Neglected Sidequest Consequence

"You chose... wisely! Unfortunately, you are not worthy of the Holy Grail... You failed to rescue your father. A knight must be more than brave; a knight must be compassionate. Additionally, you have not completed your personal quest for the Cross of Coronado. I must ask you to leave."

— Grail Knight (When claiming grail with incomplete sidequests), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1991)

In Video Games, there are optional Side Quests that can normally be skipped and saved for a later time, whether it be you are too low level, want to complete the story first, or just don't find it interesting. As part of a game's Anti-Frustration Features, the quests can be completed at any time at your own convenience, and the world and NPCs will wait for you... usually.

When you do decide to complete the quest you have been neglecting, only to find out that someone less-desirable had done the task for you or no one had done it at all, which leads to consequences.

Not only does this trope apply to neglected completion of an optional quest, but also neglecting to do a quest properly. It is not uncommon for one to put maximum effort in a story mission or one with high rewards, but have lackluster performance in a sidequest because it's not like an optional mission is going to have a major impact later on.

In addition to some Permanently Missable Content, the quest giver may be Chekhov's Gunman whose impact on the story is affected by the player's performance (or lack of) in their sidequest.

A sidequest may be a menial task that could give secret tips and tricks, additional exp, a special item, or just be plain filler. There are times when it isn't an Irrelevant Sidequest and is actually integral to the story or can have great effects on the world and characters. Certain sidequests may be required to Earn Your Happy Ending by providing you with a certain item, character involvement, or new world change that prevented the Golden Ending from being triggered in the first place. Sometimes the punishment can go further than simply making the story sadder, it can even result in losing valuable yet optional assets that can make playing a lot more difficult. Additionally, missable sidequests can be tied to achievements, so 100% Completion will be impossible without starting over from scratch.

For added additional realism, they could secretly be a Timed Mission and sidelining the quest then going back to complete it can have serious consequences. For example, an NPC may ask you to deliver ingredients to make medicine for a sick relative, but if you save it for later they either had someone else do the Fetch Quest or their relative would end up dying later in the game.

It may also apply What the Hell, Player? if the sidequest was really important and the game calls out the player for their inaction or incompetence.

This Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay can throw some off the loop because optional missions should now be treated with as much care and seriousness as a main-story one. Skimming through the dialogue may now be detrimental as it can reveal an important detail that players need to take into consideration, and it's not uncommon for a game to not be generous and won't say the mission details twice, provide a visible timer or give a warning about a fail condition.

Compare Boss-Altering Consequence, which specifically affects boss battles by altering their difficulty, or having a unique effect during the fight.

Due to the nature of this trope revealing major story details or containing plot twists, beware of unmarked spoilers!

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Examples:

Action-Adventure

• Conquests of Camelot: Fail to save Arthur's knights along your journey and the Grail will judge you as sinful and unworthy, leaving you Reduced to Dust with a Have a Nice Death explanation of what you did wrong.
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1991): If you have Indy go straight to the Grail Temple without doing any of the sidequests, such as getting the Cross of Coronado, rescuing your father from the castle, and rescuing Marcus from the tank, you are told you are not worthy of the Holy Grail by the knight (even if chosen correctly). He faults you for not doing all the sidequests and tells you to leave, leading to a game over.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: Most Kinstone Fusions can wait for whenever the player feels like doing them. However, there is one that will result in a missed opportunity to get Light Arrows if not done relatively early in the game. One of the characters offering Kinstone Fusion is a resident of Hyrule Town in exotic clothes who mentions being from far away. Fusing with him will unlock a teleporter that brings Link inside a building he can't leave, in which a bedridden old man named Gregal can be helped by sucking the ghost that's plaguing him with the Gust Jar. Later in the game's main plot, Link will be able to enter the building from its physical location, Cloud Tops. By that point, Gregal will have recovered and give Link the item. If Gregal isn't saved by the time the Cloud Tops are reached in the main quest, he'll have died, and the Light Arrows are never obtained.
• Star Control: There is a sidequest involving the Utwig in Star Control 2, which includes fixing and rebuilding their broken artifact known as the Ultron, which is currently broken. Repairing the Ultron requires visiting the Druuge, Thraddash, and Pkunk races, but if you successfully complete the sidequest, the Utwig will be able to launch an offensive with their Supox allies against the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah, which will delay their Death March, and by extension, increase the amount of time you have to win the game before the Kohr-Ah destroy your planet and prevent certain races from being wiped out from existence. If this is done after the Death March begins, you will receive Supox and Utwig ships for free.
• Valdis Story: Abyssal City: Three of the game's four towns can be completely depopulated if you don't complete associated side quests in time. In the original release, "in time" meant completing these side quests before an unseen in-game timer expired; the updated version makes completion more lenient by instead tying these events to your plot progress.
  • The sewers contain both a hidden town and a dangerous yeti. If you don't defeat the yeti before you visit Ishk, then it will invade the sewer town and kill everyone there.
  • After visiting the Guardian Temple, you're directed to speak with the Elder. If you neglect to do that until after your fight with Treu and Gernot, then angels will kill everyone in the town of Tagrum.
  • Ishk depends on a mana heater to keep the town at a livable temperature. Late in the story, that mana heater completely breaks down. If you take too long to fix it, the citizens evacuate and the abandoned town completely freezes over.

