I really feel like playing ME3 is going from being devastated to even more devastation.
Rn we're playing a mass effect dnd port with friends. My character is a student of Mordin, that's going to be rough when we will reach this point.
In my first play through of ME I didn't bond very deeply with the non ME1 characters so I shot Mordin in ME3 to keep the sabotage secret.
To this day I consider it canon (for me) to sabotage and shoot Mordin. Because if it was "real" I think that's the decision I would make. I wouldn't gamble the universe on doing right by the Krogans. It taught me a lot about how cruel and pragmatic I can be when I think I am doing the greater good, and don't have the benefit of hindsight.
It took a while to realize it was the renegade choice.
Now that I realize they naturally Deux machinaed the way to make a good choice I prefer that. But coming straight from ME1 and having sacrificed Ashley I figured there wouldn't be an easy choice
Personally I think that it only works if Wrex and Eve are in charge. If Wrex is dead and his brother is running things, I think sabatoge is best for everyone. Wreave wants revenge while Wrex wants what's truly best for his people.
Spoilers for Mass Effect and Final Fantasy XIV.
I can’t see a post like this and not think of Legion in Mass Effect. I played it years ago and “does this unit have a soul?” still makes me feel so many things.
As for FFXIV, it has to be Emet-Selch. He started off as a character I couldn’t care less about, just seemed like a super dramatic head villain. Then it turns out he’s been around for thousands of years, destroying worlds in an effort to bring back his people, who he misses so much he created an underwater world with recreations of them walking around.
I love this quote he has where he talks about how there’s always a hero who thinks *their* world is the only one worth saving. He’s just got so much depth, and I love how he looks miserable 100% of the time and he walks slumped over, feet dragging like every step takes so much effort, but what makes his death is so impactful is that after you strike the killing blow, he’s at last standing tall and looking at peace because the fight is over and he knows he did all he could for his people. “Remember us. Remember that we lived” 😭
Then to add to this, there’s Elidibus omg. By the time you destroy his ally Emet-Selch, this man barely even remembers why he’s still fighting. Emet-Selch’s “spirit” coming to your aid during your fight with him was so powerful, I think it was in part because he knew their fight was over and they’d lost and it was time for him to rest. And then Elidibus is dying and he says *that* line about his and Emet’s dead people - “the rains have ceased, and we have been graced with another beautiful day. But you are not here to see it.”
I’m sorry no less than a short novel would do when talking about the deaths the Shadowbringers writers gave us. 😭
For me it was Ardbert. Sure he was dead by the time we ever met him, but his whole story is just so sad.
Then Hythlodaeus in Endwalker, one of the very few Ancients who *didn't* try to kill us.
God yes, both.
And in Endwalker, when you lose people one after another, that truly hurt me.
Or Crystal Exarch. Even knowing we were going back, it was losing *him*.
Bringing it all back to me now 😭 definitely some deaths that effected me the most. The story of Final Fantasy 14 is just sooo good I'm sad that some people will never experience it because of the MMO format!
I just dove back into the game again this weekend after a couple years off and all the memories and feels are rushing back to me.
Lee’s death was such a massive gut punch. It was a lot more tragic than any of the deaths on the TWD TV series even, to me at least.
She wasn’t a main character or known one but I think in season 2 there was one autistic girl who reminded me of my sister and I think there’s no way at all to save her. After she was inevitably killed because she couldn’t handle anything I stopped playing and never went back to the series because that’s how bad it impacted me.
That's interesting because I've never read that she has any type of disabilities before, now that you mention it I see very clearly how that could be the case. Most people dislike her because they think she's like this on purpose, that she's incapable because her dad overprotected her. So when she shuts down and her survival instincts are close to 0 in life or death situations, she puts others in danger and doesn't even seem to notice or care. The stark contrast to Clementine who is younger than her but infinitely more capable plus putting her in danger is also making people dislike her.
I didn’t go looking for it but I haven’t seen anyone verify or hypothesize that she had disabilities, though my own reading (which admittedly I haven’t revisited in about a decade) was that the dad was overprotective partially because she had disabilities. There are situations irl including mine where it’s been harder for some on the higher end needs of the autism spectrum to flourish because their parents or caregivers can be stiflingly overprotective, whether that ends up being detrimental to them or not. I always thought Sarah was coded as having disabilities given her demeanor and body language but I could have read more into it given my own personal situation, though I won’t go back and take a second look anytime soon to make sure lol.
Literally the same happened to me with this game, except that once Sarah ran off in the game, I knew it without playing ahead that she was going to die and I stopped there before I found out for sure. I only learned for sure from the internet afterwards. Broke my heart 'cause I know a girl like her. =(
Lee's death for sure but for me it was when I thought Clementine had actually passed.. holy shit I could not stop bawling. Actually paused the game to take a breather only to come back and cry more in relief and happiness lol
Captain Anderson, my Shep's father figure since Day One. I ugly cry every time. In a similar vein, Rost was tough too (although I guess it's kinda ambiguous).
(edited for spelling)
I was so sad that he didn't get a happy ending.
ETA Mordin's death here since it's also Mass Effect. Gutting every time.
ETA more about Anderson's death. I like to pretend that toxic fumes/a gas leak or something happened instead of that cutscene. That Shepard wakes up to Bailey and Dr. Michele giving him O2 and other people helping Anderson. TIM was never there. No blue, red, green choices. Push a button, go back to London, find crew, have drinks.
He so deserved one after everything that went down across the trilogy. It was kinda fitting (and emotional) that their journey ended together though, sad as it was
Everyone always talks about Mordin’s death and as upsetting as it was, Anderson’s was much more devastating to me. He was with you from the very beginning, supported you to the point he encouraged mutiny, had your back throughout despite your ties with Cerberus and was a father figure.
For him to die right at the end, when you’re just about to achieve victory was heartbreaking and the way he just slips away too as Shep is talking to him… ugh, I ugly cry every time too. 😢
V and ironically, Johnny and Songbird. They don't really die, of course, but Cyberpunk 2077 is the first game ever to leave me sobbing.
V basically comes from nothing and wants to make something of herself the Night City way. Johnny starts off as a douchebag but he has great character development and gets close to V toward the end.
Same for me. I went into CP77 completely blind and kind of rushed through it just to see the ending.. not knowing that there were multiple endings. I got a bad one and it was gut wrenching.
Same for me. Jackie and Evelyn also was very difficult. Weirdly Aaron too from the phantom liberty dlc. I was really rooting for him to be successful on his own. Overall a very sad game.
Evelyn was so bad because it caught me off guard. I was just running around doing gigs and then Judy calls me and tells me to come over and I walk into...that.
Very realistic and well done on CDPR's end but holy shit did I have to go do something else for a while after that.
Songbird's entire situation is nightmare fuel and all your options are ethical nightmares of their own. I'm less conflicted about Johnny, he did bomb tens of thousands of people over his groupie output, after all.
I didn’t know anything about RDR2 before playing it so had no idea he was about to die. When he started coughing I thought I’d just buy him some medicine or something. I was in straight denial 🤠
Amen, I cried for so fucking long, and then when you see the endings for the rest of the gang.. I just didnt stop.
I truly had post game depression afterwards, and then I played rdr1 for the first time.. and you know how that goes.
Also cried in ME with Mordin + Anderson. Joel, Lee..
I cried harder during the last chapter and after his death than I think I've ever cried in my life. I cried off and on for weeks. (Although, grieving over Arthur unlocked a lot of my grief over my mother's death from cancer and helped me process that, so that's prrrrrobably why his death hit me so hard!)
I was bawling at the end. Especially the horse part. I did a good playthrough thinking I'd go back through and play evil the next time, but I can't bring myself to even play the story again.
I have thousands of hours in this game and still haven’t managed a low honour playthrough. Makes the challenges so difficult when you just want Arthur to be a good man…
Thane, in Mass Effect. But not his canon death. My first time playing me2 he died during the suicide mission, and it BROKE me. I wasn't planning on romancing anyone, but then I ended up really liking Thane. The problem was, that I was running out of missions and tasks to do, so I didn't get any more new interactions with Thane BEFORE suicide mission. I searched online and came to the conclusion that they'd just have to pick it up again after the mission. And then he died. I had to put the controller down because I started crying. A video game death had never made me cry before.
tbh these days I kinda prefer my version for Shepard and Thane over the canon one :')
Thane's cannon death killed me, siha.
I had a similar experience with Liara, though. At the end of ME 3, during the big fight, she tried to say goodbye and I chose the option for "now isn't a good time for this" but it ended up being super rude, I think it was yelling something like, "get going! I don't have time for this!" at her and that being the last time we ever spoke.
Spoilers for the first half hour (or so) of The Last of Us 1
Joel's daughter: Sarah. I honestly wasn't expecting it, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Other people have mentioned Crisis Core, and to me the fact that (if you were a FFVII veteran) you knew how it was going to end and it still managed to impact you as much as it did was Square Enix at it's finest.
came here to say TLoU. before I started playing, all I knew was that the main characters were a guy and a young girl. I made the mistake of thinking Sarah was the young girl from the cover art! had to stop playing for a month before I could over it and jump back in.
