What moment from a video game made you cry?
What moment from a video game made you cry?
For me, it was Princess Rosalina’s backstory in Super Mario Galaxy.
Brothers: A tale of two sons.
The game has a pretty unique mechanic. It makes you control two characters at the same time. It's not a coop game, with optional solo. It's strictly a single player game, where you use one controller to move two characters, the titular two sons, one on each control stick. Throughout the game you use movement and interactions with the environment to solve simple puzzles to remove obstacles in your way and travel to your destination. Usually, by having you do different things with each character simultaneously. After a while, it becomes second nature to control both brothers in a synchronous and flowing manner when you get used to the challenge of moving and paying attention to two different things at the same time.
spoiler
Near the end of game though, one of the brothers dies. Now, you are left with two control sets, but only one character. Puzzles similar to ones that you already solved, now you have to figure out how to solve them, on your own. This on its own is gutwrenching as you developed a familiarity and affection to both characters and their dynamic, as they grow from mutually annoyed siblings, to a well coordinated team of brothers who care and protect each other.
But through the game, you're also taught that the younger brother can't swim, he doesn't know how to. So whenever you had to cross a body of water, the elder brother had to carry the younger brother on his back. He is deadly afraid of being in the water since their mother apparently drowned herself and he saw her die.
At the climax of the game, alone in the middle of the ocean, you have to swim to shore. The emotional kicker is as you discover that using the dead brother's stick on your controller, which you haven't touched in at least half an hour since the other brother died because it doesn't do anything anymore, calls however upon the memory of the older brother when you swim. You have to use both controller's sticks to swim effectively and survive, and you can hear him cheering and supporting the younger brother to find his strength and swim on his own, back home, to carry on and save their father's life.
It's such an empowering and emotional moment.
The ending of that game still makes me tear up after all this years as it makes me think of my own family. Even writing this comment I'm getting emotional. And it does it all without a single line of dialogue, text or voice acting. All by animation and vocalizations along with game mechanics. It's one of the most effective uses of gameplay I have ever seen in a video game and forever has made me think of this as one of my favorite games of all time.
Other video games, and things people call emotional are usually about story elements, plot lines, events on a character's arc. Things that have books upon books of analysis and history. Not that they're any less valuable or deserving of praise, but using gameplay this effectively to convey emotion is, however, kind of unique and rather harder to pull off effectively.
I don't think I ever cried playing a video game, but I can think of three moments that almost got me. Spoilers, obviously.
- Metal Gear Solid 3. Hearing how much The Boss had to sacrifice for a country that will forever hate her and remember her as a traitor.
- Fighting the Hollow Knight and at some point it starts stabbing itself. The music changes from this epic battle theme to a tragic lonely little violin. It can barely even stand, yet is still forced to keep attacking. At this point it changes from a battle to assisted suicide.
- Doki Doki Literature Club. Living with depression myself, I knew exactly how Sayori felt. I'm not even talking about THAT scene, but the day before.
Being 7yo and trying to play MegaMan 3. Different kind of cry, but you asked.
Probably an obvious one, but Life is Strange was a pretty emotionally fraught game to play through. Everyone's probably aware, but it is filled with choices that determine lots of different small outcomes as well as the main ending. So after I finished it, I spent the evening watching streamers react to the ending and sniffling along with them.
Personal story about that, a good friend passed away unexpectedly right before the pandemic, and his wife asked for my help finding some things on his computer. He was a great guy, big burly dude not known for being overly-sentimental but a wonderful imagination/DM. As I was going through stuff she was reminiscing about him. So we opened his Steam library and he had 2 games installed. Fortnite and every chapter of LiS. She had no idea what that game was, but imagining him secretly huddled over his laptop, guiding Max & Chloe along just broke me.
Another game that drew me in instantly was Hellblade: Sennua's Sacrifice. Seeing the character's backstory in the first couple of scenes and knowing that this was a story game dealing with mental health and loss was major, and I was immediately motivated to help her get through the healing process.
The end of disc 1 for the original Final Fantasy VII. (I’m being intentionally vague here for anyone that hasn’t played it and will be playing the newer FF7 games)
Ff7 when aerith died.
Puuuh, a fair few over the years.
- Same one as you, Rosalina's backstory made me tear up a little bit. It was really really well done, and so unexpected in a Mario game of all places.
