This was a smaller moment, but similar to yours, OP, in that it revealed some unconscious thinking in my head.

But I was playing Crusader Kings II quite a few years back. And I basically had a King with the Genius trait and some other stuff I could pass down to his kids. I think I had somehow lucked into the Byzantine Empire or something, so I was basically seducing and inviting a bunch of lovers with other traits from all around the world (north and south, east and west) so I could spread Genius around. I wanted a smart council full of my bastards, heh.

So my genius slut-king has a bunch of kids. I'm naming them after my absolute favorite characters from books and such, because they're part of my family and dynasty--so I'm giving them names that have a lot of personal "worth" to me.

Then I get to the kid in my dynasty who isn't white, and I couldn't figure out what name to give her. I had all these awesome names that I was using over and over through the generations in my dynasty, but somehow none that felt "right" for her. I tried and tried to choose a name, and none "fit".

And after a while, it suddenly hit me in the face how SUBTLE racism can be. This was just a video game, but I had something that was "high worth" to me to give out, these favorite character names, and I was handing them out like candy until I got to the one kid and struggled, making all sorts of excuses why this not-white video game kid couldn't get the name of this other character I really liked.

Now, if I was doing that in a frickin' video game, imagine what people are doing with REAL LIFE things that are "high worth" to them. Hiring at jobs, giving gifts and presents, selling a house, etc.

And it wasn't like I was going around in the game consciously picking which kids to screw over. (I mean, moreso than you usually do in Crusader Kings, the game where people glitch themselves into marrying their horses and creating witch covens with devil-babies so they can spread satanism across the world.) I ended up screwing this virtual kid over because I was going on this "gut feeling" that my really cool favorite-character names just somehow "weren't right" for her, even though that frickin' inbred cousin over there with a family tree like a wreath was proudly wearing it already.

So yeah. Learned a big lesson on how internal gut feelings influence you to do racist shit really subtly sometimes.

No Man's Sky - Finally lifting off the planet into space for the first time reignited my love of space and the cosmos. Made me feel awe and wonder

The Stanley Parable - never had a game make me laugh till I had tears in my eyes before. This game really fucks with your perception of what is real and just how common / predictable some gaming tropes have become

When i first killed someone in DayZ back in the day, when it was just the ArmA 2 mod and all the hype.

I finally found a gun and started to learn my way around the zombies, when i heard a player in a bush nearby the hospital in Elektrozavodsk. I thought he was probably out to get me, so i emptied my Makarov clip at the bush and shortly after heard the fly noise they had put to mark dead players.

As i searched his body with my heart pumping like crazy i found him to have nothing but a can of beans. I felt profoundly shitty in that moment because he was just like me at the time. Some new guy playing a tough sandbox multiplayer-game, where everything and everyone can kill you. He probably didnt even hear or see, where he got killed from, just like it happened half a dozen times to me before.

I showed cruelty to someone in whose shoes i'd had demanded mercy.

Fuck everyone pitching people to fight each other

Kind of feels disparate from it being a video game, but it's difficult to really make this experience another way:

I wanted to play a healer in an MMO. It was a shitty MMO, so healers could only be female characters wearing skimpy armor.

Well, it took about half a minute until I had people walk up to me, to then just stop 3 meters away. From the way they were moving, I have to assume, they were working their cameras to look underneath my skirt, and probably doing so with only one hand.

Some of them were sending me "hello :)" messages, which I guess is basic decency, if you're going to use my body, but it felt weird, too, since we had nothing to talk about.

All in all, it felt uncomfortable. And I did not even have to fear for them to start touching or even raping me. Plus, I was able to log out, delete my account and basically just leave all of that behind.

Well, except for one thing I did not leave behind: I do not want to be the other side in that experience either.

For me it was playing Life is Strange for the first time. I bought it because it had been listed on Steam as “Overwhelmingly Positive” for ages, and at the time I was really enjoying the story-based games that companies like Telltale were producing. So, knowing nothing about the game, I picked it up and started playing it.

The first act was slow. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the writers were establishing Arcadia Bay, a city in the Pacific Northwest, as a character. All the people in it needed to be recognizable, so it took time for them to teach the player about who they were, what mattered to them, how they fit in to the city, and what their flaws were. I actually stopped playing for a while after the first act. But, luckily, I picked it back up over the holiday season.

I still remember playing it in my living room. I was so thoroughly absorbed into the story that when something tense happened in the second act and I couldn’t stop it the way I normally could, I was literally crushing the controller as if I could make things work by pulling the triggers harder.

I am decidedly not the demographic that Life is Strange was written to appeal to, but they did such a good job writing a compelling story that it didn’t matter. I got sucked in, the characters became important to me, and I could not. put. it. down. I played straight through a night until I finished it.

(If you’ve played it and you’re wondering, I chose the town the first time I played it.)

I’ll never forget that game. I’ll also never forget the communities that spawned around it. I read the accounts of people who had just played it for the first time for about a year because it helped me relive the experience I had when I played it. It was incredible.

Disco Elysium was full of such moments for me. Here's one:

You spend a lot of time in the game basically talking to yourself and your inner voices, and one of these voices is volition. If you put enough points into it, it'll chime in when you're having an identity crisis or struggling to keep yourself together and it'll try to cheer you up and keep you going. At the end of Day 1 in the game you, an amnesiac cop, stand on a balcony in an impoverished district reflecting on the day's events and trying to make sense of the reality you've woken up into with barely any of your memories intact. If you pass a volition check, it'll say the following line:

"No. This is somewhere to be. This is all you have, but it's still something. Streets and sodium lights. The sky, the world. You're still alive."

This line in combination with the somewhat retro Euro setting, the faint lighting, and the sombre-yet-somewhat-upbeat music was very powerful. The image it painted was quite relatable for me. I just sat there for a minute staring at the scene and soaking it all in. Even though this is a predominantly text-based game with barely any cinematics/animations, I felt a level of immersion I had rarely, if ever, experienced before.

Oh, look at that. Someone actually made a volition compilation. 😀 This video will give you a better idea of what I'm describing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENSAbyGlij0 Minor spoilers alert!

Outer Wilds. The universe is, and we are.

One of those games where it's better to play absolutely blind. For the experience of discovery is the gameplay. You can never play it for the first time again.

Spec Ops: The Line

It's story is based on Heart of Darkness, the same book Apocalypse Now was based on, so they share some commonalities.

Gameplay wise it's a pretty standard 3rd person cover shooter, nothing really memorable.

But man that game fucks with your head and expectations of a shooter. While you mow down hordes of fellow American soldiers who have gone AWOL with their commander, the tone of the game constantly shifts ever so slightly. You lose people from your team, you get to be more and more vengeful and violent. And at first you think nothing of it, because that's almost every shooter I've played.

But they let you see yourself in a mirror, so to say.

I think the first time it really hit me was when on one of the loading screen tooltips, that usually said stuff like "You can throw grenades back." or "Flank your enemies." it just said "Do you feel like a hero yet?". Felt like I'd been punched in the gut. It gets more and more intense from there and I can't really describe it all, because it's been a decade or so and it was mostly the sum of a lot of smaller things.

I know some people called it corny and pretentious but it really stuck with me.

