7 Utterly Wild Side Quests that Started Out So Simple 

Hey, could you just do us a small favour that we promise wont turn into a huge out of control mess or longwinded journey? No? Okay, you can just watch this video instead.

I know it was a joke, but I really want that 7 Times Stupid Idiots Made Stupid Maps video. And Andy and Luke to be the ones in it.

'Dude, where's my Jarl?' might just be my favourite Andy joke

There's a quest in runescape literally called "one small favour" that involves the adventurer getting a piece of redwood from a forester that soon escalates to a continent spanning chain of people asking for favours before helping you.

Zelda: Link can you walk the dog? Nothing bad should happen Ganondorf: I'm in danger

Skyrim itself is side quest gone wrong...player just wanted to cross the border and now we have to fight immortal dragons Edit-ellen imitating Arthur and andy freaking over cats,what kind of mirror dimension is this?!!

"Dude, where's my jarl?" Flagon-born "Mark him as an abomination for some witchering later", and England as a Norse side quest. The writers were on fire in this video. Slow claps all around and well deserved.

"To the vikings, England basically was a side quest" has to be the best thing i've heard today

I loved "A Night to Remember" mostly because it allowed me to get Markarth as a fast travel destination without actually having to trudge over there.

How about in The Witcher 3: TWH, when you sit in a pub to play Gwent and some side quest about finding your daughter begins?

The Bouncing Boy quest actually gets even darker. You can find the robot sitting on top of one of the mountains repeating "Father..." over and over, after he kills Dragic

"Sidequests existing in the background of the mainquest", unless you're playing a Bethesda open-world game where the main quest is forgotten within five minutes in favor of the more interesting sidequests

AC Odyssey: A Family’s Legacy. All you have to do is find out who your father is...and become an immortal, discover a lost civilization, and convince Pythagoras he has to die for math crimes.

"Flagon-borne" deserves the highest of fives

I still love that Sanguine answers your question of ‘why me’ with a still slurred ‘let’s be honest, I don’t always think things through.’

Ellen doing a red dead entry and Andy immediately following it with an entry about cute cats?!?!!? I think I’ve woken up in a parallel dimension again

Actually, "7 stupid maps" could be an interesting video. Some Dragon Age maps are down-right weird.

I think the pan quest in witcher 3 also fits this. "Ah yes ill get this lady her pan back.... Wait why is there a corpse"

Can we all appreciate Ellen's Dutch van der Linde impression?

What made the Big Goron Sword SQ more difficult is that one part has a time limit and you can't use the teleport songs to get from place to place cause it would instantly fail it.

Wild at heart is probably the Witcher quest I'd recommend as a must for anyone, you get it relatively early, specifically because it starts off unassuming and by the end you've had your share of drama and tragedy, it fits the general tone of the game and doesn't go on more than it should, perfect micro-pellet of witcher goodness.

Ellen’s segment on Zelda was true genius. Both the writing and the editing were brilliant

A simple dinner invitation from your ship's pilot leads to a fight through the streets, a casino infiltration and a face-off with your face-wearing evil clone in Mass Effect 3's Citadel DLC.

What about the "One Really, Really Bad Day" side quest from AC: Odyssey? A simple request to take out a few pirate ships to protect a village turns into a slapstick tragicomedy where Kassandra's every attempt at helping ends with the quest-giver dying in a hilariously horrible way.

I really wanted to mention Yakuza 0’s “Disciple of the New Order” where Majima goes to deliver a message to a woman’s daughter from within the Order of Munan Chohept Onast but uncovers a lot of weird things about the cult along the way.

No Mass Effect Andromeda? The quest where you are sent out to dig for water and end up fighting a skyscraper sized spaceworm was the definition of quick escalation.

I love that Andy is helping out to make lists on Outside Xtra while Luke is busy being a wonderful dad. Andy - the real friend we all wish to have♥️

During the Skyrim quest: a daedra's best friend, you start by looking for someone's lost dog, and end up meeting, and making a deal with Clavicus Vile, the daedric prince of trickery and wishes.

Ellen's delivery on the entire Zelda quest is absolutely brilliant.

