Story Branch Favoritism

In a story that allows for some degree of Story Branching, a character is presented with a clear number of choices each with their own viable outcomes. However, one of these options sometimes appears to be substantially more developed than the others or appears to coincide better with the plot as a whole, as if the author wanted the players to follow this path and added all others as mere diversions. This is an example of Story Branch Favoritism on the developer's part, where a particular branch of the story features more content, is better developed than others, and/or dovetails better with the plot overall—but does not render any of the other branches non-canon.

One common variation is the Golden Ending, which is considered the best overall ending a player can achieve from the creators' perspective. Alternatively, some games employ Relationship Values to let the Player Character pair off with any of the cast member they choose, but one particular Love Interest seems unfairly promoted over others.

Of course, sometimes it's deliberate because it's how the world works—a player who goes around killing or pissing off important NPCs is naturally going to have less people wanting to associate with him and give him things to do.

Cutting Off the Branches is a Sister Trope, which can be an ultimate expression of Story Branch Favoritism, wherein the author outright removes the unfavored branches from later continuity. Related tropes also include Railroading and Follow the Plotted Line, where the writer forces a character to follow a specific path regardless to what other options are available. A Golden Path can be one of the most noticeable consequences of this trope. When this trope is applied to a Romance Sidequest, that's the Developers' Desired Date. Also see Game-Favored Gender.

Not to be confused with But Thou Must! scenario, where only one option is viable. Does not apply to Fan Work for obvious reasons.

Video game examples:

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Action-Adventure

Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed:
- The original release has an odd case with this. You'd expect it to be Shizuku's route, considering how much the game pushes her as the main love interest, and her making the MC her blood-bound servant to save his life in the intro, which is something she can only do once in her incredibly long lifespan. It turns out that it's not her route, but Shion's, the character with barely any ties to the plot and has by far the hardest route to enter. Unlike any of the other routes, it averts Strictly Formula with how it unfolds, goes into far more depth about the story, cures the MC of his Synthister affliction, and stops the villain before he's able to complete the first stage of his plan.
- The 2023 Director's Cut release's advertising claims that Kati, originally a side character who now has her own route, is the "true ending" of the game. Like Shion's route, it also averts Strictly Formula, introducing an entirely new threat to Akihabara while the other routes focus on the Synthisters.
Dustborn: Most of the crew members have Codas, which indicates which path in life they are leaning towards, and these can be changed with dialogue choices. The game narratively favors Codas that align with the Weave, since that organization is a constant ally in the story. This is in contrast to the ones that have Pax, Ziggy, and Sai join armed rebellions, as the Wildflowers rebel organization is far less developed than the Weave. This is especially true for Pax, since in her conversation with Ruth, she can choose whether or not to agree with the Weave in using Vox for good, and if she disagrees, she states she has no faith in her own ability to use her powers for good. During the final confrontation against the Overseer, Pax realizes that she should be using her Vox with empathy instead of using it as solely a weapon, which is more consistent with the choice to agree with the Weave than to disagree with them.
Grand Theft Auto:
- Grand Theft Auto IV: At one point, the player is given the option of killing Playboy X or Dwayne, but the game heavily favors killing Playboy X. Doing so gets Niko his safehouse, a bonus outfit based on Claude's from Grand Theft Auto III, and the ability to participate in friend activities with Dwayne and by extension, unlock his friend ability. Killing Dwayne, on the other hand, not only permanently gates off these rewards from you, all you get is some money for your troubles, and the game goes out its way to make you feel like a dick, with Playboy X even refusing to associate himself with Niko anymore even though he ordered the hit in the first place.
- Grand Theft Auto V has this trope show up twice:
  - "The Big Score" gives you two methods of robbing the Union Depository. There is an Obvious method where you set up a distraction at the front door, drill into the gold reserve, and fly the stolen gold out of town. The other, Subtle, method involves stealing two armored vans via coercion, loading the gold into the vans under disguise, and having a hacker manipulate traffic lights to stall private security guards as you escape. You are forced to pay two extra people (a van driver and a hacker) if you take the Subtle route, cutting into the player characters' profits. The Obvious route, on the other hand, cuts out these two payments and consequently leaves the player with more earnings. As a result, the game financially favours the Obvious option. Though it's more likely the player will actually choose based on whether they want to reenact Die Hard with a Vengeance or The Italian Job (1969) respectively.
  - This appears again when you get to determine the ending, and this time the game gives you very, very harsh penalties if you pick any ending but the Golden Ending. Franklin is given three options at the end of the game, two of them involving assassinating one of the other two Player Characters, Trevor or Michael. Pick either of these two options, and the targeted player character is Killed Off for Real. You lose not only the ability to play as the dead character, but you lose everything that character owned as well, you will only be able to hang out with Lamar at night thanks to Stretch putting a hit on him, and Jimmy will stop hanging out with either Michael or Franklin and Trevor depending on who is killed. In addition, if you killed Michael, then his cut will completely disappear while Trevor's will be split between the surviving two should he be killed. In stark contrast, the third option, the Golden Ending, spares both Trevor and Michael and has no negative gameplay downsides whatsoever.
The Quest for Glory video games tried to balance the action and optional side quests given to the three classes you could play (Fighter, Mage & Thief) in the various games. Some games did this better than others, and in some games one class would be left out.
- The third game Wages of War, stuck it to Thief class most, as they have virtually no side material that is class specific. Fighters and paladins have the most to do in the game between being initiated into the Simbani tribe, the befriending of Yusufu, and everything related to that.
- Conversely, the fourth game gives no class specific side quests or subplots to the fighter (a paladin gets bonuses in the form of breaking the Rusalka's curse, and connecting with the spirit of the paladin Piotyr and Erana), while mages and thieves still have their own exclusive subplots and characters that can only be interacted with by those classes.