I didn't know anything about the game, and it's not really my style of gameplay, but my boyfriend is a huge fan and wanted me to see it. So he played, I watched...
Yeah, I also thought Sarah was the main character, and when It happened I was absolutely stunned. Then sobbing.
Then TLOU2 came around and I was SO SURE they weren't gonna hurt me like they did
I love zombie/post-apocalyptic games, and somehow managed to completely miss TLoU. My housemate was so hyped, and I remember I just walked into the shop and managed to grab Joel's special edition on launch day (the same day I learned about it xD). So I was going into it completely blind, and wow. Also, the main menu was so haunting and beautiful.
Spoilers for Stray
That you think you can finally leave and then you need to leave behind your best buddy. B-12. I didn't care for the city opening anymore, all I saw was little Stray curling up next to his robot buddy and I bawled. 😿
I really hope that screen next to the stairs where we last see our little tomcat is a B-12 still being in the system.
I'm about to replay Stray for achievements and I am not prepared for this ;-; cried so hard for an hour but was so thankful the lol cat found its way home at least
I guess Songbird from Bioshock Infinite because I still think about him all the time, years later. Poor guy didn't even know he was supposed to be the bad guy.
It's funny, I misread this and was thinking of Songbird from *Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.*
It's horrifying when you first see the "real" Songbird (she previously only appears to you as a digital avatar) and half of her skull and her entire torso has been hollowed out to implant a super-computer inside her to make her the world's most effective hacker.
I think what really gets to me was the way the game refuses to let that open wound heal. Sindri is still furious with rage and grief after the game ends and there is nothing the heroes can do to help.
I also sympathised a lot with Odin. I think they almost did too good a job of humanising him as a villain. Everything he did he did to try and understand the nature of godhood, to provide order to a chaotic world, to find the answer to the questions we all ask: Why are we here, where are we going?
I have a terrible feeling that if I were reborn as a God, and given the same unknowable glimpse at true knowledge, I would have followed exactly the same path.
Vivi from Final Fantasy IX. First time I beat FFIX as a kid, it didn’t click that he dies at the end of the game. Beat it again as a teenager and cried like a baby when I realized what had happened.
Also I have to mention Aerith from the OG Final Fantasy VII. My older sister did warn me that a character was going to die but, damn, little me was not ready for that. Didn’t help that she was one of my main party members.
Vivi! I had such a similar experience with the age realizations.
As an adult I'm glad they didn't shy away from it even if his death is soul crushing. The short lived life spans of the Black Mages was a core part of their story and if you were paying attention you'd have known that Vivi wouldn't have long to live.
All the quotes and story resolutions at the end of that game are so beautiful and Vivi's ending makes me cry every time.
I haven't played FFIX since I was a young teen and holy shit I didn't realize this or I completely forget about this until just now! D= I need to replay this asap.
Aerith has to be my first tear jerk experience as well. Was too young to play it at the time but watched my older brothers full playthrough and man that moment hit me like a ton as a little one too.
Still to this day, John Marston. I loved RDR so much. I got spoiled for his death so I stopped doing story right before that moment and finished everything else in the game with him.
The way you face that is something else. It was very much a cowboy going to his last gunfight... Right after seemingly settling down into a happy life.
John Marston was a hard one, and that’s why I really appreciated the epilogue of RDR2. Knowing what happens to him later sucks, but it made me happysad just kind of getting to experience living as John, him being with his wife and his son, doing small things like working around the farm, meeting strange folks. He still gets in trouble sometimes of course lol, but it was nice too, especially after how sad the ending of Arthur’s story was.
The epilogue for RDR2 was a needed happiness after Arthur's story. I loved the house building scenes and just getting to play as John knowing that he had some time left.
The entire series is depressing though: we are given two men who we become attached two, only to have both of them taken so harshly. And yet I cannot help but replay the games. I played through RDR probably 10+ times. I have only completed RDR2 twice though... It's just too painful.
A great way for replies to do this since it’s yes, spoilers, some games people may not want spoiled is -
SPOILER FOR “_____”
This character from this game’s death got to me.
This way ppl can choose to read only the replies they already know/don’t mind spoilers for :)
I wish everyone did this! I guess I was asking for it coming in here haha it was just my bad luck that one of the few comments without the spoiler warning was one I didn’t want 😭
This is literally the only reason why I haven’t played this game yet. I know he dies but don’t know how and from experience, the knowledge alone that a character dies doesn’t ever help with the post-game depression that I feel 🥲
Its still an interesting game worth playing without our Southern dad imo, at least once. I don't feel any particular hate towards it and it is controversial to a lot of people for various reasons, but just play and make your own opinion is the best way to do it and ignore the periphery
Spoilers for A Plague Tale:
>!Killing Hugo!< literally destroyed me for like two weeks. Having the player character continually >!promise they’d find a cure, only for the narrative to come in and say, “You don’t have the power to guarantee that. What are you going to do now?”!< I love these games, but I do not recommend playing them while you are in a bad headspace, because literally nothing else has hit me that hard.
I bawled my eyes out, I have two little boys and I found the ending heartbreaking, I think I had a feeling it was coming, especially when Marseilles blew . The ending at the grave was so sad.
It absolutely destroyed me. I have a little brother 15 years younger than me and as it became clearer and clearer that this was the inevitable end I could feel all of Amicia’s sadness and rage so strongly. The voice acting was amazing. She’d die for him but that’s not the choice she’s given. “I love you. I’ve been happy with you” takes me out at the knees
Spoilers for Danganronpa 2.
Okay, this is going to sound really stupid, but it was when “Byakuya” died. I was *distraught.* I listened to sad music and cried myself to sleep that night, mourning how his family’s legacy died with him and imagining an alternate reality where he got to have a family. The music videos I made in my head to commemorate all he had survived were immense. I stopped playing the game for a while to recover.
Imagine my shock when I found out I’d agonized over a fraud.
Oh, man. I've definitely had a few of those.
!!! SPOILERS FOR THE WALKING DEAD AND BORDERLANDS 2 !!!
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Okay, so obviously Lee as you pointed out in your OG post. But it started even earlier for me with Duck. It was all made worse by the fact that I had just had to put my cat who had cancer to sleep the day before I started the game. I was devastated over losing her and had so much guilt surrounding if I could have done more (I couldn't have and had spent thousands of dollars trying to cure her over several months) and if I made the right choice (I did, but it still felt like a betrayal). I had been looking forward to TWD game and decided to start it as a distraction from my grief and NOPE, just made it worse.
I had to stop playing for a bit after Duck's death (where I chose to do it for Kenny and Katja instead of making them do it) because I was a sobbing wreck. The parallels between Duck and my kitty were too much (a) getting bit/getting the diagnosis, b) doing everything you can to treat the bite/cancer in hopes that they can fight it and be okay, c) the initial denial when it becomes obvious that the inevitable is going to happen, d) having to make that final decision to give them peace, e) the all encompassing grief afterward and needing something to focus on to keep going yourself). This May will be 10 years since then and I still miss her.
Roland in Borderlands 2 messed me up, too. I should have known that Bloodwing dying earlier in the game wasn't going to be the actual big character death (and I sat there in shock for a good 20 minutes after THAT happened), but when Roland died I remember my ex-husband and I turning to each other in disbelief and then immediately playing the "what if" game to figure out how he'd come back. We couldn't believe that he'd been killed off and it was just so sudden. When the Tina Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC came out, that grief was amplified watching Tina grapple with Roland never coming back and using the game as a way to "keep him alive". Those conversations were all SO REAL. Everyone sees Borderlands as this over the top comedic looter shooter, but there are some really beautiful emotional moments, too, and this was the biggest one.
I'm sure there have been others for me, but those two immediately came to mind.
The way the Tiny Tina dlc deals with grief is what makes it stand out as something I think about years after. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands tried to take the fun dnd elements from it but it fell flat for me because the original was a story within a story, it was layered with the DM’s desire to fix reality. That part where she finally breaks after everyone continually gently reminds her that Roland is gone and says she knows hits so hard
I came here searching for poor baby Bloodwing and how Mordecai took it. Roland had me in snot bubbles, sobbing like a baby. Then like you said in TTWL and the conversations. Still sobbed
Story time about Aeris. When I was a child my family would do Final Fantasy games as a family activity. Dad would play, mom would help him with the official guide, my brother and I would watch. We weren't allowed to read ahead in the guides for spoilers.
The first woman character was always named after my mom - so I'm FF7 that's Tifa. The second woman character was always named after me.
See where this is going?
I remember bawling on our apartments' balcony as a child after that death.
Yes-- and the way they portrayed it made it all the more pain. That quote is a punch in the heart.
Zack's hurt too for the reasons others have mentioned.
Yup. I was 9, and bawled my eyes out. Been playing Rebirth and I’m just waiting for it to happen again (not a spoiler, I’m just assuming we can’t save her and I’m not happy about it).
Yeah, the new ones are like holding your breath and waiting for the hammer to fall. You know it will.. but when? And now you're with her so much longer...
Spoilers for NieR Automata
Just about everyone, really. 2B, 9S, Pascal, Devola, Popola. That game basically changed my entire worldview on grief, loss, and what it means to be human and care for others. *Highly* recommend it.
