Which developers do you think do a particularly good or bad job with side quests?

[ZedClampet]

I'm going to put Ubisoft in both the good and bad categories. When they want to, they can make some entertaining side quests, but in some more recent AC games, it was clear they were just going for volume a lot of the time.

Example of a bad Ubisoft side quest:
I don't remember which AC game it was in. It was in one of the recent ones.

I run up to a woman.
Woman: "Marco asked me to make his family dinner and then he insulted the food. This cannot stand. I want you to kill him and restore my honor!"
Me: "That seems a bit extreme, but I have to finish 12 side quests to go up another level, so I'll be back in a minute."

Example of a good Ubisoft side quest:
In Far Cry 5, they were having a testicle festival (as a lot of cattle producing US states do), and you had to harvest them in different ways:

From the wiki:

• DESTROY the lock to free the cows
• KILL a bull that is mating
• GATHER engorged bull testicles
• KILL a bull with a Tractor Mulcher
• GATHER shredded bull testicles
• KILL a bull with fire
• GATHER roasted bull testicles

Now that was a different activity that I had never done before! I think they even played sexy music during the sex scene, but my memory could have just made that up. Far Cry 5 had a lot of very fun side quests. They didn't just send you into battle for contrived reasons over and over.

 

[Pifanjr]

Bethesda is in the good category. The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games have some of the best side quests I've seen, even outside of the faction quests.

 

[mjs warlord]

Ubisoft and Electronic arts go into bad

Ubisoft because i have about 10 games on disc that have been registered by me on a previous pc and they wont give me any new key code so i can carry on using the games , they even said email your proof of purchase and we might help you.

Electronic arts because they used to treat staff like dirt ... i dont know if they still do , the truth is out their if you know where to look.
I remember many years ago they started recruiting games writers from other companies who " just happen " to be working on a game similar to one that they were working on. After they joined EA they were told they could no longer work on their current project so they never got released. I cant recall how long ago it was but i must have read about it in pc gamer as its the only gaming mag i buy.

The good guys

ALL indie games writers who go the extra mile to ensure that the end product is as bug free as possible because they understand how important it is to get things right , if something goes wrong and customers write about it you are not loosing sales to the corner shop you are loosing sales from the whole world. They also know that if they make a bad product nobody will want their next effort even if its the best game ever made.

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IMHO i think one of the reasons we experience crashes and bugs in games is because they dont play the finished product like we do because they just dont have the time , they more than likely use a developer console that we sometimes find. They cant wait 10 hours to see if a certain something happens.

 

[ZedClampet]

Apparently my title was 3 words too long.

 

[Zloth]

CDProjekt has the best side quests, IMHO.

Bethesda used to have some good ones back in the Skyrim days, but I haven't played much from them since then, so I don't know.

Rya Ga Gotoku's Yakuza series has some great side quests.

Volition had some great ones in Saints Row, but that's going back a long way, too.

Square did a particularly bad job with sidequests in Final Fantasy 7 Remake. I hope Rebirth does better.

 

[red_5ive]

I'm not one to judge as side quests to me are a reason to explore, which is my favorite thing to do in gaming these days. It doesn't even register in my head if they're bad so long as I can go goof around somewhere.

But I can see why people would put Ubisoft in the bad category. Nevertheless, they've had some noteworthy side missions, like The Predator in GR: Wildlands, [Danny] Trejo's Tacos and Rambo side quest in Far Cry 6, the Honeybadger infestation in Far Cry 4, to name a few. Edit: Forgot to mention the Sam Fisher crossover in GR: Breakpoint!

I remember the first time I encountered the Predator in Wildlands. The first clue I was like - wait, I know this. Then I reached the 2nd clue and was like, no... they can't be. And then on the 3rd clue when the Predator theme music kicked in, I was like "No F'n way!" and was so jaw dropped that I froze and was soo busy nerding out, that when he killed me instantly for lack of responding I didn't even care lol.

Technically some of these I believe were DLCs, but nevertheless they were free to play for the short time they were available and weren't part of the main story.