Action RPGs

Cyberpunk 2077 favors the Nomad lifepath/origin over the other two (Street Kid and Corpo Rat) in at least two ways. On one hand, where the other two consist mostly of indoor levels, linear dialogue, and being driven from place to place, the Nomad prologue intersperses dialogue with open-world driving sections and even a Rail Shooter car Chase Scene — the only mandatory combat section in any lifepath mission. On the other, the Nomad prologue is the only one that is neatly bookended by one of the endings, namely, "All Along the Watchtower", which sees V leave Night City behind to ride with the Nomads again (albeit with a different family).
Detroit: Become Human definitely tries to nudge players towards pursuing peaceful relations between humans and androids, and also getting Markus into a relationship with North. Avoiding becoming lovers with North requires making very specific choices to prevent it from happening, and few first time players pick those choices.
Deus Ex: Of the game's endings, the game leans towards the "Merge with Helios" ending, as the other endings result in the world either being in such a chaotic state that the world may not recover from, or the status quo is maintained by the Illuminati, with JC even seeming uneasy about his choice. The sequel has JC chose the "Merge with Helios" ending (with things not going quite as planned), which cements it further.
Drakengard plays with this concept a bit. On the one hand, Ending A is the least "bad" of the endings, and is what the players gets after a single playthrough. It's also the canonical ending that led into Drakengard 2. On the other hand, Ending B answers more questions, ties up more loose ends, and generally fits better with the overall tragic and dark nature of the game. This leads to something safer. On the other other hand, the game's lead designer Taro Yoko had nothing to do with Drakengard 2's development; when he finally returned to the series with NieR, it followed after the events of Ending E, the ending most out of left field, and the one the fewest players would ever see.
- And then Drakengard 3 throws in another doozy: every ending of every game, including the weird ones, are considered canonical, as possible outcomes of a varying timeline. Drakengard 3 is the first chronologically, and the goal of its narrator is to oversee events being pushed onto the only timeline that conclusively prevents the horrifying events of the rest of the series.
- In NieR: Automata, the story ultimately has 2 mutually exclusive endings which revolve around who wins the final battle between 9S and A2. And as far as narrative goes, the game favors the 9S ending in multiple ways. During the final battle, while playing as 9S there is dialogue between him and A2 that isn't there when playing as A2. 9S's ending has two possible sub-endings, while A2's only has one possible ending. And finally, 9S's ending leads into the 5th and final ending much more neatly than A2's ending does, since the 5th ending states that every Yorha unit is dead, which is explicit in 9S's ending (where he kills A2 but then accidentally impales himself on her sword) but less explicit in A2's (where A2 definitely dies, but 9S's not dead yet body is carried away by his pod).
The Elder Scrolls:
- Justified in Morrowind towards the Dunmer (Dark Elf) race. It delves deep into their culture, allows the player to join factions that typically only make sense for a Dunmer to be a part of (such as the Tribunal Temple), and includes more faces in character creation than the other racial options. The story also has the player effectively assuming the role as the reincarnation of an ancient Chimer (the predecessor race of the Dunmer) hero, and while it's deliberately left ambiguous how true that is, it would certainly make the most sense for it to be a Dunmer. Justified because the game takes place in the Dunmer homeland, so the deeper dive into their culture and native factions makes sense.
- The first Morrowind expansion pack Tribunal lets you choose between siding with the Puppet King of Morrowind or the Tribunal Temple for its main quest. Siding with the king gives you additional quests and story, siding with the Temple gives you a shorter main quest with no unique content except some very minor dialogue changes (since siding with the king will involve him asking you to perform services for the Temple anyway as part of his chessmaster plan), and working with the Temple ends up being All for Nothing as the king comes out on top in the end regardless.
- Skyrim:
  - This time around, you can play as one of ten different races. However, because it explores Nordic culture, gives the Player Character the power of the Thu'um, which lore-wise has always been associated with the Nords, and depicted the Dragonborn as a burly Nord warrior on all the promotional material, there's no mistake as to which race the game is kind of expecting you to play as. Furthermore, some races, like the Argonians and Khajiit, are subjected to Fantastic Racism and not allowed into some cities, but the player is inexplicably free of such restrictions.
  - Inverted in the case of the Bretons. They are uniquely largely free of any racial pros or cons due to story or unique dialogue. No Non Player Characters hate them, but no one thinks anything special of them either, aside from two instances in the entire game: a quest where players replace a reclusive chef that is a master of Breton cuisine (the original is an Orc, but as no one knows this, your assistant for the quest casually remarks that it's too obvious for you to be a Breton because of their reputation.) and having average ability to disguise themselves as a Thalmor. (Being humans with Elvish ancestors allows them to pass for an elf at a distance as long as their hood is up)
Fallout:
- In Fallout 2, the player can potentially reach Made Man status with any of the four crime families in New Reno. However, only by accepting the second quest from the Wright family can the Sierra Army Depot even be placed on your map. This is one of the best locations to find advanced weapons and armor mid-game, as well as a potential companion. Come New Vegas, dialogue reveals that the Wrights and the Van Graffs run New Reno, and the only other family that's mentioned to still be around is the Bishop family.
- Fallout: New Vegas allows for four Faction-Specific Endings: either Caesar's Legion, Mr. House, the New California Republic or the Courier themself will dominate the Mojave in the aftermath of the game. Unfortunately for a player interested in being openly anti-NCR and/or pro-Legion, however, there are a ton of NCR quests and locations (which can still be played if you’re siding with House or going alone), but only a small handful of Legion equivalents. You can play as someone explicitly opposed to the NCR, but the cost is that a very large portion of the game's content will be closed to you, including potentially all of the game's human companions. There’s also very little in-story reason for why the Courier would want to support the Legion, especially if they’re female, given how relentlessly brutal and evil the Legion is depicted as being. The Honest Hearts DLC provides a clear example. Of the three major tribes in Zion, the White Legs are the ones allied with Caesar's Legion...and they will immediately try to kill you throughout the DLC regardless of your relationship with Caesar, forcing you to look to the other two tribes for allies. The remaining two tribes are led by men opposed to the Legion, and both are treated as storyline-critical characters whose deaths end all further quests in the DLC and result in the worst ending. The only way to do the storyline "properly" involves fighting against a Legion ally.
- Fallout 4 has you choose either a husband or wife (named Nate and Nora by default, respectively) to be the protagonist of the game, while the other half of the married couple is killed off early on. However, the story seems to favor Nate being the Sole Survivor, as he narrates the Opening Monologue, is a trained veteran (which would explain why the player can use guns and Power Armor immediately, unlike Nora, who is canonically a lawyer) and promotional materials focus on a male character.
Mass Effect:
- Shepard's class:
  - They are often portrayed in the default Soldier class, which by the game's own lore makes the most sense in explaining their prowess in combat. This is particularly true in the first game where it is hard to justify how Shepard can match an asari in biotic power or a quarian engineer in tech skills.
  - A more downplayed example appears if you pick Engineer. In Mass Effect 3 there are a couple of dialogue nods you only get as an Engineer. Also you get the exactly one class-specific interrupt in the entire series.
- Liara T'Soni is the only Love Interest who can be romanced in all three games (though 2 requires DLC for this), by both genders, and cannot die under any circumstances except for low-EMS ending of the final installment. The first game also pushes her as a romance option heavily, as you have to actively tell her you aren't interested compared to the other options that can be failed if you aren't careful. The third game in particular is a bit infamous for having a number of emotional scenes be focused around Liara and Shepard that doesn't make as much sense if she isn't Shepard's partner.
- It makes much more sense story-wise to complete Noveria last since Virmire is added as an emergency mission after completing two storyline missions, also the piece of intel gathered in Noveria (the location of the Mu relay) would narrow down tremendously the location of the Conduit (this can be handwaved by saying that the Mu relay transports to many systems, but it is clear that with a little extra research they would have been able to deduce the location eventually.)
- The angry, accusatory attitude of the Virmire Survivor towards Shepard on Horizon in Mass Effect 2 makes much more sense coming from Ashley (the pessimist who doubts first before she even gives anything a chance) than it does Kaidan (the optimist who trusts first and doubts later). However, this situation is muddled in the third game. Saving Kaidan will result in much more conversation between him and Shepard after the Citadel coup about how he was wrong and ready to make amends, wondering if Cerberus still has some good people, many interactions and jokes between him and fellow Normandy squadmates as well as a potential Relationship Upgrade with him as a Gay Option for a male Shepard. Saving Ashley just results in many insults and doubts from her before the Citadel coup and she only interacts with two squadmates in the Normandy including Shepard. The change in the head writer and effort to promote Kaidan as a legitimately gay male love interest (something which the fanbase complained about the game's reliance on Discount Lesbians) probably explained this.
- In Mass Effect 2, during Samara's loyalty mission, you can choose to kill Samara and recruit her target Morinth if you want to and Morinth will be a loyal squad mate for the rest of the game. The favoritism doesn't show up until Mass Effect 3. If Samara survives her loyalty mission and the suicide mission, then in ME3 she will show up when you do the Ardat-Yakshi Monastery mission and will make it a much more meaningful experience. If Morinth survives said events in ME2, all you get is an email from her at the beginning of ME3, and then during the final mission, you fight her as a Banshee, kill her, and move on.
- The early Freedom's Progress mission in Mass Effect 2 has the player choose between turning Veetor over to either Cerberus or Tali. If you choose Tali, Veetor shows up at Tali's loyalty mission later to help the two of you out. If you choose Cerberus, the Veetor subplot basically ends right there; Shepard loses much rapport with their longtime partner Tali, and over nothing, since Veetor's interrogation at the hands of Cerberus fails to turn up any useful information.
- One of the selling points of the second game was that, in the ending suicide mission, anyone in your squad was able to die, ranging all over the spectrum from almost everyone dying to everyone surviving. However, keeping squad members alive near-universally results in better outcomes in the third game. Living squad members enhance the story a bit, keep minor characters in sidequests alive, and sometimes open up otherwise-impossible third options. In particular, it's impossible to make peace between the geth and the quarians if either Tali or Legion dies in the suicide mission.
- In Mass Effect 1, Paragon and Renegade are basically tools in the toolbox to get what you want. In 2 and 3, they serve more as a typical karma meter and picking Paragon almost always gives the superior result - the only Renegade decision to be optimal is to destroy the geth heretics in Legion: A House Divided.
- At the end of Mass Effect 1, you have the choice of endorsing Captain Anderson or Ambassador Udina to become the first human councilor. Of the two, Anderson is the one who makes the most sense due to being a firm ally of the player, puts his life on the line to help, and it is explained that he was snubbed for the position as the first human Specter by Saren. Making him the councilor in essence pays off that backstory element, while Udina has nothing going for him to make picking him fit the story, aside from Mass Effect 3 having Anderson retire as councilor so Udina becomes it instead.
- Similarly, near the very end of the first game, you are given the choice to divert Alliance ships to protect the Destiny Ascension (thus saving the council) or focus on Sovereign. Of the two, saving the Destiny Ascension is the one that makes the most sense with the story and trilogy overall. Not only does it get the council to trust Shepard more in the next two games, but the third game introduces a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for the three who are almost the same characters but have less reason to trust Shepard. Saving the ship gives a larger bonus to the third game's war assets as well, and narratively fits the series more than letting them die.
- In Mass Effect 3 Cerberus has the salvaged Human Reaper at Cronos Station regardless of if you destroyed the Collector Base or gave it to them. Since having intact Reaper tech to experiment with goes a long way to explain Cerberus' massive jump in resources and threat level in 3, it's clear the devs intended for the Collector Base to be preserved for the narrative they wanted to use.
- In Mass Effect 3, the krogans, quarians and geth are playable races in multiplayer even though in single-player you can lose krogan support by betraying Wrex; furthermore, the game assumes you've achieved peace between the quarians and geth as failing that would result in one of the races being wiped out.
- Mass Effect: Andromeda: You’re given the choice of whether to side with Sloane Kelly or Reyes Vidal in the conflict over Kadara Port...but there’s literally no reason given for why you would ever genuinely want to side with Kelly, as she’s a brutal, tyrannical, and selfish Jerkass who never shows anything but disdain for Ryder and the Initiative, while also forcing them to pay to settle on Kadara and letting criminals run wild. Contrast that with Reyes, a Friendly Neighborhood Gangster and Noble Demon who is not only unerringly helpful and friendly to Ryder, but also makes peace with the Initiative and actually puts some effort into cleaning up Kadara if chosen. Siding with Reyes also leads to significantly more poignant Character Development for Ryder, not to mention he’s a potential romance option. As if it wasn’t any clearer who the writers expected you to choose, the only way to really side with Kelly is to click an easily missed button prompt; otherwise all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the cutscene.
Radiata Stories has two story routes: The Human side, and the Non-Human side. Of the two, the Non-Human side is unquestionably favored by the writers as it explores the three main protagonists Jack, Ridley, and Gantz in more detail. In comparison, the Human route has Jack stay relatively the same as a character, while Ridley and Gantz have little importance overall. Examples include meeting Gawain, his father's killer^note, and the final boss^note. It doesn't help that several plotlines in the game never get resolved or referenced after the split if you go Human route, such as Cross being responsible for the Blood Orc that attacked Ridley (whereas in the Non-Human route, Cross is the Evil Counterpart to Jack). The Non-Human route is also the route where Ridley and Jack hook up after spending the early game with Belligerent Sexual Tension, while the Human route has Jack date an ally of the players' choice. Lastly, it's the only route where Jack can wield the Arbitrator, his father's sword, whereas in the Human route he feels unable to use it, serving as an indicator of Jack's mindset in both routes. The only significant part of the story that is favored in the Human side is in regards to gameplay; the Human route has some of the most interesting bosses due to fighting two of the Dragons, and overall offering more unique gameplay choices Jack can have such as romance options and party members.
In Scarlet Nexus, virtually all the major plot explanations happen exclusively in Kasane's route. Yuito, by contrast, never finds out why Kasane turned on him for over half the game, what Karen's goals were, or the truth behind the war between New Himuka and Togetsu.
Star Ocean: The Second Story, or The Second Evolution as it was called in later versions, features two characters to play as: Claude and Rena. While both are of equal importance to the story, Claude has more plot-relevant scenes that are exclusive to him, as well as a familial connection to Ronyx from the first game. Also, both characters can recruit a party member that's exclusive to them, but Dias, who will only permanently join the party if Rena is the protagonist, has no private actions (until the remake, at least), which gives him no further development and makes it excessively hard to see any alternate endings for him.
Steambot Chronicles: Halfway through the game, you are given the option to join the Bloody Mantis, a terrorist organization that serves as the main antagonist of the game. Accepting the offer sets you down on the villainous path, while rejecting it has you take the heroic path. The latter is much more well-developed, answers all plot threads in the story (namely over who the true leader of the Bloody Mantis actually is and why the organization is going to war against Happy Garland), ends on a dramatic note, and flows into the Playable Epilogue more fluidly, with Vanilla returning to Happy Garland a year after ending the war in its favor. Joining the Bloody Mantis leaves you in the dark on a lot of things and seemingly ends with a villainous victory, only to, once the credits finish rolling, inexplicably cut to Vanilla waking up in a jail cell without explanation as to how he got there or how the Bloody Mantis were seemingly defeated. He also is given a surprisingly lenient sentence despite his treason (which includes bombing Happy Garland), which comes off as nonsensical, and overall, despite his customizable personality, Vanilla isn't given much narrative reason as to why he would ever want to join the terrorists in the first place.
Tales Series:
- In Tales of Symphonia:
  - The ending where your party ends up with Kratos is noticeably less developed than the ending with Zelos. Several sidequests are dependent on Zelos' presence in order to be completed, but there are almost none that are exclusive to Kratos. Kratos also has only a single alternate costume, while Zelos has several. Additionally, picking Kratos will also automatically set him as Lloyd's soulmate regardless of what everyone's Relationship Values are at, forcing you to pick Zelos if you want Lloyd to end up with anyone else. The sequel, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, outright made the ending with Kratos non-canon by having Kratos be entirely absent except for a brief cameo. Also of note is that if you pick the Zelos route, then Kratos still ends up siding with the heroes and playing the same role he does in his own ending, he just never becomes a playable character again for the rest of the playthrough. But if you pick the Kratos route, then Zelos turns out to have been sincere in his Face–Heel Turn and is killed by the party. So the Zelos route is more of a Golden Ending in comparison, despite the supposed choice.
  - Early on there's a Promptless Branching Point where it's possible to complete the Water or Wind Seal arcs in any order. The game's level curve is designed around going to Palmacosta and the Water Seal first, to the point where accidentally locking yourself into the Wind Seal route by going to Hima first makes the game harder for a while.
- Tales of Xillia has two storylines, Jude's and Milla's. Jude's has far more content, however, while Milla's seems intended for a second playthrough. This is most noticeable at the end of the third act of the game, where Milla is presumed dead. Jude's story goes on to feature a very significant Duel Boss fight, followed by a fight with Gaius, then Presa and Agria's deaths, and a three-phase boss fight with the real Maxwell. All of this happens offscreen on Milla's path, which instead consists of her wandering through the Spirit World for a while (essentially a very long No-Gear Level with her as your sole party member) with very little interaction due to the lack of Non Player Characters and her becoming an Empty Shell. While Milla gets her own Duel Boss fight, it's an extremely frustrating one, and she only comes back during the last phase of Jude's Climax Boss. It's actually not possible to get the "Religious Skit Viewer" trophy on Milla's path, as there simply aren't enough skits for her to see.
Trials of Mana:
- Duran is heavily implied to be the canon choice to become the Mana Knight. Duran is the only protagonist that uses a traditional fighting style of swordsmanship, and his design was influenced by the heroes of the previous Mana games. He's also the most prominent character on the title screen, and is the default selection for the first character when starting a new game. The 2019 E3 trailer had him be the first character to appear before the other protagonists, and the demo had him chosen as the protagonist alongside Riesz and Charlotte. Additionally, Duran's homeland of Valsena has the most plot relevance of any of the three major kingdoms. While Laurent must also be liberated and the player's actions put Wendel at risk, they're only visited once by the plot after the prologue, while the three attacking kingdoms only play a significant role in their own story branch. However Valsena serves as something of the player's base of operations in the hunt of the Mana Stones in all three story paths, with Hero King Richard acting as the player's main Mr. Exposition and advisor alongside Faerie. All of this makes Duran the most significant character to the story's world, and the character that marketing most focuses on. But in spite of all that, it's ultimately up to the player if Duran is even one of the three heroes, let alone the Mana Knight; despite Duran's prominence, he's still an Optional Party Member like every other hero.
- The game doesn't force it, but it's pretty clear the game wants the player to pick a character from each of the three storylines so the antagonists are introduced more naturally. Since the story has you play the prologue for each party members story, you get to see their personal stakes and learn about one of the major antagonists in the game. If you don't, you'll end up having no idea who over half the antagonists are because they are all connected differently; a player who picks Duran and Angela for example flows well since they share the same story beats, but the appearances of the other antagonists seem nonsensical since you only see see part of the wider story arc of that character. Balancing the party such as Duran, Riesz and Charlotte like in the demo avoids some of those issues by comparison.
- One of the features added in the 2020 remake is an array of abilities that can be learned, through leveling stats, defeating specific bosses, and interacting with NPCs using the right hero. One of these abilities, "Kindness", can only be gained by having Angela as the Mana Knight and talking to Chirry (the young girl that saved Angela in her introduction) in Alrant, as the party briefly disbands whenever visiting Alrant; in all other cases, it doesn't matter if the connected hero is the main, secondary, or tertiary protagonist.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: The game has multiple endings: you can side with the Anarchs, the Camarilla, Lacroix, Ming Xiao, or go independent and blow all of them off. Siding with either Lacroix or Ming Xiao nets you little more than two different Non-Standard Game Overs. Siding with the Camarilla is available, but since your main contacts with the Camarilla consist of Lacroix (who is actively trying to get you killed) and Strauss (who is pleasant enough, but doesn't do very much in the game and comes across as a bit condescending), the justifications for doing so aren't particularly strong. The Anarchs, by contrast, save your life repeatedly and allow you an abundance of opportunities for helpful interaction, beginning with Smiling Jack guiding you through the tutorial. Finally, only the Anarch and Independent endings allow you to properly savor Lacroix's Laser-Guided Karma when he opens the sarcophagus. It isn't difficult to decipher which faction the developers were expecting most people to side with. Things do get a little more even (but only a little) if you play a Tremere character, as Strauss (a Tremere himself) has a bit more advice and gives you a nice apartment to live in^note.
The Witcher:
- The Witcher splits into three distinct paths mid-game, one for the Order and the Scoia'tael and a neutral one. The latter features more content and is actually harder to unlock. This is justified by the eponymous Witchers' code, which forbids them from taking sides in conflicts—so the neutral path makes the most sense in-story.
- The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings splits into two paths that depend on who Geralt allies with for the rest of the game: Vernon Roche and the Blue Stripes, or Iorveth and the Scoia'tael. While both have the same amount of content, the latter goes into greater detail on things that tie into the Kingslayer plot, including the dragon, the Lodge of Sorceresses, and Philippa Eilhart. Roche's path leaves the player in the dark on these matters. On the other hand, Roche comes back for a rather large subplot in the next game, while Iorveth is never seen.
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt:
  - For players just entering the franchise at the third instalment, Yennifer of Vengeberg can seem like a forced love interest, constantly belittling Geralt and making you wonder what they ever saw in each other. You can later meet and romance Triss, but on subsequent meetings with Yen there is no option to break it off with her (until much later). Other NPCs also ask about Yen and continue to assume you are together, and no option is given for you to correct them. Triss also gets far fewer lines with Geralt, often just a "huh" or "yes", and she doesn't show up at Kaer Morhen until much later. Of course, Yen is the canonical love interest in the books, so it's somewhat understandable.
  - The Succession Crisis on Skellige has three potential rulers, but Cerys comes across as the one that the game wants the player to support. She's intelligent, pragmatic, and the only one who actually finds the mastermind of the massacre that starts the story for it, while Hjalmar acts like a typical Skelligan, which Geralt seems a bit annoyed by when interacting with him. Their sidequests also seem to push the player to view Cerys in a better light as well; her quest involves solving a complex and personal issue for a somewhat important character, and Geralt comes across as impressed by her quick thinking and intelligence, whereas Hjalmar's quest has Geralt seem annoyed by Hjalmar's strict adherence to Skelligan honor in a way that risks killing him. Plus, when gathering allies for the defense of Kaer Morhen, you can always recruit Hjalmar even as king, but can't recruit Cerys even if she's not queen, which makes more sense if she is queen and sends him to help in her place. About the only reason Hjalmar would make sense over her is because some of the jarl's disapprove of a woman ruling, causing some tension, but it isn't shown as being a major issue. The third candidate is almost a secret option comparatively, and intentionally means ignoring Cerys and Hjalmar to do, so it isn't something you'd really do without knowing it's possible.
  - The game has three endings for Ciri; one where Ciri becomes a Witcher and travels with Geralt, one where she becomes Nilfgaard's queen, or a Downer Ending where she dies. Excluding the obvious bad ending, the game pretty heavily pushes the player towards the Witcher ending and is canonically what seems to be the choice the developers went with as well. The queen ending requires Geralt acting significantly out of character towards Ciri, as he makes it clear he detests Emhyr whenever the subject comes up, and Ciri has no love for her father even if she becomes queen, only softening her opinion of him during Blood and Wine, which canonically takes place a few years later. The Witcher ending is more in line with the two's relationship and what is established in the books. The (as of now unreleased) fourth game cements it as well by having Ciri be a Witcher, making it clear that is the intended story outcome.
  - In the Blood and Wine Expansion Pack, the player takes one of two distinct routes to end the game with. In one, Geralt can make contact with the Unseen Elder, a powerful vampire lord whose authority over all vampires can be used to bring the raging Dettlaff directly to Geralt so that the Witcher can stop his rampage once and for all. In the other, Geralt can journey to the Land of a Thousand Fables and rescue Sylvia Anna, whose past relationship with Dettlaff is hoped will bring him to heel. Both paths are fully realized, but the latter is the only way to really learn about Sylvia's past and motivations, and taking it is the only way to get the campaign's best ending. Even in-game, Geralt is repeatedly told this is the more preferable path to take, and is given multiple opportunities to change his mind if he opts for the Unseen Elder.