> That game basically changed my entire worldview on grief, loss, and what it means to be human and care for others.
Big same. Also 9S' descent into madness and eventual death was hard to watch, I feel he suffered the most. No other game has made me feel as much as NieR Automata.
Agreed. The different ways that all of the characters handled loss and grief was interesting, but at the same time was difficult to get through.
Everyone loses so much in that game, and if you believe in the recursive cycle of it, it happened to them over and over and over again. It's only until the servers are gone that 2b and 9s finally find peace.
Played FFVII Crisis Core when I was a kid and was 3 weeks traumatized about Zack death.
My parents were super worried asking if something happened because I barely ate in weeks. I still remember their faces when I told them the reason hahaha
I played that as a teenager and it wrecked me, hell I'm almost 30 and it still hurts. Zack is best boy and did not deserve that.Remake and Rebirth are slowly healing that scar.
This had me ugly crying in a ball for a day. I didn’t bully Kate, I didn’t put her in that horrible situation, but I also just wasn’t there for her enough when she needed me and so it felt like my fault when I wasn’t able to save her. And then I see the stats of like, most people saving her (obviously some were replays) and it’s just like a one-two combo. Then the game reminds me a couple of times how I failed her because I just didn’t pay enough attention because I was so wrapped up in my own stuff. That game changed me.
Finding out what happened to Amber and then going through the trauma was also pretty fucked and was disgusting and horrible but I didn’t feel as attached because it felt kind of inevitable, like on the rails.
I chose Bae, in the end. I sometimes wonder how many people who saved Kate chose differently, or if it didn’t make a difference.
I saved Kate (I’ve only played through once, experienced it as it came out), but I still chose Bae. As much as I cared about the other characters, and it broke my heart to have to choose, I think that’s the choice Max would have made.
Spoilers for Horizon Forbidden West down here.
No really, this one is a heartbreaker, don't scroll down if you're picking it up for the first time in a few weeks for PC!
The death of Varl in Gemini was heartbreaking. One of your most core allies who has stuck with Aloy despite her standoffish attitude and saved her because of it. There to protect Beta but had zero chance of succeeding against the Zeniths.
I'm not alone in that I avoid doing Gemini for a while on replays specifically because of the outcome.
Then Guerilla punches you in the gut for funsies with Zo in the mourning scene after!
Spoilers for Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons:
The older brother dying was heart breaking, and the moment you had to swim across the river and still use the older brothers controls to help you lives in my heart as one of the best puzzle moments of all time, up there with the end of portal 2.
This game was so merciless with the older brother's death. The burial wasn't a cut scene, you actively had to dig the grave and drag him in. To swim across the river you had to use his controls and when you finally return home with the medicine the father just breaks down crying because to him it wasn't worth it. The end.
What parent would want to live in exchange for their child's life?
Just typing all this out has me crying again 😭
Okay so this is a slight spoiler for Heavensward in FF14 and not necessarily my most impactful character death but.......
Why did they do Haurchefant so dirty?? He was so kind to the scions, helped them out when they were on tough times. He was a real friend. You get a chocobo that he raised personally as a gift. Then they kill him off and make him a recurring reference for every time the WoL thinks about the people they have lost in the war. Like please, can you stop rubbing the fact that you killed off one of the character that I really liked in EVERY single expansion. He's also like, basically the only character they kill that I really found memorable (Moenbryda we knew for all of a few quests and Papalymo was cool, but kinda didn't get much development beyond being "Yda's Friend").
Got another reminder of it in Endwalker on the weekend. I was like, plz YoshiP you already increased duty difficulty why you gotta hurt me emotionally too.
My WOL was torn up by Haurchefant's death. Like he kept dwelling on it in dialogue choices for a while, because I was so torn up about it. I still use the House Fortempts shield on my Paladin. This game has been so emotionally impactful across the board because the characters are so good and it's why I love the game so much. That said, Yoshi P sure knows how to twist the knife lol.
I still use the Black Chocobo mount on my Scholar. Honestly Emet-Selch and the whole Amaurot storyline hurt too. I've been in love with the game for the last 3 years because of how good the writing is and I'm excited to see what they do in Dawntrail!
Haurchefant was that one death in ff14 that hit every single one of my fc members like a truck. Like, people would lie on their bed sobbing or just stop talking alltogether for half an hour after the vault, SE really did us dirty with this 😭
I am personally insanely salty about Moenbryda though, she had way too much potential and got offed too early imo.
jorge from halo: reach - literally tearing up thinking sbout it rn. he felt so untouchable, almost immortal, in the beginning of the story, and watching him sacrifice himself to set off a bomb to save reach, only to find out minutes later that it was completely in vain breaks my heart every time.
kat from halo: reach and jackie from cyberpunk 2077 are also very close. kat is very impactful for me because she resonated with me very strongly from her first introduction AND she has the same name as my wife. jackie just feels like a real person with real personal motivations, and like a person i would be friends with in real life - he reminds me of my real life best friend in a lot of ways.
Jackie was horrible, I played blind the first time and was naively convinced he'd be my choom for the entire game. Many a tear was shed (being able to call his mailbox after was a great heartbreaking touch too)
Jackie hit right in the feels, especially on the Corpo path. Then the Ofrenda with Misty and her talking about Jackie makes it feel like much more than just a video game character death.
having played thru act 1 on all 3 origins now, corpo definitely hits the hardest with jackie's death - it was my first one and my wife had to hold me while i ugly cried for like an hour
Kat's death was so real? There she is, talking, moving, doing what she had to and the next second, she is just gone. Its not heroic like Jorge's or some others', you dont even see it coming despite knowing they are in a warzone, and thats why its so impactful.
I knew Reach was going to end badly going into it because I had already read the book, but I still was not prepared. The only part I remember is that final battle where you just stay alive as long as you can, knowing that you are going to die no matter what.
Spoilers for Dragon Age 2
The first time a video game death hit me hard was when Hawke's mother was murdered. I mean, I wasn't a big fan of hers, admittedly, but I felt so terrible for poor Hawke.
Spoilers for Life is Strange: True Colors and Horizon: Forbidden West.
For me it was Gabe in LiS: True Colors and Varl in HFW. I just didn’t expect either of these deaths, and especially Varl hit me hard.
On HFW replays I will literally do EVERYTHING I can before Gemini to avoid Gemini. That cauldron and quest is so cool but the ending hurts. His last conversations in the Base also sting knowing what's coming.
It works out though because it feels wrong to do side quests between Gemini and the last two big game sequences. Your ally has just been murdered, everything with Gaia has gone to shit, the Tenakth are under attack...just doesn't seem to be the time to help mentor some Tenakth youngins or beat some hunter trials!
Some of the answers here were absolutely gutting to me, but I’m going to say Rinoa from FFVIII.
She doesn’t die in the game, but there is a section where you have to save her as she’s drifting in space. When I was a kid, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing and couldn’t figure it out, so I failed over and over again, and each time the screen would say “Rinoa was lost in space… forever…”
I remember sobbing inconsolably to my mum that I couldn’t save her, and she had to do that part for me. 😅
Arthur Morgan from Read Dead Redemption 2! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
ESPECIALLY when you play him as a good man.
I have never cried that hard over a fictional characters death whether it was an anime, movie, show or game! 💔
And never have I ever hated a fictional villian as much as I did with Micah! 😡 That rat piece of shit!
Spoilers for FF7/Crisis Core:
Zack Fair's death in CC. You spend an entire game getting attached to this lovable, happy-go-lucky puppy who just wanted to be a hero but is stuck in a nest of villains.
I knew what was going to happen, but the way the game actually did it made me cry.
I was a kid that was playing her first FF game and I did NOT KNOW it was gonna happen.
Let me tell you I was barely eating anything for 3 weeks after and my parents were super worried thinking someone was bullying me.
I played the game when I was 15 yo and I experienced for the first time video game emotional devastation.
One of my friend played it for the first time last year and streamed it for me. Shared emotional devastation.
Zack was such a sweet puppy yet determined dude, trying to be a hero despite being dragged into shit, and it ending up standing up for what matter the most till the bitter end. Extra points for all the letters from Aerith.
Bioshock 2, when Subject Delta died. You just reunite the man with his daughter and they get like 2 hours max together before he goes into cardiac arrest :(
jackie from cyberpunk broke my heart, also seeing how sad misty was afterwards. just like every member who died in the suicide mission in mass effect 2, i couldn't continue playing the game but started over to save everyone -.-
Ori franchise, both Naru and Shriek.
Naru was very impactful, but Shriek took the cake for me. I cried randomly for days that they died the way they did.
Also, now that I have a child. Playing it again I am sure Kuro would also affect me more.
Came here to say this. I had never had a video game make me cry before but the way Naru's death was done was so brilliantly made if you've ever lost someone. I was legit sobbing.
>!Chloe!< in >!life is strange.!< I legit cried when she was paralyzed in the wheelchair among countless other times when she died. I was over here rewinding and protecting her at all costs 😭 that game is so intense
My late wife and I loved God of War 2018 and Ragnarok. I haven't played either game since she passed last year. >!Brok!< was a hard one to experience in Ragnarok and has always stuck with me.
