I just finished the main campaign of the new open-world RPG that everyone's talking about, and I'm left with mixed feelings about its much-hyped choice-and-consequence system. While the world-building is incredible, I found the final act's narrative payoff to be underwhelming, with my major decisions seeming to funnel into one of two simplistic endings. For others who have completed it, did you feel the side quests and faction alliances genuinely impacted the core story, or were they mostly superficial? I'm trying to decide if a second playthrough with drastically different choices is worth the 80+ hour commitment or if the underlying narrative rails are too rigid.
Totally get that. For me the side quests mostly felt like world-building, with a few factions nudging dialogue and a couple missions a bit different, but the main arc felt tethered to two endings.
Second playthrough is worth it if you're curious about a different flavor. My approach was to pick a conflicting faction early and try to avoid mainline quests for a chunk of time to see how the world changed. In that run the late-game conversations shifted more and the companions reacted differently, but the finale still lands in a similar place—just with different tone and stakes.
I’d say there are more than two endings, but the core is still fairly linear in effect. Side quests and alliances matter for mood, loot, and some unlocks, but they don’t rewrite the last act in a meaningful way for everyone. If you’re hoping for a wildly divergent finale, prepare for a let-down; if you want to taste various narrative textures, you’ll get that by pursuing different factions.
If you're torn, maybe set a goal: complete one faction questline you never explored in your first run, then jump back into the main story to compare tonal shifts. Also, keep a notepad of dialogue choices—you'll start to notice patterns in how conversations tilt the ending without fully changing it.
What did you pick in your first run—which faction, which companion choices—and roughly how many hours did you put in before hitting the ending? I'd love to hear more specifics to tailor a 'how to make it worth it' plan.