Adventure Games

Dispatch: There is a few decisions to make, and while the other answer is fine, there is noticeable favoritism to some of them.
- Coupé is likely to be cut over Sonar, as while Sonar is a flake, Coupé has problems with still doing things the villain way. Sonar, for all his faults, genuinely seems to want to change compared to Coupé. Her exit is much more threatening than Sonar's awkward one, and her villainous role is taken much more seriously than his is. In addition, Coupé is more statistically redundant with the rest of your team (she's specialized in the Combat and Mobility stats), whereas Sonar is the only character who has a boost to Intellect.
- Waterboy is more favored over Phenomaman for the team's open spot. Waterboy shows up after the decision regardless of who was chosen, one time definitely responding like he is a full member of the team, and Phenomaman is an experienced hero, so he cannot level up his stats and is an EXP sinkhole. Narratively, Waterboy grows to becoming a valued member of the team quickly and his development fits the game's themes a lot, while Phenomaman remains a bit of a Butt-Monkey and never gets the same development.
- Robert revealing his secret identity as Mecha Man is treated with much more gravitas and narrative importance than keeping it. The team just went through a massive fight for him, Flambae still shows up for the party just as everyone is leaving and we never get any closure about his side plot around Robert if he learns some other way.
- Oddly enough, the plot acts like Invisigal gets cut regardless of whether Robert tells the team to cut her or not. With Invisigal immediately acting like Robert doesn't trust her and leaving her work outfit at headquarters, she only shows up for half the last shift because she needs to be at headquarters later for the plot and Royd and Robert acting like trusting her is a large choice when he already might have said that he trusts her.^note
Henry Stickmin series:
- Completing the Mission has the secret base of the Toppat Clan as its title screen, and all of its routes either deal with it, the train leading to it, or the satellite that's launched from it... Well, with the exception of Toppat Civil Warfare, which doesn't involve it at all, and also ends on a Cliffhanger.
- The Pure-Blooded Thief ending from Infiltrating the Airship has only 3 possible branches in Completing the Mission compared to 4 branches for each of the other 3 Airship endings. This is because Pure-Blooded Thief is the only Airship ending in which Henry didn't side with the Government or Toppat Clan and thus it wouldn't make logical sense for Pure-Blooded Thief to continue into Fleeing the Complex's Government-based or Toppat-based endings. It's also the only Airship ending that doesn't have a 6-choices-long path (each Mission path has between 3 and 6 choices, so 6 choices is the maximum number for one) in Mission, whereas the other 3 Airship endings each have one.
King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow has a "short path" and a "long path", in which more people are helped and will show up at the wedding. This is the path chosen by the official Novelization. See the entry at Golden Ending. Regardless of the path chosen, you have a secret conversation with Princess Cassima, locked in her room. In the "short path," the conversation is held from outside her door◊. In the "long path," it's held from within the walls themselves◊.
Life is Strange features this with one of the endings. If you sacrifice Chloe, they (maybe) get The Big Damn Kiss, and the player is presented to a touching, mournful, and emotional slideshow and funeral scene showing the aftermath of Chloe's death and ending on a very slightly hopeful note. If you choose to Sacrifice Arcadia Bay, Max and Chloe watch as the tornado destroys the town, they drive through it and exit to parts unknown, and that's it - it's much shorter in content, and it doesn't tell players anything about who survived the storm. Word of God says that the ambiguity about who survived and where Max and Chloe go next is intentional, and it's up to the players to decide those things for themselves. They have also said that the finale episode was made on a more limited budget and so they had to choose an ending to focus the majority of their time and money on.
- Despite this, it's the sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending that got a spinoff comic, rather than the sacrifice Chloe ending, and both endings can be referenced in Life Is Strange 2, meaning they weren't lying when they said it was for a pragmatic reason rather than true favoritism.
- Life is Strange: Double Exposure on the other hand veers wildly into making the sacrifice Chloe ending being preferable, with Max and Chloe breaking up shortly after the letter sent in 2 and with the story being based around solving/preventing the murder of her new friend, it makes more sense if Max had lost her old one. It also ends up meaning more in the climax, where it is revealed that Safi died when Max was forced to kill her to keep her powers from rampaging with a storm.
The Neverhood has two endings. The good ending is a 5-minute long cutscene, and the bad ending is less than half a minute long and ends very abruptly. The sequel continues where the good ending left off, just in case if you were wondering if there's any more ending favoritism.
Paradise Killer is an investigation simulator that allows you to investigate a Locked Room Mystery murder and make a case against various characters on their roles, culpability and guilt in the matter... But pinning it all on the obvious suspect, Henry, leads to the least amount of character development. Which makes sense since the killing was actually performed by one of two major conspiracies, both of whom involve multiple characters on the island, and investigating either (or both) makes you much more aware of the true nature of the island's inhabitants and why they chose to join their respective conspiracy. Henry, meanwhile, was involved in neither, aware of neither, and intentionally set up to be The Scapegoat by one of them. Pinning it all on him essentially means letting everyone else off scot-free.
Ripper is an odd example. The game randomizes the Ripper's identity between four options each game as part of the Multiple Endings, but it's very clear that this idea was tacked on very late into production, as the game very obviously favors a specific outcome. Catherine being the killer is the only option that really makes sense within the story and it's themes, characters, and setting, not to mention the only one that both fully answers all the mysteries and gives the Ripper a clear motive. The cutscenes and endgame for the Catherine path are much longer and more involved than the others, which are extremely short, half-assed, and end without really explaining how the Ripper did all the things they did or why.

Fighting Games

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is primarily a BlazBlue game, which is evident by how Episode Mode uses the other three series present in the crossover. While playing through all four Episodes is required to get the Golden Ending, Episode BlazBlue is the only branch that can be used to reach it, is the only branch to give the context behind the story, and is the only branch that has Multiple Endings in the first place. While Episode RWBY at least has a good ending (if you ignore the ambiguous fates of everyone else), Episode Persona only ever ends on a punchline at their series' expense, and Episode Under-Night is given the outright worst ending in the game (especially after Episode Extra took place after the Bad Ending of Episode BlazBlue).
Red Earth has four playable characters to go through its story, but nudges the player towards selecting Leo — aside from the game's logo featuring a lion and thus alluding to him, he is the one most prominently featured in its intro, is who Player 1's cursor automatically starts on to encourage Default Setting Syndrome, and has a personal stake with Blade (more specifically, that Blade was his former trusted underling) that the other three lack.
Weaponlord: Korr's story mode has two different endings depending on whether or not Bane was killed. The cutscene before facing Zarak is far more fleshed out and contains a reveal (Bane is Kӓng, Korr's missing brother} otherwise unheard of in Korr's story mode if Bane dies.

First Person Shooters

Unreal Tournament III plays this straight in Act II: With Caesar's Coin. You're given two major objectives in the chapter: reinforce Tokaido and make an alliance with the Iron Guard (and, by proxy, Axon). The game expects you to go all defence i.e. choosing to reinforce Tokaido's defences and ally with Iron Guard. You can take any other path, of course, but your final Chapter map has you playing a 4-on-7 "Invasion Style" match in Torlan_Leviathan, which, considering how awful the AI on said map is, becomes quite a chore, whereas the intended path has a much easier end path.

MMORPGs

RuneScape:
- The quest "Temple of Ikov" quest has you choose whether to protect the Staff of Armadyl or steal it and give it to the bad guy. When the developers made the sequel quest, "While Guthix Sleeps," they realized the plot sort of hinged on the bad guy having the staff, so everyone who chose to protect it received a note from the guardians that it had been stolen by somebody else.
- In the quest "Hazeel Cult" the player may chose to help the cult revive Hazeel. Hazeel does appear in later quests if he is revived, but he has no impact on the events of those quests and barely any dialogue. If the player didn't revive Hazeel, he eventually is revived by Zamorak.
- The quest "The World Wakes" includes a section where, depending on player choices, the NPC characters Fiara and Thaerisk Cemphier could be killed, resulting in their removal from the overworld. This was later retconned so that they were merely injured and needed time to recover, with Thaerisk returning for the 2021 Easter event and Fiara for the 2022 quest "Twilight of the Gods".
Star Wars: The Old Republic suffers from this severely, as all the expansions were seemingly made with the Jedi Knight and its Dark Side equivalent Sith Warrior (to a lesser extent) storylines in mind with players from other classes, especially the non-Force sensitive ones, feeling severely out-of-place. Half the expansions revolve around dealing with the Sith Emperor once and for all, when the Jedi Knight is the only one who ever met him and the Sith Warrior was The Dragon to him. It's especially noticeable in Chapter 12 of Knights of the Fallen Empire where the player has to go through lessons on the Force and the philosophies surrounding it in order to construct a Villain-Beating Artifact lightsaber attuned to both the light and dark. Non-Force sensitive characters go through the exact same thing and inexplicably get a gun somehow attuned to the Force.
World of Warcraft:
- The Landfall campaign from the Mists of Pandaria expansion is pretty good about being balanced between the Alliance and the Horde where the Player Character from each faction advances the plot in tandem.^note In the ending quest where the two storylines meet, however, an Alliance player defends an Alliance prince from a Horde champion then helps the prince destroy the artifact the Horde has been seeking. A Horde player... defends an Alliance prince from a Horde champion then stands back and watches the prince destroy the artifact the Horde has been seeking.
- The Battle for Azeroth expansion featured a storyline where the Horde split into a civil war where the player joined forces attempting to depose or support Warchief Sylvanas. The "Loyalist" questline was put into the game at the last minute to placate Horde players outraged at being forced to betray their faction and it shows. The rebellion storyline is transparently the default experience where the player joins with heroes from both factions to bring down the almost comically evil Sylvanas. The loyalist storyline still has you doing all of the same acts of rebellion you would otherwise ostensibly to maintain your cover in the rebellion even though you never use your status as a double agent to really sabotage the rebels. Additionally, anyone who joins the rebel side is locked in, while loyalists have numerous chances to quit and side with the rebels. The ending of the expansion pretty much confirmed the favoritism by having Sylvanas becoming a major antagonist in the next expansion, requiring anyone who joined the "Loyalist" side to fall in line with the rest of the Horde as if it never happened.

Platformers

Baby Steps (2025) has two ways to go up a cliff, either take Jim's spiral staircase and become one of his Jiminy's Crickets at the top, or go up the Manbreaker course, which causes Jim to jump off the cliff thinking he is superfluous, though the laws of the world they are in means that nobody dies even when they want to. Afterwards Jim makes no appearances, not even to reprimand Nate for dropping another landmark that was around like he used to, making it clear that burning the bridge with Jim is the preferred path.
Infernax includes a Karma Meter where you can determine whether Alcedor throws his lot in with either the people of Upel (Good), or the demonic scourge (Evil). Despite this, there are several factors nudging the player towards the path of virtue:
- Promotional material features Alcedor with his Good-aligned upgrades opposing monstrous enemies. The vast majority of enemies and bosses are also affiliated with the demons.
- An Ultimate Good playthrough is necessary to unlock both the Ultimate Good ending and the Future ending, as the opportunity is denied in an Ultimate Evil playthrough. Although it should be noted to even have the choice to access the Future ending requires filling up the Demonology codex, which necessitates an evil playthrough at some point to get its unique bosses.
- Several boss battles, alongside The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, are only accessible if Alcedor chooses to be good - although the evil path has its own unique bosses, the majority of minor boss battles are skipped.
Mario's Mystery Meat features an EarthBound-style battle against either Ringo Starr or Mr. Dink depending on which of their names the player answered a question with earlier on. However, the question itself — "Who is the fattest?" — clearly points towards Mr. Dink, and the silhouetted figure seen before the battle resembles him much more so than Ringo. In terms of the battles themselves, both are Zero-Effort Bosses, but Mr. Dink's is significantly more developed and features more gags than Ringo's, which is resolved in a single dialogue prompt. It's also possible to skip the question entirely, in which case the game will default to Mr. Dink.
Shadow the Hedgehog plays this trope straight, where although the game features up to 11 different endings ranging from Evil to Neutral to Good; only the hidden ending against the obvious Big Bad is considered to be the game's Golden Ending from the creator standpoint. Of the main routes, the Neutral path is given comparatively less weight then the others; following a subplot about Shadow possibly being a robot that isn't relevant to the Black Doom conflict and that the true ending reveals was a lie. Additionally, it is the only route where both options lead to the same final boss - the Egg Dealer, unlike every other stage where Black Doom or Sonic & Diablon are one or both of the options^note. Since getting this path is very simple as you can merely ignore the other objectives and just rush to the end of every level, it's possible it was made unsatisfying as a punishment.
Sonic Rivals and its sequel is guilty of this; While the general story is the same no matter who you pick, Shadow and Silver (and, by extension, Metal Sonic and Espio in the sequel) are the ones whose plotlines reveal that "Eggman" is actually Eggman Nega while Sonic and Knuckles (and their allies) never learn the truth. In Rivals 2, the final battle is also slightly different: Sonic & Tails and Knuckles & Rouge have one of the partners get possessed by the Ifrit while it is accompanied by Metal Sonic 3.0 instead when fought by Shadow & Metal Sonic and Silver & Espio.
- The game also zigzags when it comes to Shadow and Silver. In the first game, while Eggman Nega is Silver's archenemy, Shadow's story is the one where Eggman Nega's motive is properly explained. In the second, Shadow & Metal Sonic's stories explain a few details that otherwise go unexplained while Silver & Espio are the only ones to confront Eggman Nega in Chaotic Inferno whereas he vanishes after the preceeding zone's cutscene for the other teams.