How about that quest in witcher 3 which starts with a couple of guys offering you some roasted pig and ends with you leading some villagers who've been converted to pigs to a cave, through a portal to reverse some elven curse? Fool's gold was it called?

What about that sidequest in Fallout 2 that starts with you being asked to find a lost watch and ends up with you bombing the local outhouse and covering the entire town in poo?

Ellen saying, "It's gonna be FINE, Arthur" is the best thing ever.

Surprised We didn’t see Cyberpunks mission where you drive someone to a murder only for you to end up nailing the guy who was gonna get murdered to a cross

Emil’s quest line in Nier Automata: You start by finding some flowers around the world Then you find a new area with the flowers and he gets back some of his memories Some (other) stuff occurs Now you are fighting giant heads of him in the desert that threaten to nuke the whole place and you are the only one who can stop them. Also Emil’s song is playing during the boss fight, cause fuck your delicate emotional state at this point. Feels train knows no breaks.

Under the heading of "Witcher contracts that spiral out of control" might I suggest the entirety of the "Hearts of Stone" DLC where-after killing a giant frog in the sewers that turned out to be a prince and subsequently being captured by his subjects-Geralt strikes a deal with the literal devil to grant the bloke who hired him three wishes which, in turn, leads to Geralt 1) attending a wedding while possessed by a ghost; 2) orchestrating an auction house heist that has (among other things) the Goblet of Fire; and 3) confronting a dead woman's deepest anxieties in her painting?

Fallout 4, The Secret Of Cabot House, starts off as a couple of fetch quests, ends up becoming a choice between a madman with the power to destroy the world, AND make you immortal, or his Son who wants to stop him and maybe become immortal along the way at his dad's expense

"Come Fly With Me" from Fallout: New Vegas begins with you going off to clear some ghouls out of an old building that used to be a site for launching rockets. However, it turns out that the ghouls plan on using some of these rockets to reach some sort of "promised land", and if you like, you can help them with this journey (and they're more likely to succeed if you have a high enough science skill)

Oh God, I hope the Red Dead Redemption 2 side quest isn’t some sort of foreshadowing for the Wonderful Mechanical Man...

Interesting, I was in a middle of watching a really long video, when I got the notification that this was up, so I decided that I could slip this short little video in between and keep watching the long thing later. I demand some experience and a disappointing reward now though.

It doesn't really count as a "Side" quest but the whole premise of the "One Small Favour" quest in RuneScape was sort of a poke at the absurdity of both quests in games, and also favors in real life, and how one "small" thing can turn into a massive chain of BS to get you to the end point that should've been so simple lol.

The biggest omission in this is from Octopath Traveler, where an unassuming sidequest quite literally ends in the true final boss battle.

"but it's broken so take back that duh-na-na-na!"

Emil's quest line in NieR: Automata Ever think a simple flower fetch quest would turn into one of the most emotional and difficult boss quests in the game?

What about the infamous Kafei sidequest in Zelda Majora's Mask? That sidequest starts with you just needing to locate Anju's lover, but after a long series of sidequest chains, you end up trying to take back a wedding mask from a thief under a time limit!

The Anju and Kafei quest in Zelda: Majora's mask. That was insane!

You have to make that map video now. I'm telling you this before the Internet floods your DMs with torches and pitchforks asking where it is 2 years later.

"Dude, where's my Jarl?" 😂

One quest in Skyrim that I remember escalating so far down the line was the whole Dragonborn thing. Attacked by a cult. Cool, deal with that. Travel to another Landmass to find its inhabitants brainwashed, then help some guard, find the Skaal, meet Neloth, read black books and meet the FIRST Dragonborn who's been trapped inside a Daedric Realm and thinks he can outsmart the Daedric Lord of Knowledge and Plots. Yeah, I didn't see that coming when I grabbed that DLC XD

I definitely need more Arthur impressions by Ellen in my life.

The cartography beef at 12:45 feels related to Jane's recent reveal as official oxventure cartographer on the podcast. I've got to say I'd love to see Jane cutting a promo on Ptolemy or ripping into the Mercator projection!

In "Cyberpunk 2077", there's a side quest where you start off helping a guy assassinate someone who killed his wife, and wind up having to decide if you're going to help crucify said killer.

