The Most Ridiculous Side Quests In RPG History

Gamers often measure the quality of a role-playing game by its side quests. Even if the game's main story is appropriately epic, it will never pass into the realm of true greatness if the peripheral tasks aren't similarly memorable. The tone of these side quests may range from serious and dramatic to, well, the downright absurd. Here are some of the most ridiculous — be they amusing or annoying — side quests in modern RPGs.

Despite its dramatic main story, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is packed with amusing side quests. You can find many of these in its two DLC expansions. The most recent add-on, Blood and Wine, contains a quest entitled Paperchase. The quest begins after a vineyard owner tells Geralt that he has a monetary reward waiting for witcher in a nearby bank. After making his way to the bank, Geralt quickly discovers that withdrawing these funds is no easy task. He must track down one form after another from multiple bank employees. He is constantly re-routed, and ultimately has to suck up to one of the tellers to cut through the red tape. The whole quest is a satirical look at customer service and corporate bureaucracy. It's nice to see that, even in the world of fantasy, everyone has their own version of Bank of America.

Vault 108 in Fallout 3 holds a side quest that's simultaneously creepy, and amusingly absurd. While exploring the vault, the Lone Wanderer encounters dozens of hostile, blonde, male clones. Each clone is named Gary and, appropriately enough, they're only able to speak their names. Think of them as homicidal Hodors. The clones are the product of another experiment by everyone's favorite unethical company of tomorrow, Vault-Tec. Although there are no objectives per se, aside from exploration, we still count this among one of the most ridiculous side quests we've ever seen.

Fallout: New Vegas's "Wang Dang Atomic Tango" quest involves the Courier choosing whether or not to help a casino owner in Freeside recruit three prostitutes. These prostitutes include a ghoul cowgirl and a Lost in Space-style sexbot named Fisto. You must also acquire the right software for Fisto, since nothing ruins a night at the brothel like a sexbot who someone mistakenly switched to tactical assault mode.

Some quests are ridiculous because of their absurdity. Case in point is Link's task to find all eight missing Triforce pieces in Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. These eight pieces are scattered around the watery world of Hyrule, so Link must collect maps to each shard and then sail to their individual locations to retrieve them. Even with the warp ability, this task is needlessly time consuming. It's akin to buying a bag of Twizzlers and opening it, only to discover that someone has wrapped each piece of candy individually. Just give us the candy already!

Wii U's HD remake of Wind Waker pares down the number of maps Link needs to three, but it's still an unnecessary, ridiculous fetch quest in an otherwise impressive game.

While on the Citadel in Mass Effect 2, Shepherd may overhear a pair of Krogan discussing whether or not the space station's artificial lakes contain fish that they can eat. Hey, everyone needs a distraction from intergalactic annihilation, right? Upon hearing this, the game tasks Shepherd with discovering the truth behind this age-old enigma. You can find the Citadel's groundskeeper in a nearby club who will tell you that no, there are no fish to eat. You then inform the Krogan of this news to complete the quest. It's not exactly saving the galaxy from the Reapers but hey, we'll take the experience points.

In Skyrim, you have the option of joining the Dark Brotherhood, a team of assassins reminiscent of the Faceless Men from Game of Thrones. Fortunately, each Dark assassin does have a name, making communication during meetings a million times less confusing. In one quest, entitled "Bound Until Death," you're tasked with assassinating a bride on her wedding day. You earn even more cash if you kill her while she is addressing the crowd. Presumably, whoever hired you didn't want to sit through yet another boring wedding speech. Among your options to accomplish this dastardly deed is pushing a gargoyle on top of her, making this quest both morbid and darkly humorous.

You can find another of Witcher 3's amusing side quests, entitled "Dead Man's Party," in the Hearts of Stone DLC expansion. For complicated reasons, Geralt must show the ghost of dead nobleman Vlodimir von Everec the "time of his life," by attending a wedding. Vlodimir, however, must possess Geralt to do this. The proceedings are hilarious because Vlodimir, unlike Geralt, is arrogant and flirtatious. He even walks differently from Geralt — with his hands on his hips — while inside the Witcher's body.

The quest mainly involves moving the possessed Geralt from one activity to another and doing ... stuff. Losing a game of Gwent to a group of partygoers, for example, forces you to wear donkey ears for the rest of the mission. The mission is among the most memorable in the entire Witcher trilogy, and its infinitely more entertaining than watching your uncle awkwardly hit on a bridesmaid in a real-world wedding.