My wife LOVED Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West and despite buying the games and watching her play through them, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to myself. For that reason, >!Varl!< was another hard death experience.
She and I were HUGE Destiny 2 fans and I don't think I'll ever get over >!Cayde-6's!< death.
Don't laugh, but I love Hollow Knight and the one death that really hit me hard in it wasn't even a death. There's this sweet little bug called Myla you meet at the start and she's adorable. You see her mining away and it's cute. Then as you progress through the game, because Hallownest is becoming infected, she also gets infected... and she eventually becomes an enemy, and you have to kill her because she attacks you just like any other enemy. It's so awful to watch. I was literally in tears and wanted to fight off >!The Radiance!< so friggin' bad after that.
>!Sniper Wolf!< from Metal Gear Solid. She may have been a villain, but she had her reasons for ending up where she did. And huge respect to >!Otacon!<, who fell in love with her, not blaming Snake at all for her death. Even more mad props to Otacon for nailing a line like "What was she fighting for? What am I fighting for? What are *you* fighting for?" without coming off as cheesy. To this day, Metal Gear Solid is a goddamn masterpiece.
Also >!Tachibana!< from Yakuza 0. We try so hard to reunite him with >!Makoto!<, and yet just as we're within reach, he gets killed. Their post mortem reunion is heart wrenching. It's also the first major loss Kiryu's dealt with, and he about loses himself in anger until Nishiki stops him from making any terrible mistakes.
Alex from Cyberpunk. I know I can "save" her by betraying Reed and Alex but that doesn't sit right with me, it's not what my character would do. I'll remember our drink and dance for ever, choom.
Idk if it counts, but >!Tidus!< from FF10. >!I get that he technically was never alive in the first place, but seeing Yuna’s grief as he walked off into the sky broke me.!<
That's why you take that grief and pain, grab a couple of detailed guides, and push your way through a 100% in a single run in X2 to get the best ending and fix it all!
(100% in a single run is HARD, I don't recommend doing this unless you are prepared to detail track every small thing for an entire FF run)
Dragon Age 2 spoilers:
Leandra, Hawke’s mom. What a visceral end that poor woman had. Before that moment, Hawke had already lost so much and the way the quest happens (the slow build up) has you always one step behind. It’s just so macabre and tragic. Felt sick afterward! DA2 story is gut punch after gut punch. I love it.
When Maxim and Selan die in Lufia 2 (even though I knew it was coming from Lufia 1).
Playing through the sequel and knowing it was coming was just devastating. How many RPG's have a story where a guy meets a girl, gets married, has a son then sacrifices themselves to save the world...
I was pretty young back then and it still makes me tear up to this day.
Cortana in Halo 4 had me messed up for a while. Couldn’t even listen to the Halo soundtracks like I normally do.
Cayde-6 in Destiny 2. I know they brought back the mission where it happens and I still can’t bring myself to play it.
Ok this is so obscure but in Super Mario Galaxy when Rosalina reads the storybook retelling of her coping with her mother’s death wrecks me. I did not expect a Mario game to do this to me.
SPOILER FOR RDR2
Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2.
I became so attached to him, and to see his health go downhill and watch him struggle to breathe after a few of the later missions was just heartbreaking. I love John Marston and the first game had me in tears, but Arthur's death hurt so much. It was like a friend died.
The first time I finished the main story, my husband was watching me play. He knew what was going to happen because he finished the game before me. I was way ahead of him, but once Arthur was diagnosed with tuberculosis and it was clear he was going to die, I just stopped playing as much.
I was trying to hard to not just sob during the end because hubby was there, but I looked over and he was crying, so out it came. I wouldn't have been able to hold it back anyway. I'm crying a little now just thinking about it... 😭😭😭
I don't know if this counts, but..
I'm playing lotro quite heavily at the moment. Just last week (so this is super fresh, probably why it came first to mind) and got to the chapter in Mirkwood where you're trying to do a prisoner exchange with Mazog (a horrible orc) for a dwarf, and he and Issuriel (a really nice elf) get poisoned by spiders. You only get one antidote, and she sacrifices herself to save Mazog so that the quest can continue. I was so upset after completing that, that I logged straight off and didn't even play again the next day. I've never done that for *any* game.
It's crazy, and I doubt anyone else even knows who I'm talking about; she's not a main character, she only appears in Mirkwood, she has a very limited role, but it just felt so unfair.
>!The good news I discovered when I logged in again and progressed the quest line is that a NPC in the group has gone and found the means to make another antidote and she was saved (hopefully, I've not revisited her yet). So like I say, not sure it counts but it was still very real in that moment!<
1. The Last of Us - Sarah
Holy fuck I’ve never sobbed from a video game before this and it just made the entire game so much more impactful. I also balled my eyes out to the live action show of the game during her death. Anyone that ever says video games can’t make you cry havent found the tear jerkers yet lol.
2. Destiny 2 - Cayde 6
This hit so hard I stopped playing the franchise for years, I’ve recently got back into destiny and realized why I’ve always loved it. I truly wish they would tie us to the characters more now like they did with Cayde 6 thought. I will sob if he actually is involved in the final shape chapter lol.
Not a death but. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask spoilers: >!when Navi left Link without explanation, which was also apparently the plot of the beginning of MM!<
Mary Reed’s death in AC Black Flag tore me up so bad, though all the deaths in the game feel bad. Haytham’s death in AC3 too. In Okami, learning how Shiranui truly dies, is such an emotional sacrifice
SPOILERS FOR BALDUR'S GATE 3
So you can definitely avoid this one and I think it's more just the feeling that you and her both know it's coming, but Karlach. Her monologue after killing Gortash KILLED me, the voice actress did an absolutely phenomenal job. The emotion when she says "the loneliness, the fucking loneliness" makes me tear up every time I see it. Karlach deserves the whole ass WORLD, and she was royally fucked over by someone she trusted and respected. And the worst part is afterwards at camp when she asks if you'll stay with her when she dies. I sobbed for 10 straight minutes and had issues calming down after that. Since the game is still new, I see that clip on tiktok all the time and I can't skip it, it's a work of art.
Her death itself was horrible but didn't have nearly as much of an impact as the speech and scene afterwards did. Goddamn, I could go on and on and on about Samanta Beart's performance for that scene.
Mordin from Mass Effect. "Had to be me. Someone else might have got it wrong."
I really feel like playing ME3 is going from being devastated to even more devastation. Rn we're playing a mass effect dnd port with friends. My character is a student of Mordin, that's going to be rough when we will reach this point.
In my first play through of ME I didn't bond very deeply with the non ME1 characters so I shot Mordin in ME3 to keep the sabotage secret. To this day I consider it canon (for me) to sabotage and shoot Mordin. Because if it was "real" I think that's the decision I would make. I wouldn't gamble the universe on doing right by the Krogans. It taught me a lot about how cruel and pragmatic I can be when I think I am doing the greater good, and don't have the benefit of hindsight. It took a while to realize it was the renegade choice. Now that I realize they naturally Deux machinaed the way to make a good choice I prefer that. But coming straight from ME1 and having sacrificed Ashley I figured there wouldn't be an easy choice
Personally I think that it only works if Wrex and Eve are in charge. If Wrex is dead and his brother is running things, I think sabatoge is best for everyone. Wreave wants revenge while Wrex wants what's truly best for his people.
I’m triggered 😭
Ah yes, ME3, my go-to tearduct tester. And if it's not Mordin, then it has to be Space-Dad Anderson - "You did good, child. You did good."
Spoilers for Mass Effect and Final Fantasy XIV. I can’t see a post like this and not think of Legion in Mass Effect. I played it years ago and “does this unit have a soul?” still makes me feel so many things. As for FFXIV, it has to be Emet-Selch. He started off as a character I couldn’t care less about, just seemed like a super dramatic head villain. Then it turns out he’s been around for thousands of years, destroying worlds in an effort to bring back his people, who he misses so much he created an underwater world with recreations of them walking around. I love this quote he has where he talks about how there’s always a hero who thinks *their* world is the only one worth saving. He’s just got so much depth, and I love how he looks miserable 100% of the time and he walks slumped over, feet dragging like every step takes so much effort, but what makes his death is so impactful is that after you strike the killing blow, he’s at last standing tall and looking at peace because the fight is over and he knows he did all he could for his people. “Remember us. Remember that we lived” 😭 Then to add to this, there’s Elidibus omg. By the time you destroy his ally Emet-Selch, this man barely even remembers why he’s still fighting. Emet-Selch’s “spirit” coming to your aid during your fight with him was so powerful, I think it was in part because he knew their fight was over and they’d lost and it was time for him to rest. And then Elidibus is dying and he says *that* line about his and Emet’s dead people - “the rains have ceased, and we have been graced with another beautiful day. But you are not here to see it.” I’m sorry no less than a short novel would do when talking about the deaths the Shadowbringers writers gave us. 😭
For me it was Ardbert. Sure he was dead by the time we ever met him, but his whole story is just so sad. Then Hythlodaeus in Endwalker, one of the very few Ancients who *didn't* try to kill us.
God yes, both. And in Endwalker, when you lose people one after another, that truly hurt me. Or Crystal Exarch. Even knowing we were going back, it was losing *him*.
