History Main / SidequestSidestory

** One sidequest has the player act as a go-between to reunite a mother and daughter, helping the daughter acquire the right ingredients to properly make her mother's"Kabal Skewer" recipe. At the end of the quest, they'll reconcile their differences with her mother agreeing to start visiting her daughter again.
** The UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube remake (''Skies of Arcadia: Legends'') has the exclusive [[ThatOneSidequest Piastol/Moonfish sidequest]], which is time consuming and requires you to fight [[BonusBoss Piastol]][[note]]she's the toughest boss in the game, with each encounter being significantly tougher than the last.[[/note]] 3 times, while collecting Moonfish for Maria, who 's found on Doc's ship. During which, you learn that she's Piastol's missing sister and eventually reunite them.

* The ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' series has something similar to that. You can hack computers and read emails on them. A lot of times if you have enough time and patience to do this on every PC you find in the game, you'll notice that a lot of them are tied together in complex stories that don't even have anything to do with the game plot - they're just there because the developers wanted them to be.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Wild ARMs 3}}'', a series of sidequests involve investigating UFO sightings. Not only these don't have anything to do with the main plot, it eventually results in the discovery of a separate menace to the whole world: an alien invasion!
** This quest also finally explains what those bizarre orchid-shaped monsters unique to the Wild Arms series are: aliens!

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'' has several of them with varying length, but there are two that play the biggest impact in the game:
*** One side story involves a non-hostile zombie who seems to have retained some human intelligence and is trying to find out what changed her into a monster. As you investigate through a series of missions, you uncover a sordid tale of jealousy and betrayal, and eventually [[spoiler:discover the cure that changes her back into Frimelda Lotice, a legendary swordswoman who joins your party]].
*** Another side story has you clashing with "Duelhorn", a foreign criminal organisation who is laying groundwork for an invasion into Ivalice. As the story progresses, the four leaders develop in character and eventually turn on each other when it becomes apparent that [[EvenEvilHasStandards some are way more malicious than others]], and that they are being manipulated from within.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'': Reaching the City in the Sky hinges on completing the sidequest chain to restore Ilia's memories. At the end of which, she tells Link about the old woman in the Hidden Village who says she's waiting for the "messanger from the sky," who will come bearing [[PlotCoupon "the Rod"]] as proof.

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series started off without use of this trope in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsArena Arena]]'', and then started to add more and more story-driven sidequests as the series progressed. Different entries in the series typically have the main quest, the standalone sidequests, and major story arcs consisting of sidequests for each big faction in the setting (Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, etc.). The latter are often almost as expansive as the main quest.

* ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' has planets that each have their own quest chain that usually revolve around the situation going on there at the time the player arrives. Most if not all of the planets in the game have stories that revolve around the war with the Republic or the Empire and, depending on which faction the player is on, will determine what types of quests you can do there.

* ''FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'' has a developing side story in over 30 missions involving a criminal organization. You start off in apprehending a chicken thief and then snowball it from there to reach the head of the faction himself as he tries to take over Ivalice with his power.
** ''FinalFantasyTacticsA2'' has several of them with varying length, but there are two that play the biggest impact in the game:

* VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII has this with the Homestead missions from recruiting new people to join as well as helping them deal with their own story arcs. Notable arcs involve Warren and Prudence finally having a child of their own, Norris and Myriam's relationship, Ellen dealing with her abusive husband and Big Dave defecting from the Redcoats.
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' has several sidequests of this kind, with the Anju & Kafei sequence particularly standing out.

* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' hits this up a few times, mostly between the first two games. Opting to save an imprisoned merchant or rescue a man trapped in a land slide has it's own immediate rewards, but then in ''VideoGame/GoldenSunTheLostAge' many of these people track your party down to give you helpful items for helping them out.

** ''VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn'' does this poorly. The initial quest you were sent out on gets completed, and then the games real quest starts. By the end of the game, the player's original mission has been demoted to an uncompleted side quest, with only the item sitting in their inventory as a reminder of why this even started in the first place.

** The {{Gamecube}} remake (''Skies of Arcadia: Legends'') has the exclusive [[ThatOneSidequest Piastol/Moonfish sidequest]], which is time consuming and requires you to fight [[BonusBoss Piastol]][[note]]she's the toughest boss in the game, with each encounter being significantly tougher than the last.[[/note]] 3 times, while collecting Moonfish for Maria, who 's found on Doc's ship. During which, you learn that she's Piastol's missing sister and eventually reunite them.

* ''WorldOfWarcraft'' used to overuse this trope to the point that it was almost impossible to distinguish main quests from sidequests. They generally have an area-wide story arc, along with many many smaller story arcs that you could pick up while you are running about. A lot of leveling guides take advantage of this by making you pick up quests that go in the same area.
* StarWarsTheOldRepublic has planets that each have their own quest chain that usually revolve around the situation going on there at the time the player arrives. Most if not all of the planets in the game have stories that revolve around the war with the Republic or the Empire and, depending on which faction the player is on, will determine what types of quests you can do there.

* Nearly all sidequests in TheLastRemnant have their own backstory and characters. The sidequests cover a wide range os stories that really flesh out the world, and are often necessary to unlock extra characters and boost their stats.

* Most of the ''SandsOfDestruction'' {{anime}} is a series of sidequests that, while none of them connect into a ''separate'' story, they culminate in [[spoiler: WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds Morte]] coming to the realization that [[spoiler: what she had seen as a CrapsackWorld is really a WorldHalfFull, because [[RousseauWasRight of the inherent goodness in the people around her]]]], leading to the decision [[spoiler: not to use the Destruct Code to destroy the world.]]

** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'', there's a brief sidequest in which Link has to gather clues to help restore [[ImpliedLoveInterest Ilia's]] memories. At the end of which, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4UYayCJM5U she recalls the time they spent together in Ordon Village.]] After giving him the Horse Call, she tells him that he needn't worry about her anymore and says [[IWillWaitForYou she'll wait for him to return to her.]]

* ''VideoGame/FantasyLife'' has a main story whose main purpose is OpeningTheSandbox as new areas won't become available before the portion of the story that will require the player to travel there. All tutorial quests for the jobs the character can take have an ExcusePlot of sorts involving the other characters with the same job. When the player gains higher rank in their job, it unlocks new dialogue from colleagues that sometimes calls back to what happened in the tutorial quest.

* ''VideoGame/FantasyLife'' has a main story whose main purpose is OpeningTheSandbox as new areas won't become available before the portion of the story that will require the player to travel there. All tutorial quests for the jobs the character can take have an ExcusePlot of sorts involving the other characters with the same job. When the player gains higher rank in their job, it unlocks new from colleagues that sometimes calls back to what happened in the tutorial quest.

** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'', there's a brief sidequest in which Link has to gather clues to help restore [[ImpliedLoveInterest Ilia's]] memories. At the end of which, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4UYayCJM5U she recalls the time they spent together in Ordon Village.]] After giving him the Horse Call, she tells him that he needn't worry about her anymore and says [[ThePromise she'll wait for him to return to her.]]

* StarWarsTheOldRepublic has planets that each have their own quest chain that usually revolve around the situation going on there at the time the player arrives. Most if not all of the planets in the game have stories that revolve around the war with the republic or the empire and,depending on which faction the player is on,will determine what types of quests you can do there.

* ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'' can't get enough of this trope. A big achievement in the game is completing the "affinity map" showing every [[NonPlayerCharacter NPC]] and how they relate to each other, and an even bigger achievement is to make sure the majority of those relationships are happy ones!
** And some of the more prominent [[NonPlayerCharacter NPCs]] get moral choice quests where you're basically deciding which of 2 paths someone's life should take, and the game makes it deliberately ambiguous which choice is "bad", almost like real life! It does a great job of making you become attached to certain passers-by...
* A lot of them in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'': completing a sidequest in one act will make you deal with its consequences in the next or even until the end of the game, such as the Bone Pit quests. WordOfGod is, this was the whole reasoning behind the three-acts-and-time-skips plot structure.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' games typically have the main quest, the standalone sidequests, and major story arcs consisting of sidequests for each big faction in the setting (Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, etc.). The latter are often almost as expansive as the main quest.
** Interestingly, up until ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' each game had topped the previous one in this regard: ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsArena Arena]]'' lacked the trope, ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]'' introduced the possibility of joining factions and had small sub-stories for some of them (and had quests that intersect with the main quest and may appear to be part of it when playing), ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' made the Faction quests into more of stories, and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' went all-out and had the Faction quests centre around some important thing to the faction in question (''Skyrim'' did the same, but re-added random quests for the first time since ''Daggerfall'').
* ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'' has one where you act as a go-between to reunite a mother and daughter. You'll have to help the daughter acquire the right ingredients to properly make her mother's"Kabal Skewer" recipe. At the end of which, they'll reconcile their differences with her mother agreeing to start visiting her daughter again.

* There's a fair amount of this in the ''FinalFantasyTactics'' series, but since each game is pretty much ''made'' of sidequests...

* ''BaldursGate2'' had a number of different examples of quests that linked to one another separate to the main storyline- each class had their stronghold quests, while any class could do the main quest line for each stronghold.

** The {{Gamecube}} remake (''Skies of Arcadia: Legends'') has the exclusive [[ThatOneSidequest Piastol/Moonfish sidequest]], which is time consuming and requires you to fight [[BonusBoss Piastol]][[note]]she's the toughest boss in the game, with each encounter being significantly tougher than the last.[[/note]] 3 times, while collecting Moonfish for Maria. During which, you learn that she's Piastol's missing sister and eventually reunite them.

* ''SkiesOfArcadia'' has you trying to reunite a mother and daughter via several fetch quests back and forth between the two.

** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'', there's a brief sidequest in which Link has to gather clues to help restore [[ImpliedLoveInterest Ilia's]] memories. At the end of which, she recalls the time they spent together in Ordon Village. After giving him the Horse Call, she tells him that he needn't worry about her anymore and says [[ThePromise she'll wait for him to return to her.]]

In a typical RPG videogame, it's basic practice to stuff a few [[FetchQuest fetch quests]] and collectable hunts in to beef up the play time. Some games go the extra mile, and make these [[SideQuest sidequests]] string together to tell the backstories and continuing tales of the [[NonPlayerCharacter NPCs]] around you. For example, a sidequest could be to fetch a [[PoisonedWeapons poison sword]] for someone to help them win an upcoming duel, and a follow-up quest deals with everybody calling that person a cheat for using poison and ostracizing them (real example from XenobladeChronicles). Done well, this can lead to the feeling of playing within a living, breathing game world.

* ''XenobladeChronicles'' can't get enough of this trope. A big achievement in the game is completing the "affinity map" showing every [[NonPlayerCharacter NPC]] and how they relate to each other, and an even bigger achievement is to make sure the majority of those relationships are happy ones!

* ''[[TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Zelda: Majora's Mask]]'' has several sidequests of this kind, with the Anju & Kafei sequence particularly standing out.