This is not just a problem with open-world games. Any game that gives you the illusion of choice (read: most games) comes into the issue of developers pre-empting (or not) how the player will try to complete a puzzle or objective in a way that is logical and consistent with the game world/system. There is no way they can think of every ingenious solution to a problem that their audience will dream up, so this won't go away. But what the developers can and should do better is establish when you have a choice and when you don't.

The ideal way of doing this is to set up the scenario so that you wouldn't dare try anything they didn't consider, even if you could. But this approach is exceptionally difficult to pull off. So you usually end up with one of two situations: either you get an illusion of choice when in fact there is only one solution; one approach, or you get pulled right out of the world and have your freedom restricted (eg. you can't fire your gun) or the rules of the world temporarily change (eg. shooting certain people has no effect whatsoever).

Some older games took the approach that you could do anything, anytime, but in most cases these either had less clear objectives or were extremely buggy. It has been done with success, though. Alternate Reality: The City is often described as such a game, and I remember Fallout did it quite well, too.

There is one other alternative, of course, which is to never set up these scenarios, but that would make any game with narrative instantly boring.

I remember you discussing this on The Vault, and I do think it's an unfortunate design choice when open-world-game developers essentially stifle all creativity and spontaneity by only offering a single option to completing a mission (especially one that could realistically have two or more reasonable outcomes).

With that said, I'm really not that surprised at the outcome of your choice regarding the "Eva" mission.  RDR is simply a victim of trite and outdated questing game design where - unless explicitly asked to do so - killing any significant characters within a mission, no matter how apparently villainous, results in the jeopardy of the mission.  For all the merits that many may tout about the the inclusion of morality in games in recent years, genuinely circumspect morality - such as your moral reasoning with "Eva" - consistently eludes game designers.

Thanks for the comments, Richard and Bryan.

Of course there's no easy solution, because we can't expect game designers to be equal parts Kevin Flynn and Jigsaw. I suppose everyone's trying to find a balance between having a huge world and guiding you through it (with varying degrees of obvious) and scaling things back and allowing more variety. I think Rockstar did a great job with Red Dead on the whole, and regardless of how this article might sound I'm more surprised than disappointed.

I think another issue that popped up, besides the developers not considering alternate routes to completing the mission, is that of the changing face of the fail-state. 

The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series get them right; you may not do things conventionally, but you aren't chided for how you do it.  Could killing someone outright be a detriment down the road?  Absolutely, but let that be the players decision.  Dont' tell us one thing then force us to do another.  It's OK to have negative consequences and still let the game progress.  I realize that can't always happen, but in the case of the Eva mission in Red Dead Redemption, I don't see why they had to tell you you failed the mission when in the grand scheme of things what trangressed doesn't impact the main plot. 

Sometimes just the illusion is enough for most folks.

That's a really good point, Matt.

I came across that bit yesterday. It was so long since I'd last made any choice that I didn't even think doing what I wanted was an option.

I think the only choices in the game are this, the other you mentioned, and one when you decide to kill a guy or let someone else kill him. Strange that they'd even bother to put such inconsequential choices in.

This actually reminds me a bit of Roger Ebert's argument that games aren't art because the player has a certain level of control over the experience. To quote the critic:

"Art seeks to lead you to an inevitable conclusion, not a smorgasbord of choices. If next time I have Romeo and Juliet go through the story naked and standing on their hands, would that be way cool, or what?"

I'm not arguing whether he's right or not, but you have to admit that when the freedom of a gamer conflicts with the direction of developers in the ways described above, both suffer a hit. I wonder if a true solution will evolve to meet this kind of disappointment in the futre.

Oh, and this is an excellent piece.

I ran into a similar problem in the same game on the "Poppycock" mission.  Given the choice of giving the stranger his $1000 and essentially promoting drug trafficking and keeping the money for myself, I chose the win-win of keeping the money.  I reasoned that the stranger had used Marston to do something he wouldn't have agreed to do if he'd have known, so I figured it would be better if the stranger didn't get the money.  In this one you don't immediately fail, but if you don't get the stranger his money within a few days game time you will fail the mission, period. 

Game designers would do well to set up interesting situations where the player has the option of following the prescribed path or doing their own thing.  Most games results, regardless of how you got there, are fairly finite.  For instance, AI character X can live or die, character Y can live or die, and the armed guards may or may not be alerted.  If AI character Z dies, the mission is a failure.  So, given these finite outcomes (3 variables with 1 succeed/fail objective), you have a manageable number of outcomes.  Even in a game like RDR where all the results are succeed/fail ultimately, it makes you feel like you have more control over how you're shaping the world, like how you let bad guy X go because he was really just duped by his brother, or prostitute Y felt the wrath of your shotgun because she was a conniving bitch, even if they didn't change the outcome of the game as a whole.

@Glenn That's already 16 possible pathways to passing/failing the mission. And if the game is really shooting for interesting choices there'll be long-term ramifications for each of those pathways, as every state change will affect the world in some unique way. That then multiplies exponentially as each related incident can play out in various ways, so that you suddenly end up with something incredibly complex. What seems simple and easily manageable can quickly become your worst nightmare as a game designer.

Of course, some of the work is offloaded by adding some redundancy, so that multiple choices will each lead to the same outcome, but it's still harder than it sounds, and we get back to the illusion of choice problem. Eventually, we'll find the right balance, but as game systems, characters, and worlds are getting ever more complex, it'll take some time.

I might be biased because Morrowind is my absolute favorite game of all time, but I feel like the beauty of that game is that side quests SHOULD be failed. You're making your own quest as you go along. So sure, you might miss out on some of the loot or whatever, but more often than not, you can lockpick/find the item in question. If it's a stat boost, you miss out on the stat boost, but it's not that big of a deal since increasing stats is so easy.

If I remember correctly, the PC version of the game even allowed you to write things in blank journals. I remember writing a journal of my events, including who I panic-killed as well. It happens, and the game is all about cause and effect. For example, you can choose to side with the vampire clans in that game and fight for the "bad" guys. I did that, helped Dagoth Ur (main antagonist), and then felt so bad about it, sought to find redemption. Did the developers intend that? Probably not, but I made my own choices and made my own side quest

@Joshua - Good point. My problem with Morrowind (if it could even be called a problem) was that in that way it was working against my gamer OCD. It really bugged me to see that quest still active and know that I could never complete it.

But I do enjoy making my own stories within games; if I'd put as much energy into writing as I did creating justification and motivation for everything my character did in Fable 2, I would probably have a couple novels sitting around here.

Although I think that many interesting points about "choice" in video games have been raised by both this article and the commenters, I think that the problem with Eva in Peril may be attributed to a much more basic design flaw. RDR provides players with behavioral scripts that guide them to perform certain actions in certain situations. For example, if a random gentleman is about to cut up a prostitute, then the player should shoot him. Players can legitimately complete many core and side missions within the game by simply shooting someone. The problem with Eva is that RDR teaches you a basic rule about resolving encounters and then presents players with a mission that is an exception to the rule.