Role-Playing Games

• Ahriman's Prophecy: There is a Cinderella Plot side-quest where the party can help a girl named Ella obtain a ball gown to attend the royal party. If the player completes the quest, she will marry the Prince of Candar and the grateful couple would give the party the keys to the treasury for a significant amount of money. If the player fails to help Ella get to the ball, the Prince will marry Alicia instead (thus removing her as an Optional Party Member), and because neither of the couples is fully happy with this choice, they will not give the treasury keys either.
• Divinity: Original Sin II:
  • If you ignore your companions' Loyalty Missions and don't find some other way to raise their Relationship Values, they'll decide to make their own bid for Divinity rather than support yours, even if that means fighting you to the death.
  • Subverted with Tarquin's quest for a Dismantled MacGuffin in Act II. If you ignore it and then talk to him about it in Act IV, he acts as though you've missed your only chance to gain a weapon that could defeat the Big Bad; however, it's useful but not necessary in the Final Battle.
• Fire Emblem:
  • In Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light, Marth's quest calls for him to save the enslaved Tiki and gather the components of the Starlight spell, and with it, Falchion. As Tiki is a boss you can defeat instead of recruiting, and since the components of Starlight are vulnerable to enemy thieves, it's possible to miss all three, forcing Marth to seek out Nagi and confront the final boss with worse equipment and without Gotoh.
  • In Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, failing to collect all twelve shards of the Starsphere results in Gotoh not allowing Tiki to join Marth's company. Failing to rebuild the Starsphere or collect the Geosphere and Lifesphere also locks the player out of the final chapters required for the good ending.
  • Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade: The player must make sure to acquire all of the legendary weapons of Elibe by completing their respective unlockable chapters and make sure none of them break before Chapter 22; otherwise the game ends with Zephiel's defeat, locking the player out of the final three chapters of the game.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses: "War for the Weak", Dedue's paralogue, is completely optional. However, if you don't complete the sidequest, it results in his death while helping Dimitri escape imprisonment, removing him from the second half of the game.
• Genshin Impact: Downplayed as there is no serious consequence for skipping out on optional event quests aside from not gaining rewards, but a lot of character interactions and stories will no longer be accessible.
  • Unlike other limited-time events that don't happen if the player doesn't accomplish them, the Midsummer Island Adventure has confirmation that Klee went on vacation with her friends without you due to Barbara leaving a note talking about her experience at the Golden Apple Archipelago. Participating in the event reveals she holds the outlander close to her despite their little interactions and that it meant a lot to her if they joined. Since Alice, Klee's mother revealed how she is part of a race that lives much longer than normal humans, this trip was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for her to spend time with all her friends that she'd eventually outlive, even moreso when the islands become inaccessible later.
  • The "holiday" events such as Lantern Rite and Windblume festival are implied to go on without the player's input due to decorations being present in the nation and commemorative items being sold in souvenir shops. However, this implies that the Traveler was not present to influence some of the events such as convincing Xiao to see the lanterns or being the Windblume Star of Mondstadt.
• GreedFall: Failing to complete both of Kurt's optional loyalty missions before turning in the main story quest "The Prince's Secret" will result in Kurt turning on Constantin and De Sardet in the subsequent Military Coup, which results in his inevitable death and a permanent loss of either San Matheus or Hikmet and all of their respective content. Gaining Kurt's loyalty, on the other hand, lets you keep him in the party and save both cities.
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance:
  • "In God's Hands" is a timed quest wherein the sick start dying if they do not get their treatment soon.
  • "On the Scent", there are different endings depending on whether or not you complete it fast or neglect to complete it
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance: In the first game, each level contains an optional sidequest you can have the heroes go on. At the end of the game, The Watcher's narration reveals the consequences later down the line of completing or not completing said sidequests:
  • "Omega Base": Not saving the Omega Base computer when it's being attacked by the Masters of Evil's Super Soldiers will cause it to be lost. Unfortunately, the computer contains research that could help to cure the Legacy Virus, resulting in widespread Mutant deaths.