This will date me, Missile Commander. When you lose the game doesn't reset, you had to reset it. So if you don't you just see dead cities on a screen, with silence. This was right about the same time I saw War Game. The only wining more is not to play.

Nothing as profound as what you described there...
But... The Last Of Us was an experience for me...

I hadn't played a "new" game in about 8-10 years at that point, so the huge increase in development was mind blowing to me.
But really, the intensity of the story is what really did it for me. I legit got teary eyed in the intro, and then the burning restaurant scene made me ball my eyes out..

Phenomenal fucking game

Or, to bring it back to my youth... The Illusion of Gaia was probably the first game I played that made me feel things. That was so long ago, and I was so young when that came out that being specific about it is hard. But I think I really related with the main character, and I remember really feeling things during the lost-at-sea raft scene.

I might need to go find the ROM now...

**Or, to go a bit further back, Dragon Warrior.
That was the first game I ever played that really captivated me. It was the first RPG I ever played, and even tho the storyline is incredibly basic and cliche, it was the first time I experienced a story at all in a video game. It's definitely the reason that I prefer fantasy RPGs over every other type of game

It's kinda cheating but The Beginners Guide is a game I think about all the time. As someone who makes things, the themes it explores about validation and the purpose for creating art really hit home.

For just a profound moment, the sun station in Outer Wilds.

HUGE spoilers

It really marks a turning point in the game when you find that out. I assumed like most people that it was a classic tale of science gone wrong, and now I have to fix it. As a video game it's also really easy to assume that your goal is to fix everything - to save the solar system. But there is no villan, and no solution. You and everyone in the solar system will die and there's nothing you can do about it. It's a really powerful subversion of expectations that works well with the games themes.

Three pretty stereotypical ones.

1. I played diablo 1 when I was 6 years old. And you already know where this is going, but that butcher room caused me some intense fear.
2. That moment in fallout 3 when you first leave the vault and there’s a semi cinematic experience. I was in complete awe at how beautiful the post apocalyptic wasteland looked.
3. That first time logging into WoW original back when it first released. So much to explore and experience it felt absolutely amazing to be a part of

Many years ago, my 2 kids an me playing multiplayer COD 2, I had 3 networked PCs we went in the map and worked together, I was in the first floor laying down with my sniper rifle, the kids were covering the stairs behind me, we owned that map, working together it was an amazing and thrilling experience for all of us, we talked about it for ages afterwards and was the started of many great COD multiplayer sessions for us.

Disco Elysium is so fucking wild. It's the most empathetic game I've ever played. I am someone who has an easy time putting myself in other people's shoes. The character is an alcoholic mess, on the brink of a depression so deep he has totally fractured his own memory and sense of self. He's a genius. He's also an idiot. And he's a cop/detective in a world that really despises cops. It's what I would call the idealistic cop: the one that would put themself between a group of armed men and a group of innocent people with nothing but a dinky pistol and say stand down.

Anyway, I love how it makes me feel about everything in its place. The ideologies that drive us. The youth we waste on fooling around. The insanity and, somehow, the humor of racism. The mistakes that make us who we are. The idealistic pursuits that are so high they can never be achieved. How heartbreak never goes away.

Most importantly, I played a game with an internal monologue built-in as the RPG system, and it nearly exactly matches how I think and feel. My mind is also fractured as identifiable pieces of myself. I gave some parts of them names because it made it easier to separate the thoughts from how I truly felt. I have nearly all the same psyches just with different names from Volition, Half-light, etc. And it floored me. I have never played a game that was as introspective as I was. Right down to the simultaneously protective and self destructive thoughts clashing within and one winning out. It gave me a third person perspective of my own self destructive and unhealthy thought processes. And it helped me love myself a little bit more. I feel like I'll never be able to play anything like it again for the rest of my life.

I get very into games so it's really hard to pick. But the longest lasting impact IRL was when Mass Effect 2 gave me a revelation on human relationships.

I never understood cheating on your partner. I just didn't get it. I mean if you want to be with someone else, just leave. Shitty people who just don't care, I get that, but normal people, not at all. I could kinda wrap my head around it if alcohol was involved, or staying because of kids. Other than that nah.

Now I play RPGs as if I was actually going to make those decisions. So I get even more into them than others. Liara wasn't a love interest and she was who I originally went with in the first one. I was bored without the cute interactions with her, so I started talking to the other females on the ship. But they weren't Liara. Each one had something I found similar to her. It got to the point where Jack asked me if I was talking to anyone else. I didn't want to hurt her so I said no. And then Tali asked me the same thing. But better her and Jack, I wanted her. So I said no.

I honestly didn't realize I was seriously leading them on until I messed it up and they both were mad at me. Then it clicked. Cheating is impulsive because you are looking for someone else. Sometimes you don't realize you've set yourself up until it's too late. 🤯

Outer Wilds, like all of it. Falling into the black hole made me actually scream in terror, then shiver for how small being away from the solar system makes you feel. Also the quantum moon, and that ending holy fuck

X-COM (from the 90's, not the remake):

I totally sucked at playing X-COM and died a lot, until I learned about real world squad tactics.

In X-COM, the members of your team can get scared/lose it, and behave in random ways like throwing away their weapons/fleeing the fight or just going berserk and shooting around.

So, after I improved my game with my newly acquainted knowledge of real world squad tactics, I had a terror mission. Terror missions are missions, where the aliens attack and which are harder than the other missions.

I managed to survive the load out from the helicopter and kill nearly every alien on first contact, thanks to very careful and orchestrated movement of my squad.

There was one alien left, I tried to shoot it several times from a distance, and of course (this being X-COM after all), all of my shoots missed...

... THE ALIEN STRESSED OUT AND BERSERKED...

I didn't even know that it was possible. After weeks of loosing and frustration, this one moment is the most satisfying moment of my entire gaming history (more than 30 years now).

Haven't found any modern game, where this would be even possible!

Mandatory link to OpenXcom

Subnautica; at the beginning your pod drops into the surface of the ocean, then you open the hatch and you climb out... to see an infinite expanse of blue sea under a blue sky.

That triggered so many memories for me, I had to take a minute. The color grading on that scene was on point.

One of the Quake games has a section where you get captured, then put on a conveyor belt where you see other people in front of you get mutilated, then that happens to you. That scene almost triggered a dissociative episode.

The original ending of Mass Effect 3 brought me to tears because the Clint Mansell music meshed so well with the on-screen segments, it really moved me. That said I also like the remastered ending; the latter is like the last few chapters of Lord Of The Rings, the former is like an American movie ending.

Played Deus Ex Human Revolution when it came out. Picked the destruction ending.

Seven or eight years later I replayed it. Without thinking I more or less immediately chose the Illumanity Ending. And then I just sat there for a few minutes realizing that I no longer trusted humanity to make the right decision. I understood that the reality is we would fuck it all up and at least The Illuminati seemed to have a plan.

There have been a lot of other ones over the years, but those felt more or less "intentional". Whereas DX:HR is just... growing up.

Far cry 5. Spoilers ahead and if you have yet to play it I highly recommend you experience this firsthand rather than reading it here.