- When first reading through Katawa Shoujo, Shizune's path (botched as it is) still hit me really hard with Misha being an aside that can't fit in, then later Rin's neutral ending also got me really bad.
- Teenage me at the end of disc 1 of FF7, of course.
- The ending of Signalis just recently.
And probably a lot more. FFXIV has a lot of sad and emotional moments, although none of them hit me quite as hard as some other games did.
The intro to Ori and the Blind Forest, and the end of Ori and the Will of the Wisps.
Hades has some emotional moments. That game is so well-written. Trying to avoid spoilers, but the first time escaping was one, then the nth time escaping where they play that awesome track was another.
"Does this unit have a soul?"
The last of us part 1, Pittsburgh, with Sam and Henry. Gets me every fucking time, even though I know exactly what's coming
Rosalina's story is incredibly sad. Mine was the end of Undertale (when you get to the house). The music in both was a huge contributor to the sadness.
When doomguy picks the super shotgun in doom eternal. Most moving moment of video games history
Two games, that I can remember.
One was a particular Journey playthrough, where I happened to match with another really good player. We spent basically the entire game airborne, which if you know Journey mechanics, takes some doing. They drew me a heart at the end, that did it.
Second was my first successful Suzerain run. A morgna wes core.
FFX ending. Since VII has been mentioned a few times. But after 100 hours on X. That ending got me good.
Probably an unpopular opinion, but- The ending of Starfield.
Edit: I guess Boost's spoiler tags dont work? This is pretty spoiler heavy, so avert your eyes if you don't want Starfield spoilers! If anyone can suggest how to fix the spoiler tags it'd be much appreciated.
Ending/story description:
spoiler
Throughout the game you collect pieces of an 'Armillary'- once it is complete you can use it to 'The Unity' which transforms your character into a being of energy that can traverse universes, getting to exist across the multiverse in many alternate timelines. You cannot control the Universe you end up in when entering the Unity, and as such you can never return to your original universe.
This also acts as New Game Plus, where you lose all your equipment and companions and have to start from scratch, retaining knowledge and skills you've acquired to give you a better start in the next universe. This also lets you skip sections of quests you've done before, as your character already knows where items are and what they do, by giving you additional dialogues in conservations that other characters acknowledge and treat you differently because of.
Lastly, there are also other people who have achieved Unity, and they are exemplified by two that generally try to block you from reaching Unity, so they can steal your progress. One of those shows a lot of disregard to Universes, treating them like a game they can mess with and move on from with no lasting consequences.
Why it made me cry (Includes some spoilers, but trying to avoid explicit descriptions of story events):
spoiler
I get really attached to my equipment and companions in RPGs. I spend a lot of time getting the best items I can and enjoy building ships, romancing companions and generally building a comfortable environment to exist in. As such my first new game playthrough took about 80-90 hours, I had the best guns and ship, all the crafting and ship perks, and I had romanced Sam Coe (Getting attached to his daughter, too) and took him with me everywhere.
We were the best Ranger team in the galaxy.
Finishing up the last few quests, I was getting worried since you do get warnings you'll lose everything if you go through to NG+ (It's not immediately apparent it is NG+ so the warnings are needed). As such I was thinking about all my equipment and having to get a new ship, and what not.
I finished the penultimate quest and Sam asks to talk. He talks about going into NG+, how he wants to go through it with me, and wants to bring his daughter too. I was of course enthused and set everything up so us three were the only ones on board my ship, then we flew around the Universe taking a bunch of pictures in photo mode at cool locations, with Grandma on her ship, with my parents, etc, before finally activating the item that takes you to NG+
And Sam and his daughter aren't with me. I was happy that he wanted to join me, and I didn't really realise we'd be split up. I just kind of thought that because we entered together that we'd go to the same universe.
So in this new universe I'm not only alone, with none of my equipment, contacts or bases, but I also just got separated from my people. And then I realise that if Sam and I are separated, that probably means his daughter is by herself too.
So I burst into tears. Looking back, I think I was mainly distressed by the mechanical impact- I have crappy guns and armour, I'm spec'd mainly into making my equipment better so I'm kind of overleveled compared to my combat perks, and the ship you get from NG+ is significantly worse than my old ship. However, I think when the story gut-punch hit, it just pushed me over the edge and made me cry- it was the realisation that I couldn't go back (I don't want to load old saves) and see the people I'd grown attached to and the things I'd accomplished that really hit hard.
