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

[Zed Clampet]

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.

 

[Zed Clampet]

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.

 

[Charagma]

"New" topics with old dates seem to jump at me every time I open the forums. I am late to the topic but have some input.

I do not think you can pin-point a good or a bad quest developer. Let me explain. If I take my usual Elven-Rogue mixed with a bit of assassin in it, I get 2 different sets of quests relating to my classes. If I do not add Assassin to it, I get the standard "Rogue" side quest sets. Good example is Skyrim. If you do not accept becoming a werewolf, you do not get the "Some fancy axe" quest and if you do accept it, the original side quest for vampire is different. If you do not play every class or mix of class or background, it will be hard to say "XYZ" developer has good or bad side quests because you probably only played some of the side quests available to your specific character choices.

Dragon age is another good example of this where if you miss accepting a companion or miss talking to a companion at the correct time and location, you miss a whole sequence of side quests. Then you also get players that rush down the main quest from start to finish and wonder how everyone is halfway at 300 Hours on a game if they were able to finish the game in just 100 Hours.

I think many of us have not seen all the quests available in games, because we follow (or rather create) a path that looks and feels right but miss many side quests on route because we are too concentrated on the path we are following.

Pathfinder is another good example here where if you chose a class and then mix it and then add a mythic to it, the side quests change. Seen that happen between Aeon and Azata Mythics's and the major differences in Side quests (and actually changed some of the main quests as well) between the two.

So, taking into consideration that I (personally) have never played ALL the available side quests of any specific game, I would have to say all of them are good at quest creation. Some just have tougher side quests than others.

 

[Pifanjr]

"New" topics with old dates seem to jump at me every time I open the forums. I am late to the topic but have some input.

I do not think you can pin-point a good or a bad quest developer. Let me explain. If I take my usual Elven-Rogue mixed with a bit of assassin in it, I get 2 different sets of quests relating to my classes. If I do not add Assassin to it, I get the standard "Rogue" side quest sets. Good example is Skyrim. If you do not accept becoming a werewolf, you do not get the "Some fancy axe" quest and if you do accept it, the original side quest for vampire is different. If you do not play every class or mix of class or background, it will be hard to say "XYZ" developer has good or bad side quests because you probably only played some of the side quests available to your specific character choices.

Dragon age is another good example of this where if you miss accepting a companion or miss talking to a companion at the correct time and location, you miss a whole sequence of side quests. Then you also get players that rush down the main quest from start to finish and wonder how everyone is halfway at 300 Hours on a game if they were able to finish the game in just 100 Hours.

I think many of us have not seen all the quests available in games, because we follow (or rather create) a path that looks and feels right but miss many side quests on route because we are too concentrated on the path we are following.

Pathfinder is another good example here where if you chose a class and then mix it and then add a mythic to it, the side quests change. Seen that happen between Aeon and Azata Mythics's and the major differences in Side quests (and actually changed some of the main quests as well) between the two.

So, taking into consideration that I (personally) have never played ALL the available side quests of any specific game, I would have to say all of them are good at quest creation. Some just have tougher side quests than others.

I disagree, you can get a good idea of quality by sampling, you do not need to play every single side quest to know whether a developer is good or bad at making them.

Even if you only play a single class and miss out on a bunch of optional side quests, in most games you should still be able to get a decent sample size to determine the overall quality.

 

[Charagma]

I disagree, you can get a good idea of quality by sampling, you do not need to play every single side quest to know whether a developer is good or bad at making them.

Even if you only play a single class and miss out on a bunch of optional side quests, in most games you should still be able to get a decent sample size to determine the overall qual

Saying it like that makes sense to me. LMAO like the infamous "The Fade" in Dragon age origins.

 

[Zloth]

From what I've seen, most quests in a game are available to all players. There will (hopefully) be some specific to class and/or background choice and/or moral tendencies, but most are playable by all. Even if they weren't, though, if the quests for one class are good, the other classes are likely to get good ones as well. You don't need to see every quest they did to get a feeling for the quality.