  • "Atlantis": Not gathering the ingredients needed to heal Namor from his assault by Attuma will cause Krang to ascent to the Atlantean throne in Namor's absence, resulting in a full-out war between Atlantis and the surface world using nuclear weapons stolen from surface warships.
  • "Murderworld": Not saving Senator Kelly from Arcade will only re-enforce his negative viewpoints on Mutants. He'll eventually escape on his own, sponsoring a bill that will place Mutants in re-education camps, essentially bringing about Days of Future Past without Sentinel involvement.
  • "Mephisto's Realm": This becomes an Enforced Trope as no matter what choice you make, one of your sidequests will be doomed to failure. Either you fail to save Nightcrawler, resulting in Mystique taking her aggression out on Professor Xavier, killing him and resulting in the X-Men disbanding, or you fail to save Jean Grey, resulting in her eventual rebirth as Dark Phoenix and threatening the universe once again with her near-godlike powers. Though if you have Magneto, you can bypass this.
  • "Valhalla": Not finding Valkyrie's sword will result in the deaths of both her and Balder in the ensuing battle to free Asgard from the Masters of Evil, resulting in Asgard turning its back to Earth for over a century.
  • "Niffleheim": Not finding Volla's ring will anger her, resulting in her spitefully refusing to warn Odin about an upcoming attempt on his life, causing Asgard to fall into civil war in the wake of his death, which Thor eventually manages to stop by becoming King at the cost of Sif falling in battle.
  • "Shi'Ar Empire": Failing to save Lilandra from Deathbird's torture will cause the Shi'Ar to ignore a distress call from Earth about an asteroid threatening it which eventually causes the complete destruction of the United States' west coast.
  • "Skrull Homeworld": Not helping to save the Skrulls' home planet from being devoured by Galactus will result in that entire sector of space being destabilized and renew the Kree-Skrull conflict into full-blown war, costing millions of lives on both sides.
  • "Castle Doom": There are actually two sidequests which neglecting will result in disastrous consequences: Not recovering the damaged Ultimate Nullifier will force the heroes to eventually confront Mephisto without it, resulting in mass destruction, while not rescuing Odin from Dr. Doom's imprisonment will cause him to turn his back on Thor and Earth during an attack by Thanos, resulting in Thanos easily managing to conquer Earth and enslaving it for centuries.
• Mass Effect:
  • Mass Effect 2:
    • An Inverted case. Rescuing the Normandy Crew is part of the main storyline, depending on how many side missions you do before you come for them results in either half or all of them dying a Cruel and Unusual Death, leaving Dr. Chakwas as the lone survivor.
    • If a character's personal mission is not completed, this results in disloyalty. During the Suicide Mission, a loyal crewmember assigned with a special task will survive assuming you chose the right person for the job. However, disloyal crewmembers will not survive even if chosen as the right specialist^Exceptions No matter who you choose to make the biotic field will survive, but a disloyal or non-ideal one will cause one of your allies to die. Miranda will always survive if chosen to lead the diversion, even if not loyal.. Loyal teammates will also survive when they help you destroy the Human-Reaper larva. There is also a secret calculator that determines if those you didn't take with you to the final fight will survive, which gains a bonus for loyal teammates.
  • Mass Effect 3:
    • In order to broker a lasting peace between the geth and the quarians, the player first has to complete Tali and Legion's optional loyalty missions in Mass Effect 2 to ensure that both survive the Suicide Mission, then to import the saved game into ME3. Without them, you can't negotiate peace between the two races.
    • Similarly, while at Rannoch Admiral Koris' ship crashes. Finding and recovering him is a sidequest (the final mission on Rannoch is unlocked after doing one of two missions acquired after the Geth Dreadnought). His presence makes negotiating peace between the two races easier.
    • The "Tuchanka: Bomb" mission has an enormous nuclear bomb is buried somewhere on the planet. If Shepard completes any 3 other quests before starting this mission, the quest will fail and the bomb detonates - killing millions of krogan allies, and causing a severe 300-point loss in valuable war assets.
    • Not completing the "Grissom Academy: Emergency Evacuation" sidequest before starting the main quest "Priority: The Citadel II" will result in Cerberus recapturing Jack, converting her into a Phantom, and siccing her on Shepard in the endgame (where you also find audio logs of her torture).
