It's great when a game has choices that actually matter. The decisions you make in these titles have an impact either immediately or sometime later in the story. Yet, it isn't always clear what those consequences will be. If you knew how everything was going to play out based on the choices you made, then there wouldn't be much point in them.

That said, it does feel harsh when you make a decision, and the consequences are the exact opposite of what the game insinuated they would be. This can lead to some frustration and the loss of certain characters, items, or plotlines. Here are some examples of tricky choices in games.

Mass Effect 2 is one of the best games with romance options, and most of the relationships are pretty straightforward. If you say nice things and flirt when the opportunity arises, you will typically end up together. Yet, there is one dialogue option when speaking with Jack that rules you out of her romance, which is easy to choose mistakenly.

At one point, Jack essentially offers you sex. She doesn't do so in the most welcoming way, which is a clue that accepting her offer is a bad option. However, any romance-based option in this game usually puts you on the right track with a character. So, you may go for it, hoping to enhance your relationship with the powerful biotic. Well, you do sleep together, but you are now locked out of her relationship going forward.

Late in The Outer Worlds, your character must decide between traveling to either Terra 2 or Tartarus. Different characters want you to go to different places, so your choice depends on who you want to side with.

Whichever location you choose, the AI on your ship will get you there unless you want to do it yourself. The AI has to do what you say, so you can force it to let you. If your character has a low intelligence score, this won't go very well. Instead of skipping your ship to one of the planets, you will steer your vessel right into the sun, killing everyone and ending the game prematurely. This is very different from what you wanted.

In the prologue of Until Dawn, the main characters play a cruel prank on Hannah, and she runs out of the cabin. You control Hannah's sister, Beth, and go after her. You catch up to her, but you both end up nearly falling off the edge of a snowy cliff. One of your hands is on a fragile twig, while the other is holding Hannah.

A mysterious man stands at the top of the cliff, offering his hand. You can't grab it, though, without choosing to let go of your sister. If you do that heinous act, you still fail to grab the man's hand and fall to your death. So, the outcome is the same as if you let go, but you feel worse about yourself.

The Towerful of Mice side quest in The Witcher 3 is about a cursed island. The curse revolves around a woman named Annabelle, who died in a horrific way. She drank a poison that she thought would kill her, so the people raiding her tower wouldn’t do worse to her. However, it actually just paralyzed the woman, which still did the trick of warding off the intruders, but rats ate her to death.

Her beloved left her during this whole ordeal, believing she was dead. The spirit of Annabelle hates him for it, and it’s this hate that keeps the curse alive. Yet, the curse can be broken with love. So, she tells you to take her bones to him so she can appear and they can make up. If you agree to what seems a reasonable plan, though, she kills him instead of making up.

At the start of Baldur’s Gate 3, a creature known as a Mind Flayer implants a tadpole in your head, which means you will soon turn into one of those monsters. Allegedly, stopping that from happening is a special guardian that you see in your dreams. You speak to them multiple times, but it’s not clear who they are or whether they can be trusted.

Those trust issues increase when you meet the guardian later in their real form. This is because you find out they’re a Mind Flayer called The Emperor. They promise they’re still helping you. However, you can choose not to believe them and eliminate them. This will stop them from being able to kill you or turn you into a Mind Flayer. Unfortunately, they were telling the truth. So, once they die, you instantly turn into a Mind Flayer, and the game is over.

The career modes in WWE games tend to include some big choices for you to make that impact the story going forward. One of those decisions occurs in WWE 2K16. During a title match, Triple H runs down to the ringside and slides a chair into the ring.

The game then asks if you want to pick the chair up. Well, you're in a big championship match, and the referee is down, so you may think this is the chance to get an advantage over your opponent and give yourself a better chance of winning the match. Yet, if you decide to go for the chair, your opponent will grab you in a Kimura Lock submission and tap you out. Therefore, you lose the match and your title.

Hollow Knight is an excellent Metroidvania game that features a mechanic where you lose your in-game money when you die. That’s tough to take, but don’t worry, as there is a way to save your funds. You can just head to Millibelle the Banker. She seems sweet, and if you pay her a fee, she will keep your money safe.

Everything you deposit into her bank stays there when you die. Unfortunately, she doesn’t stay. If you return to her later, all you will find is her bank. If you interact with it a few times, it will fall down, showing that it is just a cardboard cutout. Instead of keeping your money safe, she has stolen it from you.

You meet plenty of interesting individuals while playing through Bloodborne. Most of them are dangerous foes that you must fight. However, there are also some poor souls who need a safe place to stay. Iosefka allows you to send people to their clinic for safety.

That seems like a great idea, so you have the choice to send some people there. However, if you go to the clinic and sneak in the back, you can discover that it isn’t a safe haven after all. Everyone you send there has been experimented on and turned into a gruesome monster. It turns out the clinic has been taken over by an impostor who isn’t as nice as Iosefka.