Why the illusion of choice isn't always a bad thing
Night in the Woods
Mae Borowski, the protagonist of Night in the Woods, is a bit of an asshole.
Okay, that's a little reductive. Mae is a wonderful character, written with great care and nuance. I love every moment I spend with her in all her wire-hopping, donut-guzzling, furnace-smashing glory. Unraveling the mystery of why she left college and why half the people in Possum Springs are afraid of her is one of the most intriguing story threads in the game, and her odd mixture of snark and sincerity makes for a ton of fun interactions around town. But, yeah, she's a bit of an asshole, and Night in the Woods' dedication to preserving that trait makes her the perfect player character.
I historically have had a complicated relationship with player characters, precisely because, by definition, they exist to serve the player. I know that it can be hard to try and maintain a consistent character while also allowing the player to feel like their choices actually influence the character's personality or motivations in some way. Some games, like Portal and Hollow Knight, choose to circumvent that challenge by having silent protagonists to whom the story mostly just happens, allowing the supporting characters to take the spotlight. Others, like Fire Emblem or Dragon Age, give up on walking that line entirely, choosing instead to feature blank slate player characters whose characterizations and even names are completely player-controlled, which makes sense, because those games are basically dating sims with extra steps. For many narrative-driven games, though, having a protagonist with a coherent personality that can anchor a story is an important feature.
Wow...! He's talking to me specifically (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
A topic that often crops up with regards to games is the illusion of choice. It's especially common with games like Life is Strange or those put out by Telltale, where a big selling point is that every single choice matters, but ultimately the game will follow the same core narrative anyway (except for one really big choice at the end, usually). The story options might change the information that you have to work off when solving the central mystery or determine whether a minor character lives or dies, but there's nothing hugely consequential.
Though some people disagree with that philosophy, I like it, and find it preferable to the alternative. For one thing, I think it's good for every player to experience the same overall narrative and story beats (and for the developers not to have to work on multiple branching narratives). For another, I'm notoriously bad at choosing the correct dialogue options and would probably end up getting the worst ending every single time if they mattered more.
Where your choices matter in these games really comes through in the playable characters. Take The Wolf Among Us as an example. There, your decisions shape protagonist Bigby's characterization in a number of different ways. You can play him as gruff but secretly kind-hearted, a guy who's genuinely trying his best to tamp down his baser instincts and be nice. You can play him as every bit the uncaring monster everyone thinks him to be, smashing people's skulls in and glassing them left and right. Or you can literally choose silence the entire game, if you so wish. All of that is more or less up to you.
Ten haunting images taken moments before disaster (The Wolf Among Us)
Night in the Woods takes a different approach to the illusion of choice by not really giving you choices at all. Or, yes, you do have choices, but they don't impact Mae's characterization or the narrative. Instead, they shape the world that you as Mae run, jump, and tumble through every day.
Though the game locks you into the general daily routine of exploring town, hanging out with a friend, then returning home, what Mae does during that exploration time is entirely up to you. She can hop the rooftops to hang out with a teenager who calls her "Killer", or steal pretzels for a nest of baby rats living in an abandoned parade float, or stargaze with her old high school teacher on his roof. Or she can do none of these things and go straight to smashing lightbulbs with her friend Gregg in an alleyway. Whether Mae engages in the community (and mildly inconveniences half the town in the process) or skips over everything every day to go hang out with her friends, it just feels in-character.
All of these choices shape the world around her in ways that don't affect the main storyline, but still feel impactful and real, which is also a testament to how alive Possum Springs feels. One of my favorite choices is a minor one, where Mae sees that local eatery Pastabilities is closing, and you get to decide whether this is a tragedy akin to the previous flood-related loss of either a petting zoo or a mini golf ice cream place.
From Bea's ending - the rat payoff (Night in the Woods)
Much as I like how these choices shape the game, it's actually the lack of choice afforded in Mae's dialogue options that makes Night in the Woods stand out to me. The first time I played the game, I opted to go through Bea's "route" because Bea was such an immediately compelling character to me. Her whole deal is that she's very disillusioned with her circumstances in life, and not-so-secretly resentful that Mae seems to have just given up on college, something that Bea could only dream of.
These are all things about her that the player picks up on fairly quickly. Unfortunately, Mae does not. In one ill-fated hangout, Mae helps Bea shop for dinner and they eat together at the apartment Bea shares with her father. There, Mae sees how Bea's father takes all the ownership and credit for running the family store despite Bea doing all the work, and decides to urge Bea to do something about it, to disastrous effect.
As I was playing through this scene, I was practically on my knees begging Mae to stop being so obtuse and realize that she was offering extremely unwelcome advice that would inevitably lead to a blow-up. But it didn't matter how frustrated I, the player, got. That was just what Mae's character was like. That was how she behaved in this horribly misread situation. And as much as I writhed and complained in the moment, I've come to realize that it exemplifies why Night in the Woods is such a standout for me.
Two dialogue options that are different but actually are not (Night in the Woods)
I would say that Night in the Woods' dialogue contains the ultimate illusion of choice, but it can't even be called an illusion since the game doesn't try at all to hide it. This scene with Bea is one of several times that Mae makes the wrong choice when interacting with other characters, but it's always her choice, not the player's. You may get to choose the exact dialogue options in these situations, but they often aren't that different from one another, and lead to the same outcome in the end.
This staunch refusal to give the player any say in how Mae responds to certain things and the way she sees the world makes her equal parts frustrating and entertaining to play as. In spite of her flaws, Night in the Woods utterly rejects any attempt to shape its protagonist in a different way. While the world shifts and changes around her, Mae remains grounded and self-contained, separate from the player's whims. Despite the fact that you control her, it's her story that you're following, not inciting. She's nobody's vessel and nobody's self-insert, which makes her one of the best player characters out there. She still manages to undergo an incredibly fulfilling arc - which is proof that player agency isn't always a direct path to player satisfaction.