So each zone had its own gimmick. The zone lead by the super militant guy had a trippy segment where you basically ran an obstacle course while shooting people. He yelled at you to go faster and every iteration started the same as the last ones but got longer. They were also actually timed. Hallucinations were a big part of the game, and this was clearly one, so I didn't really think much of it. I started breezing though it trying to get good times. At the very end of the last run was a lone person standing in a room. I snapped off the quickest headshot on him and was pretty happy about it, only to have the following scene reveal that I just fucking domed the leader of the resistance that I was helping. I didn't even know if I could've discerned who it was during the sequence because I didn't even look before shooting.

It tripped me out so hard because generally when games take away player agency, there's a disconnect between the player and character. Like "welp my character is brainwashed so I gotta do bad things now." But in this case, they genuinely got me, the player, to willfully do their bidding by pushing all the right buttons in my head. I had to pause to appreciate his hard I got got.

My number 2 would be project wingman. Wasn't expecting much from the story but I nearly cried at the end.

Doki Doki literature club. The first play through when you visit Sayori at home. If you know you know.

SOMA left me questioning my own consciousness, what it is to be human, and loneliness.

Echoes of the Eye expansion to Outer Wilds. I managed to avoid all the spoilers, watched some playthroughs but thankfully didn't study them too closely. Importantly, the streamers never looked "up" during the parts of the gameplay that I've seen, so to me it appeared just like another normal environment (well, normal at least by Outer Wilds standards). I already loved the original game, and decided I must play this for myself.

So when I entered through that doorway for the first time I was genuinely stunned. "You fuckers, you really did it this time. You actually went ahead and did it!" I mean...

spoiler

Space habitats have always been a staple of science fiction novels, and they have appeared a couple times in video games already, like in Mass Effect and Halo, but there they were only used as background - the actual playable area was limited. Never before this had anyone successfully implemented a life-size Bishop Ring with the full "You see that mountain? You can walk there!" boastfulness. And sometimes that mountain is on the ceiling. And when the water breaks, oh boy...

I killed an ODST for his sniper. Then I realized he probably had a family and reloaded the checkpoint. Never hurt a human npc in Halo ever again.

Red dead redemption 2 for sure. It's hard to pick because there are a lot of profound experiences in that game. The part where Arthur is riding back after Guarma when d'angelo starts playing definitely stands out. It just made me think about how some people just get trapped in these shitty situations that are just tragic. It's easy to say what you would / wouldn't do in that situation but the gang were Arthur's family and it's not that easy to just walk away from the only community you have and the only life you've ever known.

That moment in Papers, Please where they say they're reassigning the guards, and issue you a rifle with three shots in a locked drawer in your desk. And you're doing your paperwork, and there's a siren, you look up and a guy is hopping the fence. You scramble to get the gun out and shoot him but he already threw the bomb.

It's kind of amazing how immersive that moment was. The panicked scramble to take in what was going on, know what to do, scramble for the key, line up and shoot someone.

Look I've shot a lot of people in video games. Mowing down nazis, taking the gluon gun to HECU marines, I've probably shot Heavy Weapons Guy in the face 900,000 times over the decades, just him.

But that one got me. In that deliberately low res game about border crossing paperwork, that one made me feel like I actually just killed someone.

WoW: ill never forget it. This was BC expansion and as a Druid I had just recently unlocked flight as part of a huge questline. I was hopping around mining nodes farming for my Jeweler profession when I encountered a Druid nightelf. They had the upgraded bird form (320% speed vs 60%). I must have pissed this guy off or he was bored but he was just stalking me. Eventually he starts fighting me and we had a substantial level difference. I think he was 70 and I was 60. He was going to kill me but eventually I escaped out of combat into bird form. Of course he's several times faster than I am. I had a sliver of health and a single moonfire would've killed me. I am just holding down space bar.. Climbing into the sky. He fires off his moon fire. It should have killed me, but as luck would have it my headpiece gem had a 1% chance to reflect a spell. I had to read the combat logs to figure out what happened, but the spell hit him. The damage caused him to lose bird form and as he was now in combat he plummeted to his death. I landed. Danced around his corpse and went on my way. I could not believe what had just happened.

When I was 13 a friend of mine and I spent the whole summer after swimming at the trailer park pool playing Super Mario 3 until we beat it. We did a deep study of the game together and beat it together. First platform I ever beat and first gay sex I ever had to help me out in the orientation department. 1988 was a nice year for me. I haven't lived in a trailer park ever since, but the community swimming pool was nice.

For me, it was the surprise song in Dragon Age Inquisition, when they performed "The Dawn Will Come."

You'd just had a huge battle, the hero was a low point, and they break out into this... thing. It's stunning and so well done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsxE0dwLICU

Dark Souls

Not a specific moment but there's been plenty of essays written on how that game has enabled people to lift themselves out of dark places in their lives. There's a catharsis in the repetitive nature of the game and perseverance to "git gud".

I remember the first mission of hotline Miami. You take the phone call and learn that you are supposed to kill some people. You learn how to use your guns. You kill a bunch of baddies, quite badass. Then at the end of the mission, the screen starts swaying more than usually, and the protagonist vomits in an alley. Of course, he just killed for the first time, overwhelming. Makes him quite human, more than many other protagonists, despite the pixel art style.

0.000% of Communism has been built. Evil child-murdering billionaires still rule the world with a shit-eating grin. All he has managed to do is make himself sad. He is starting to suspect Kras Mazov fucked him over personally with his socio-economic theory. It has, however, made him into a very, very smart boy with something like a university degree in Truth. Instead of building Communism, he now builds a precise model of this grotesque, duplicitous world.

I had to stare at the window for an hour afterwards.

To me it's at the end of MGS snake eater, when the boss explains the purpose of a soldier, and their disposable nature, and how war is nothing but one big crime against humanity that everyone waves away as necessary to complete a selfish goal.

Also that scene in MGS 2 where the A.I psychologically tortures Raiden and essentially predicts where we're at now in 2023 with a.i, the internet, social media, war and propaganda fueled divisions.

Journey for PS3 and PS4. Love. Peaceful. Serenity.

It wasn't exactly profound so much as it was a sudden appreciation for just how deep the game had gotten its hooks in me.

The end of Persona 5.

I was sad because it was over, but not just because I liked the game, I've experienced that before with plenty of others. What I felt at the end of that game was something I'd never felt playing a video game before, and that was a sense of loss. I didn't just want to play more of the game, I wanted to spend more time with these characters. I'd gotten so attached to them, and so into the life sim aspect, that when the credits rolled, it felt a little like I lost my friends.

Now granted this was during covid, and I was quarantined alone, having not been able to see my actual friends in months. Burning through Persona 5 became my primary unwinding activity for a few months, and as I got deeper into it, I spent solid days with it. So it's fair to say I was in a very susceptible state of mind to attach myself to some characters.

But even without that, I think that game really hit something special for me that made me temporarily forget these weren't real people, and for a fleeting moment, I felt a profound sadness at their absence

At least two very different for me:

Myst: I was very small when I played it so maybe I missed some slightly hidden warnings or foreshadowing. But basically during the whole game two brothers that are trapped in two magical books claims that the other brother is evil and trapper him in this books.

It looks like the only way to progress in the game is to trust one of them and go do the quests they are asking in order to free them.

I thought I was smart and did everytime both quests for each of them, my plan was to save before the final quest of one and check if is the "good" one, otherwise reload and finish the last quest of the other.

