Games

Horizon zero dawn is the game that got me. Getting closer to the end just got me sadder and sadder.

Getting the True Ending in the base game of Outer Wilds. Including the credits, including after the credits. So beautifully bittersweet.

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.

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

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 death of Chrono in Chrono trigger and the trupe ending of 8doors.

The completion of Lohse's character arc in Divinity:Original Sin 2.

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.

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”)

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.

Zack's final battle. Yes dude, you are a hero.

Fuck Shinra.

Mass effect 3, the last scene with Anderson. I used the better ending mod, and it made it so much better. Anderson was a true friend.

The end of Horizon: Zero Dawn

End of BioShock Infinite

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.

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.

The ending of Valiant Hearts, and the ending of FFXIV's Myths of the Realm.

A certain scene in SOMA.

In Medieval 2, when the love interest dies.

Losing the main characters mother in Fire Emblem Engage.

Walking dead. In retrospect not that great of a game, but damn clem got me crying

Lots of moments in Honkai Impact 3.

There’s literally a YT channel that collects tears from streamers playing the game.

https://youtube.com/@Ollyt_

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.

Lisa the joyful. Broke me and people should just play it and not look up any spoiler.

Kairi’s heart sequence in Kingdom Hearts

About half of GLaDOS's scenes in either Portal game.

Phantom Brave, when Marona finally makes a real friend. I lose it every time.