Ah, the side quest. Mainstay of the RPG and action genres, it's safe to say that they add a whole lot of value to our games. In some series, like The Elder Scrolls or The Witcher, they can add hundreds of hours to our in-game experiences, as well as providing us with crucial memories that shape our feelings about the games; however, all is not rosy in the world of side quests. Sometimes, you play one and just end up wondering what on Earth its purpose was. Why did the game just make me spend an hour of my life gathering snark skins? MMOs are particularly guilty of this (I'm looking at you, World of Warcraft).
In this article, we've pulled together 15 of the very best side quests, and 15 of the very worst, from across the whole scope of gaming. The good are good for a wide variety of reasons, including excellent writing, interesting goals, laugh-out-loud moments, and more. The bad? Well, they're bad for reasons just as myriad. Whether they sent you out on repetitive, dull tasks, or simply had a writing quality that felt like that of a sixth grader, you'll find them on this list. From Fallout 3 to GTA: San Andreas, Final Fantasy's seventh and fi🌞fteenth installments, they're here. Do you think we left anything out? Any particularly amazing or egregious side quests that stick in your mind or your craw? Let us know in🍌 the comments!
30 🦋 Best: The Replicated Man – Fallout 3
Hey you! Yes, you! Do you like Blade Runner? If you do, then I've got some good news for you: The Replicated Man is the side quest you've been looking for. Based on the hunt for an android who's escaped from Rivet City, the quest casts a blinding light on what it means to be human in the world of Fallout. Throughout it, you get wrapped up in a heartrending world of human and robotic rights, culminating in a decision that shouldn't be hard if you have any level of soul. Like tears𒉰 in the rain...
29 W💫orst: Mages Guild Suspension – Oblivion
Now, it should be very obvious that I'm somebody who loves Oblivion to pieces. Do you know something I don't love? Fetch quests. Those irritating missions that require you to head ♋off to remote locations and gather banal items. Should you find yourself cast out of the Mages Guild for any reason, the task you have to do to get back in will make you question whether you really want to become Arch-Mage. For theft, you need 40 flowers! Twenty each, of two different types. Oh, and the game doe🌱sn't tell you what they look like. Have fun!
28 Best: 🐼Sit In Judgement – Dragon Age: Inquisition
No one expects the player's Inquisition! Like a pint-sized version of the CRPG Tyranny, this quest lets you judge a variety of prisoners who've all committed various misdeeds. Their punishment is entirely up to you. You can have them dealt with in the most final way possible, have them ♈locked up, given to other factions, exiled, and more, depending on the prisoner. It's a really cool little side quest that makes your moral choi🦂ces have more weight than simply punching people.
27 Worst: The Treasure Of The Shen’dralar – World Of Warcraft 𒆙
I'm not a big MMO guy, and quests like this don't go a long way towards changing that. This quest basically requ💃ires you to double back on yourself and go all the way back through a dungeon you just worked your way through. That's not cool! That's not cool at all! I know that a lot of MMOs need subscriptions to keep the lights (and indeed, servers) on, but making us waste our life like this is frankly, just insulting.
26 Best🅠: Legion’s Loyalty Mission – Mass Effect 2
I was wondering whether to include the loyalty missions in this list, as they add so much to the game. They are optional, however, so I feel they belong. This one is particularly interesting for a number of reasons. Legion is, as I'm sure you remember, a Geth, that race that we thought were the big bads in the first Mass Effect. Without going into a huge amount of detail, the mission sheds light on just who they really arไe. Its aftermath also gives you a very interesting interaction between Legion and Tali; It's well worth doing.
25 ♛ ꦛ Worst: Street Races – GTA 5
I say this is in GTA 5. It could, however, apply to pretty much any open-world game of the past 20 years. What is it that makes an open-world game suddenly attempt to try its hand at racing? It never ends well! I know that GTA 5 gives you Franklin's ability that does indeed, make it slightly less unpleasant, but that doesn't help. If I wanted to race, I would play a racing game. I'm playing GTA/Saints Row/Sleeping Dogs because I want to cause havoc. I do not want ꦿto be the Ayrton Senna of the streets!
24 Best: A Behemoth Undertaking – Final Fantasy XV ⛎
FFXV got a bad rap for its sid🔥e quests, and believe me, we'll get onto that later, but they weren't all terrible. A Behemoth Undertaking was actually really, really cool. The mission requires you to hunt down a monstrous beast, Deadeye. To do this, you need to track him through thick fog and then follow him stealthily to his lair. Once there, you'll fight him in a truly epic battle. Once the quest is completed, you'll also unlock Chocobo rentals!
23 Worst: Supp🌳ly Lines – GTA: San Andreas
Oh my God. This mission made me want to throw my keyboard out the god damn window when I first played it. The mission requires you to fly an RC plane and drop bombs on various targets. That sounds fine, doesn't it? It would bꦰe, if you had a controller and the precision that analogue sticks bring. If you don't, and you're left trying to maneuver a plane through three dimensions of space with a keyboard? It's an exercise in extreme frustration.
22 ﷺ Best: The Game – Fable 3
If there's one single quest that encapsulates Fable's distinctive humor, it's this one: Three Magi require the hero to rescue a princess, and to do this, they need to transfer him to another plane. Once you've bee🐼n transferred, it's revealed that the Magi are just three ordinary guys, and you've been shrunk down to a miniature size for a far more hil🎀arious reason. You're a figure in their game of Hollows and Hobbes, which is effectively DnD. To complete the quest, you need to fight a wave of demonic chickens and rescue the princess. Yes, really.
21 🐲 Worst: Caught Red Handed – Skyrim 🐎
Skyrim's side quests are usually pretty good, but this one? I don't know, it makes me feel a bit grim whenever I do it. The quest requires you to basically shame a woman for having the temerity to do you-know-what with whomever she likes. You're also required to beat up innocent strangers who dare to be involved with this woman. It's just a bit icky really, and feels like it was written by someone with an axe to grind. It's ♉not even worth completing for the reward, which is some paltry armor or a weapon.