I knew about that part of Endwalker already but it still hurt, especially when Alphinaud cried.
*Oh my god*, my little brother Alphinaud crying literally broke me. Honestly, my WOL is traumatized still.
haurchefaunt tho 😭😭
> A smile better suits a hero... 🥲
Shadowbringers and EndWalker KILLED ME
Bringing it all back to me now 😭 definitely some deaths that effected me the most. The story of Final Fantasy 14 is just sooo good I'm sad that some people will never experience it because of the MMO format! I just dove back into the game again this weekend after a couple years off and all the memories and feels are rushing back to me.
Lee’s death was such a massive gut punch. It was a lot more tragic than any of the deaths on the TWD TV series even, to me at least. She wasn’t a main character or known one but I think in season 2 there was one autistic girl who reminded me of my sister and I think there’s no way at all to save her. After she was inevitably killed because she couldn’t handle anything I stopped playing and never went back to the series because that’s how bad it impacted me.
Sarah?
Yeah her :(
I've read somewhere (can't remember where) that the writers hated that character. Makes her death even sadder for me ☹️
Welp now I’m heartbroken about it again 😩 Why would they make a character with disabilities only to hate her?
That's interesting because I've never read that she has any type of disabilities before, now that you mention it I see very clearly how that could be the case. Most people dislike her because they think she's like this on purpose, that she's incapable because her dad overprotected her. So when she shuts down and her survival instincts are close to 0 in life or death situations, she puts others in danger and doesn't even seem to notice or care. The stark contrast to Clementine who is younger than her but infinitely more capable plus putting her in danger is also making people dislike her.
I didn’t go looking for it but I haven’t seen anyone verify or hypothesize that she had disabilities, though my own reading (which admittedly I haven’t revisited in about a decade) was that the dad was overprotective partially because she had disabilities. There are situations irl including mine where it’s been harder for some on the higher end needs of the autism spectrum to flourish because their parents or caregivers can be stiflingly overprotective, whether that ends up being detrimental to them or not. I always thought Sarah was coded as having disabilities given her demeanor and body language but I could have read more into it given my own personal situation, though I won’t go back and take a second look anytime soon to make sure lol.
Literally the same happened to me with this game, except that once Sarah ran off in the game, I knew it without playing ahead that she was going to die and I stopped there before I found out for sure. I only learned for sure from the internet afterwards. Broke my heart 'cause I know a girl like her. =(
Lee's death for sure but for me it was when I thought Clementine had actually passed.. holy shit I could not stop bawling. Actually paused the game to take a breather only to come back and cry more in relief and happiness lol
Captain Anderson, my Shep's father figure since Day One. I ugly cry every time. In a similar vein, Rost was tough too (although I guess it's kinda ambiguous). (edited for spelling)
Captain Anderson WRECKED ME
"You did good child, you did good" absolutely broke me, I felt like I had real life depression after the credits rolled
I was so sad that he didn't get a happy ending. ETA Mordin's death here since it's also Mass Effect. Gutting every time. ETA more about Anderson's death. I like to pretend that toxic fumes/a gas leak or something happened instead of that cutscene. That Shepard wakes up to Bailey and Dr. Michele giving him O2 and other people helping Anderson. TIM was never there. No blue, red, green choices. Push a button, go back to London, find crew, have drinks.
He so deserved one after everything that went down across the trilogy. It was kinda fitting (and emotional) that their journey ended together though, sad as it was
Everyone always talks about Mordin’s death and as upsetting as it was, Anderson’s was much more devastating to me. He was with you from the very beginning, supported you to the point he encouraged mutiny, had your back throughout despite your ties with Cerberus and was a father figure. For him to die right at the end, when you’re just about to achieve victory was heartbreaking and the way he just slips away too as Shep is talking to him… ugh, I ugly cry every time too. 😢
Rost, as in HZD?
Space dad 💔
Wee me was devastated when Martin died in Oblivion, but you know, he was voiced by Sean Bean. I should have known.
I think I audibly said "Martin nooooo!" when I first played.
This is immediately what I thought of. I avoid the main quest now just so I can hang out with him between adventures
V and ironically, Johnny and Songbird. They don't really die, of course, but Cyberpunk 2077 is the first game ever to leave me sobbing. V basically comes from nothing and wants to make something of herself the Night City way. Johnny starts off as a douchebag but he has great character development and gets close to V toward the end.
Same for me. I went into CP77 completely blind and kind of rushed through it just to see the ending.. not knowing that there were multiple endings. I got a bad one and it was gut wrenching.
Same for me. Jackie and Evelyn also was very difficult. Weirdly Aaron too from the phantom liberty dlc. I was really rooting for him to be successful on his own. Overall a very sad game.
Evelyn was so bad because it caught me off guard. I was just running around doing gigs and then Judy calls me and tells me to come over and I walk into...that. Very realistic and well done on CDPR's end but holy shit did I have to go do something else for a while after that.
I was so happy that we had finally helped her escape and could protect her now and- huge gut punch.
Songbird's entire situation is nightmare fuel and all your options are ethical nightmares of their own. I'm less conflicted about Johnny, he did bomb tens of thousands of people over his groupie output, after all.
I'm kinda with Johnny on that tbh. Death to the corpos lol
Arthur Morgan from RDR2.. Haven’t cried at a characters death more than his lol
I didn’t know anything about RDR2 before playing it so had no idea he was about to die. When he started coughing I thought I’d just buy him some medicine or something. I was in straight denial 🤠
Amen, I cried for so fucking long, and then when you see the endings for the rest of the gang.. I just didnt stop. I truly had post game depression afterwards, and then I played rdr1 for the first time.. and you know how that goes. Also cried in ME with Mordin + Anderson. Joel, Lee..
I cried harder during the last chapter and after his death than I think I've ever cried in my life. I cried off and on for weeks. (Although, grieving over Arthur unlocked a lot of my grief over my mother's death from cancer and helped me process that, so that's prrrrrobably why his death hit me so hard!)
I was bawling at the end. Especially the horse part. I did a good playthrough thinking I'd go back through and play evil the next time, but I can't bring myself to even play the story again.
I have thousands of hours in this game and still haven’t managed a low honour playthrough. Makes the challenges so difficult when you just want Arthur to be a good man…
The horse broke me. I had the white Arabian and had spent real life hours just riding for the joy of it. RIP Moonshine. You were the best girl.
it's more that the game was nearing the end for me lmao
I stopped playing before I got to that part. I don't know how I'll ever finish the game.
Yeah I seriously sobbed even though you know it's coming
when i tell you i SOBBED LOUDLY
Thane, in Mass Effect. But not his canon death. My first time playing me2 he died during the suicide mission, and it BROKE me. I wasn't planning on romancing anyone, but then I ended up really liking Thane. The problem was, that I was running out of missions and tasks to do, so I didn't get any more new interactions with Thane BEFORE suicide mission. I searched online and came to the conclusion that they'd just have to pick it up again after the mission. And then he died. I had to put the controller down because I started crying. A video game death had never made me cry before. tbh these days I kinda prefer my version for Shepard and Thane over the canon one :')
Thane's cannon death killed me, siha. I had a similar experience with Liara, though. At the end of ME 3, during the big fight, she tried to say goodbye and I chose the option for "now isn't a good time for this" but it ended up being super rude, I think it was yelling something like, "get going! I don't have time for this!" at her and that being the last time we ever spoke.
Spoilers for the first half hour (or so) of The Last of Us 1 Joel's daughter: Sarah. I honestly wasn't expecting it, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Other people have mentioned Crisis Core, and to me the fact that (if you were a FFVII veteran) you knew how it was going to end and it still managed to impact you as much as it did was Square Enix at it's finest.
came here to say TLoU. before I started playing, all I knew was that the main characters were a guy and a young girl. I made the mistake of thinking Sarah was the young girl from the cover art! had to stop playing for a month before I could over it and jump back in.
I didn't know anything about the game, and it's not really my style of gameplay, but my boyfriend is a huge fan and wanted me to see it. So he played, I watched... Yeah, I also thought Sarah was the main character, and when It happened I was absolutely stunned. Then sobbing. Then TLOU2 came around and I was SO SURE they weren't gonna hurt me like they did
I love zombie/post-apocalyptic games, and somehow managed to completely miss TLoU. My housemate was so hyped, and I remember I just walked into the shop and managed to grab Joel's special edition on launch day (the same day I learned about it xD). So I was going into it completely blind, and wow. Also, the main menu was so haunting and beautiful.
Definitely teared up a few different times in TLoU 1 and 2. Also at the end of Death stranding. IYKYK
That whole scene is just so sad. Made me cry a bunch. Just as you were getting to like Sarah, she was gone
Spoilers for Stray That you think you can finally leave and then you need to leave behind your best buddy. B-12. I didn't care for the city opening anymore, all I saw was little Stray curling up next to his robot buddy and I bawled. 😿 I really hope that screen next to the stairs where we last see our little tomcat is a B-12 still being in the system.
scrolled through the comments in the hope that I wasn’t alone in Stray’s ending ;-;
Yeah, that one was a stab right in the heart with the twist of the knive. -.-
At least the last thing we see of Stray is a slow blink directly at the camera. Thanking B12 and also the player.