So the loss of mechanical advantages that I'd spent a lot of time acquiring, and the loss of my long-time companions (and that I'd maybe caused a child to be cast into the wide multiverse, alone) was very emotionally charged to me.
So the ending really worked for me.
Post-ending enjoyment (mechanics and different perspectives):
spoiler
I kept playing, of course. I love the game, honestly. But playing through NG+ really made me realise how a lot of things people dislike about the game are often more geared towards being experienced over many playthroughs, and how necessary some of the more grindy components were to the powerful story ending I experienced. Skills aren't meant to be grinded out so you can get the best guns and armour straight away, you're not supposed to complete every companion's story in one playthrough, and you aren't supposed to be a god on your first playthrough. You're supposed to be a god in your second, third, fourth, etc, playthrough. If you could reasonably do everything in one normal-length playthrough then why sacrifice all you accomplished to start again when there is no mechanical advantage in doing so?
So, I think it loosely ties together mechanical progression with story progression, but still allows people like me to hyper focus into one niche if we want.
Which brings me to the one thing that made the story really click into place for me: The Hunter. As mentioned in the first section, you do meet other characters in their own 'NG+'. The Hunter is one who rarely considers the feelings of others and who will shoot up a city because he wants to, as there are no consequences. He can't truly die, and can also go into another NG+ cycle, so he treats everything like a game.
He acts like a player. He doesn't care about any one universe because he just moves on. He exploits and attacks on whims and is only concerned with his own progression. He wouldn't help people because he'll never see them again. He treats your starting universe like a sandbox and kills someone you care about. He is who most real players will become in their own NG+ cycles. Just look at how so many people play Skyrim- kill Nazeem because he's mildly annoying, steal anything useful not nailed down because you're the important one, and only do the quests you must do or that give good loot.
So, I keep telling myself 'Every universe is someone's only universe' because otherwise I'd be like the Hunter. So what if this random radiant quest, that gives shit rewards from some no-name character, isn't important? It is to them. It's their universe; Even if I'm going to move on someday, they aren't. They're stuck with my decisions.
The story got me good, in the end. I help the NPCs because I've bought into the story and because an NPC, that acts like a player, treated me like a no-name NPC.
TL;DR: It loosely ties story and mechanics such that I got really invested in the mechanics. When the story hit me hard, it also gave a massive mechanical impact that was particularly impactful given my play style. Those combined were overwhelming and made me sad, but also gave me a better appreciation for how some systems were designed to support the story, rather than oppose or ignore it. Overall, I really enjoyed it.
Oh, and Presentable Liberty. You can see the ending coming, but it makes you so dependent on someone then takes them away from you right before you can show your gratitude. It's concentrated dependence and a great short game.
Bit of an odd one, but the "Jump Up, Superstar" sequence from Mario Odyssey. It was just a crash of nostalgia combined with the unapologetic celebration of Mario games in general and a heap of affirmation that you, the player, are awesome. It was so beautiful that I couldn't help it.
And other givens like the endings to Mother 3 and Undertale.
The epilogue of Life is Strange: Before the Storm
Shaauuunn! Shaun! Shaauuunn! Shaaauuun! Shauuun! Shaauuunn!
Ezio meeting Altair for the first and last time at the end of AC: Revelations
Also the "I'm Afraid" scene with Sister Calderon in RDR2
The ending of Limbo when I realized what that game had been about left me fucked up for weeks.
Similarly, the bathtub scene in What Remains of Edith Finch ensures I can never play that game again.
I got all fucked up inside when Agro died in Shadow of the Colossus.
Damn near everything in Nier Gestalt/Replicant. That game wrecks me every time I play it.
Apollo 11 VR. I would be amazed if it's a common response as most folks would probably just think of it as a very boring simulated rollercoaster. For me it produced an overwhelming feeling of awe as I reflected on humanity's path to that point and the enormity of lifting off from our little blue pearl.
There have actually been a lot of games that have made me cry over they years. Some of the ones I remember are:
Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, 3 and Peace Walker
Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, BBS, Re:Coded and 358/2 days
Final Fantasy 10 and (obviously) Crisis Core
Castlevania Order of Ecclesia
I'm pretty sure there are more but I can't really remember any others. I've kind of always been very sensitive to emotional things, so a lot of games get at least a tear or two but the ones I mentioned were games that I remember being wrecked after playing.