Real-Time Strategy

While StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty does a good job avoiding favoritism on the first two times you have to make a choice, it definitely drops the ball the third time. Before the final mission, you're given the option to disable either the Zerg's Nydus Worms, or deprive them of their air force. The former mission involves taking Raynor and other three heroes, all with unique abilities, through Char's underground cave network, battling zergs in a rather imaginative scenarios, ending with a challenging boss fight, while enjoying plenty of fun banter from the heroes. The latter mission is a rather dull "destroy all bases" macro mission with hardly any dialogue, with only an optional boss to spice things up. Though, ironically, while the first mission is way more fun, the benefits of doing the second mission are much greater.
- Done with subtlety in the finale of StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void, during its epilogue campaign where you play as each race for each of its three missions, all with a set selection of units and upgrades. The first one with the Protoss is easy to ignore as unit selection can normally be changed on the fly during its regular campaign. The next one, with the Terrans, have some unit and upgrade selections that imply that certain events took place, such as having Spectres over Ghosts which would suggest that Raynor sided with Tosh during Wings of Liberty. Then again, it tends to bend the rules in some instances providing mutually exclusive upgrades being paired together (such as the Bunker's upgrades) or having neither option being available (neither the Hercules nor the Predator can be produced here). The finale, with the Zerg, also has a preset for unit evolutions, namely mass-producing Zerglings, Brood Lords, and Torrasque Ultralisks even if you opted to pick different evolutions during Heart of the Swarm. All of the above selections were tailor-made for the mission objective at hand, as they are Nintendo Hard.