Oh, that quest in the Witcher's dlc "blood and wine", where you just have to retrieve some gold from a bank account. Just some paperwork

The sidequest that comes to mind for me is “Vi’s Request” from Bug Fables. At first, it seems like a pretty standard trading sequence; trade a fancy toy for a souvenir, trade that souvenir for some fabric, trade that fabric for some dye, and then trade that die for some paint to give to Vi’s sister, so they stop fighting. The only issue is, that fancy toy is found at Metal Island. If you wait until the end of the game, you do get free passage there eventually, but if you get Vi’s Request done immediately it’s a little more complicated. See, getting to Metal Island by normal means is super expensive, too expensive to realistically afford without hours of needless grinding. You can make the trip cheaper, though, by being qualified for the trading card game tournament, and in order to do that you must travel around the world, finding 4 secret “Card Masters”; people who say they’re amazing at this card game, but really, really aren’t. Not too bad so far, you may be thinking, until you also realize in order to start searching for the Card Masters in the first place, you have to get access to a secret underground tavern, and the only way to do that is by fighting an actual vampire. So, what started off as a fairly simple “get Vi’s sister some paint so they can make up” turns into “journey to every corner of the world for a complex trade sequence, learn how to play a trading card game in a secret undeground tavern, journey around the world a second time to get qualified for a card game tournament, and fight a vampire to do it”.

The Teeth of Naros quest in KOA's DLC started with a straightforward scouting/exploration mission and ended with saving a entire civilisation of giant people

I feel like we need a list of 7 most insane drunken benders in games

hahaha "To the vikings, england was basically a side quest" Oh my sides! Comedy gold right there.

Oblivion: The "Roots" series of quests given by Sinderion. You collect nirnroot for a guy who can't seem to get out to it himself. Thing is you have to go over the whole damn map to find them.

Fallout: New Vegas; Hard Luck Blues where you are just gonna solve a simple water problem

That Divinity quest was so much fun, was playing with friends and we just couldnt stop laughing every time we died.

16:39 There's nothing wrong with talking to an elk! It's when the elk starts talking back that you need to worry!

Speaking of The Witcher, the whole Hearts of Stone main quest line starts as a simple monster contract.

Andy's map-hating was over the map of Kingdoms of Amalur. I guess Ellen didn't edit this one. That game has a great map. ps. we really need that map video

A good one was from Oblivion from the Fighters Guild. You were told to help a lady in Anvil with her rat problem. Come to find out the rats are her pets and you learn her neighbor lured wolves into town to kill the rats off.

My mind immediately went to the quest Jesse Faden starring in 'Swift Platform' from Control. You start off chasing down a possessed movie camera (ok, but that's a standard day in the office in the FBC) and end up... Well... Well...

The Divinity Original sin area’s “flush” isn’t just deathfog, in case you try to get smart and bring all undead inside, it’s *also* lava!

Ok, but what about one of the few side quests in Hollow Knight? All you have to do is deliver a flower, right?

The impish pocket dimension has my favorite music in the whole game. I really do love hanging out and listening to the music

I remember that time in skyrim 3 where you drink 200 bottles of skooma and run from one end of the continent to another. Running so fast that the landscape would have a hard time catching up. Good times.

I'm going to need a whole video of Ellen reading Dutch's lines. Also, no way that's Andy's capture for the boating bit. His Arthur wouldn't be seen dead in that jacket. Though clearly it's Andy doing the boy.

3:38 as someone whose brother studied at Warwick university I absolutely understand that joke

For the Witcher 3 quest, you know leaving the traitorous shrew to her fate of being torn apart by a angry, bereaved werewolf is the right choice when 99.9% of all players (even the perma-paragon ones) all chose that outcome. She killed her own sister so she could steal her husband, she had it coming.

DUDE the Witcher II!! So underrated people don’t realize the games before III were actually great role playing experiences.

I have to say this is some of your best written work and delivery to boot. 💜💜💜 Had me literally laughing out loud 😆

Start of ACII: it’s just some stupid feathers After the start of ACII: if I want my ancestor’s mother to talk to him again I need to collect all the feathers

I like that Ellen and Andy seemed to switch scripts, with Ellen talking about RDR2 and Andy gushing over cats. :D

"I want those feathers!' I literally went UGHHHHH

Really, One Small Favour from OSRS deserves to be on here if you count Dragon Slayer 1 and 2 as the main quests. But even more than that, there's a quest line that goes from helping the castle cook make a cake to interdimensional time travel and quite literally everything in between.