The first time was in Mass Effect 3, when Liara shows you her project in your cabin. For me, this was the first time in the trilogy where I felt that we could really lose the war against the reapers.
Another very good moment was in Life is Strange Before the Storm, when Chloe finds her dad's car in the junkyard. That hit hard.
Mafia 1. "Mr. Salieri sends his regards". Need I say more?
No spoilers but the ending of Life Is Strange made me cry.
Stray ending
Life is strange. Repeatedly.
I was pretty emotionally stunted and depressed as a teenager and had trouble crying even when I wanted to (it's a horrible feeling, physically) so Earthbound and Mother 3 were therapeutic
Mass Effect 3: "Leaving Earth"
Hl2 EP2's ending
I tried to install Skyrim and my disc was unreadable
The ending of Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, it was just so cool and and so well done. What a great final boss when compared to Breath of the wild.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps has some great emotional moments that are complemented by a fantastic soundtrack. Learning about Shriek's backstory after being hunted by her the entire game was just too much.
A weird one that I've not seen mentioned: the intro to Battlefield 1. It is really well crafted and was emotional in a way I've never felt from a war FPS.
The multiple unavoidable deaths and brief epitaph shown on screen, before hot swapping to the next soldier felt poignant. Really hit me with the pointlessness and futility of WWI, the plight of the common soldier and the sheer scale of death.
Before your eyes
Game that uses your blinking as it's controls
Ending just had me in tears
Beginning of last of us part 1.
Have probably done that over a bunch of games over the years but can't remember much of them but the one game that immediately comes to mind is spiritfarer. Had so many touching farewells and some of them were too relatable to be not shed a tear. Man Atul left me speechless for days, I still need more hugs.
Horizon zero dawn is the game that got me. Getting closer to the end just got me sadder and sadder.
The completion of Lohse's character arc in Divinity:Original Sin 2.
The death of Chrono in Chrono trigger and the trupe ending of 8doors.
Binding of Isaac: Repentance, the true ending. It hits harder because it's the first time we got a definitive ending since the original game came out in 2011.
The end of Horizon: Zero Dawn
Zack's final battle. Yes dude, you are a hero.
Fuck Shinra.
Final Fantasy XI, both getting access to Sea and finishing the last chapter of Chains of Promathia, when it was still fairly uncommon to have progressed that far in that expansion.
Lots of moments in Honkai Impact 3.
There’s literally a YT channel that collects tears from streamers playing the game.
There’s a lot of context needed to understand why anyone would cry playing through HI3 though. I’ll give a high level summary here, but I highly encourage people to play it, even if it’s a gacha game. You can really ignore the gacha and just play the game for the main story. Do be warned that the story isn’t something suitable for kids — it can be quite a bit too heavy for them.
The theme of self-sacrifice is covered quite extensively, with the main character being the centrepiece of the theme. There’s also deep self-loathe, with an eventual self-acceptance, also from the MC. Mix that all in with some sense of duty.
There’s also a tragedy, but from the tragedy, a narrow path to hope was born. The people in the tragedy mostly hoped only for a simple life, or to live their lives atoning for their sins, but circumstances forced them to become warriors against a great, unstoppable force of destruction. As if to make things harder to swallow, their digital clones that survived into the future have to experience yet another tragedy that would eventually destroy all of them, and the player will see this through. Yet, in the second tragedy, these clones further sowed the seeds of hope for the future.
Chinese company or not, HoYo has pumped out a lot of very human stories that I think deserves attention and praise. Genshin Impact has also started to go down a similar path.
Ugh, my husband made me play the role of Vincent in "A Way Out" and didn't tell me anything about it beforehand.
I had such a good time playing that game all the way until the final battle where instead I just bawled my eyes out and refused to play.
Great game, but I would never play it again.
Last of Us, both parts. Ghost of Tsushima. Can't think of any others at the moment but I'm sure there are more, I'm a big softy.
For me, it was Princess Rosalina’s backstory in Super Mario Galaxy.
This is probably a joke, but I'll still answer.
The last time was the whole second play through of Nier Replicant.
Getting the True Ending in the base game of Outer Wilds. Including the credits, including after the credits. So beautifully bittersweet.