Role-Playing Games

Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II:
- These games have a heavy slant towards rewarding good behavior over evil behavior. Dialogues, plot unveiling, and in general decisions often make more sense and appear more natural when assuming a good playthrough, particularly the main story of the first game. Evil parties might either feel a bit out of character or dissonant in certain moments. There are few true choices for an evil protagonist that don't end up dull, shallow, or Stupid Evil. There are also rare instances of NPC that call you a hero regardless of your reputation and past evil doings. There are also several mechanics that reward a good behavior more than an evil behavior.
  - Being nice to NPCs and helping them with their problems will often net you more beneficial quests and rewards than acting like a selfish bastard would. It will also increase your reputation, which gives other benefits. The only real advantage of lowering reputation is keeping evil companions content. Even the few cases where you get a reputation decrease because you demanded too much money have a negligible impact on your economy.
  - If your reputation drops too low, city law enforcement will repeatedly attack you on sight and shops will hike up their prices while players with high reputation get a discount and a bonus to reaction with characters (which might earn some little minor rewards or additional lines ^note). Additionally, the Ranger and the Paladin classes can only be played by good characters, and they both actively punish evil players by permanently stripping away their abilities when their reputation gets too low.
  - In the first game there are much more quests that raise your reputation, even just retrieving a stolen ring for a peasant will do that. In the second game, the difference is less prominent, but it is still there - and reputation losses are more hidden and sadistic. Evil characters that want to keep their reputation low will have to decline a lot of quests that might earn an increase of it, even if you do them just for the reward, and lose the associated xp and loot. The alternative is to essentially murder a random innocent out of the blue and take a reputation hit (which also enters Gameplay and Story Segregation, since a single homicide when you are popular will still be fine with authorities and companions, plus in reality even evil character might object against murderhobo behavior, if anything to avoid attracting the law).
  - Some of the best possible equipment, like Carsomyr or the Holy Avenger, can be only wielded by good characters. There are also powerful items for only the evil, but they feel comparatively less effective - and less satisfying to acquire.
  - There are in general more good aligned companions than there are evil ones and, while the latter can be very powerful, the good companions are the ones with the most story content. Both will leave the party if your reputation is respectively too low or too high. Neutral characters will only abandon you if your reputation is too low but not if it is too high. There are some cases of characters that will turn on you if you take a very evil choice in a dialogue, but not the opposite.
  - The canon party from the first game into the second is a good party: Imoen, Jaheira^note, Khalid, Minsc, Dynaheir.
- At the end of Baldur's Gate II chapter 2, you have to join either the shadow thieves or the vampire guild. If you choose the latter, you will fight a somewhat harder battle, lose a handy fencer, have a more creepy and disparaging base of operations, and miss a powerful ally that would otherwise come in handy later. The game itself subtletly discourages you from dealing with the vampires through dialogues and encounters.
  - For example, a paladin like Keldorn will grudgingly accept to work with the shadow thieves because it is temporarily necessary to further the larger objectives, even if according to lore he should never accept ^note, but will absolutely leave the party if you join the vampires. Many other characters will express immediate discomfort at the idea of siding with the vampires, but not with the shadow thieves.
- At the end of chapter 4 of II, you have to decide whether to accept Saemon's offer and help him get back to his ship to travel home, or simply use a magical portal. Either choices ultimately lead to the same place, but the former brings you first into another dungeon with tons of XP and many nice items (including components for a powerful weapon that you can assemble later).
Baldur's Gate III:
- The game seems to favor good-aligned choices more than the evil ones, as the evil options cause much more Permanently Missable Content. This is especially evident when siding with the villains in act 1. Siding with the goblins in act 1 will kill off many innocent refugees, which locks you out of later quests involving them, as well as a merchant that sells some of the best gear in act 3. Even worse, Wyll and Karlach also leave the party, rendering their quests unfinishable.
- The Dark Urge seems to be the favored origin to play the game with storywise. Playing as this character grants more insight in what the villains were actually planning, as well as more context to one of the evil factions involved. None of this information is obtainable when playing other characters.
- On the subject of the Dark Urge, while their default class is a Sorcerer, playing as a Paladin gives unique dialogue and insight into their past via the Oathbreaker Knight. The story also has the most unique interactions between their oaths and the Urge, making it the most mechanically unique combo for the Dark Urge.
Chrono Cross's story branches at two points — you can pick one of three options for a guide to Viper Manor, and you can declare that of course you'll save Kid from Lynx's poison or else confess that you don't know how.
- In the first case, Nikki's route through the Shadow Forest is the longest and most developed, including an entire dungeon (including a boss battle with Zoah, who you won't meet until later otherwise); later, Nikki also has unique dialogue with Marcy and Fargo if he's in the party when they're first met, his band is part of a major sidequest regardless of whether or not he was recruited, and one of the New Game Plus additional endings requires him and a later character to be recruited. Guile's route is a brief climb up Viper Manor's seaside cliffs, but matches up the best with what happens at the end of the dungeon, and the 2022 Updated Re-release updates his ending to match his Radical Dreamers interpretation. Meanwhile, Pierre's route consists entirely of a boss battle and nothing else, and Pierre himself is near-useless in combat before locating all of his unique equipment set.
- The second case is more complex. Announcing that you'll handle the problem leads to an entire dungeon that you don't get to play otherwise and a powerful magic user (who is also required for a New Game Plus ending alongside Nikki), and while saying you're not sure doesn't lead to any replacement dungeon it still allows you to recruit a highly plot-relevant character who also happens to be one of the game's most powerful fighters. Further complicating the matter, if you do refuse, Kid's life gets saved anyway via an implausible Deus ex Machina that's only partially explained in one of the additional endings (Norris saved her).
Deltarune subtly favors if and how you confront the Shadow Crystal holders:
- While tiring Jevil out with ACT leads to him essentially repeating King's warning about the Knight, defeating Jevil violently provides foreshadowing of the next chapter's antagonist and the Roaring. The violent reward is the Jevilsknife, a powerful weapon for Susie that gives Reduced Mana Cost for Rude Buster, the very-difficult Chapter 3 superboss' weakness. The pacifying reward is the Jevilstail armor, which has good stats any party member can use, but no special effect.
- Spamton NEO, by contrast, encourages a peaceful solution by cutting his strings, which has him fall to the ground "dead", better setting up the after-battle cutscene, which is the same for both versions even though he explodes if defeated violently. The Pacifist reward, the Dealmaker armor, is broadly useful for its high stats and Money Multiplier effect. The violent reward is the PuppetScarf, a much-more-niche weapon for Ralsei that increases his attack but cuts his magic. The latter being the only option in the Weird Route can be considered an element of Video Game Cruelty Punishment.
- Susie's spar against the Hammer of Justice only has one outcome, instead being notable for how the game softly leans into the assumption that you do it. While the other Shadow Crystal-relevant sidequests conceptually deconstruct the superboss as a needless danger, the one in Chapter 4 reconstructs it as a valuable opportunity for self-improvement and is also the least hidden. It has by far the most direct plot importance, further developing Susie's relationship with Gerson and conclusively resolving her inadequacy over her initially-useless healing spell. Moreover, some later events in the chapter make a bit less sense if Gerson never pulled off his Clark Kent Outfit to show his Hammer of Justice persona. First, in the 2nd Sanctuary, Susie mistakes the Sinister Silhouette of a malevolent Living Statue for Gerson, though much of its resemblance comes from sharing a Humongous-Headed Hammer and Samurai Ponytail which Gerson would only display as a boss. Secondly, in the chapter's climax, when Gerson shows up, the party will be unsurprised by his combat skills even if he'd never shown them before.
Zig-Zagged in Disco Elysium.
- Inverted with the four political ideologies, as while they all get mocked to some extent, the game also shows their good sides as well. Communism, ultraliberalism, and moralism and their associated thoughts give useful benefits (the communist thought gives you extra EXP, the ultraliberal one money, and the moralist one heals morale for spouting their respective opinions), and are intrinsically tied to the game’s plot^note. Not so much for fascism, which gets mocked through its four main NPCs^note, is more or less irrelevant to the game’s plot aside from the fact the old kingdom ended up causing the communists to rise to power, and the associated thought, which attempts to drive you further into alcoholism by boosting your often-situational Booze-Based Buff and outright hurting your morale for supporting fascist options. Being an outright fascist is also a good way to piss off the otherwise unflappable Kim and get him to not trust you, which can culminate to him outright cursing you out in the end of the fascist vision quest for both health and morale damage.
- Of the possible "copotypes", the game’s plot leans towards the detective being the Superstar cop, as it relates to the detective’s obsession with disco, and dialogue with his old team reveals he ditched them, claiming they’re "cramping his style", to go on a self-destructive bender for three days with a huge amount of destruction and vandalism in his wake. It also works together well to justify his often strange behavior/ego throughout the game and ludicrously effective nature as a detective in the past and in the present better than the other copotypes.
Dragon Age:
- Dragon Age: Origins:
  - While the game attempts to avert this trope by connecting each of the origin stories to the main quest in some fashion, some are still more preferred than others. Of note is the Human Noble, who loses their entire family to The Dragon, is the only protagonist who can possibly become king or queen of Ferelden, and is also the only character that's given any kind of portrayal in the game's promotional material. In a possible effort to make up for the Dalish Elf's lackluster treatment, Dragon Age II includes a pre-made world state where they are the Warden (alongside a state with the Dwarf Noble and one with, you guessed it, the Human Noble), brings back their specific clan, and even makes an Ascended Extra out of its Guest-Star Party Member. Dragon Age: Inquisition, in turn, comes with just one default world state starring the Dalish Elf Warden.
  - Played straight with the Landsmeet. While Alistair's fate is determined by player choices there, post-Origins he's portrayed as the sole ruler of Ferelden in supplemental materials, and King Alistair gets more content in his Dragon Age II cameo than either Warden Alistair or Drunk Alistair. By contrast, if Anora remains queen at the Landsmeet (either on her own or married to him), she'll get Put on a Bus in the sequels (along with Loghain if he survived Origins), and isn't seen again until a very small cameo in Inquisition. That game zig zags it though: King Alistair only makes the same very small cameo (though he's also referenced more in codex entries and incidental NPC chatter than Anora), while Warden Alistair has a substantial role in one of the main plot lines. It comes at the cost of the player having to choose between saving him and their Dragon Age II PC in the Fade. If Warden Loghain is around instead he's the one in this role.
- Dragon Age II:
  - The game clearly favors choosing Mages over Templars. Meredith is antagonistic for the entire game, committing acts that can be hard to find any justification for behind her own paranoia, while her Mage counterpart Orsino is presented as a reasonable figure who tries to help maintain peace in the city and only steps to confront Meredith after she has begun to slip into total insanity, with his possible bad deeds almost tacked-on at the end, namely that he knew the mage who killed Hawke's mother. Meanwhile, the ending cinematic outright calls you a tyrant for siding with the Templars and supplementary material almost always assumes you sided with the mages. Your siblings reflect this as well. If Bethany is alive and joins the Circle, she is happy to finally have a place to both learn magic, and not feel ashamed of having it after years of being on the wrong, which makes her far more relatable as a character. If Carver is alive and joins the Templars, he is not happy at all since it means going against his family, and becoming something that nearly ruined his family when they were younger, which pales in comparison to his attitude if he is made a Grey Warden, where, unlike Bethany, he is happy and feels glad to have a noble motivation. Then there's the slant on the "Champion of Kirkwall" codex entry in Inquisition, where if you sided with the mages, it consists of a Reasonable Authority Figure explaining to his fellow templars that Hawke had good reasons to oppose Meredith and essentially justifies doing so. Meanwhile if you sided with the templars, it consists of an enchanter telling her fellow mages that it's a good thing Hawke won't be at the Conclave given that they helped with the "systematic slaughter of all of Kirkwall's mages".
  - That said, the number of named benevolent mages you meet in Kirkwall who aren't a party member can more or less be counted on one hand. Of those party members, it includes an abomination who could end up murdering a 15-year-old girl if not convinced to stand down and a naive blood mage who consorted with a demon (but given the revelations of the third game, Merrill might not have seen a demon at all, and there is a gray territory to her conflict with Marethari, who isn't a saint either). And the evil mages? One can pull a Heel–Face Turn if you have her turn herself over to the Templars, another murders one of the few decent Templars in Kirkwall who had sympathized with the mage's plight, and another is a Serial Killer responsible for the biggest emotional blow on Hawke with the murder of their mother. To be fair, however, the Templars ignore the reports of the serial killer for three years, even if there was a Templar who was on the case but was dismissed by Meredith and even punished for it, which underscores the Templars' incompetence in doing their duty in favor of simply oppressing mages when the more dangerous of their lot are at large which will make mages' rebellion towards their rule more justified.
  - Most quests have hidden options that can be unlocked depending on the companions you brought. Of all the companions, Anders is the one with the most unique and story-changing scenes. For example, bringing him to the Deep Roads mission is the only way to turn your sibling into a Grey Warden since his senses can detect another Grey Warden in the area to bring Hawke's sibling in; this particular example is encouraged by the fact that he is a Grey Warden, so players might get an idea to bring him to the Darkspawn-tainted location. Others scenes include temporarily curing Bartrand of his insanity (which throws that entire situation into a new light), becoming possessed by Justice while in the fade, and almost falling under the influence of Corypheus in the Legacy DLC. To top it all off, as a mage, Anders also has almost every special option that Bethany and Merrill have. This is also a case of Developer's Foresight; Anders being the only healer in the group, many players (including those who skipped the first game and are unfamiliar with the relevance of Grey Wardens) would bring him virtually everywhere, so he was a safe choice for these exclusive scenes.
  - Bethany and Carver each have a story route the plot favors and tries to nudge the player towards. For Bethany, the game pushes her towards joining the Circle Tower, as many of her interactions in the first chunk of the game has her being worried she'll be found and feeling alone as the only mage in her family. Her being brought in as a mage has her later showing up happier and feeling like she is able to be herself now, with it also adding a face to the mage faction and a closer connection to them. Carver by contrast favors becoming a Grey Warden, as the experience humbles him and he matures thanks to seeing the responsibilities that come with it, and by the end Hawke and Carver are closer than they were at the start. By contrast, Bethany becoming a Grey Warden and Carver becoming a Templar causes them to become sullen, sour, and upset at being one, and the story presents them as being in a worse place than they were before.
- Dragon Age: Inquisition:
  - The game pretty heavily leans in on the story being best played as an elf, specifically a female elf. A female elf Inquisitor gets the most romanceable options out of any race/gender combo (five compared to the four available for a human female, or three for any other combination), their status as a Dalish elf is discussed heavily in the story and during sidequests, affects certain relationships with other characters most in general, and the later stages of the third game's storyline suddenly focuses heavily on the elven lore, they get a long and complex War Table mission relating to their clan, and Solas is only romancable by a female elf. The last one in particular makes it clearer this was the intention, as not only does it possibly end with a change to their character model, but Solas is revealed to be Fen'Harel, the one responsible for the events of the third game and eventually the Big Bad of the next game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, with the game giving their relationship a big amount of unique focus in the final DLC. The only race that comes anywhere near as close in terms of possibly focus is a human Inquisitor, given that they are thrusted into leading a human-first organization, which they may follow to a tee or follow the spirit of it at the cost of angering conservatives.
  - There's a slight inclination in the main game to side with the rebel mages over the Templars in the first act, influenced by a number of factors:
  - Each path includes the early introduction of a potential companion, but Dorian appears in the lead-up to the mage path and is more deeply invested in the story, even becoming a required member of the Inquisitor's party during the recruitment of the mages^note. If you learn of the mage's situation and side with the Templars anyway (regardless of whether they are allied or conscripted) then Dorian can eventually be recruited... but he'll start off with negative approval. Cole on the other hand only makes himself known after you've committed to recruiting the Templars (although he prefers them being conscripted rather than allying with them), acts as an Guest-Star Party Member rather than a full companion, and his approval goes into significant boost if you ally with the mages instead (he will disapprove greatly if they are conscripted).^note
  - The leadup to the seeking the mages' help to close the breach (In Hushed Whispers) has considerably more weight and urgency than the leadup to seek the templars' help (Champions of the Just). You can meet Dorian without ever actually committing to the mage path, and you are introduced to Alexius' use of time magic that threatens to tear the universe apart, the Tevinter occupation of Redcliffe, and the rebel mages being conscripted into the Tevinter army on Fereldan soil. Meanwhile, the extent of the Templar introduction is the Lord Seeker being a bit of a Jerkass and punching out a cleric in Val Royeaux, with no indication beyond a few words from Cassandra that this is anything to really worry about in the face of the Breach. While the Templar storyline has strengths of its own — fewer major disapprovals/disapprovals from companions, the follow up quest Under Her Skin is easier to complete than Before the Dawn (which would be tedious and can overwhelm the unprepared player given that Emprise du Lion is a high level area), Calpernia being a more complex and interesting Dragon than Samson, better insight into Corypheus' own mindset and psyche, a possible side-quest with Ser Barris if you choose to ally with the templars instead of conscripting them, and you can skip Calpernia's boss fight if you gather evidence that proves that Corypheus will stab her on the back — none of these come into play until long after the player has already completed the quest and recruited the Templars. Overall, the mage path may be more rewarding storywise, but gameplay-wise, the templar path may save you a lot of time while getting the same experience points from doing the mage path.
Halfway through Dragon Quest V, you have to choose one of two girls to marry: Nera or Bianca. Bianca is the favored bride, having known you the longest and being depicted as such in most of the promotional art, along with her children. There's also the fact that Nera already has a love interest before you meet her, and you meet her just a few days before the in-game choice of who to marry. (That choosing Nera as your bride causes Bianca to undergo a Trauma Conga Line of misery is an Urban Legend of Zelda that got way out of hand.) The DS remake averts this by having Nera (and her remake-exclusive sister Debora) also meet the hero when they were children, and gives Bianca an alternate love interest if she's not chosen. But the promotional art still uses Bianca as The Face of the game and almost exclusively depicts the hero's children with Bianca's blonde hair rather than Nera's blue or Debora's black, so the trope hasn't gone away entirely (probably because Square Enix is well aware that Hero/Bianca has always been the Fan-Preferred Couple and Bianca the Breakout Character that DQ5 is best known for). The Playstation 2 version (which is incredibly broken and allows you to skip 99% of the game) even defaults to Bianca being your wife if you skip the marriage choice.
Downplayed in Elden Ring - Ranni's questline is bar none the most involved in the game, spanning almost the entire game and several characters - and the game makes sure you want to do it - not only through direct rewards but also access to some specific shops, bosses, an entire - otherwise unexplorable - chunk of the map, as well as unlocking an ending where Ranni takes you as her consort. It's entirely possible to refuse helping her and focus on other things, but you miss out on a lot. The reason why this is downplayed is because completing the questline doesn't actually lock you out of any other ending - it's entirely possible to do Ranni's questline in its entirety and then just...intentionally not choose her ending after the final boss fight.
Final Fantasy:
- Starting off in the World of Ruin portion in Final Fantasy VI has Celes stranded on an island with Cid and has grown ill due to neglecting his own health to keep Celes healthy. If you keep Cid alive, he reveals a hidden staircase leading to the basement with a raft made so that Celes can escape and find her friends. If Cid dies, Celes thinks Cid is playing a prank and then begs him to wake up before realizing that Cid is truly gone. Overcome with despair of losing what was basically a father to her and being alone without her friends, Celes jumps off a cliff to end it all. She survives anyway and sees a bird carrying Locke's bandana, which gives her hope that her friends are alive and she sets out to find them after finding the raft Cid left behind. Given that the "Cid dies" scene is a lot more developed than the "Cid lives" scene, it seems that the writers preferred to have Celes find hope again on her own.
- In Final Fantasy VII, Aerith's date sequence is the longest, makes the most sense with the previous plot (she'd previously offered to go on a date with Cloud in her opening scene; she'd previously been responsible for choosing Marlene's hiding place), the aesthetic themes of her character (she and Cloud played in a children's park earlier in the game, so it fits that she wants to take him to an amusement park), and with the plot structure (the date is a Breather Episode before two Wham Episodes that focus heavily on Aeris). It also contains a significant bit of Foreshadowing concerning Zack, and is the easiest date to get. Tifa's date is a little shorter, a little harder to get, and only foreshadows the fact that Tifa's keeping something bottled up around Cloud, which is not new information. Yuffie's date is slightly shorter again and has the least plot importance, as Yuffie doesn't know anything about Cloud's past and doesn't know who Marlene is, meaning Cloud gets to talk to Marlene (when his date will do that on all other routes). Barret's date is by far the shortest, skipping the play sequence, going straight to the gondola ride, and having fewer lines even there, none of which foreshadow anything. He doesn't even get a more fleshed-out version of the scene with Marlene, even though he's the closest to her in the cast.
- Final Fantasy VII Remake: Bizarrely, the favored choices are at an impasse with each other. Getting the chapter 14 meeting/dream involves doing all of either Tifa and Aerith's sidequests and choosing which one to wake up in chapter 11. Cloud's words that Aerith is reaching out to them in the next chapter make sense if he had Aerith in chapter 14, yet waking up Tifa actually exposits much more, with Tifa asking what Cloud's relationship with Aerith is to contrast an earlier question from Aerith about Tifa. Waking up Aerith just has her say the same thing she would say upon waking up on her own to boot.
- Final Fantasy VII Rebirth:
  - The Queen's Blood tournament on the Shinra-8 allows you to face a selection of challengers, but the ones favored by the commentary and plot are Wise 3.0, Tifa, and Andrea. Wise returns as a player during the proper side quest and Chadley singles him out in his game. Tifa is the only one who challenges Cloud before the tournament begins and only loses to him or Regina, the reigning champ. Andrea beats both his competitors in the first two rounds and as Cloud's sponsor in the previous game has the bigger connection between him and Madam M.
  - During Costa del Sol, the girls' conservative beachwear options and helping Red and Tifa are more favored by the narrative. Red's comment that Tifa reminds him of a breaching whale has more story weight when a whale-like Weapon eats her and shows her the battle for the Lifestream later in the game. Aerith calls out for Cloud when she is captured, Tifa just exclaims to get free, Hojo has something to say for both Red and Tifa, while Barret is treated as an afterthought when he is captured.
  - Chapter 8's smaller date has the most impact with Tifa, as the two have the most to say over Jessie's poster and the most reaction to hearing that a man with a gun arm shot up the Battle Square. Chapter 12's larger date makes the most sense with Aerith. Rosa in the play uses a wand, so the staff wielding Aerith is the best fit. Aerith's skywheel date gets a call back in the ending where Cloud and Aerith once again intertwine hands as she leaves. Additionally, the story of a wandering hero who must leave Rosa but promises to return makes the most sense with her as well. Cait is most heartbroken when Aerith turns her back on him, and she is the one who is seen accepting his apology after the Temple, which makes more sense if they had a bonding moment just now. The trophy image of the Skywheel framed by fireworks is only seen on her date as well.
- After the first dungeon on Disc 2 of Final Fantasy VIII, the party is split into two groups, one lead by Squall and the other with Selphie. Who you assign the other four members to is fully up to you, with Rinoa even specifically saying she doesn't care which party you put her in. Rinoa going with Squall's group gets you a bunch of unique dialog, extra extended scenes during the sequence and after the groups reunite, some initial character development for Squall that ties into his further development later on and even a FMV of Rinoa when the Garden becomes mobile. Putting her with Selphie's team is treated the same as any other character with that group with nothing extra, indicating that the story prefers to have Rinoa go with Squall.
- Final Fantasy X-2: At the beginning of chapter 2 you have the option of giving the sphere that has a recording of Vegnagun to either the Youth League or New Yevon. While neither is given too much weight, there is more incentive to give it to the Youth League, you have to meet the League in chapter 1, Paine knows their leader Nooj, and you inevitably have to cross New Yevon in chapter 3. Narratively, siding with New Yevon also doesn't make much sense due to the events of the previous game, where Yevon as a faith was revealed to be a big lie, and Yuna ends up fighting against it. New Yevon, though they acknowledge the issues the original teachings have and want to take the ideals and good elements to salvage it while addressing the flaws, is still presented as something the heroes don't fully like. Getting 100% in a single playthrough is only possible with the Youth League to boot.
This manifests in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, in part due to the game getting Christmas Rushed resulting in cut content:
- Male exiles can recruit the Handmaiden while females can recruit the Disciple. The Disciple gets the shaft pretty hard here, as his only companion perks are making medpacs on demand (useless since somebody in the party should be able to Force Heal), restoring your Force Points on demand when not in combat (useless since you can just regenerate them on your own with a little patience), and training him as a Jedi. His story significance is tied largely to your backstory. Meanwhile, the Handmaiden gets to teach the Exile to apply his Wisdom modifier to his defense (extremely valuable for a Consular), has a major storyline moment where she gets to duel Atris right before the Exile does during the endgame, and can also be trained as a Jedi. The only advantage is that the Disciple can gain more Jedi levels.
- Light sided Exiles can recruit Mira, while Dark Sided Exiles recruit Hanharr. Hanharr of course gets the shaft - anything he can do can also be performed by Mandalore, who is also forced into your party on several occasions. Mira gets unique equipment, the ability to fire rockets, and Jedi potential. Plus, Mira will have an extra boss fight and solo sequence on the Very Definitely Final Dungeon - which Hanharr does not get.
In the H-game Legend of Queen Opala, the good route is the main one, giving you more areas to travel through, chances to fight Sir Edward, and learn more about why Osira is doing what she's doing. The evil route was sort of an afterthought; you get different sex scenes, capture the Queens, and then do the final quest of the Good side in reverse (requiring a lot of grinding just to get out of Osira's palace, which is normally the endgame dungeon), before battling the final boss of Osira's route. However, the player can only become Pharaoh on the evil route, through a Guide Dang It! method that allows him to betray Osira and claim all three royals as his concubines and party members. The Good route is also canon for the second game.
OMORI has an odd version of this. The main route is what the story favors. It explains what's actually going on and have all the conflicts be resolved in the good ending. On the other hand, the alternate route is favored by the gameplay. The last chapter has Bonus Dungeons and Superbosses that are only available in this route, but the story isn't explained, the main conflict stays unresolved, and the good ending isn't available in this route. You need to play both routes to see all the game offers.
Pathfinder: Kingmaker:
- Late in the game you are given two quests and told you only have time to do one. One is to rush to join the Aldori Swordlords battling the Kellid barbarian's threatening the local area, and the other is to track down your former cleric Tristian after he is revealed to have been a spy for the Big Bad. Of the two options, the game pushes the player to rush to stop the barbarians due the consequences for not doing so; you can lose your first companion (Amiri), your alliance with the Aldori Swordlords (the people who gave you claim to the Stolen Lands), potentially one of the advisors you picked at the start of the game (Kassil), and the Arc Villain is presented as more urgent of a threat because he gets ahead of you quicker, with the story treating your late arrival as a mistake. The other route means you lose some information about the Big Bad and lose Tristian, but unless you are romancing him, the game stacks the choices so heavily in favor of gunning for the barbarian that most players would pick it due to the massive impact it has on your playthrough.. A patch later adjusted it so Amiri would remain regardless of the choice, which at least better balances the two, but it remains tilted in favor of the first option unless the player doesn't plan to work with the Swordlords again and never picked Kassil as an advisor.
- The controversial Darven questline has three options for handling it; side with Darven, a liar and pirate in a pact with a powerful devil, side with the Hellknights looking for him, who are comically evil and oppressive, or kick both parties out of your kingdom. Siding with Darven gives you a new ally in the finale, bonuses to your kingdom, items, and is written as the best case scenario because, despite being a pirate, he's friendly and respects you enough to work with you instead of against you. By contrast, siding with the Hellknights causes your kingdom to suffer possibly game ending penalties and lose several valuable items or shops as a result. Picking neither gives you nothing save for whatever loot they have on them.
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous: The game has several Mythic Paths that each have quests and plots unique to them. However, the Angel, Demon, and Legend Mythic Paths are the one's that have the most story content and relevance to the wider story of the crusade against the demons of the Worldwound. They are the only paths that all players unlock, Angel and Demon tie into the opposing sides of the war, and Legend has a unique gameplay change and story arc as well. The other paths are given their own stories, but they feel a bit out of place at times in the conflict by comparison, and only tie into the main story by virtue of being the method you wage war. Not helping is that the other options are missable, so they have to be written in such a way that doesn't impact the story if you fail to get it, which the three mentioned options avoid due to being directly tied to the story.
Planescape: Torment offers the choice of being a Fighter, Mage or Thief, and while there's a wealth of content and rewards for each route, Mage is by far the most optimal choice as the high Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma that acts as a Required Secondary Power for the playthrough allows the player to act as a Guile Hero or Manipulative Bastard as well and talk their way out of virtually any situation. Additionally, two of your companions' questlines require that the player be a mage. This ends up being justified as it's revealed that the Nameless One was an evil wizard in his previous life.
Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver: The remakes integrate the version's mascot Legendary into the main story and force the player to seek out and battle it, after defeating the Kimono Girls in a new lategame Boss Rush. This plot seems to have been written more with HeartGold's Ho-Oh is mind, as it's located in the Bell Tower, in the same city you fight the Kimono Girls, and both it and the Kimono Girls are tied to the mythology of Ecruteak City. Lugia, by contrast, requires a detour through a long, HM-heavy dungeon far away from Ecruteak, and had no lore connection to the Kimono Girls in the originals.
SaGa:
- Romancing SaGa features eight characters to choose from as your main protagonist, but Albert has two quests that are only available to him, as well as one shared between him and Sif; in comparison, Gray has one unique quest, Sif shares the spotlight, and everyone else just has unique lines for quests anyone can undertake. Albert can also find and wear the armor of a legendary hero, making him the only character with a potential appearance change.^note
- Romancing SaGa 2 has a lot of branches, such as who to support for the throne of an allied kingdom, or whether to gain a new type of magic over saving a unique race of possible allies. However, the remakes include a Superboss that can only be challenged if the player never took a branch that required sacrificing a potential unit type.
- Romancing SaGa 3 also has eight characters to choose from, but Katarina cannot be recruited by the other seven, and her personal quest is directly connected to one of the game's major subplots. With that said, Khalid gets to briefly team up with every other protagonist (including Katrina) during his version of the prologue, Julian has the most variance in how his story can end, and Sarah is a Child of Destiny who can recruit a plot-important character before the endgame, and whose version of the final boss is different than everyone else's.
  - There's also another example of favoritism concerning Julian: in his story, he can decide whether or not to be Monika's bodyguard, but he chooses to do so if anyone else is the main protagonist, and there are plenty of romantic scenes between the two (including a possible ending where they can be married).
- Unlimited Saga has seven main protagonists, but Ruby's story is the only one that focuses on the Seven Wonders, a major part of the setting that is also tied to the Final Boss of every route. She is also joined on her quest by the titular "Unlimited", a legendary hero who is unrecruitable by anyone else. Oh, and she was the main protagonist of a Japan-only novelization of the game.
Shin Megami Tensei:
- Persona:
  - A minor case happens with the Hermit Social Link in the third game's female route. Saori will become your friend for the link regardless of whether you join the library committee (under Ms. Ounishi), or the health committee (under Mr. Edogawa), but in the penultimate event of Saori's Social Link, Ms. Ounishi will stand up for Saori alongside Ms. Toriumi regardless of whether you're working under Ms. Ounishi.
  - The remake removes the choice of clubs from the Chariot and Fortune Social Links, locking Kaz into Athletics and Keisuke into the Art Club, giving the other options from the original (Kendo, Swimming, Music and Photography) less weight.
  - At the beginning of Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, you can choose whether to follow the cast of Persona 3 or Persona 4, with the side not chosen joining you after the first labyrinth. Persona 4 is given slight favoritism since they are the then-incumbent cast, the game is set in a twisted version of their high school, and Rei turns out to be the ghost of a girl who lived and died in the Inaba area.
- Where themes of Law vs Chaos are concerned, the Neutral endings in Shin Megami Tensei where humanity takes a stand and does not commit to a specific faction, are considered to be the best endings from the creator perspective. Neutral routes also usually give you more content such as bosses (since you made enemies of both factions, whereas those neutral in the conflict, by definition, don't really have any malice for someone who's on Law or Chaos), sidequests, lore, and unlockable items. To say the least the alternative endings are not that desirable... However, there are some major exceptions.
  - Exaggerated in the very first game in the series with multiple endings, Megami Tensei II. There, Chaos was the default path and Lucifer an outright good guy, while siding with Law was more like a Non-Standard Game Over.
  - Also exaggerated in Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon, where Chaos gets you new missions on New Game Plus, Neutral lets you fuse Masakado... after completing all missions, which means the Chaos route has to be finished first, and Law gets you absolutely nothing...gameplay-wise, but it's the only route in which the damsel survives.
  - Shin Megami Tensei II is one of the rare games to favor Law. For one, it's very easy to lock yourself into the route due to the sheer number of Law choices offered early on. The Law route's plot most naturally follows the first half of the story, and its partner receives the bulk of the game's Character Development. It's also the only Law route where you oppose the faction's corrupt elements, turning on both the Archangels and YHVH Himself. Aleph, the game's protagonist, is implied to be Law aligned in his spinoff appearances.
  - Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne didn't have any favoritism in the initial release, but in the Maniax Updated Re-release (which was the version released outside Japan) the True Demon Ending, a traditional Chaos path, gets most of the game's additional content, is the only way to face the True Final Boss, and its ending shot forms the basis of the game's title screen. In the Demi-Fiend's Previous Player-Character Cameo in the DLC of Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, it's explicitly stated he took the TDE path, as he mentions challenging the TDE-exclusive True Final Boss, Lucifer, and losing.
  - Devil Survivor has five routes, with four of them having more or less the same amount of content (As the route split doesn't happen until the tail end of the game) and the fifth route more-or-less being a bad ending. In the rerelease Devil Survivor Overclocked, however, three of the routes (One of which being the aforementioned bad ending) are given bonus content in the form of an Eighth day, dedicated to fleshing out how the setting is affected by the choice you picked while the other two routes are left as-is. Although to be fair, the endings of those two routes pretty much made it impossible to have some kind of Eighth day attached to it without completely rewriting them. In a flip to how it usually happens in SMT, though, the two routes (Atsuro's and Gin's) which don't receive Eighth days are actually the Neutral routes.
  - Devil Survivor 2 is not as extreme as other games in the series, as all the endings the same length in story time and each one has a relatively decent ending, but the Reset Button ending is quite clearly the favored option by the story. Its the only one where you get almost the entire party (sans one who cannot be recruited except on his route), both sides of the conflict, Yamato and Ronaldo, put aside their differences to work together to defeat the Big Bad Polaris, and all the characters get happier lives when its over than before. The Record Breaker version even uses it as a rough base for the storyline of its chapter, the only difference being the presence of the entire cast, even the one who normally can not be recruited.
  - While Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is the most blatantly pro-Neutral game in the franchise, the Redux rerelease gives three expanded routes that provide some nuance to the Neutral route by revealing you only manage to delay the inevitable in the original ending, and have to effectively damn yourself to a Forever War to provide a permanent Neutral solution. Meanwhile, the extended Law route leads to you taking away humanity's desire for conflict instead of its free will, creating a world of peace and harmony for all humans, while the extended Chaos route leads to you creating a world where all humans have infinite freedom and possibility. Law+ and Chaos+ are also the only routes in which you can bring Zelenin and Jimenez, respectively, back from the levels of extremism they reach in all of the other routes.
  - Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse shows its neutral favoritism by making its Law and Chaos endings end the plot prematurely. Still, within its neutral branches, it continues to favor the Bonds route as the game regularly praises you for decisions that favor it.
- Shin Megami Tensei V:
  - Canon of Creation is an odd example in it's "true" neutral route in which you create a world for humans alone, in which gods and demons are all removed from existence which has a unique post credits scene and is the most involved ending to get due to requiring completion of multiple optional questlines AND the defeat of the game's optional Super Boss Shiva. The odd aspect comes from the fact that to unlock said ending in which you basically annhilate all demons from existence, you have to complete multiple questlines which generally show how noble and, well, human demons can be. In fact, V is the most sympathetic portrayal of demons in the franchise and yet the secret ending that forces you to see that is easily the most anti-demon ending in the franchise as well. As a bit of a consolation, once you've unlocked the requirements for the secret ending, you can get it in any subsequent run so you can avoid the dissonance that way if you wish, but it's still odd.
  - Canon of Vengeance lacks a Neutral ending entirely, only offering Law and Chaos. Of the two, the New Law route gets a more developed Final Boss (while the New Law representative isn't fought on the New Chaos path) and a slightly expanded ending.
Undertale:
- A Pacifist Run doesn't just have the Golden Ending, but is significantly longer, has an entire area otherwise inaccessible, and is the only source of major revelations about Flowey's origin, Alphys's backstory, and the nature of Determination. By comparison, a neutral run simply has a Modular Epilogue and two bosses, the latter of which you'll fight anyway if you start with a Pacifist Run (because you'll need to get at least one Neutral ending first, but don't have to restart the game). After completing a Neutral playthrough, Flowey will outright recommend resetting if you've locked the True Pacifist content off and doing all the sidequests if you haven't. This is just a trick on his part, but works out for you anyway.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment for the Genocide Route extends to the gameplay being uniquely antagonistic to the player. Maintaining the route requires a monotonous grind to exhaust the kill limit on each area, exacerbated by the encounter decreasing as you get closer. Many events after the Ruins are (functionally) skipped: the puzzles will be solved already, almost all of Mettaton's appearances are missing, and most of the boss fights die a single hit. The only thing that prevents the route from being a complete chore are the fights with Undyne the Undying and Sans. It is clear that the game itself is designed to discourage playing this way.
- While there are several possible ways for the first boss fight to go, the game, through its tutorials and mechanics, heavily nudges the player into accidentally killing Toriel, then re-loading and sparing her. This leads to a Wham Line right afterwards that reveals Flowey knows about your ability to SAVE and re-load, and that SAVING is an in-story concept as well as a game mechanic.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader: The Sanctioned Psyker origin gets you some extra dialogue and a significantly larger amount of possible abilities and mechanics to choose from. While a typical RPG may have chosen to present the psyker as its own mage-type class, making it into an origin means psykers get access to the same regular classes as everyone else in addition to all the unique abilities and increased customization exclusively available to them.

