Ranking The 10 Best Games With A Morality System (According To Metacritic)

by Debbra Dunham on September 19, 2025

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Should you blow up that town with a nuke? Should you tie that guy to the train tracks? Should you kill that chicken? Gamers face difficult choices like this often. It's fun to do evil things in video games but they will have dire consequences. These consequences can range from getting a bounty on your head, the dissatisfaction of a faction or the feeling of guilt.

Morality systems let players choose to be evil, good or neutral and it's fun to experiment with each. A good morality system should have balanced consequences based on choice. These 10 games, ranked by Metacritic score, feature some type of morality system. They can range from the obvious evil/good gauge to a system that's ingrained with gameplay.

10 Dishonored - 91

Corvo Attano is a skilled assassin with various supernatural abilities . After being framed for the Empress' death, he goes on a vengeful adventure through the city of Dunwall. The morality system works through the gameplay. The player can go about assassinations in a variety of different ways.

You can kill every enemy, be a nice pacifist, or avoid encounters altogether. The gameplay style reflects in the world and the outcome of the game. For example, all those dead bodies entice rats and Dunwall becomes a deadlier place.

9 Dragon Age: Origins - 91

Dragon Age Origins has a user score of 8.7, barely beating out Dishonored . This is the first game in the franchise and the first Bioware game on this list. They have the morality system down, showing up two more times on the list. Surprisingly, Bioware used to make good games.

Dragon Age Origins is a fantasy RPG and spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate . The game adheres to an approval system, which leaves point-based systems behind. Instead of putting points into an evil/good meter, your actions affect the approval of other characters. This works well with Dragon Age because of its long list of deep characters.

8 Undertale -93

Undertale is an indie RPG that took the gaming world by storm back in 2015. It's still highly beloved garnering one of the highest scores on Metacritic - if a game is 90 or above then its got to be good...right. In this case, it is good. Undertale is about a child who falls to the underground, a region below the earth's surface, and his journey back to the surface.

The magic of Undertale ' s Morality is that it doesn't bank on the traditional reputation meter or karma level. Morality is based on how you interact with characters, sparing, killing or even dating them. The culmination of these interactions will determine the type of ending.

7 Fallout 3 - 93

Fallout 3, which has an 8.5 user score compared to Undertale's 7.8 , takes a more traditional route to its morality system. It's based on a karma system where good and bad characters depend on actions. It's kind of wacky. The player can blow up a town, gaining tons of bad karma, but do good actions to gain back some good karma.

Fallout: New Vegas takes a different, more intriguing approach with its reputation system but Metacritic has the final say. For all the somberness of Fallout 3 , it can be a downright crazy and humorful game. Its morality system grants you the freedom to experiment with different karma choices in a single playthrough. It's not too realistic but when was Bethesda's Fallout ever that serious.

6 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 93

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has one of the highest users scores on the list (9.4) and for good reason. The massive open-world RPG is one of the most awarded video games and its developer, CD Projekt Red, is valued at $8 billion.

A major reason for its success is morally grey, complex decisions. Every mission in The Witcher 3 had an impact and missions rarely dabbled in fetch quests. Each of these missions involved decisions where right and wrong are hard to distinguish, the sign of a good morality system.

5 Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic - 94

No other Star Wars game is as culturally impactful as the iconic Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. It's set four thousand years before the Galactic Empire and the morality system has a major impact on the story. The game has the advantage of Star Wars lore.

The push and pull of the dark side is one of the most fascinating parts of Star Wars. The lure of unlimited power is tempting but temporary. The Jedi can't use the full extent of the dark side but they will eventually become more powerful. Knights of the Old Republic lets players feel that struggle for themselves.

4 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 96

Skyrim released in 2011 and is still popular to this day. Numerous remakes and mods have kept it going strong. It will surely be a legendary game in about 20 years. Hopefully, The Elder Scrolls 6 will be released by that time. Skyrim does not have a specific morality system.

It's not like Fallout 3 where points are put into a good and bad gauge. Choices happen naturally through dialogue and are not recorded in any way. They simply impact the story and how people react to you. It's a more realistic approach that doesn't gamify the morality system.

3 Bioshock - 96 <img src="https://freestocks.org/fs/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/red_golden_retriever_in_the_forest-1024x683.jpg"; style="max-width:440px;float:left;padding:10px 10px 10px 0px;border:0px;" alt="" />

Metacritic users like Bioshock slightly better than Skyrim. Skyrim has a user score of 8.5 while Bioskock's score is 8.9. In Bioshock, the player explores the creepy underwater city of rapture where Big Daddies and Little Sisters run rampant. These Little Sisters serve as the foundation of Bioshock's morality system.

Little Sisters, from the most basic of perspectives, are rampaging through Rapture with their Big Daddies. The player can choose to let them go or kill them for a higher reward. This is one of the more morally conflicting opinions in video <a href="https://RDR2World.com/">RDR2World Rockstar Games</a>. It was truly revolutionary in 2007 and it still is.

2 Mass Effect 2 - 96

Every game on this list are masterpieces and Mass Effect 2 , with an 8.9 user score, is no exception. Mass Effect is a sci-fi RPG where every character and decision affect the ending in a meaningful way. It uses the iconic paragon and renegade score.

Points are put into one of these two, which opens up specific gameplay paths. Mass Effect 2 avoids morally dubious decisions for simply labeled good and bad options. In recent news , 92 percent of players put points in their Paragon score. In other words, almost everyone who played chose the good options.

1 Red Dead Redemption 2 - 97 <img src="https://freestocks.org/fs/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/rosaries_6-1024x683.jpg"; style="max-width:440px;float:left;padding:10px 10px 10px 0px;border:0px;" alt="" />

The open-world western was one of the best games of 2018. It won several awards along with its main competitor - God of War. Unlike God of War , <a href="https://RDR2World.com/">Red Dead Redemption 2 money guide</a> Dead Redemption allowed players to choose their playstyle.

You can be a law-abiding citizen or start bar fights in Saint-Denis. The morality system is entangled with the free roam gameplay instead of the more linear story. Bad actions are consequenced by an increasing bounty. In classic Grand Theft Auto style, sometimes its fun to see how long you'll last.

NEXT: Assassin's Creed Odyssey: The 10 Hardest Decisions

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