THE ETHICS OF EATING FLESH, A QUEASY QUEST IN DREAD DELUSION

Plenty of RPGs bang on about choice and consequence—this delivers.

- 

The indie RPG Dread Delusion is one of my favorite recent games, and I'd chalk that up to ambition.

I'm not just talking about doing an Elder Scrolls-style open world with a small team, but how it grapples with capital-B capital-I Big Ideas.

It's smart sci-fi with a sense of history. The quests feel like short stories from the '70s, Harlan Ellison or Philip K Dick stuff—there's always a twist, something to really make you think. One that's stuck with me is called The Ethics of Eating Flesh.

WHERE'S THE BEEF?

The Ethics of Eating Flesh takes place in the Endless Realms, whose inhabitants were turned into zombies in the past by one of those freaky deities. They're immortal, but still decay, and they have a maddening hunger for human flesh that resulted in Cadaver Crusades before one of their wizards invented the flesh farm: vat-grown human meat. Tubs of skin, teeth, and eyes like enormous teratomas, an Impossible Burger ethical human meat alternative.