Simulation Games

Stardew Valley presents the choice to the player of either restoring the Community Center by fulfilling the requested bundles from the forest spirits that had taken residence there, or siding with the Joja Corporation who will turn it into a warehouse and paying in cash to them for the town's upgrades. The later option only rewards the player with a soda vending machine, in contrast with the former which gives more rewards and friendship with the rest of the villagers; in addition it doesn't make a lot of sense for the player character to join with Joja Corp, considering that they were already a white-collared employee of them who grew disillusioned with their life and their job and thus choose to live on a Farm.
Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life makes a big deal out of raising your farmer's child into a decent adult, with a goal in life to strive for in the form of six different branches — Farming, Ranching, Art, Music, Athletics, and Academics. Each child can be influenced into any field, though their innate interests will be influenced by your spouse ^note. But while every branch has a Bittersweet Ending, the two branches involving the child growing up and choosing to take over the farm are given a happier note to them, noting that the legacy started by the protagonist's father keeps going.
Happened in Wing Commander 4 via over-promising in the advertising. Supposedly players would be allowed to choose whether to stay loyal to the Terran Confederation or jump ship and ally themselves with the Border Worlds. In practice, attempting to stick with the Confederation past a certain point will spawn a never-ending supply of Border World bombers, and an insultingly short ending sequence once they inevitably kill you.

Stealth Games

Metal Gear Solid, oddly, seems to slightly prefer the "bad" Ending B to the "good" and canonical Ending A. In Ending B, both Otacon and Meryl's character developments are finished off better (with Otacon rising to his role as Snake's equal, and the truth behind Meryl's background being revealed), and Snake's is more interesting as he is allowed to have a visible breakdown after Meryl's death which Otacon has to talk him out of. Snake and Otacon's conversation is more plot-relevant, focusing on their feelings about the events that have happened, their career plans, and their feelings about Naomi, while Snake and Meryl instead talk about their newfound love and think about the beauty of Alaska. The plot even makes somewhat more sense, as in Ending B, the implication is that Liquid attached Meryl's corpse to a fake bomb and posed her to make sure she seems alive, but in Ending A Snake merely goes to Meryl and the bomb is forgotten about. Even the New Game Plus item Otacon gives to Snake is significantly more powerful than Meryl's, which is nearly useless. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty borrows much more from Ending B than from Ending A, omitting Meryl and having Snake and Otacon's Ending B realization that they are meant to "take a trip to Jupiter" as part of the unspoken backstory. On the other hand, Snake uses both of the bonus items from the first MGS in 2. Meryl's return in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots establishes that she canonically survived, but her subplot involves the above-mentioned backstory exclusive to Otacon's route.