I finish one guy. cue evil laughter I finish trapped in the book and the evil brother laugh that he managed to lie to me for this whole time. Fine, let's reload 5 minutes ago and free the other one. another evil laughter basically same thing happen with the other ... wtf ? There is no good ending to this game ??

Turned out there was the dad of this two also trapped in another book that was hidden somewhere else, he was the real good guy and lead to the good ending.

So: don't trust anyone, always look for more options than the two obvious choices that are only an illusion of free will. Lesson learned at a young age.

Other one that is more coming from the community than the game itself: world of Warcraft (vanilla, when it get out), more specifically beating the end boss of the latest raid for the first time. Especially when you are the raid leader. It give such a satisfaction and sensation of fulfilment.

There are a lot of games that require a lot more personnal skill than WoW to beat a boss. But getting 40 people to be ready, prepared, have to good class and good equipment, and play together for hours in order to achieve this common goal is incredible.

… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.

I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.

I hate to say it, but I think it's more likely the developers just didn't want sociopathic players to be able to profit from the human loot themselves.

I think I can honestly say that Mass Effect changed my life.

Before Mass Effect, I used to be more of a casual gamer; The Sims games and some old school platformers, but nothing really significant.

Mass Effect was the first time I became wholly immersed in a game’s story and characters that I learned everything there was to actually playing the game well. Post-Mass Effect, I feel like an actual gamer. Through it, I started to appreciate shooters and full RPGs, and I really dove into the gaming industry as a whole.

If I had to pinpoint some specific moments, I think those would have been the ability to move from friends to lovers for my Shepard and Garrus in ME2 and my Shepard standing tall and fighting hard in her last moments with the Destroy ending in ME3. I literally cry multiple times throughout ME3 even though I’ve played it a million times, and I enjoy the whole story so much that I’m recording my gameplay and editing into a sort of Mass Effect “show” so I can enjoy the story while I’m just lounging or hop in quickly even if I’m in the midst of playing something else.

Before ME, I would never have considered myself a gaming fan at all, and now there’s ME gear, fanart, cosplay items, and such every few feet in my house. 😅

I’ll add that the “big reveal” in KotOR made me put down the controller and stand outside on the patio for a moment because I was so shocked, but Mass Effect is like amped up KotOR, so I’ll lump them all together.

The kaitco of today is definitely a different person than the kaitco who hadn’t played Mass Effect, and I love the series for that.

The final ending of Nier: Automata.

That game was all about a lonely world and then turned it around at very end. It’s not exactly hard to ask for help, but sometimes someone turns to you to ask if you need it. And even in a lonely time, it’s very nice, touching even, to think about someone reaching out to help.

Of course then, after accepting the help, I made the choice to offer myself to someone’s aid.

Sending an utterly unrepentant genocidal, eugenecist war criminal to his death, and singing along with his little musical number as he died.

Made me realise that while justice is a futile pursuit, we can still have fun settling the score.

#justice4krogans

Homeworld mission three. Adagio for Strings still gives me chills because of that game. That was when teenage me realized videogames could be art.

My realization came from DDLC. I learned about what other people can feel after you've left

Brothers: A tale of two sons. Not a unique experience, as it almost seems like the whole point of the game is this one moment. So, spoilers.. Its control scheme is each analogue stick independently controls your two characters, two brothers. And it's a fun puzzle game where you have to resolve moving two characters at once in this way, moving, balancing, timing. It's all fun and games until a tragedy, the older brother dies. He was one of your control sticks, now for the rest of the game half your controller is dead also. And you walk back out of the cave past all the puzzles you did with your brother, which are made for two people. You're useless, and the feeling of loss is staggering.

In Final Fantasy XIV, the Shadowbringers expansion (HUGE SPOILERS AHEAD). Through the vanilla game, and then two expansions, you're either directly or indirectly fighting the Big Bad Guys, whose motivations, history, and abilities are largely unknown to you.

But in Shadowbringers, one of them just kind of... hangs around. Not in the nefarious cloaked form, but as a hyper-powerful sometimes companion that you're not strong enough to fight, and you can use the little help he gives, even if you don't understand his motivation.

Then, over the course of the expansion, you learn more about the guy, learn why he and his group are doing what they do, and as horrible as it seems, it makes perfect sense. And from an objective, 3rd person view, he's right. He even takes you to the Final Day of his world... and the beginning of yours. But even though he's existed for thousands of years and has seen the entire history of your world, he's finally at the point where he can see your side. But he can't stop, because he's fighting to fix his world. And you can't stop, because you have to save yours. And the irony is that both are trying to save the same people, the same world, but either of you winning means the end of one or the other's version of it (think a reverse Tuvix situation).

It was just such a deep feeling to know the other side was right, but still having to fight against them because it would be wrong not to.

Also the music slaps. Especially after summoning 7 other "fragments" of yourself to give Big Man a smackdown.

Subnautica...when I was so immersed that I went too deep...didn't have enough time to return to the surface to breathe...and then looked up in anguish and saw that dreaded refraction "circle" hundreds of meters above you... THE DEEP HAS YOU, THERE IS NO ESCAPE

Detroit: Become Human.

The demo gives you one level, playing as an android helper to the police, helping to solve a murder.

The full game really took me through the looking glass in terms of empathy. Can't really say more without significant spoilers.

Pathologic 2

At the end of the game the

spoiler

inquisition looks at you and tells you that everything has been for naught, not because you couldn't save everyone, but because you were wasting time, in your real life, trying to save people in a video game as your real life slips away from you.

Left me shook. Amazing game.

The end of Half Life 2, and the end of Far Cry 2.

When I was around 8 years old I was lucky enough to get a PS2 for Christmas. Because I was young, my dad and I usually played games together so he could help me out if things got tough. One of the first games we played on the PS2 was ICO. My dad picked it up in the whim because he thought the box art was interesting knowing basically nothing. I still remember when the first cutscenes booted up and our jaws dropped to the floor. It was so much more beautiful and cinematic than any we had played. It was one of the first time I truly felt transported another world and I grew so attached to the horned boy and glowing girl. We played it every day and, talked about all the mysteries and theories we about it when we weren't. When we finally defeated the epic last boss fight against the dark queen and the Castle start collapsing I got scared for the horned boy and glowing girl. I couldn't tell you how long it actually took for the final scene to appear but it felt like forever. When I saw my lil horned friend finally escaped the castle and was on a beautiful beach with a boat he could be able anywhere, I couldn't help but to start crying it was just such a great ending and was so cathartic after going through a dark and mysterious castle for so long.

I think it really changed the way I thought about the medium. That a game where I couldn't really tell you what exactly what was happening and had no understandable dialogue could move me so much changed the way I thought about the medium and media in general. Nobody can ever convince me games are not art because I know I connected to ICO in a way in a way beyond just having fun. The fact it's been over 20 years and I still recall my emotions so vividly I think is a testament to the power of video games as an artistic medium.

I have a lot of these moments but I'll pick my top ones.

Crystalis on the NES. When the town of Shyron gets destroyed and characters you know and care about are killed. Left me in shock as a 10 year old kid. And the temple music when you enter the pyramid is hauntingly beautiful too. I hum that tune to my kids as a lullaby.