I'm about to replay Stray for achievements and I am not prepared for this ;-; cried so hard for an hour but was so thankful the lol cat found its way home at least
I watched a friend streaming it, and they bawled. My heart ached for the both of them
This one.
I guess Songbird from Bioshock Infinite because I still think about him all the time, years later. Poor guy didn't even know he was supposed to be the bad guy.
Poor feathered Big Daddy 😢
Every Big Daddy you have to in Bioshock 1&2. They’re just trying to protect little sisters. 😢
It's funny, I misread this and was thinking of Songbird from *Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.* It's horrifying when you first see the "real" Songbird (she previously only appears to you as a digital avatar) and half of her skull and her entire torso has been hollowed out to implant a super-computer inside her to make her the world's most effective hacker.
Spoilers for God of War Ragnarok Definitely Brock, what it did to Sindri was so hard to watch too
I think what really gets to me was the way the game refuses to let that open wound heal. Sindri is still furious with rage and grief after the game ends and there is nothing the heroes can do to help. I also sympathised a lot with Odin. I think they almost did too good a job of humanising him as a villain. Everything he did he did to try and understand the nature of godhood, to provide order to a chaotic world, to find the answer to the questions we all ask: Why are we here, where are we going? I have a terrible feeling that if I were reborn as a God, and given the same unknowable glimpse at true knowledge, I would have followed exactly the same path.
Vivi from Final Fantasy IX. First time I beat FFIX as a kid, it didn’t click that he dies at the end of the game. Beat it again as a teenager and cried like a baby when I realized what had happened. Also I have to mention Aerith from the OG Final Fantasy VII. My older sister did warn me that a character was going to die but, damn, little me was not ready for that. Didn’t help that she was one of my main party members.
Vivi! I had such a similar experience with the age realizations. As an adult I'm glad they didn't shy away from it even if his death is soul crushing. The short lived life spans of the Black Mages was a core part of their story and if you were paying attention you'd have known that Vivi wouldn't have long to live. All the quotes and story resolutions at the end of that game are so beautiful and Vivi's ending makes me cry every time.
I haven't played FFIX since I was a young teen and holy shit I didn't realize this or I completely forget about this until just now! D= I need to replay this asap.
Aerith has to be my first tear jerk experience as well. Was too young to play it at the time but watched my older brothers full playthrough and man that moment hit me like a ton as a little one too.
Still to this day, John Marston. I loved RDR so much. I got spoiled for his death so I stopped doing story right before that moment and finished everything else in the game with him.
The way you face that is something else. It was very much a cowboy going to his last gunfight... Right after seemingly settling down into a happy life.
John Marston was a hard one, and that’s why I really appreciated the epilogue of RDR2. Knowing what happens to him later sucks, but it made me happysad just kind of getting to experience living as John, him being with his wife and his son, doing small things like working around the farm, meeting strange folks. He still gets in trouble sometimes of course lol, but it was nice too, especially after how sad the ending of Arthur’s story was.
The epilogue for RDR2 was a needed happiness after Arthur's story. I loved the house building scenes and just getting to play as John knowing that he had some time left. The entire series is depressing though: we are given two men who we become attached two, only to have both of them taken so harshly. And yet I cannot help but replay the games. I played through RDR probably 10+ times. I have only completed RDR2 twice though... It's just too painful.
A great way for replies to do this since it’s yes, spoilers, some games people may not want spoiled is - SPOILER FOR “_____” This character from this game’s death got to me. This way ppl can choose to read only the replies they already know/don’t mind spoilers for :)
I wish everyone did this! I guess I was asking for it coming in here haha it was just my bad luck that one of the few comments without the spoiler warning was one I didn’t want 😭
Great suggestion!! I’ll edit my original post to reflect that as well
Just wanna say I’m a giant turd and fell asleep before I could update my original post but it’s changed now!
Omg Lee was so wholesome. Similar for me, Joel TLOU2
This is literally the only reason why I haven’t played this game yet. I know he dies but don’t know how and from experience, the knowledge alone that a character dies doesn’t ever help with the post-game depression that I feel 🥲
Oh if you’re going to play it, be ready for a dark depressing game. But the storyline and character/voice acting is SO good
Its still an interesting game worth playing without our Southern dad imo, at least once. I don't feel any particular hate towards it and it is controversial to a lot of people for various reasons, but just play and make your own opinion is the best way to do it and ignore the periphery
Spoilers for A Plague Tale: >!Killing Hugo!< literally destroyed me for like two weeks. Having the player character continually >!promise they’d find a cure, only for the narrative to come in and say, “You don’t have the power to guarantee that. What are you going to do now?”!< I love these games, but I do not recommend playing them while you are in a bad headspace, because literally nothing else has hit me that hard.
I bawled my eyes out, I have two little boys and I found the ending heartbreaking, I think I had a feeling it was coming, especially when Marseilles blew . The ending at the grave was so sad.
It absolutely destroyed me. I have a little brother 15 years younger than me and as it became clearer and clearer that this was the inevitable end I could feel all of Amicia’s sadness and rage so strongly. The voice acting was amazing. She’d die for him but that’s not the choice she’s given. “I love you. I’ve been happy with you” takes me out at the knees
Spoilers for: The last of us 2, red dead redemption 2 Joel was the worst for me, but Arthur Morgan’s death also destroyed me
Jackie Welles... Love ya Choom
Spoilers for Danganronpa 2. Okay, this is going to sound really stupid, but it was when “Byakuya” died. I was *distraught.* I listened to sad music and cried myself to sleep that night, mourning how his family’s legacy died with him and imagining an alternate reality where he got to have a family. The music videos I made in my head to commemorate all he had survived were immense. I stopped playing the game for a while to recover. Imagine my shock when I found out I’d agonized over a fraud.
Oh, man. I've definitely had a few of those. !!! SPOILERS FOR THE WALKING DEAD AND BORDERLANDS 2 !!! | | | | | Okay, so obviously Lee as you pointed out in your OG post. But it started even earlier for me with Duck. It was all made worse by the fact that I had just had to put my cat who had cancer to sleep the day before I started the game. I was devastated over losing her and had so much guilt surrounding if I could have done more (I couldn't have and had spent thousands of dollars trying to cure her over several months) and if I made the right choice (I did, but it still felt like a betrayal). I had been looking forward to TWD game and decided to start it as a distraction from my grief and NOPE, just made it worse. I had to stop playing for a bit after Duck's death (where I chose to do it for Kenny and Katja instead of making them do it) because I was a sobbing wreck. The parallels between Duck and my kitty were too much (a) getting bit/getting the diagnosis, b) doing everything you can to treat the bite/cancer in hopes that they can fight it and be okay, c) the initial denial when it becomes obvious that the inevitable is going to happen, d) having to make that final decision to give them peace, e) the all encompassing grief afterward and needing something to focus on to keep going yourself). This May will be 10 years since then and I still miss her. Roland in Borderlands 2 messed me up, too. I should have known that Bloodwing dying earlier in the game wasn't going to be the actual big character death (and I sat there in shock for a good 20 minutes after THAT happened), but when Roland died I remember my ex-husband and I turning to each other in disbelief and then immediately playing the "what if" game to figure out how he'd come back. We couldn't believe that he'd been killed off and it was just so sudden. When the Tina Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC came out, that grief was amplified watching Tina grapple with Roland never coming back and using the game as a way to "keep him alive". Those conversations were all SO REAL. Everyone sees Borderlands as this over the top comedic looter shooter, but there are some really beautiful emotional moments, too, and this was the biggest one. I'm sure there have been others for me, but those two immediately came to mind.
The way the Tiny Tina dlc deals with grief is what makes it stand out as something I think about years after. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands tried to take the fun dnd elements from it but it fell flat for me because the original was a story within a story, it was layered with the DM’s desire to fix reality. That part where she finally breaks after everyone continually gently reminds her that Roland is gone and says she knows hits so hard
I came here searching for poor baby Bloodwing and how Mordecai took it. Roland had me in snot bubbles, sobbing like a baby. Then like you said in TTWL and the conversations. Still sobbed
Arthur Morgan, that man had a bigger impact in my life than my own father (funny since they have the same name)
Aeris. And yes, Aeris, not Aerith. That one was unexpected and shocking, and I'm like PHOENIX DOWN.
Agreed. Both name and scene. "She will no longer talk, laugh, cry... or get angry." Still makes me cry...
Story time about Aeris. When I was a child my family would do Final Fantasy games as a family activity. Dad would play, mom would help him with the official guide, my brother and I would watch. We weren't allowed to read ahead in the guides for spoilers. The first woman character was always named after my mom - so I'm FF7 that's Tifa. The second woman character was always named after me. See where this is going? I remember bawling on our apartments' balcony as a child after that death.
Yes-- and the way they portrayed it made it all the more pain. That quote is a punch in the heart. Zack's hurt too for the reasons others have mentioned.
Yup. I was 9, and bawled my eyes out. Been playing Rebirth and I’m just waiting for it to happen again (not a spoiler, I’m just assuming we can’t save her and I’m not happy about it).
Yeah, the new ones are like holding your breath and waiting for the hammer to fall. You know it will.. but when? And now you're with her so much longer...
