Two steps beyond this fantastic article (and Kayin's appreciation of it): First, because Mass Effect was marketed as "Choices Matter" but most of those choices were pretty minor character moments, the marketing shot the series in the foot. Acorn was the same bag. This is a very big deal in comms. Secondly, this is something I play with in my game via the elimination of dialogue choices. The beats where there would be choices gives full control back to the player, so they can actually go *do* the relevant things to be reacted to, so the choices are less discrete/removed from gameplay. Dude complaining about his leg being broken/crushed by a crate: Yeah, I *could* put in Move Crate Find Help Kill and Eat *or*, being normal about it, I can *just let you go do that*. Because I feel like I don't see enough of that with the *intention* of challenging that systemic view of choice. Because that's what appeals to me. My gameplay choices matter. To go back to Mass Effect: most of the choices I made didn't matter. At all. Never acknowledged. And a lot of that is *how I think about choices*, I realized, and even *what qualifies as a choice* They really did just mean dialogue What equipment I had/used, how I engaged encounters, how much damage I took, whether I bothered with weapons, how much damage my cohorts took, how well stocked I was, how long missions took, how much travel I did between stars, how long between major story beats... none of that made a difference. And I'm not saying it has to, sure! But the framing for the game as "choices matter" *completely changed how I played*, and... it didn't. It was actively harmful to the experience, and the game was actively hostile/unsupportive of that, mechanically and narratively. Contrast: Ultima 4 and retreating/valor. Simple, small thing. You lose valor points if you retreat and your Avatar leaves before your other party members. Because defending people as they're escaping is valorous, and leaving them behind isn't. Obviously. Completely reasonably, even. And, sure: that's on me. ME isn't for me, at all. It was certainly an impression that stems from how I played it. I could go so far as to say that my ability to "play it wrong" is *actively* something that makes gaming the powerful entity it is as a medium, to potentially oversell it a little. But that's the type of game I like. It's the type of game I want to see more of. So that's what I want to make.