Mass Effect 1. Exploring the planets left me in awe. For the time, the atmosphere and lore was detailed, rich, and very well thought out. Then facing down a reaper in the third game, it all made me feel so small.

FF7. Aerith getting killed took me by complete surprise. My brother and I were stunned for a while. Just sat there pondering wether it was real or not.

Minecraft back in beta. The world was just so impossibly huge and you're all alone with your creations. Left me feeling very small. The more I built, the emptier it felt.

Finally, Mad Max on the PS4. The first time I got hit by a storm I was in awe. The world is just so well built and detailed. The whole game/movie universe is filled with amazing culture that's just done really, really well.

Playing Elite Dangerous a few years back, I bought this little jerry-rigged thing called an ED Tracker. It's an Arduino with some accelerometers and a magnometer, basically the same sensors as a Wiimote, and it tracks yer 'ed. Much cheaper than TrackIR or other commercial solutions. Strap it onto some headphones or a hairband and with some software it models itself as a joystick, so I could look around the cockpit and target things I looked at, as well as look to the side to pop up ship and navigation menus. But the best bit was flying around a station with an orbital ring. I matched my velocity and pitched down slightly, then looked up at all the habitat areas. The graphics weren't perfectly amazing, but the sensation of just flying around in 3D and seeing everything was so overwhelming I actually had to stop playing for a few minutes. It was the kind of thing I'd dreamed of video games letting me do since I was a small child.

In Skyrim I experienced travelling to places that I never could in real life. Standing upon the highest mountain and listening to the wind wistle past me. The game's score heightens the mood. I don't think I've spend as much time in any other game since and have such a great experience.

It's practically a cliche now and there's a lot of reactive pushback to it, but the finale of the True Pacifist Run of Undertale lit a fire in me like nothing else could.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n9zJKhTeaU

Cyberpunk 2077 The Star ending which is the one where you leave with the Aldecados.

Then there are a couple of endings that left me with complete dread/empty but I am not going to say more if you played the game you know what I mean.

I argue that someone's first Dark Souls run gives a viewer a great understanding of a person's true personality and how they deal with difficult problems. Like watching my stubborn friend grind out fighting the titinite deamon by the blacksmith for 3 hours with an unupgraded spear really illistrated how stubborn he can be but also the dedication for self improvement. Your playthrough can also be self reflective. I found that I am quick to search for loopholes or cheese strats on hard bosses rather than put in the reps to learn it properly. I noticed I did the same thing in classes. Not cheating, but more like finding tricks and short cuts to make it work now rather than polishing basic skills and getting a deep understanding of the problem.

Was very eye opening to me and made me realize that how and what someone plays can tell you alot about a person.

Undertale: You've progressed through most of the game. You didn't strike out at the monsters. You've done everything you could to avoid hurting those around you and yet strive for escape. Over and over You've been put up against a wall with your enemies striving to end you. You could fight back, you could react to this world of monsters and become like them, a monster.

But you didn't. You stand before a mirror in a house very similar to the one you were in at the start of the game. Looking into the mirror, you are affirmed.

"Despite everything. It's still you."

Despite everything I've gone through. Despite the hunger and gnawing to give in. To respond to the hatred and harm that has been inflicted on me with fury and bloodlust equal to the twisted delight others have taken in my suffering. I didn't give in. I didn't lose my joy in making others smile. I didn't give up my interests and the rare and disparate moments of joy.

Despite everything. It's still me. I'm still here. I'm not a monster.

I tried a Satisfacfory playthrough while on drugs, and somewhere in the upgrade tiers I fixed my brain. I can just decide what I want to focus on now. I was never able to do that before.

Playing Outer Wilds, spoilers ahead:

::: Minor Outer Wilds spoilers I was trying to see how far into space I could get before the time loop restarted. As I flew away, I aimed my signalscope back towards the solar system and listened to all the instruments play together. Then when the supernova hit, one by one, the instruments were silenced. :::

That game is full of so many great moments of discovery and realization in that game, I wish I could play it for the first time again.

Dragon Age origins.

Exceptional writing and I walked right into it just expecting a cool fantasy game. I got hit with my first experience of in game romances, the shock of betrayal, the sacrifices... It was such a brilliant experience. Makes me really, really want to play it again now.

When I was a pretty young Makyo I rented of of the Dragon Warrior games for NES. It was one of those JRPGs with a pretty customizable party, naming them and all that. I was sick so I had a bunch of uninterrupted time playing and got so wrapped up in the story and gameplay, like I was cheering them on by name and really having one of my first somewhat immersive experiences with gaming. Then when it came time to return it, in the following days I actually really missed these characters! Like I was dealing with a new kind of loss that I hadn't felt before.

Just a really cool experience overall and I always look back on it as a reason I really got into gaming as a lifelong hobby and taught me how even more rudimentary versions could be artistic in ways that rival other means of storytelling.

Spoilers for Dragon Quest 11

I've played a lot of Dragon Quest games over the years so I'm used to the mostly cheerful games.

In Dragon Quest 11 one of your party members dies to save you so that you can make another attempt to save the world after you fail. Their death is fairly well handled by the party and the party had been friends for awhile by that point.

She willing sacrificed herself to save you and the rest of the party after you fail at saving the world because she believes that you can still do it. She believes that you can still win if you have another shot.

Her sister in the party comes to accept her death and uses it as a driving force to push harder to save the world with you.

The party grieves for her.

At the end of Act 2 though the story undermines it IMO by allowing you to head back in time to change things to save her and the world if you push hard enough, but by heading back in time you erase the future that you built with your party. All that build up, all the character growth, all that copping with the loss and unification that comes from it all. You can change it.

To me it felt like as a player I was betrayed by the story. I felt that her sacrifice made the story that much better. Her sacrifice made the story less "I need to save the world because it's my destiny," and changed it into, "I need to save the world because if I don't than my friend died for nothing." By going back in time and changing things you end the world as it is.

No one else would remember what you did if you succeeded, only you would remember how things were. If you failed then the world would be trapped in a cycle of darkness.

To me it felt wrong to do that, so that's where I stopped. I technically never finished the game but honestly I feel by not making that choice to go back in time that I got the better ending.

Silly I know but I feel that by destroying the timeline as it stood was worse than what the Dark One had done in destroying so much the first go around. Because they only destroyed a small chunk in comparison as you would be destroying literally everything just for the chance to bring that party member back.

Edit: Basically in that moment where they ask you to go back in time (which they insist you do) they are asking you to become the villain of that entire timeline for selfish purposes. That moment when you say yes is how Act 3 starts. In that moment by saying yes, you are no longer the hero. You are no longer the good guy. You no longer saved the world. You destroyed it because you wanted to.

The first spacewalk in Prey 2017. It's incredible. You get out of the gate, look around, see nothing but space around you, hear No Gravity playing (this track is extremely important), and realize how tiny and insignificant you really are. You barely understand how to control your character, everything is clunky, you seem to be in danger from everything around you. It's a perfectly directed moment.

The ending of the Tiny Tina dlc for Borderlands 2. How do kids deal with death? Well, it isn't easy.