    • If you didn't do three separate things in the first Mass Effect (collect ten of Matriarch Dillanaga's writings, help Gavin Hossle on Feros, and buy the Elkoss Combine License), or interact with Conrad Verner, you miss out on a very small War Asset when he turns up again after the Citadel Coup. Fail to finish another sidequest from that game means Conrad dies at the end of the quest.
  • Not doing some of the DLC quests from 2 means some of the War Assets either aren't available or are reduced, since while the events still happened, Shepard's non-involvement means they went worse.
  • Mass Effect: Andromeda: Not finding the asari and turian arks means in the final battle Captain Dunn is killed when the Hyperion crashes.
• Persona:
  • In Persona 3 Portable, some civilians can get trapped in Mementos and you have to rescue them before a deadline to receive a useful reward. A few of these rescue targets include Social Link NPCs, and if you miss their deadlines, you lose the ability to progress their Social Link.
  • Persona 4 Golden: Marie's Social Link must be maxed before 12/24 (the last day on which the Investigation Team can confront the culprit) and Yu must give Margaret a specific answer to her question early on in January in order to unlock her dungeon. While the player will still be able to play through the third semester, the events simply end with the ski trip then skip to the last day; while the player will still be able to unlock the True Ending, neglecting Marie's dungeon will lock the player out of the Golden Ending.
  • Persona 5 Royal: Joker's confidant with Maruki must be at rank nine before 11/17 to unlock the third-semester arc. If his confidant is skipped over, the game will end as it does in the original and it won't be possible to access any of the new content. Skipping Akechi's confidant will mean he will not unlock his third-tier Persona, Hereward, and results in the ending cutscene not featuring what appears to be him in the background, implying Akechi finally died.
• Radiant Historia: Certain sidequests add new scenes to the ending. If all of those scenes are added, the Big Bad will have a Heel–Face Turn and sacrifice himself in the hero's place, allowing him to return home. In the 3DS remake, finishing all of the new content will unlock a third ending in which Nemesia finds a way to stop the desertification permanently without the need for any more sacrifices.
• Star Ocean: The Last Hope: Each town has delivery sidequests you can complete for the local store in the way of 20 Bear Asses. If you don't complete the quests of the southern town of Lemuris before completing the crashed spaceship dungeon, the residents of said town will have moved up north. It doesn't affect the story, but it will prevent you from getting the achievements associated with store quest completion unless you start a new file.
• Suikoden:
  • Generally speaking, many of the Loads and Loads of Sidequests throughout each game are connected to recruiting the 108 Stars of Destiny. Most of these recruits are optional... but neglecting to collect everyone naturally locks you out of the Golden Ending.
  • As an example from Suikoden V, Roy is automatically recruited during the plot arc where he's introduced. His companions Faylen and Faylon will join at the same time, provided you talk to them... or you can leave them in Sable and come back to talk to them later. Wait too long, however, and they'll both be killed defending the village when it's attacked.
  • In the same game, Oboro and his detective agency are introduced when you work with him to investigate a case. Making all the 'correct' calls during your joint venture impresses him enough that he'll join the first time you ask; for every mistake you make, you have to ask him an extra time. You can only ask him after reaching various plot beats, and after a certain point in the story, he'll leave the area for good. And even if you do recruit them properly, one of its members still won't join your cause unless you go through another sidequest specifically for her that has an even smaller window of opportunity.
• Undertale: In order to accomplish the Golden Ending, you must go out of your way to befriend everyone and make your interactions end on a good note. Failure to do so won't give them all a reason to be present in the final battle where they cheer you on. Unless everyone is there, Flowey can't absorb all the souls at once and revert to Asriel, leading to the events that break the barrier and allow monsterkind to be freed and live in harmony with the humans. Otherwise, the monsters will remain in exile for even longer now that they have to start gathering human souls from scratch.^Reason On a neutral ending, the six human souls will be lost and Frisk will be MIA.
• In the first Yo-kai Watch game, the last chapter of the main story involves Gargaros measuring your selflessness and kindness by allowing you to continue through the Yo-kai World only if you completed enough sidequests in previous chapters. If you didn't do enough sidequests (or none aside from those few as part of the progress), then he dumps you into Hungry Pass to complete enough sidequests there for the quota.

