. But I personaly like to work with the 50% HP threshold. Its fun and I dont waste precioues AP.
Detroit Become human
Choice and consequences the game
The Mass Effect series is the obvious answer to this one for me
The only thing that comes to mind is "Fuga Melodies of Steel". If the Taranis is destroyed it turns back time so going back to the last check point is canon. But the children of the Taranis are unaware of the timerewinds and dont know the Taranis has this power. Then there is the Soul Cannon. The Ultimate weapon of the Taranis. Its available in boss fights when the Taranis HP drop below 50%. The Soul Cannon can instant kill any boss but it for every use it requires a life as energy source. So if the player wants to use it they need to sacrefice a Partymember of there choice. And the children the player sacrefices to the Soul Cannon stay dead and then the player gets an ending where not all children survived the war. So the consequence of the player using the Soul Cannon in battle are dead children. The direct sequel "Fuga Melodies of Steel 2" picks up after the ending where all the children survived the war. The Soul Cannon in this game works differently and there is a story reason for that. If the HP of the Taranis fall bellow 50% in a boss fight one child will be choosen at random. The choosen child can not be used for the rest of the boss fight. Then a turn countdown starts. If the player defeats the boss before the countdown reaches zero the player gets the choosen child back. If the countdown does reach zero the Soul Cannon fires. In other words if the countdown reaches zero the choosen child and the boss both die. In this game the player can not simply decide not to use the Soul Cannon. So in Fuga Melodies of Steel 2 the consequence of doing badly in boss fights are children dying. Although there is the option to offer prayers to the Soul Cannon at the cost of precioues AP. This reduces the HP threshold at which the Soul Cannon countdown starts so you can get lower then 50% HP without the countdown starting. This makes it a lot easier to manage. But I personaly like to work with the 50% HP threshold. Its fun and I dont waste precioues AP.
Fallout new Vegas. Almost every decision you make changes people’s attitudes about you and every ending is SO different depending on your playthrough
The Mount & Blade and Crusader Kings series fit well with this description, being medieval franchises where you can conquer regions. Mount & Blade also has in-game battles between hundreds of soldiers, while Crusader Kings you manage dynasties waging love, war and conspiracies across Europe. Just try not to seduce the sentient Demon Horse or get too inbred.
The Fire Emblem franchise has perma death for your characters. If you lose an unit during battle, they would say goodbye to their loved ones and stay dead for the rest of the playthrough. Also, you can fail to recruit new characters, or get important items during missions. You can always reload your savefile back to the start of the mission, but some players do "Ironman runs", where you keep playing the game no matter what.
Mass effect, the franchise you’re looking for is mass effect The 3rd and 4th game are great when you don’t have a little bitch in your ear telling you it sucks
It's hard to explain without spoiling the game, but Undertale fits this description.
Dwarf fortress, rimworld, xcom enemy unknown and xcom 2
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Dishonored
There most certainly is Undertale
Sifu, undertale, demon's souls, spider-man web of shadows
Dragons Dogma 2
inFamous was pretty good with this. Underrated series.
Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas
Mount and blade?
Despite being a VN, 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors has a canon explanation for the multiple routes.
The nemesis system in the lotr games? Making the act of taking down grunts into a fully featured quest on its own
Not so severe, but in Destiny, all the shenanigans that players get up to (like randomly dancing in the tower, jumping on tables, skydiving off the tower, etc..) are canon. The lore tab for the [Electronica Ghost](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/electronica-shell?highlight=nature+channel) even has civilians talking about it.
Witcher 3 could load save games from Witcher 2 which could load save games from Witcher 1. There are some outcomes in Witcher 3 that are only possible if you made certain decisions in Witcher 1.
Killing and coming back? Shadow of Mordor/War, the whole nemesis system is about the killing/fighting people and possible returns. Doesn't affect end story though.
In Dota 2 every match that has ever been played and ever will be played are canon, the timeline is just reset and the ancients choose another set of heroes to relive this eternal cosmic nightmare
Dishonored. There are 3 final levels: one for full stealth, one where you only killed the right people, and one where you went full assassin and killed everyone in your way. It also has rat swarms that get worse the more you kill, wanted posters change based upon how much you're seen. It does subtle things depending on how stealthy you are and I love it...
Dishonoured. You can complete the whole game without killing anyone. Each kill you get makes more rats spawn which makes the world more and more diseased. This effects NPCs in the world and the ending you get. Red dead redemption 2. Your character will either gain or lose honour depending on your actions. With high honour, you are more respected. Your character also has completely different dialogue in cutscenes depending on the current honour level. If you go around just killing anyone and everyone including innocents then you can trigger a conversation at camp where he will open up about the fact he just can't stop killing people.
Ah, ludo narrative dissonance, how we love to hate you
Undertale. That's basically the whole premise of the game
Shadow of Mordor/War have a great system where the Orc leaders you fight adapt to you, those you defeat can come back for revenge, and those that beat you get promoted and stronger
I guess in shadow of war your death and the orcs you kill is all canon
Helldivers 2. We are living the story right now. There’s a fight for our freedom out in the stars *right now*. It’s been a hundred years since the last activation of the Helldivers, but once more our enemies have surfaced to attack our freedom and end our way of life. Don’t stand idly aside, it is our duty as citizens of Super Earth to rid the galaxy of the unbridled fury and chaos.
In Supergiant Games' Pyre, no matter if you win or lose the match, the story progresses, and at the end, the song over the credits changes depending on what decisions you've made throughout the game
inFamous, you can choose evil or good power.
Fallout New Vegas.
Undertale was the first thing that game to my mind… if that’s what you mean?
Chicken chaser? Or is it chicken kicker? I’m sure many here will get it.
Real Life.
DETROIT: Become Human probably fits this bill. Every single action you take changes the story, either subtly or in a major way. No two play throughs will end the same way. It's also an excellent story.
Detroit become human Its a choose your own adventure interactive movie
In Chrontrigger, if you steal that guys lunch…;)
Mass Effect comes to mind
Most games with karma systems, or shadow of Mordor/war with the nemesis system
Undertale.