I was a huge fan of the Prince of Persia Sands of Time trilogy. Just before the third game came out I replayed the previous two games again. I managed to get the secret ending of the second game. It's un understatement that it blew my mind and that the third continued from there instead of the regular ending.

spoilers for Dark Souls 2

Meeting King Vendrick at the end of the catacombs.

Since you first reached the hub town (Majula), you've been told that Vendrick has the means to cure the undead curse and all you need to do is find him. And so the entire game up 'till this point has been about reaching his castle and then when you discover he isn't there, tracking him down to the very bottom of the catacombs.

At the end of a long corridor full of enemies, past a recurring boss fight against one of Drangliec's many dragon riders, you pass through the fog wall and face Vendrick's bodyguard, Velstadt. It's an okay fight, not particularly flashy or difficult but at least it's not Prowling Magus.

Velstadt falls, and the only way forward is a short, narrow corridor that opened up behind him. The corridor leads down into an unlit room and in the dark you can faintly make out some large shape moving about the farthest side of the room to you.

As you get closer you hear Majula's familiar theme begin to play as the creature in the room takes shape before your eyes.

It's Vendrick, succumbed to the undead curse.

So hollowed by now that he doesn't even acknowledge your presence, instead slowly walking the same circle in a loop. His withered arms barely able to raise the sword he once used to slay the king of the giants.

"What am I supposed to do now?"

As I sat there trying to figure out what my next steps were supposed to be, I couldn't help but contemplate Vendrick's fate.

Time and time again this game presents you with the inescapable nature of death. Of how no matter how good a life you lived it will come to an end. No matter what legacy you try to secure it will crumble and be forgotten. The iron king in all his tyranny is naught but ichorous earth now, even Vendrick is dead (though his body hasn't caught up on that yet).

"If life is short, and my deeds are inevitably forgotten," I thought to myself, "Why the fuck am I living as a man when doing so makes me miserable?"

Long story short, the next day I finally worked up the courage to talk to my GP about a gender service referral.

No Man's Sky. The first time I got to a spaceship, flew out of the planet into space seamlessy. And then, again seamlessly, landing to another planet. It still amazes me, but nothing beats the first time.

And the one, the only original FF VII. The death of Aeris. Yes, I'm that old.

I played Gris on a lot of LSD and bawled my fucking eyes out at the end

Journey by thatgamecompany - it is difficult to put into words what it is exactly that I experienced, and I think every person's take away will be a bit different, but there is a profound and overwhelming experience to be had with that short but wonderful game.

Firewatch has a turning point in its story which hits like a truck, and is very grounding. It takes a story which has felt almost whimsically frightening, and brings it much closer to home emotionally.

Eve Online. I am outspoken about having been in the battle of B-R5RB. Nuff said.

Too many to count but the most recent one that sticks out in my mind is my first encounter with The Depths in Tears of the Kingdom. I had kinda glossed over the initial introduction you get as you travel to Lookout Landing and figured the big hole you see is just a regular cave (I didn’t really pay attention to whatever the NPC there had to say). Anyway, fast forward about 10 hours and I find some lowly well and hop down it, expecting to land in a small little pit. Instead a 30 second plummet and horn swell later I find myself in complete darkness, getting murderated by moblins and struggling unsuccessfully to stumble my way toward whatever the hell that big light bulb thing was in the distance. Was a fantastic surprise. 11/7 would plummet again.

Another poignant memory is the final mission in A Plague Tale: Requiem—freakin’ heartbreaking.

Celeste.

Hard retro platformer with amazing musical themes that persist throughout the whole game.

The main character has anxiety, which another character helps them deal with by imagining a floating feather that your breath controls. Slow, long breaths in and out to keep the feather balanced.

The game has an evil entity pursue you intermittently, and all you can do is run.

The feather actually appears on screen and you try to make it slowly move up and down to calm down. It was a great tool that is actually used IRL to deal with anxiety.

When the character is being chased, the entity makes you panic, so the character tries to calm down and the feather comes back on screen. The entity slashed through that feather and mocks you for trying.

What a gut punch that was.

The ending of Mirror's Edge.

Really good final level, finally freeing the protagonist's younger sister at the last minute as big emotional conclusion, a beautiful view of the city at night from atop a skyscraper, a burning helicopter falling down the glass walls, and then this f*cking beautiful music starts to play! It just all came together.

My first planetary landing in Elite:Dangerous was something to behold.

When knuckles helps you in sonic 3&K (yes I'm old)

when i won my first game of spider solitaire on the windows xp and the fireworks started shooting

I had hoped that playing Spiritfarer would help me deal with the loss of my mom. It's not any particular moment in the game, but I just can't play it without breaking into tears at some point. Not sure I will ever be able to play it for any length of time.

Life is Strange: True Colors completely fucked with my head. Not all the plot relevant and intense parts of the game, but the moments where Alex found a new home and community. Especially the end where

spoiler

Gabe's "ghost" guides you to choose between staying in Haven or leaving.

Watching the scenes of Alex staying really hit me hard because I lived for years in a place I hated, was working in a stressful environment I hated, and was 1000 miles away from my friends. It took a while to get out of that funk, but I haven't gone back to play it despite being in a better place and it being one of my favorite games of all time.

"I need sleep and should stop mining"

That dragon, cancer.

A linear story about having a child and loving him and knowing you will lose him to a cancer he is too young to fend off. Based on the devs son.

Utterly heartbreaking, makes you hug your kids.

Hard to pick.

Starting my first own game system. Before that only gaming was done in "video arcades"

Silent Service - Limping back to base with 75000t sunk, no ammo and sub barely functional.

F-18 - First vector graphics flight sim I saw, that wasn't just wireframe. Mindblowing.

Civilization - First playthrough with a friend.

UFO - Enemy Unknown - Storming the first UFO. Although game was similar to Laser Squad, it was still revolutionary.

Wing Commander - First mission ever. Game was like anything before and really tickled my Battlestar Galactica itch.

Comman & Conquer - Had played Dune before, so it was not the first RTS, but really hit the nail on the head.

Team Fortress - My first online gaming experience.

GTA 3 - Playing the first time. My first open world experience. Have had a little pause in my gaming.

B17 - Mighty Eight - Just barely ditching on English soil with only one functional engine after a suicidal mission.

Alpha Centauri - First playthrough with the Mrs.

Battlefield 1942 - After Wolfenstain Enemy Territory, open space and vehicless felt amazing.

Elite Dangerous - First launch, first interstellar jump and first combat in the same flight. Elite games had been a bit boring on the sound and visual design before, but holy shit.

Deep Rock Galactic - Never approved any friend requests on steam before. Started approving them. Some legendary moment ensued.

Kentucky Route Zero came to me at a shaky time in my life. Such that it was full of impactful moments. Maybe made more so by myself living in the often grim, beautiful and haunted place that is east Kentucky -and of course late stage capitalism.

Orchids to Dusk is another that inspires awe. Though it is entirely about looking for a nice place to die.

Permanently Deleted

MGS 2

also MGS 1, but the ending of MGS2 👀

Shuaaan! Shuaaaan! Shuaaaaaaaaaan!