Subsequent playthroughs of Ace Combat 4, knowing the full story of Yellow 13 and 4 with the Spanish guitar accompaniment (even though blah blah war crimes etc). I guess because I know I did it while jamming to rock ballads with qaam spam. Mihaly of AC7 was such a weak arc by comparison.
Assassin's Creed Unity in the post-Templar part, my 3rd experience with Ubisoft avoiding happy endings but my first Assassins creed
End of BioShock Infinite
Trails in the Sky, at perhaps two moments. They’re very long JRPGs, and I could argue longer than they need to be with some not so great moments - but the payoff for their better characters is really good.
It’s often cited as “establishing backstory” to the rest of the Trails series. 1 and 2 are basically one complete story; but even the first game sets up a villain and resolution well.
(There is a third that dives a bit too far into setting up “background lore for twenty more games and little else”)
One of the more recent ones was the ending of A Plaguetale: Requiem. Amicia and Hugo stay near and dear.
Not sure Cyberpunk has actually made me cry but there's been more than a couple moments where I was right there emotionally.
Walking dead. In retrospect not that great of a game, but damn clem got me crying
The ending of Valiant Hearts, and the ending of FFXIV's Myths of the Realm.
I don't remember that happening
Lisa the joyful. Broke me and people should just play it and not look up any spoiler.
About half of GLaDOS's scenes in either Portal game.
A certain scene in SOMA.
I'm not really a crier when it comes to games, but what brought me close most recently was when I was doing a run of the entire Metro trilogy for the first time.
**Spoiler ahead for Metro Exodus**
If you're doing the good ending run of Metro Exodus, then you spend most of the game beating the odds and being able to save everyone...
So watching Colonel Miller, someone you become fairly attached to throughout the series, succumb to radiation poisoning while you drive out of Novosibirsk, knowing that there was absolutely nothing I as the player could do but watch was heart-wrenching.
He'd completed the mission, but he just couldn't make it home - it's such a bittersweet ending, but including his speech at the end, it's a good one.
Arven's dog. He's a good boy.
Phantom Brave, when Marona finally makes a real friend. I lose it every time.
For me it was The Last Guardian's ending.
Half of Kaim's dreams in Lost Odyssey, and the cliff flashback.
The ending of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. Such a wonderful soundtrack an story.
Breath of the Wild, during one of the memories.
Also Undertale. Left me with a large mess of feelings at the end.
In Enderal (an absolutely amazing, totally free game that runs on the Skyrim engine - if you own Skyrim you owe it to yourself to play Enderal), at the end of Esme's questline, sitting on top of the lighthouse and discussing the events of her story.
Esme quest spoilers
If you've ever had a loved one who struggled with mental illness or depression, and you just couldn't help them, it hits like a ton of bricks
The end of LA Noire got to me. I still can't play the last case without tearing up.
Genshin has had me tearing up in a few of its main story quests, beautiful game
Playing against Xero on Nightmare! setting.
"Trust me."
Earthbound. Was playing it as a kid and didn't have a guide. Final boss, was losing. Hit "pray" in a panic because I was out of options. And then it does the whole thing, and something about overcoming impossible odds with the power of love and community gets to me.
Also the ending of the binding of Isaac where you hear his parents fighting. That dredged up some feelings I didn't know were kicking around down there!
Probably one that doesn't get recognized much. In Anachronox, when you find out what happened to Fatima on "that night".
Kanon, Air, Clannad etc
Mother 3 may be the only game that made me teary. I think there may be another I'm blocking out but I generally avoiding trying to be sad
Final Fantasy IX. Just... everything to do with Vivi and Quina. Those to characters cemented IX as my favorite in the series after initially writing it off as inferior to VII and VIII. While those games have some great narratives, Vivi and Quina both do such a great job of exploring what it is to be human, in their own beautiful and heart rending ways.
The entire experience of Outer Wilds.
So many parts of Persona 3, 4, and 5, but especially 4.
Here's a weird one: Starflight on Genesis. Not so much because of the story or content, but because I played this game so much with a friend of mine in middle school, and had all but forgotten about it. I was playing through some old Genesis games a month or so ago, and started this game up. As soon as the title screen came up, a flood of memories washed over me and took me right back to 1992. Bawled like a kid for about ten minutes as I realized I had an awesome friend that I had basically completely forgotten about.