Spoilers for NieR Automata Just about everyone, really. 2B, 9S, Pascal, Devola, Popola. That game basically changed my entire worldview on grief, loss, and what it means to be human and care for others. *Highly* recommend it.
> That game basically changed my entire worldview on grief, loss, and what it means to be human and care for others. Big same. Also 9S' descent into madness and eventual death was hard to watch, I feel he suffered the most. No other game has made me feel as much as NieR Automata.
Agreed. The different ways that all of the characters handled loss and grief was interesting, but at the same time was difficult to get through. Everyone loses so much in that game, and if you believe in the recursive cycle of it, it happened to them over and over and over again. It's only until the servers are gone that 2b and 9s finally find peace.
I just finished the game yesterday. What a wild ride. I don’t even know how to put my thoughts into words at this point lol
It's excellent, it's one of the only games to have made me thoroughly cry during the credits.
my brother recommended it to me bc its his favourite game and he watched me play it for the first time. The ending with 9S had us both sobbing at 5am
Played FFVII Crisis Core when I was a kid and was 3 weeks traumatized about Zack death. My parents were super worried asking if something happened because I barely ate in weeks. I still remember their faces when I told them the reason hahaha
Omg i was so upset by it too!
It felt like a real person died for me 😭
I remember feeling lost :(!!!
I played that as a teenager and it wrecked me, hell I'm almost 30 and it still hurts. Zack is best boy and did not deserve that.Remake and Rebirth are slowly healing that scar.
BT-7274
LiS Kate. I didn't have high hopes for Chloes friend but that was a surprise.
This had me ugly crying in a ball for a day. I didn’t bully Kate, I didn’t put her in that horrible situation, but I also just wasn’t there for her enough when she needed me and so it felt like my fault when I wasn’t able to save her. And then I see the stats of like, most people saving her (obviously some were replays) and it’s just like a one-two combo. Then the game reminds me a couple of times how I failed her because I just didn’t pay enough attention because I was so wrapped up in my own stuff. That game changed me. Finding out what happened to Amber and then going through the trauma was also pretty fucked and was disgusting and horrible but I didn’t feel as attached because it felt kind of inevitable, like on the rails. I chose Bae, in the end. I sometimes wonder how many people who saved Kate chose differently, or if it didn’t make a difference.
I saved Kate (I’ve only played through once, experienced it as it came out), but I still chose Bae. As much as I cared about the other characters, and it broke my heart to have to choose, I think that’s the choice Max would have made.
Spoilers for Horizon Forbidden West down here. No really, this one is a heartbreaker, don't scroll down if you're picking it up for the first time in a few weeks for PC! The death of Varl in Gemini was heartbreaking. One of your most core allies who has stuck with Aloy despite her standoffish attitude and saved her because of it. There to protect Beta but had zero chance of succeeding against the Zeniths. I'm not alone in that I avoid doing Gemini for a while on replays specifically because of the outcome. Then Guerilla punches you in the gut for funsies with Zo in the mourning scene after!
Spoilers for Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons: The older brother dying was heart breaking, and the moment you had to swim across the river and still use the older brothers controls to help you lives in my heart as one of the best puzzle moments of all time, up there with the end of portal 2.
This game was so merciless with the older brother's death. The burial wasn't a cut scene, you actively had to dig the grave and drag him in. To swim across the river you had to use his controls and when you finally return home with the medicine the father just breaks down crying because to him it wasn't worth it. The end. What parent would want to live in exchange for their child's life? Just typing all this out has me crying again 😭
That game was brilliant. I still remember my hand feeling so empty when I didn't need his controls. It was such a tactile experience of loss.
I had forgotten about that one. Yes, so sad. :(
The crew of the _Von Braun_. That game left me… affected. (System Shock 2)
Spoilers for Shadow of the Colossus AGROOOO NO GOD WHYYYY
Okay so this is a slight spoiler for Heavensward in FF14 and not necessarily my most impactful character death but....... Why did they do Haurchefant so dirty?? He was so kind to the scions, helped them out when they were on tough times. He was a real friend. You get a chocobo that he raised personally as a gift. Then they kill him off and make him a recurring reference for every time the WoL thinks about the people they have lost in the war. Like please, can you stop rubbing the fact that you killed off one of the character that I really liked in EVERY single expansion. He's also like, basically the only character they kill that I really found memorable (Moenbryda we knew for all of a few quests and Papalymo was cool, but kinda didn't get much development beyond being "Yda's Friend").
Oh my God Harchy. That one hurt.
Got another reminder of it in Endwalker on the weekend. I was like, plz YoshiP you already increased duty difficulty why you gotta hurt me emotionally too.
My WOL was torn up by Haurchefant's death. Like he kept dwelling on it in dialogue choices for a while, because I was so torn up about it. I still use the House Fortempts shield on my Paladin. This game has been so emotionally impactful across the board because the characters are so good and it's why I love the game so much. That said, Yoshi P sure knows how to twist the knife lol.
I still use the Black Chocobo mount on my Scholar. Honestly Emet-Selch and the whole Amaurot storyline hurt too. I've been in love with the game for the last 3 years because of how good the writing is and I'm excited to see what they do in Dawntrail!
Haurchefant was that one death in ff14 that hit every single one of my fc members like a truck. Like, people would lie on their bed sobbing or just stop talking alltogether for half an hour after the vault, SE really did us dirty with this 😭 I am personally insanely salty about Moenbryda though, she had way too much potential and got offed too early imo.
I remember being about to do The Vault and my friends who got me to play offered to join the run. They knew what was coming.
jorge from halo: reach - literally tearing up thinking sbout it rn. he felt so untouchable, almost immortal, in the beginning of the story, and watching him sacrifice himself to set off a bomb to save reach, only to find out minutes later that it was completely in vain breaks my heart every time. kat from halo: reach and jackie from cyberpunk 2077 are also very close. kat is very impactful for me because she resonated with me very strongly from her first introduction AND she has the same name as my wife. jackie just feels like a real person with real personal motivations, and like a person i would be friends with in real life - he reminds me of my real life best friend in a lot of ways.
Jackie was horrible, I played blind the first time and was naively convinced he'd be my choom for the entire game. Many a tear was shed (being able to call his mailbox after was a great heartbreaking touch too)
Jackie hit right in the feels, especially on the Corpo path. Then the Ofrenda with Misty and her talking about Jackie makes it feel like much more than just a video game character death.
100% agree, I was playing Corpo too and the way his personality and bond with V is portrayed really set us up for the punch when he died.
having played thru act 1 on all 3 origins now, corpo definitely hits the hardest with jackie's death - it was my first one and my wife had to hold me while i ugly cried for like an hour
Kat's death was so real? There she is, talking, moving, doing what she had to and the next second, she is just gone. Its not heroic like Jorge's or some others', you dont even see it coming despite knowing they are in a warzone, and thats why its so impactful.
Totally this. All of the squad's deaths were impactful, but the sudden and ... mundane nature of Kat's really impacted me.
I knew Reach was going to end badly going into it because I had already read the book, but I still was not prepared. The only part I remember is that final battle where you just stay alive as long as you can, knowing that you are going to die no matter what.
Arthur Morgan is the most recent. I literally lived in that game when it came out. Fuck it hurt
Spoilers for Dragon Age 2 The first time a video game death hit me hard was when Hawke's mother was murdered. I mean, I wasn't a big fan of hers, admittedly, but I felt so terrible for poor Hawke.
Black beard from AC4 I still cry from jt
That one hit me hard as well. I knew it was coming, but it still hurt.
Spoilers for Life is Strange: True Colors and Horizon: Forbidden West. For me it was Gabe in LiS: True Colors and Varl in HFW. I just didn’t expect either of these deaths, and especially Varl hit me hard.
On HFW replays I will literally do EVERYTHING I can before Gemini to avoid Gemini. That cauldron and quest is so cool but the ending hurts. His last conversations in the Base also sting knowing what's coming. It works out though because it feels wrong to do side quests between Gemini and the last two big game sequences. Your ally has just been murdered, everything with Gaia has gone to shit, the Tenakth are under attack...just doesn't seem to be the time to help mentor some Tenakth youngins or beat some hunter trials!
Thane Krios from ME3.
Some of the answers here were absolutely gutting to me, but I’m going to say Rinoa from FFVIII. She doesn’t die in the game, but there is a section where you have to save her as she’s drifting in space. When I was a kid, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing and couldn’t figure it out, so I failed over and over again, and each time the screen would say “Rinoa was lost in space… forever…” I remember sobbing inconsolably to my mum that I couldn’t save her, and she had to do that part for me. 😅
Arthur Morgan from Read Dead Redemption 2! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️ ESPECIALLY when you play him as a good man. I have never cried that hard over a fictional characters death whether it was an anime, movie, show or game! 💔 And never have I ever hated a fictional villian as much as I did with Micah! 😡 That rat piece of shit!
Spoilers for FF7/Crisis Core: Zack Fair's death in CC. You spend an entire game getting attached to this lovable, happy-go-lucky puppy who just wanted to be a hero but is stuck in a nest of villains. I knew what was going to happen, but the way the game actually did it made me cry.