Survival Horror

• Five Nights at Freddy's 3: If every side minigame is not completed, you will get the Bad Ending, which means the souls of the murdered children will not be put to rest.
• Silent Hill: The Good ending (where Harry escapes Silent Hill with Cheryl) and the Good+ ending (where Harry and Cybil escape Silent Hill with Cheryl) can only be obtained if the player goes to an out of the way bar in Silent Hill's Resort Area and rescues Dr. Kaufmann from a monster attack. This starts up a sidequest where Harry searches the area for a sample of Aglaophotis, a substance that harms demons, which Kaufmann uses to free Cheryl from the Order's god before the final boss battle. If this sidequest isn't completed, Dr. Kaufmann disappears from the story and the final boss is the fused Cheryl and Alessa, leading to either the Bad ending (where Harry and Cybil are trapped in a collapsing Otherworld) or the Bad+ ending (where the whole game is just Harry's Dying Dream after the car crash at the beginning).

Miscellaneous

• 60 Seconds!: Zig-Zagged. Sidequests will often allow you to create a new path to an ending and ignoring them loses that opportunity to win. However, if you spend too many resources while completing them you might not have enough for the family. A lot of events are actually luck-based where they could either provide you with what you need to accomplish an ending or lose resources, damage sanity and at worst kill a family member. There is also the sidequest to obtain Sharikov the cat, who can lead you to a good ending though keeping him too long leads to a game over, and the events that acquire Mutant Mary Jane who can be a Game-Breaker, assuming you can feed her and manage her sanity.
• Bugsnax: In order to get the best ending, you must complete all of the Grumpus' side quests, which will allow them to resist the temptation of the Bugsnax during the final battle. If a Grumpus' questline is not completed before the Point of No Return, and you fail to defend them during said battle, they won't be able to resist eating the snax, and if they eat enough their whole body transforms into Bugsnax and falls apart which kills them.
• Dawn of War II: Several missions increase a party member's Corruption if you make poor choices (such as leaving Thaddeus behind when his hometown is under attack or not taking Cyrus when avenging Cyrus' murdered Initiates). The Corruption score will be the one to determine who will be the traitor in your ranks and keeping them pure prevents them from turning to betrayal.
• Donkey Kong 64: Throughout the game, you can collect up to 40 Blast-O-Matic blueprints for Snide in exchange for Golden Bananas. During the final level, Hideout Helm, you're tasked with shutting down the Blast-O-Matic under a time limit: 10 minutes by default, plus one minute for each blueprint you recovered. You don't need all of the blueprints to beat the game, but you do need to collect most of them to have enough time to stop King K. Rool from blowing up Donkey Kong Island.
• Epic Mickey: A fair amount of sidequests can be permanently missed and have an effect on what other characters do and say.
  • Starting off, during the prologue stage, Small Pete will give Mickey a sidequest to find his travel log for him. If Mickey doesn't find the log or gives it to a gremlin, then Small Pete will angrily force Mickey to fight blotlings while Big Bad Pete would scold Mickey for such carelessness.
  • In Toontown, Mickey will meet Clarabelle who will ask him to get her ingredients to make a cake for Horace. Mickey needs to bring the ingredients to Clarabelle before progressing further into the main story. Otherwise, Clarabelle will abandon her cake plan and instead make a pie for Horace.
• Howl of the Werewolf:
  • While finding all five silver daggers is optional, and requires completing other optional sidequests in order to get them, having all five makes the endgame significantly easier by allowing you to defeat the final boss without having to fight them.
  • Doing the vampire hunting sidequest but not completing it properly — i.e. by making sure the Countess Isolde is completely dead — turns the game Unwinnable, as she comes back to take her revenge at the point where you would otherwise win.)
• Mega Man X2: If X doesn't defeat the X-Hunters to collect all of Zero's parts, the X-Hunters steal back any of the parts he did collect and rebuild Zero as a boss X has to fight. If X does complete the quest, they build a copy while Cain rebuilds the real Zero. Sigma presents the copy for X to fight, and Zero makes his triumphant re-entrance effortlessly smashing it.
• Papers, Please zigzags this trope in regards to doing tasks for the local resistance group, The Order of the EZIC Star. If you don't do any tasks for them and you make it through all 31 days without escaping the country, you get the ending where you keep your job. If you start doing EZIC tasks, but you don't do at least four out of the five they give you (assassinating the Man in Red doesn't count, as this triggers an early Non-Standard Game Over), then if you don't escape the country, you will be arrested and executed for your connection to EZIC. If you do at least four tasks, then hold your fire as ordered by one of the EZIC agents when EZIC assaults the border wall, then they take over the country and you are promoted to one of their agents.
• One Chance: Inverted. Your main quest is to save the world by developing a cure to the pathogen, and sidetracking even once causes everyone to die of the virus.

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