Survival Horror

Clock Tower:
- Clock Tower 2 has a case of this when it comes to the twist that there are two Scissormen. In Jennifer's scenario, the twist is meaningless, since Harris was barely a presence in the story until that point, the game never makes use of him as Scissorman, and as soon as he reveals he's the fake Scissorman, he gets killed by the real one. In Helen's scenario, the fake Scissorman is handled better, since Barton has more of a presence on the story, has a fascination with the case of Scissorman which foreshadows his role, both versions of Helen's chapter 2 give a hint about the Scissorman^note, and Helen can kill the fake Scissorman while thinking he's the real one, giving you a bad ending, since learning that there is another Scissorman is crucial to getting the best ending.
- Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within has a hint telling the player to explore the game with both Alyssa and Bates, and while there are situations where you have to use Bates to beat the game, the game heavily favors Alyssa, as she overall has more interactions with other characters, more dialogue when checking items, is less likely to get killed when interacting with someone dangerous, and the final confrontation that leads to ending A can only be done with her, as the door is arbitrarily locked when trying to get there as Bates. Bates also doesn't have a single good ending, as out of the game's 13 endings, his presence causes 6 bad endings, and in one of them he even kills Alyssa's father. So it's safer to start a cutscene with Alyssa while stashing away her amulet in case Bates is needed, and use him in case using Alyssa doesn't work.
Dino Crisis:
- There are multiple times that you are given a choice between Gail and Rick on which way to go. Usually the option given by Rick is more favored by the narrative and gameplay. The first time finding Tom is a necessary step and Gail doesn't reveal anything other than a quick glimpse at Doctor Kirk, so helping Rick find Tom while he is alive gets you all the stuff you need to progress later. Afterwards Rick's plan to use the hidden passageway immediately puts you back on Kirk as soon as you escape, while Gail's route has you awkwardly stumble onto him without knowing where he is. Rick's idea to assemble a Stabilizer and Initializer is the only way to find the final upgrades without backtracking into otherwise unused rooms, which is especially notable for the shotgun upgrade as you learn the code to get it just before the choice.
- The game has three endings that depend what final choice you make and what approach you use to get to the final area. Stopping Gail from leaving and then going after Dr. Kirk yourself has Regina capture the doctor and everyone escaping together. Choosing to stop Gail from going after Dr. Kirk and then meeting up with Gail and Rick at the boat puts you at the ending where the heroes escape through a cavern on the boat. Choosing to go after the doctor will have you finding Gail giving a Final Speech about the true purpose of their mission (capture Dr. Kirk to grill him about his Third Energy research as a potential weapon for the government) before succumbing to his wounds. Dr. Kirk then mocks Gail for being a pawn for a government that didn't care about him and gets slapped by Regina for running his mouth. Regina then meets up with Rick and they escape the facility with the doctor in tow. Notably, this is the only ending where Regina kills the T-Rex herself. The ending where Gail dies had more story detail put into it, though Capcom never stated which ending is the canonical one and the sequel doesn't address it either.
Fear & Hunger: Termina has eight playable characters and three possible resolutions to the story. There is a slight nudge towards going for Ending A as Olivia, as not only is Ending A the only one that allows for multiple survivors and simultaneously foils both Per'kele and the Kaiser, Olivia is the sister of Reila, the Machine God's host, and she gets dialogue exclusive to her before she is allowed to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence.
Resident Evil:
- While both Chris and Jill's scenarios in Resident Evil 1 are pretty fleshed out, their partner characters aren't developed equally. Jill gets Barry, who is established as a married man with two daughters, who acts a bit strange throughout the adventure because of Wesker blackmailing him by using his family as hostages. Should Barry die, he leaves behind a tear jerking letter addressed to his family. Barry can also potentially save Jill twice (from the ceiling trap and cutting the fight against Plant 42 short), one of which also allows Jill to acquire the shotgun noticeably sooner than Chris can. Barry also has many cheesy lines that make his character stand out more. Meanwhile, Chris gets Rebecca, whose only memorable moment is her being attacked by a Hunter and being killed by it if you don't save her in time. Unlike Barry's death, Rebecca's death scene has Chris react in a goofy way and then quickly gets over it. While Rebecca is playable twice in Chris's story, she has far less screen time than Barry and has a sparse background which only establishes her as being an accomplished medic at 18 years old. When it comes to finding Enrico, he tells Jill that someone is betraying their team and then he gets shot for his trouble. When Chris finds him, Enrico accuses him of being a double crosser before being shot by the actual traitor, which gives nothing for Chris to go on. The remake keeps these elements pretty much the same, but with less Narm.
- Resident Evil 2 slightly favors the Claire A/Leon B story where Sherry gets infected with the G-Virus and thus Claire has to find a cure. In Leon's story, Ada and Leon grow a bit close together throughout the game and she dies in Leon's arms near the end. In the reversed scenarios, Ada dangles over a ledge and Leon's strength gives out, causing her to fall into a Bottomless Pit while Leon curses Umbrella for causing the whole mess before he throws the G-Virus sample into the pit. Claire's story is even less fleshed out since nothing major happens other than the two of them being stalked by Mr. X. Resident Evil 6 establishes that Sherry most definitely was infected and subsequently cured like she is in Claire's Game A, while the remake of 2 amalgamates both scenarios so that this specific event happens in both Leon and Claire's stories.
- Resident Evil 2 (Remake), on the other hand, slightly favors Leon A/Claire B. With the aforementioned amalgamation of plot points, the main difference between the A/B stories is that whoever arrives at the R.P.D. first is the only one to meet Lt. Marvin Branagh. In Leon's story, Marvin, as his would-be superior and fellow officer, serves as a mentor figure who tragically dies on Leon's First Day from Hell, adding to his angst over failing to protect people. In Claire's story, while showing a degree of protectiveness towards her he doesn't towards Leon, Marvin is mainly there to tell her that Chris already left Raccoon City, something Claire can find out herself just by reading her brother's note in the S.T.A.R.S. office. Unsurprisingly, Leon meeting Marvin and receiving a knife from him is the path that Resident Evil 4 (Remake) follows. The difference can be summed up with what the two have to say upon mercy killing a zombified Marvin.
  Claire: I'm sorry.
  Leon: I'll stop this, lieutenant... I promise.
- Resident Evil 3: Nemesis only has slight variations to certain cutscenes, but some of them are more fleshed out than others. In the town's pharmaceutical building, a dying mercenary is encountered and either Nicolai or Carlos kill him. If Nicholai kills him, Jill is left wondering why he'd kill a still conscious man while Nicolai justifies it by saying he was infected and killing him now would save him a few bullets later. if Carlos kills the man, he unloads an entire magazine from his assault rifle into him (though he did ask to be killed before turning) before running off. Depending on how you approach the hospital later on, you either encounter a mercenary that foreshadows Nicholai's betrayal or you run into Nicolai who shoots the man and is about to shoot Carlos before the mercenary unpins a grenade in a last ditch attempt to get back at Nicholai. Nicolai's final cutscenes are more fleshed out if he gets to explain his motives, but in the scene where he shoots at Jill from his helicopter, he won't talk if you decide to shoot the chopper down (later games would narrow it down by revealing that Nicholai did indeed survive and get away).
- Resident Evil 7: Biohazard: Giving Mia the cure over Zoey is so much more favored you honestly wonder why you have a choice. The cure doesn't work but Evelyn wants Mia to be her mother and spares her for now if she is chosen, Zoey immediately dies before the cutscene ends. Mia ends up at the ship regardless and inexplicably if she wasn't chosen and the one thing it does change is if she has the strength to resist when she finds Ethan. If she doesn't Ethan is forced to Mercy Kill her, which both the DLC and sequel say are non-canon.
- Resident Evil Requiem: The choice to destroy Elpis or release Elpis strongly suggests that releasing it is the best answer. Zeno kills Leon if it isn't released, and the game just ends with Grace leaving the ARK, suggesting everyone who is still afflicted with Raccoon City Syndrome will die soon. Releasing it gives the game a proper ending, as Gideon returns for the final battle, Leon is cured and Elpis is used to heal all those infected by Umbrella's machinations, finally giving closure to their story. The challenges don't bother to hide it, not even bothering with a destroy Elpis challenge and locking out a couple of the playthrough challenges if you do.
The Sakabashira Game has two main routes depending on whether you decide to leave the room you began in instantly, or stay until later on, and by extension who you decide to group with. The "Leave" route has more Character Development for both Alex and Ceci, and additionally contains an extra boss battle against Alex's Evil Former Friend Evan. The "Stay" route, on the other hand, leaves Alex's backstory largely in the dust.
Silent Hill:
- Silent Hill 2 has several endings, but a 10-Star end ranking requires either the Rebirth Ending, or, hilariously enough, the Dog Ending (a joke ending that makes little sense, for those who don't know). The four ritual items needed for the Rebirth ending are also required for a 10-Star rank, giving that ending slightly more weight than the others. Canonically, however, all endings are equally valid and there is no one "true" conclusion; the creators intend for the player to personalize the story and choose for themselves which ending provides the best closure.
- Silent Hill 4: The Room’s "21 Sacraments" ending is unequivocally a Downer Ending…but by Samael, is it easily the most interesting of the four, as well as the longest and the one that best fits the game's overall tone. The ending can be achieved if the player neither cleanses at least a fifth of Room 302's hauntings, nor finishes the final boss fight in time to save a possessed Eileen from walking to her death (at which she quickly succeeds if the player performed terribly at an equally terrible escort mission). It starts with Walter faking the dramatic death scene standard to all four endings (including the hushed cry for "Mom" as he reaches out to her). However, instead of the normally ensuing earthquake — no, wait, dreamquake? — Henry's convenient debilitating headaches return at full blast…only for his misery to suddenly and suspiciously end. Henry stands up to fathom the vast nothingness around him. Back in the real world, both manifestations of Walter's spirit have entered Room 302; and while little Walter is off hugging the furniture, adult Walter just stands there, left to wonder…Is this it? In the background of the disappointment of this eternity, a radio news anchor confirms the deaths of Eileen and Henry; announces that Frank the superintendent has also been found dead; and adds that all surviving tenants of the South Ashfield Heights apartment complex have been rushed to the hospital, complaining of severe chest pains—just like ten years ago. Contrast the other three endings, in which either Eileen and Henry make it out together and the apartment building has been cleansed of Walter's influence; Eileen and Henry make it out together, but she wants to return to the still haunted apartment building, implying that she's still possessed; or Henry gets out alone and is left to mourn Eileen's death, confirmed by the same radio anchor as in "21 Sacraments".

Tactical RPGs

Fire Emblem:
- Fire Emblem Gaiden:
  - The game has a form of "gameplay branch favoritism". The three starting villagers, Grey, Tobin and Kliff, can choose to promote into several different classes, but early dialogue in Ram Village heavily encourages making Grey a Mercenary, Tobin an Archer, and Kliff a Mage. Kliff's case is particularly notable: he gets the widest spell learnset of the three, he's a magic user in the spinoff Fire Emblem Heroes, and the remake's "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue mentions that he went overseas to study magic regardless of what class the player made him.
  - Later in Gaiden, Celica's party must make a choice between killing Sonya or Deen in order to rescue Est from Grieth's pirates, with the other joining her army after Grieth is defeated. Of the two, killing Deen is the favorite branch; Sonya has ties to Jedah, a major villain, while Deen's role in the story ends after his recruitment.
- In Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, all first generation females besides Ethlyn and Deirdre can marry any first generation male, but only three males per female get special conversations in Chapter 5^note. These pairings are usually the easiest to make and have optional Ship Tease moments in earlier chapters, while most other pairings get no dialogue at all. The fandom usually terms these "predestined pairings". For an odd example, although Finn does not have any "predestined" conversations with the first-gen ladies (despite his pairing with Lachesis being treated as canon in Fire Emblem: Thracia 776), he gets his own set of "predestined" conversations where he talks to his daughter instead (as he leaves the party before the first-gen conversations occur and only returns in the second generation); these apply to Larcei (Ayra), Lana (Edain), and Nanna (Lachesis), with Nanna being even the only one of the three who recognizes him as her father!
- Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade: Depending on the level of your Lords, you'll fight either Lloyd or Linus in "Four Fanged Offense" and the other brother in "Cog of Destiny". Despite the Linus version of "Four Fanged Offense" being harder to unlock, "Cog of Destiny" has additional dialogue if you are on Hector's story, fight Linus there, and Hector lands the killing blow. There is no equivalent for Lloyd.
- There are two possible outcomes to the Black Knight battle in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. If Ike can't defeat him, Nasir is forced to perform a Heroic Sacrifice to save Ike and Ena. Ena will then join the party, but is severely Overrated and Underleveled, and you get less dialogue in the final chapter due to Nasir's absence. If Ike defeats the Black Knight, both Nasir and Ena survive, and the far stronger Nasir is recruited instead of Ena. Nasir is alive and well in the sequel, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, and that game's story makes it clear that Ike defeated the Black Knight in the last war.
- Fire Emblem Fates: While there are 3 main paths with their own narratives, Revelation is the only one that actually involves stopping the real villain, Anankos, and uniting the two kingdoms with minimal bloodshed. It also lacks a Bittersweet Ending with lots of scripted Character Deaths in favor of having the Golden Ending with a very small casualty count, along with it being the only branch where Azura and Lilith live.
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses: While each route has a reason to play it, the Azure Moon route looks to have gotten somewhat more love and attention from the developers. Gameplay-wise, it has the most exclusive characters, the most paralogues, and the most exclusive weapons; moreover, it's the only route where all of the Heroes' Relics can be obtained, plus it's the only route to include a support conversation that gives a usable weapon. Narratively, a significant amount of conflict in the first part of the game spins out of the Kingdom (rather than the Empire or Alliance) and has personal connections with Blue Lion students - Sylvain's brother leads a gang which introduces the player to Demonic Beasts, Ashe's adoptive father launches a rebellion, and Mercedes and Dimitri turn out to have complicated personal connections to the Death Knight and the Flame Emperor respectively. The Blue Lions also get an exclusive dialogue scene between Byleth and Dimitri at the ball, an extended version of the scene where the Flame Emperor meets with Thales and Monica, and flashbacks using character models and voice actors found nowhere else in the game. All the Blue Lions get exclusive, bespoke endings in their route, while all the other routes share a common pool of endings (with some minor rewrites for a few characters if the player sides with the Empire). It's also the only route that guarantees Rhea's survival with less than a full Support, due to her being The Ghost of Azure Moon. That said, however, it's also the only route where you neither get to fight the Greater-Scope Villain Agarthans on their home turf (Silver Snow and Verdant Wind) nor end with them clearly on the chopping block (Crimson Flower), plus it's the route that touches least on the game's backstory and lore.
- Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes: The first mission after the initial route split is being instructed by Jeritza to infiltrate a bandit base that results in the rescue of the real Monica, with both characters only having prominent roles in the Scarlet Blaze route from that point on. Scarlet Blaze's climax also involves taking down both Rhea and Thales, whereas the other two routes only focus on one of the two. Scarlet Blaze is also the route most affected story-wise by the decision to recruit Byleth and Jeralt, as failing to do so will result in the Alliance backstabbing the Empire and Claude being killed compared to how they will remain allies with the implication the war will end much sooner against the Kingdom. Azure Gleam does have more exclusive playable characters than Scarlet Blaze, but it also demotes Byleth and Jeralt to 11th-Hour Ranger.
Growing Up: Although all the romanceable characters have friendship routes that still get you to their good endings, there are a few of them who only get their Golden Endings if you date them and make the right choices from there. It doesn't help that their sexual orientations prevent player characters of certain genders (and players who prefer not to date them) from achieving these endings with them.
- Jake will always die unless you romance him and make the correct choices to pull him out of his gang, suggesting that dating him is the only way to save his life and get his Golden Ending. It doesn't help that Jake is straight, further implying that only his girlfriend can convince him that the gang life is becoming too dangerous for him.
- Felicity never truly moves forward from her brother's death unless you date her because her married life otherwise becomes unstable because of her parents' lack of support. Since she's straight, this implies that she needs a loving husband to take care of her, no exceptions.
The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-: Of the many branching storylines you can see during a second playthrough, "Last Defense Academy 2nd Scenario" is treated as the "main" route: it appears at the very top in the list of endings, with the others numbered based on how late they diverge from it, it reveals the truth about the SDU's situation and ties up almost all of the loose plot threads from the first playthrough, the majority of the second playthrough's 3D cutscenes were made with it in mind, it's one of few routes that uses its full 100 days without skipping over any or ending early, and its final battle is a unique one that heavily ties the gameplay and story together. Even on the chapter select flowchart, the 2nd Scenario is depicted as a straight line to Day 100 after the Big First Choice, with other routes branching off from it instead of the line splitting down the middle like with most major choices.
In the Hong Kong campaign for Shadowrun Returns, you can play any sort of character you like and resolve your missions through either violence or diplomacy. However, dialogue with Duncan, your character's stepbrother, indicates that he or she was always the calmer and more intelligent of the two in the past, implying that the game is expecting you to play as a Guile Hero.
Star Renegades allows the player to end the game with any five characters, plus their assistant drone. However, the game highly recommends using Wynn Syphex until your first success, due to her being the focus of both the intro and tutorial, an extra scene at the end of a successful run will be skipped entirely if she isn't present, and the default final boss is an evil alternate-dimension version of her brother.
In Tactics Ogre, while all of the routes are fully fleshed out, this has still varied between the original 1995 version and the Updated Re-release for the PSP (which was the basis for Reborn):
- It feels like the most love was put into the Law route, aka the route where the protagonist Denam chooses to commit a False Flag Operation against his own people to rally the rest of the country into rebellion. It leads to the most morally complicated character arc he can experience, and from a gameplay perspective, it has unique recruits that the other paths don’t share; most particular of these is Denam's childhood friend and rival Vyce. The PSP version, which adds the new character Ravness and the existing Ozma as secret recruitable characters and makes Arycelle playable, has made Law the path with the lease unavailable units (seven compared to the other two’s respective eight), and the Apocrypha sidequest no longer requires all four Phoraena sisters to unlock.
- Originally, the Chaos route had the most love put into it, being the most conventionally-heroic path where protagonist Denim/Denam doesn’t participate in the False Flag Operation; it had the most Mutually Exclusive Party Members between the different paths, and the branch off into Neutral be rejoining Leonar and the Duke would result in Allocer (originally dubbed as Aloser, later Arycelle) leaving the party as well as being the only route where Gildas isn’t recruited. Later versions also have Cressida, giving a new distinct subplot for Nybeth on this path.
- Despite the above, Neutral always shared most units with Chaos, has a few generics unique to it, and two distinct party members in Orias/Oelias and Dievold making up for the two lost/unavailable (Gildas and Arycelle(original)/Cressida(PSP/Reborn)); it also had the most plot involvement for Nybbas/Nybeth of any route before Cressida’s introduction in the PSP. On a morbid note, the Bad Ending(s) in which Catiua died before the epilogue have an exclusive scene between Mreuva and his daughters Cerya and Cistina; this isn’t possible in Law because neither can be recruited.
- On the inverse side, Law always explicitly accounted the least for the fates of playable characters not recruitable on it; besides Cerya, all others were implied or vague — even Arycelle, as though she can be killed as an enemy in all versions, her surviving pre-PSP wasn’t accounted for. This got exacerbated when the PSP’s additional story content on Chaos and Neutral actually covered all of Nybeth’s family; between both routes now, the only character unaccounted for is Jeunan.
Tactics Ogre's prequel, Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis is a little more balanced at face value. However, it is a prequel to Tactics Ogre - thus, the "A" route is canon, as this is the one in which you learn Alphonse is Lanselot Tartaros, and is the only one to have a post credits scene. One of its exclusive characters (Shiven) is better than the other (Orson) due to the significant Nerf archers received. Despite this though? There are certain pieces of equipment that are either exclusive to one route or are much easier to obtain on that route. The "A" path features the useful "Teleport" spell while the "B" path gives the "Time Flux" spell - Teleport requires a lot less effort to break the game. The "B" route, however, is the Golden Ending.