9:26 legend of Zelda breath of the wild, link finally ends a spa break and defeats the ultimate evil.

The RDR2 side quest that surprised me the most was the one that sarted out with "help this scientist man-type get money and booze" and ended up with the invention of the electrical chair.. I'm still not over it.

What about Gran side quest line from Dragon Dogma ? He asks you to retrieve a book/tome for him that he lost .Then later you and him end up in a epic battle with a monstrous gryphon .

Control has a couple of wacky ones, and while it's easy see any side quest in that game becoming wild (especially after the Fridge Incident) pretty sure clearing out the pipes below is a tad more wild. So you help Ahti clean up pipes, sounds easy, right? Not when you see "The Clog". Let's just say "Be glad this one doesn't sing" and leave it there.

"Dude, where's my Jarl." That is just beautiful writing.

RU-vid channels like Outside Xtra/Xbox are among the rare wonderful cats found inside a midsize Japanese shopping. Thanks for always keeping it fresh and entertaining!

One side quest that had meager beginnings but could easily take twice as long as the main quest comes from Skyrim. The moment you decide to pick up a fancy little pink gem floating in a gold box could lead you to burdening your quest log with the No Stone Unturned quest. In ten years I finished it once.

I know Skyrim has SO many, but how about that one where the blacksmith in Falkreath asks you to find his dog, and ends with you deciding whether or not you wanna sacrifice this dog with a shiny axe to appease the Daedric lord of wishes?

Can't believe the crucifixion side quest from cyberpunk wasn't on this.

I remember playing Runescape years ago and doing a quest called One Small Favour. It starts off with a simple request of getting some rare Mahogany to make some polish and turns into a trek across half the world doing favors for everyone and their grandmothers to get items you need for other people. When you finally repair something for the last guy it begins a giant chain of back tracking to give each prior person the item they asked for until you make it all the way back to the first guy who then just says "Thanks" and complains about how long it took. Oh and you had to fight a giant rock monster on the return trip.

My favorite is The Witcher 3's side quest where you deal with the Red Baron I think, I really didn't expect what happened.

Ellen’s Dutch voice is spot on

Lately it feel like my life is a side quest. I just want to go back to the main path.

Andy killing it with the puns ! Love it

This list reminds me a bit of a side quest in "Planescape: Torment", where you are asked to deliver a 'mysterious box' for Mar; seemingly a simple delivery quest turns into your character getting bounded to the box, which contains a powerful demon and no-one wanting to take the box off your hands. You can't just leave the box either, because if the demon were to be released, you would be its primary target anyway. What's more, even if you do resolve the quest during your time in Sigil, you can still run into said demon later in the game, just to see how much of a hassle dealing with it would've been :D

I’ve been WAITING for Divinity: Original Sin 2 to make it on an Outside Xtra list!!! 🙏🏻💛🙏🏻 made my day, honestly!

Any quest involving finding every single copy of a single item in a game is a slaughter.

9:39 With all the usual packed-with-witty-humour goodness in your vids, Ganon’s death-cry here made me giggle the most for some reason. 😂

Dear diary: This was a crazy day! With the evil dragon stalled for a few weeks before it comes to raze our village, I decided to take a little break from big heroics to tackle small heroics. So I decided to freelance into delivering mail, just for the day. Well, things happened. Long story short, what started out as delivering mail ended with me delivering one of the most elusive extortion rings to the law. It seems that even in my downtime, I can't help but stopping evil.

You could also add the find the dog in skyrim that promptly leads you on a long run bumping into lots of other fights and then the daedric lord in a cavern full of vampires

Extirpation also has an ecological, large-scale definition: a localized extinction. In other words, that trap that threatens to extirpate you could be threatening to wipe you out like an groundskeeper removing invasive plants from a park.

A night to remember was one of my favourite skyrim quests. I loved using the staff to summon a daedra to fight for you. And now I'm remembering a fanfic. Thanks outside xtra

* Looks at clock and sees its actually 3 am.* Well... darn it.