| > well-developed, deep setting. > And in the end you don't save the world or some such nonsense. You simply conclude your own story, and life goes on. I guess I don't see those two as being at odds - I think it's entirely possible to have a well-developed and deep setting while still having a traditional "save the world" game. For example, I don't think it's controversial to say that the Elder Scrolls series has a very deep and thoroughly developed setting, but in Skyrim you're the chosen one who stops a world-ending evil. In Dark Souls you're literally known as the "Chosen Undead", and people have spent months exploring the setting and lore of that game. I'd even say that Mass Effect has a decently thorough lore and history if you want to look for it (the history of the Genophage or the Geth for example). Rather, I think modern games do a great job of taking the "save the world" trope and inverting it slightly: you saved the world, but at what cost? In Mass Effect you save the entire galaxy from robots, at the cost of forever losing the ability for FTL travel (and stranding a lot of people where they are in the galaxy). In Skyrim you can save the continent from the evil imperial invaders, but it's heavily implied that a third party wants exactly that in order to split the empire apart and invade while it's weak. Dark Souls pretty much bashes you over the head with the fact that saving the world is essentially fighting a losing battle. |
> In Mass Effect you save the entire galaxy from robots, at the cost of forever losing the ability for FTL travel (and stranding a lot of people where they are in the galaxy).
There are different ways you can save the galaxy (you can also fail to do that, and the world goes on, organic life gets reset). You can just destroy the robots, along with all other artificial life forms - some of them are those for whose right to live you just fought (if you choose so). You can resolve the issue by performing what amounts to a galactic-scale rape, changing everyone without their consent. Or you can risk becoming the very force you tried to destroy, hoping that you have enough morality in yourself to not go dark yourself.
I spent something around 20 minutes just sitting there and thinking those choices through. Which one is the right thing to do?
I think they did a good job of taking the "save the world" trope and turning it into a huge moral conundrum for the player.