Turn-Based Strategy

The first Advance Wars has several potential ally commanders in the final battle depending on which path you took to get there, but having Eagle on your side (use Sami for all the Green Earth missions) is given a bit more weight than the others: it's the only option that unlocks a special Superboss mission afterwards, he overrides all other options for the 3rd CO and his route is the only one to give closure to the Eagle/Andy rivalry subplot. Gameplay wise it's also one that's very much in the player's favor, as the map in question has no naval combat but a few airports, rendering Eagle's weakness of bad warships meaningless. Future games would give Eagle Ship Tease with Sami, which follows on from her branch of the Green Earth missions.

Visual Novels

Bad Apple Wars has both the Good Apple and the Bad Apple routes, which are centered around either obeying or rebelling against the rules, respectively. As you can guess from the title, the Bad Apple route was given far more attention than the Good Apple one.
Choices: Stories You Play: While the writers did a good job of avoiding this trope in main storylines, the same cannot be said for love interests. Still, some stories clearly favor a few key choices that don’t relate to romance.
- The Crown & the Flame: The decision to kill off Marco is locked behind a Prestige requirement and results in extra scenes with other characters (most notably Luther, Zenobia and Diavolos) discussing it. The opposite decision has virtually no impact on the plot.
- Endless Summer: The ending where you merge with Vaanu is generally considered to be the "correct" ending, as while it is certainly bittersweet, it provides the most logical and narratively appropriate resolution to the events of the story; the ending where you allow Rourke to win seems artificially constructed to be as harsh as possible (in addition to retconning the events of the story out of existence), and the ending where you and your friends stay on the island while the rest of the world is destroyed feels unsatisfying and hollow.
- High School Story: The football team gets special attention in Book 1 because the plot focuses on getting ready for the Homecoming match against Hearst after Brian's transfer to said school left the Berry team without a quarterback.
- It Lives: Letting Noah take over as Redfield requires Noah to have high Nerve score, and making the Heroic Sacrifice yourself draws very little reaction from the other characters. The sequel nets Tom 8 nerve points if you made the favored decision and -5 if you didn’t.
- Blades of Light & Shadow: Playing as an elf allows you to reach the maximum level the fastest and gives you the most fleshed out backstory.
From Key/Visual Arts
- CLANNAD favors Nagisa's route. Completing all routes for the first part of the game unlocks the second part (After Story), which is a continuation of Nagisa's route. Secondary heroine Tomoyo's route would later get its own continuation in the seperately released Tomoyo after.
- Kanon mostly averts it by giving all the heroines equal emphasis in the storyline, but Ayu's route is the only one that reveals the repressed traumatic incident that caused Yuuichi to skip town seven years ago. Ayu is also treated as the definitive Love Interest in the 2006 anime adaptation.
- AIR favors Misuzu's route. Similar to CLANNAD, completing the main routes will unlock additional scenarios, all of which focus on the origins of Misuzu's curse, and her eventual death.
Doki Doki Literature Club!: You have three girls to romance with. However, Sayori is given a lot of focus in Act 1 because she's the Player's childhood friend, and she will confess to you near the end of the act regardless if you like her or not, which is a moot point since she commits suicide whether you say yes or no. In Act 2, Sayori is gone, leaving you with just Natsuki and Yuri, but the game clearly favors you to pick Yuri, and she will confess to you regardless if you like her or not. Again, she commits suicide no matter your decision. This is intentional, because Monika, the only girl who has no romance path, deliberately modifies the game's code to eliminate the girls by making them seem forceful and repulsive to you. In Act 3, Monika is the only girl you can pick, as she's made sure to erase everyone and everything but her. This is presented as a sick thing to do; the only way to obtain the Golden Ending is if you can figure out how to date all girls. Natsuki is the only girl who is never given a focus, and it's possible to play the game without ever seeing any of her CG scenes. Natsuki is an irascible, high-maintenance Tsundere, so Monika doesn't really need to modify her personality compared to the peppy Sayori and shy Yuri.
Fate/stay night plays this interestingly in that the game has three completely distinct routes (Fate, Unlimited Blade Works, Heaven's Feel), each with its own heroine (Saber, Rin, Sakura). However, Unlimited Blade Works is inaccessible until you've completed Fate first (the Event Flag that branches between them simply doesn't happen on your first play-through) and Heaven's Feel is similarly inaccessible until you've completed Unlimited Blade Works, meaning you have to play through them in a fixed order, causing the overall story to evolve and get deeper as you play through and learn more and more. As a result, while Saber is only the main heroine of Fate (and is killed off shockingly early in the story in Heaven's Feel), she's usually considered the "main heroine" of the game, if not the entire Fate franchise (indeed, the 2006 Studio DEEN Fate/stay night anime adaptation was primarily based on the Fate route). The Realta Nua Updated Re-release even added a new Omega Ending that served as a Distant Epilogue to the Fate route, ensuring that Saber's romance arc served as a Bookend to the entire game.
- Another factor is that the novel takes advantage of this setup, with UBW and Heaven's Feel assuming the player already has knowledge and context from previous routes - in fact, many of the biggest twists come from subverting what they player has come to expect. This makes Fate and its heroine Saber by far the easiest route to adapt to another medium, as the other two stories require additional exposition to be retrofitted into the narrative just to give an uninitiated viewer the faintest chance of following the plot. This is probably why the DEEN anime was able to be released just 2 years after the VN came out, but Unlimited Blade Works took 10 years to get a proper adaptation, and Heaven's Feel took even longer.
Unusually for a visual novel of its length, Flowers only features two routes for each of its games, one of which is much longer and more developed than the other - this serves as the canonical ending coming into the next game. The first game, ~ le volume sur printemps ~, takes it to a new level - not only does one ending make far less sense than the other (after literally forcing Suou to date her by threatening to blackmail Mayuri, it feels a little odd seeing Rikka get the girl), the flower which serves as a choice indicator gradually grows and blooms if you pick choices for the canonical route, while it shrinks back and reverts back to a seed if you pick the 'wrong' answers.
In the first Fragment's Note, Mischa's and Haya's routes are practically identical, with only a few names and a few select scenes swapped. On the contrary, Eri's route is longer and comes with more character development and impactful scenes, and provides more character development for both her and Yukitsuki.
The Pirate's Fate averts this with most routes, though four of them (as of the current version) have epilogues that expand on the consequences of your actions, instead of ending with merely a bit of narration. Additionally, if Mila stubbornly refuses to join the crew of the Pirate's Fate at the very beginning, it leads to a very short route where she is thrown from the ship, rescued by a pair of mermaids, and only has one choice that determines what the ending is. Either she befriends the younger mermaid (becoming a mermaid herself so that the two of them can keep each other company while ignoring what goes on above the surface) or sides with the older mermaid (letting herself be transformed into a gigantic, vengeful sea monster that goes on a rampage against all pirates). Neither of these endings include the credits.
Tales of Aravorn: Seasons of the Wolf has the same amount of content for each romantic route but unless you're playing as Althea and romancing Chalassa then Chalassa will be under a Geas to kill the PC and their sibling and they will have to kill her. If Chalassa is romanced an opportunity to break the Geas arises.
Slay the Princess downplays this, as the game expects the player to go through multiple routes, and while some are more substantial than others, there's no one route that can be considered the "main" one. However, the game does subtly push the player towards the Nightmare on their first playthrough — it has far more decisions that lock you into it than any other route, and most of them involve either attempting to Take a Third Option by leaving the Princess locked up, or running away once it becomes clear that fighting her is going to get you killed. In other words, choices that a cautious and indecisive first-time player is likely to make.
Spirit Hunter: NG:
- Downplayed with the first two chapters; you can take either Kaoru or Seiji with you during the Urashima Woman and Kubitarou cases, but the former favors Kaoru and her spiritual prowess (and, in fact, cannot be completed unless Kaoru is the companion character), while the latter favors Seiji and his more practical skills.
- At the end of the Kubitarou case, you can choose to save Seiji or Kaoru from a lightning strike; whoever is saved gets an optional scene with Akira later. Seiji's scene not only contains a unique CG, but also a whole vocal performance of Momo Kuruse's song by Seiji's VA.
In White Album 2, while Maruto (the scenario writer) and Leaf are quiet at what the "canon" plot is supposed to be, players of the games seem to favor the timeline that leads from Setsuna's route in Concluding Chapter, to Kazusa's True End in Coda. Not only due to the incredibly cathartic nature of the latter, but because it's counterpart was just too perfect and involved Haruki being reduced to a supporting role.
In Chapter 2 of Your Turn to Die, there are two situations in which you have to decide between the lives of two characters: Reko Yabusame and Alice Yabusame in the former, and Kanna Kizuchi and Sou Hiyori in the latter. While the first case is fairly impartial towards both potential survivors, the second case clearly favors one survivor:
- In the first case, it is Zig-Zagged. On one hand, deliberately allowing Reko to die in order to save Alice's life grants more plot-relevant information in the long term, including Foreshadowing about Midori, and has Reko be Together in Death with Nao, whereas Alice doesn't. On the other hand, Alice's potential death is treated with much more fanfare than that of Reko's, and helping Alice retrieve his sister's bongos only gives a bonus scene should he be the one to die.
- In the second case, it is Played Straight. Condemning Sou to death has him pull a Villain's Dying Grace so that Sara is allowed to say her proper goodbyes to Joe, and additionally grants access to The Stinger. Should Kanna die instead, Sou declares himself to be the group's mortal enemy from then on, he then sabotages the Joe AI he made to completely destroy Sara's mind, causing her to completely forget her best friend due to the trauma, and you'll miss out on The Stinger. In addition, Sou's act of revenge over Kanna's demise leads to Sara's personality shifting in a more ruthless direction, causing her to provoke Ranmaru into killing the surviving Yabusame sibling in Chapter 3 (Kanna's route has no equivalent).

Non-video game examples

Comic Books

Played with in Marvel Comics' What If? series, where writers were able to print several stories based on Alternate Histories of the established canon. Although most of these were standalone stories, popular entries such as Spider-Girl gained their own series in time. Also, the majority of What If? stories seem to end tragically, even (or indeed, especially) if the point of divergence from established canon seems like an obviously beneficial one, in a rather Anvilicious declaration that even the most unpopular story developments of the main universe were for the best.

Film

In the gimmick film Mr. Sardonicus just before the end, producer William Castle appears and asks the audience to hold up cards so as to vote for whether Sardonicus lives or dies…but Castle only filmed one ending, assuming (correctly) that the audience would always choose death.
The C Ending for Clue was the original ending, and features the most flashbacks (and makes the most sense). On home video and television, when all the endings are shown, this one is given a title card that says it's what really happened.

Literature

To Be or Not To Be: That Is the Adventure is a choose-your-own-adventure adaptation of Hamlet which allows you to choose between playing as Hamlet, Ophelia, or Hamlet Sr. (the king). But King Hamlet the Elder has an exceptionally short storyline, all branches of which can be read in full in less than an hour.

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