I beat mgs2 when i was like 14 and I just sat at the end of my bed and pondered for like 3 hours before moving again

Permanently Deleted

Old-ass example: Zelda: Majora's Mask. Waiting for the mooncrash with Anju, Kafei showing up at the last minute, and them telling Link to save himself and leave them to die together. It was the first time I saw tragic beauty in a medium I mostly knew for either childlike joy or gleeful violence (depending on if the game was E or M rated lmao)

Newish example: Towards the latter half of Supergiant Games' Pyre, as it becomes clear that the stars are going out, and only a few will get to leave the Downside, and the entire team is looking downcast and they turn to you, their reader, the crippled scholar who would never be able to ascend due to being unable to partake in the games of magic basketball, but who had guided them this far, for guidance. And the game just lets you -- Write the speech you'll give to your friends. I had never seen a game do anything of the sort. My jaw was on the floor.

When I was younger, I had really only experienced console games and maybe a few basic PC games at school. My uncle showed my this FPS game on his computer called Redneck Rampage. Basically you're running around farms trying to kill aliens. I don't really remember playing very many FPS game before that and it opened up a whole new world for me. But the really crazy part was how "adult" the game was. You could drink beer in the game and your character would get drunk. I also remember some graffiti in the game of a naked woman with huge tits. At the time I could not believe something like that would be allowed in a video game! Blew my mind.

Fallout 3, The Pitt DLC. Deciding whether to take the baby.

Obligatory FF7...

There's an old PS 1 game called Legend of Dragoon... not too bad of a game but probably gameplay wise doesn't hold up. BUT... its basically you getting a team of heroes from several the surviving races after another race (the only one who could naturally use magic) decided to do a genocide against everybody (and lost badly).

There is a scene later in the game, where you're in the ruins of a floating city that (I think) was the capital of the genociders. It is a barren husk of a place, devoid of all sentient life, there are no survivors of this race. However, some of the their machines were made with magic and are running on autopilot. There is a room where you can just hang out and watch these little flying robot things zip around and have scripted NPC dialogue where rules/laws are submitted and passed.

It was this weird example of the banality of evil that I don't think I've come across in a game before or since.

Baldur's Gate 3. Karlach's reaction once you kill Gortash. One of the few times I've ever really respected a videogame's writing and voice acting on a serious level.

In Rain World interacting with Moon especially if you don't know what is going on then go back once you can communicate with her.

Nier automata had that moment for me. At first I was pissed, just getting another playthrough with slightly different mechanics... But that quickly wore off when i realized how much more depth that second pass was adding to the story.

Then, with the full context at the climax of the first half, I cried... Where the red fern grows and that are the only two pieces of media that hit me that deep.

Then, when things are getting all jrpg-ending crazy and i thought I would get nothing but a bit more lore and maybe another death scene, they did it again, but different. The climax floored me, as again things I had long accepted as just slightly mysterious, but mostly explained, backdrop (it's set post extinction after all) clicked into place again and I just sat there in awe. There was a mystery you had to work to understand, and multiple big twists leading to the finale...

It was already a good, complete story. I thought we were done. But then the final piece clicks into place, and everything I already knew intimately (I messed up one ending before I looked up the ones I was missing, but otherwise 100%d it).

Now the world had another layer of implication, which peeled away another, and another. I just sat in shock as the story changed over and over, as I thought through the story I'd played through again and again. The hints are everywhere from the beginning, but it's all cycles within cycles, growing bigger and faster with every new layer of recontextualizaion

It gave you the time to reel from the impact let it sink in... You sit there, your mind blank, in awe of how the game gently planted one tiny bomb at a time throughout the experience, and despite dropping bombs the whole time, they managed to remain unexploded. Then the final one hits just right, and the next explodes. Around and around it goes, blasting away what you thought was the dirt the experience sat on. It reveals this beautiful mural, only for the explosions to destroy it to reveal another, and another... Usually following the thread of the story, but occasionally cutting across the familiar timeline.

So you're in awe at how a game could make you feel all this, just in shock

Then the last cutscene gently draws your eyes back into focus. A slow and melancholy scene plays, and it's like viscerally grasping the size of the sun, only to turn around and see the Milky Way... All of this was just one bead in an endless chain. And before you can taint that emotionally deep but intellectually worthless moment by thinking too hard on it, it starts the credits.

It's an extremely difficult but very simple asteroid , and you finally die, but respawn right away. There's no counter, no punishment, no reward, but you start to see how long you can survive... It doesn't require much thought or strategy, it just keeping you just occupied enough that you can't let your mind wander. Then another ship appears and it changes nothing, but one after another appears, and suddenly the tides are being beat back by the sheer number of other ships firing alongside you. It crescendos and fades gently.

And then, in this raw and disoriented state, the game gives you a question. Sacrifice your save, and you can join the wave of fellow players who helped make that tiny desert mint of a feeling of connectedness when others finish off the experience.

It's a meaningless sacrifice - that last minigame wasn't really that special, and the game can't be lost. At that moment, my game save was so emotionally important to me, and plenty others had already made that little sacrifice - mine would do nothing. I might pick the game back up - I still had one more ending, and I'd have to do it all again to get the final two achievements anyways. I'd come back and finish again, and I'd take the other path, completing the journey. Not now - I just combed through every inch of the world, trying to squeeze every last collectible dry to extend the end a little more. But this was my first completion, this one should be the trophy.

I'm ashamed of that moment when I said no. The trophy was as meaningless to me as the sacrifice would have been to future players... But I now understand that little symbolic sacrifice wasn't about them, it was about me.

The final act of the game came years later, when the details had faded. I had tried to pick it up a few times, but there's another genius part of the game - the intro ship sequence is terrible. It's very long, and slow, and there's no checkpoints. If I hadn't just paid for the game, and was just shown that this was just a minigame, I would've refunded it immediately. It doesn't respect your time, it doesn't offer story, it's not really challenging, but although it's very easy, you do have to focus and play it - the instant death is very easy to avoid, but even letting yourself get hit to see what happens means a couple of minutes of nothing. You realize it's the perfect mirror of the ending, your squad is stripped away until you're incredibly strong but alone, the enemies few but will kill you if you don't try. It's 100x worse after completing the game once - you already know what happens, you know you have to do it at least once more to reach the end again, and there's no anticipation of a new world - you still could draw it out from memory because while it's small. It feels big initially because of how you run around in circles as it changes around you, but going back...I finally finished the into, looked around, and closed the game.

A tried again with the same result, but a couple years ago I finally felt sure it was time! I forced myself through the intro, blazed through the story, repeated the into again. I found I'd collected most of the weapons and was gearing up effortlessly... And as I ran it through again, I saw the cracks. The textures had aged, they looked terrible now. Invisible walls are everywhere. The combat system is tight, but easy once learned. It's not hard. The main obstacle is slow moving balls with obvious patterns. The weapons each have different patterns to learn, but I knew them still. I could blaze through it with any combination of gear... But I had a goal, and I wasn't going to just give it up again. I'd never again play what for years I'd written essays about how it was possibly the most well crafted game ever made. Nothing else has ever made me feel so much

And finally, I got to the moment that made me cry, and I felt nothing. The game sucked. I played through half the next section on autopilot, getting to the part I remembered less clearly... And I put the controller down. Again I felt shame at not sacrificing my save. I came to terms with the fact that doing it now would mean nothing.

