main quest

In video games, the main quest is the central storyline you have to finish to beat the game. In everyday slang, your main quest is what you’re supposed to be doing, like work, school, bills and errands. Everything fun and unplanned is a side quest.

In games

Big open-world games split their missions into the main quest, which moves the story forward, and optional side quests, which don’t. Players famously ignore the main quest for hours to pick flowers, build houses or help a stranger find a lost chicken.

In everyday life

People now describe their own lives the same way. The main quest is the serious stuff: your degree, your job, getting through the week. The side quests are the detours, like a spontaneous road trip or a three-hour hunt for the perfect lamp. “I’m on my main quest this week” means you’re focused, with no distractions.

Examples

• “Can’t come out tonight, I’m on my main quest. Finals are Monday.”
• “I was supposed to buy groceries but got sidetracked by a thrift store. Main quest abandoned.”
• “200 hours in and I still haven’t touched the main quest.”

Where it came from

The terms come straight from role-playing game design. Know Your Meme’s earliest meme example is from around November 2011, after Skyrim came out, joking about players who never finish the main quest. The everyday “main quest vs. side quest” framing took off on TikTok in 2024 and 2025, where “side quest ideas” videos rack up huge numbers of views. Merriam-Webster defines side quest as a task “independent of the main quest,” and notes the slang use is often jocular.

Related terms

• side quest: an optional detour from your real plans
• NPC: a background character, or someone on autopilot
• main character: acting like the star of your own story
• level up: to improve

See more terms like this in our gaming slang dictionary.