Issue #85: Choose Wisely – September/October 2026
Space Invaders didn’t have a lot of options. An army of alien enemies was descending on your position, and you had to line up shots to blast them out of the sky before they crept down to the ground — you either did that, or you didn’t. You won or you lost.
Pac-Man was an equally simple experience. You had a maze full of dots, and ghosts chasing you around that maze. You either ate the dots before the ghosts got you, or you didn’t. There was a bit of freedom in which paths you took to run around in that maze, but that’s about all the choice you got.
Super Mario Bros. introduced a bit of divergence, as it was a directly linear dash from left to right to save the princess at the end of 8-4 — but you could choose to skip over some of the worlds in the middle if you found and used the Warp Zones.
Little by little, bit by bit, player choice started to enter into the equation of video game design over the years. Those early examples were decades ago, but now here in 2026 those kinds of games in which everyone’s experience is essentially the same are the exception — now the norm is that the games you play will offer you critical decisions that, when made, will fully influence how your play experience will shape up, setting it apart from the playtime of any other person.
Whether it’s a character creator letting you make choices to build your own hero to be the star of the game to a stark, story-altering narrative decision that funnels you into one path and toward one ending while eliminating the possibility of seeing any alternatives, moments where you must pick one option over another have now come to define so many of today’s best and biggest games.
This is the topic we’re tackling in this newest edition of Nintendo Force Magazine, taking our cue to do so from the impending release of Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, which promises to continue its series’ streak of presenting players with seriously story-shifting sets of selections. It leads our Previews section, following immediately after our Features article that shares its name with the issue itself: Choose Wisely. Our usual variety of news, reviews and previews is also here, of course, and if you want your own moment of decision, check out my new Top 10 article offering my thoughts on the different directions Nintendo might choose for their next big theatrical release, following the upcoming April 2027 launch of the live-action Zelda movie. Pick the one you think is the most likely, and then see if you’re right when the next Hollywood announcement rolls around!
And, as always, thank you for choosing to be a reader of our magazine. We can’t do this without your support!