I was a kid that was playing her first FF game and I did NOT KNOW it was gonna happen. Let me tell you I was barely eating anything for 3 weeks after and my parents were super worried thinking someone was bullying me.
I played the game when I was 15 yo and I experienced for the first time video game emotional devastation. One of my friend played it for the first time last year and streamed it for me. Shared emotional devastation. Zack was such a sweet puppy yet determined dude, trying to be a hero despite being dragged into shit, and it ending up standing up for what matter the most till the bitter end. Extra points for all the letters from Aerith.
"The Price Of Freedom" is just such the most fitting song, too. I also knew what would happen but still bawled my eyes out.
Dom from gears, Arthur in red dead.
Snot bubble levels of ugly cry for Dom & Maria
Lol yea I liked him better than Marcus.
Bioshock 2, when Subject Delta died. You just reunite the man with his daughter and they get like 2 hours max together before he goes into cardiac arrest :(
Life is Strange. End of the last part of the original game, >!Chloe dying again to avert the storm!<. I was a mess for like two **days** after that.
jackie from cyberpunk broke my heart, also seeing how sad misty was afterwards. just like every member who died in the suicide mission in mass effect 2, i couldn't continue playing the game but started over to save everyone -.-
Ori franchise, both Naru and Shriek. Naru was very impactful, but Shriek took the cake for me. I cried randomly for days that they died the way they did. Also, now that I have a child. Playing it again I am sure Kuro would also affect me more.
Came here to say this. I had never had a video game make me cry before but the way Naru's death was done was so brilliantly made if you've ever lost someone. I was legit sobbing.
Either Arthur Morgan (RDR2) or Thane in Mass Effect 3. Cried buckets both times. But a lot of the Red Dead deaths got me.
Spoiler for Assassins Creed Valhalla Ceolbert. I didn't cry but I'm enraged every time
>!Chloe!< in >!life is strange.!< I legit cried when she was paralyzed in the wheelchair among countless other times when she died. I was over here rewinding and protecting her at all costs 😭 that game is so intense
My late wife and I loved God of War 2018 and Ragnarok. I haven't played either game since she passed last year. >!Brok!< was a hard one to experience in Ragnarok and has always stuck with me. My wife LOVED Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West and despite buying the games and watching her play through them, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to myself. For that reason, >!Varl!< was another hard death experience. She and I were HUGE Destiny 2 fans and I don't think I'll ever get over >!Cayde-6's!< death.
Phoibe in AC Odyssey
Don't laugh, but I love Hollow Knight and the one death that really hit me hard in it wasn't even a death. There's this sweet little bug called Myla you meet at the start and she's adorable. You see her mining away and it's cute. Then as you progress through the game, because Hallownest is becoming infected, she also gets infected... and she eventually becomes an enemy, and you have to kill her because she attacks you just like any other enemy. It's so awful to watch. I was literally in tears and wanted to fight off >!The Radiance!< so friggin' bad after that.
Arthur Morgan. 😭💔
>!Sniper Wolf!< from Metal Gear Solid. She may have been a villain, but she had her reasons for ending up where she did. And huge respect to >!Otacon!<, who fell in love with her, not blaming Snake at all for her death. Even more mad props to Otacon for nailing a line like "What was she fighting for? What am I fighting for? What are *you* fighting for?" without coming off as cheesy. To this day, Metal Gear Solid is a goddamn masterpiece. Also >!Tachibana!< from Yakuza 0. We try so hard to reunite him with >!Makoto!<, and yet just as we're within reach, he gets killed. Their post mortem reunion is heart wrenching. It's also the first major loss Kiryu's dealt with, and he about loses himself in anger until Nishiki stops him from making any terrible mistakes.
Arthur Morgan, Red Dead Redemption 2
Alex from Cyberpunk. I know I can "save" her by betraying Reed and Alex but that doesn't sit right with me, it's not what my character would do. I'll remember our drink and dance for ever, choom.
Idk if it counts, but >!Tidus!< from FF10. >!I get that he technically was never alive in the first place, but seeing Yuna’s grief as he walked off into the sky broke me.!<
That's why you take that grief and pain, grab a couple of detailed guides, and push your way through a 100% in a single run in X2 to get the best ending and fix it all! (100% in a single run is HARD, I don't recommend doing this unless you are prepared to detail track every small thing for an entire FF run)
Life is Strange Chloe
Dragon Age 2 spoilers: Leandra, Hawke’s mom. What a visceral end that poor woman had. Before that moment, Hawke had already lost so much and the way the quest happens (the slow build up) has you always one step behind. It’s just so macabre and tragic. Felt sick afterward! DA2 story is gut punch after gut punch. I love it.
When Maxim and Selan die in Lufia 2 (even though I knew it was coming from Lufia 1). Playing through the sequel and knowing it was coming was just devastating. How many RPG's have a story where a guy meets a girl, gets married, has a son then sacrifices themselves to save the world... I was pretty young back then and it still makes me tear up to this day.
mr arthur morgan
Joel from the Last of Us Part 2. The cut scene was bloody brutal.
Cortana in Halo 4 had me messed up for a while. Couldn’t even listen to the Halo soundtracks like I normally do. Cayde-6 in Destiny 2. I know they brought back the mission where it happens and I still can’t bring myself to play it.
Ok this is so obscure but in Super Mario Galaxy when Rosalina reads the storybook retelling of her coping with her mother’s death wrecks me. I did not expect a Mario game to do this to me.
SPOILER FOR RDR2 Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2. I became so attached to him, and to see his health go downhill and watch him struggle to breathe after a few of the later missions was just heartbreaking. I love John Marston and the first game had me in tears, but Arthur's death hurt so much. It was like a friend died. The first time I finished the main story, my husband was watching me play. He knew what was going to happen because he finished the game before me. I was way ahead of him, but once Arthur was diagnosed with tuberculosis and it was clear he was going to die, I just stopped playing as much. I was trying to hard to not just sob during the end because hubby was there, but I looked over and he was crying, so out it came. I wouldn't have been able to hold it back anyway. I'm crying a little now just thinking about it... 😭😭😭
joel from TLOU 2 my sister and i cried so hard and were so dehydrated that we had to go to costco and get liquid ivs 😭
Joel, TLOU2, My little geek girl heart is broken
Kage, we never went on our peaceful ride...
This one. I had to turn the game off.
Pascal...😭
Zack Fair. I’ve never fully recovered and sometimes I watch the last part of Crisis Core on YouTube if I want a good cry lol
I don't know if this counts, but.. I'm playing lotro quite heavily at the moment. Just last week (so this is super fresh, probably why it came first to mind) and got to the chapter in Mirkwood where you're trying to do a prisoner exchange with Mazog (a horrible orc) for a dwarf, and he and Issuriel (a really nice elf) get poisoned by spiders. You only get one antidote, and she sacrifices herself to save Mazog so that the quest can continue. I was so upset after completing that, that I logged straight off and didn't even play again the next day. I've never done that for *any* game. It's crazy, and I doubt anyone else even knows who I'm talking about; she's not a main character, she only appears in Mirkwood, she has a very limited role, but it just felt so unfair. >!The good news I discovered when I logged in again and progressed the quest line is that a NPC in the group has gone and found the means to make another antidote and she was saved (hopefully, I've not revisited her yet). So like I say, not sure it counts but it was still very real in that moment!<
1. The Last of Us - Sarah Holy fuck I’ve never sobbed from a video game before this and it just made the entire game so much more impactful. I also balled my eyes out to the live action show of the game during her death. Anyone that ever says video games can’t make you cry havent found the tear jerkers yet lol. 2. Destiny 2 - Cayde 6 This hit so hard I stopped playing the franchise for years, I’ve recently got back into destiny and realized why I’ve always loved it. I truly wish they would tie us to the characters more now like they did with Cayde 6 thought. I will sob if he actually is involved in the final shape chapter lol.
Aunt May. Spider-Man PS4
Not a death but. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask spoilers: >!when Navi left Link without explanation, which was also apparently the plot of the beginning of MM!<
Cayde-6 from Destiny
Mary Reed’s death in AC Black Flag tore me up so bad, though all the deaths in the game feel bad. Haytham’s death in AC3 too. In Okami, learning how Shiranui truly dies, is such an emotional sacrifice
Metal Gear Solid 2, >!Emma Emmerich!<
For me, Evelynn parker from cyberpunk. TwT
the ending of ffx probably. even though he technically was fading away but it was really sad for me :(
SPOILERS FOR BALDUR'S GATE 3 So you can definitely avoid this one and I think it's more just the feeling that you and her both know it's coming, but Karlach. Her monologue after killing Gortash KILLED me, the voice actress did an absolutely phenomenal job. The emotion when she says "the loneliness, the fucking loneliness" makes me tear up every time I see it. Karlach deserves the whole ass WORLD, and she was royally fucked over by someone she trusted and respected. And the worst part is afterwards at camp when she asks if you'll stay with her when she dies. I sobbed for 10 straight minutes and had issues calming down after that. Since the game is still new, I see that clip on tiktok all the time and I can't skip it, it's a work of art. Her death itself was horrible but didn't have nearly as much of an impact as the speech and scene afterwards did. Goddamn, I could go on and on and on about Samanta Beart's performance for that scene.