And this is the final cycle. Every time someone asks about the best game ever, I say it's Nier: Automata. Because none of it is on accident. It was meant to taste like dirt in your mouth when you came back to make that sacrifice like you promised yourself.

:::Spoiler:::The pacing of the reveal of 4a's assignment, to kill 2b when she learns too much, doesn't hit again. When you learn this specific 4a had killed her before, and when he tries to sacrifice himself to save her, or at least so he won't have to kill her again, or when she ends up dying to save him... These moments can only be had once, even if the details fade.:::

.I don't recommend this game anymore - it's a masterpiece of pacing and tying up your emotions in knots only to pull it loose at the right moment - the pacing doesn't work anymore, all media is faster now. It cant be remastered or revamped, the story itself isn't that good

It's a trancedent experience, or it's trash - balanced on the knifes edge purposely. It can only be experienced once, by an active game who has never played more modern games, or it doesn't hit at all.

It changed be as a person, and I think of it often. I will sacrifice so much more now, because it made me understand - when everyone comes together and achieves something impossible, it's not all the same if the result doesn't change. Your sacrifice doesn't really matter much to the result if they have enough, but the you that made that symbolic sacrifice is so much greater than the one who held back.

Basically the whole premise of Paradise Killer. Who ought to seek justice? Can a government be irredeemable? Is justice even possible?

Walking into Leyndell in Elden Ring for the first time realizing this might be the greatest game of all time.

The first one that comes to mind is the betrayal of King Cailan at Ostagar in Dragon Age: Origins, and the aftermath where you and your party have to escape into the Korcari Wilds.

That whole scene is just incredible.

The prison escape in the first Deus Ex, when you learn where you really are. I guess for some people this was easy to figure out beforehand, but when I first played it at age 15 it was a shock to me.

It wasn't super meaningful from a narrative perspective, but no one who played Unreal when it was new is likely to forget that first step off the Vortex Riker onto Na Pali. Sure, there had been games like Myst, but this not only elevated how beautiful games can be, but put the player right in the middle of it like nothing else did. Not an easy moment to recreate. To be honest, that game plus UT2003/04 had some of the best graphics in the business, from both the technical and design standpoints.

Witcher 3. Spoilers here, btw.

I will never forget riding my horse up to The Baron's residence after losing his child and his wife and seeing him hanging from the tree. They do such a good job making his character barely tolerable at first, then make him slowly grow on you after you learn he's just like you. Scared, confused, and lost. He lashes out because he's trying to protect his family, but the weight of losing it is the end is too much for him.

Truly, what a masterclass in narrative design, and it's only a sliver of what that game has to offer.

The last of us 1 & 2, strong emotions with a lot of empathy

The game OneShot was one of the few to ever have me emotionally invested to the point of tearing up. An excellent aspect of that game is having you the player be a character in the story in a organic way that makes sense plot wise. you converse with the character you are controlling, essentially a lost child that wakes up in a nearly dead world and wants to go home. You directly communicate, console, and encourage them. and it made me so much more invested. The original ending made you pick a very tough choice that leaves you emotionally deviststed, its dlc solstice finally gave a true definitive ending.

Everhood also gave me some emotions. Death is a very hard thing to contemplate and deal with, for me anyways. It helped make me a little more comfortable the nature of death and why its such an important aspect of existence. The game turns from fun cute psychadelic rythm game to heavy existential mercy killing of immortal beings who have gone fucking nuts and mentally decayed after trapping themselves in a legitimate eternity of immortality, and then their reality. The music is kick ass and the gameplay turns the old rhythm formula on its head.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura still remains my favourite to this day.

The world's setting is centred around how capitalism and industry affects society, how it pushed aside feudalism, how racism remains endemic and easily seen as normal, how history is swept away to hide attitudes, all sorts of complex things. Early on in the story, you get involved with a strike by exploited half-orcs and the wealthy factory owner who would rather they all died. Thinking back, it was a big part of how young me started to realise industrial relations are fucked up in capitalism.

One moment (of the many cool things) that really hit me, is that there's an entire sub-plot across the whole continent that's never explicitly mentioned, but is entirely noticeable if you actually pay attention and listen, not to the quest-givers or the industrial leaders, but to the servants of the powerful men you meet. If you're lucky, near the end, you suddenly realise you just.. swept all these weird characters and remarks under the rug as you had 'important' people to talk to. I had relegated servants and whole in-game races to an 'unimportant' role, when actually their stories are key to a whole second sub-plot of their own that affects everything in the world.

I know a lot of that behaviour is because I'm playing to typical game design, but, I dunno, having a real moment where you think back and realise you've been ignoring what should have been an obvious pattern of so many exploited people, and I just glossed over it 'til that moment, it affected me.

Either playing Beat saber on acid or finishing MGS4.

Kicking a window through because my brother beat me at Pipemania.

There are so many now, the one that comes to mind, maybe not the best but it's the one, is Braid. I don't want to spoil the ending, but I basically played the game in one sitting and the way the game ended just made something click into place in my mind and changed the way I think about the human experience.

Night in the Woods. Start to finish. It has so many moments where you just pause and go "....shit." It's the most perfect game ever made.

Also FF7. White teenage boy complex with Aeris for sure, but also blowing up oil facilities, killing CEOs, and Red XIII's story. It's wild to me the themes that this game gets across in Discs 1-2.

OneShot. The main story does something interesting early on to draw you in, then with the post game content I have just never felt so connected to a game. it's hard to describe without spoilers. I started the game in the evening then there I was at like 2am "I can't sleep until this world is free". you just really feel like you personally have a part in the story.

I'm at probably playthrough #4 of The Witcher 3, and the moment when Ciri wakes up still brings me to daddy tears.

Probably different to most people but I remember the first year of Uni summer holidays I spent playing Fable 3… which ended up being the entire 3mth holiday. I realised in real terms I just moved from one part of the cd to another and hadn’t accomplished anything else with my life in that time, no hobbies, friends or shared experiences.

I packed up my Xbox and refused to play another game for about 10yrs. Now I have a much better balance with games and my life

I think it was playing Golden Sun 2, when it is revealed that the world is slowly ending and that Saturas and Menardi were trying to save it.

It made me realise that real villains are just people doing what they believe to be right, whose priorities are different than your own. We're all trying to live a "good" life in the end, and a lot of things are more easily forgiven in that light, but that doesn't mean we'll all get along either, because we're all the villain in someone's story!

Showing my age here, but I'd pick Ocarina of Time as the first game I feel like I had a profound reaction to. At the end of the game, when you defeat Ganon and save the princess, how does she reward you? by sending you back in time to be a kid again. I mean, I understand that it was supposed to be a gift, but it just felt like it was erasing the heroics that you had done for her and the entire kingdom of Hyrule.

Second, I would pick God of War (2018). As a father, that game knew exactly what to do to reel me in and make me care about the characters.

When I started playing Horizon zero dawn, for first dozen hours I was in the state that fears the machines and sneaks everywhere.

Aloy's voice still terrifies me, I wish there was an option to turn off her random monologues.

It was meeting the other players in real life. One lives in Europe.

Modern Warfare 2 (the first one). When you're climbing the ice wall and you fall and get caught, the level of detail on the face was astounding to kid me. It was like watching something in real life to me.

Probably helped that it was off of my sister's high def TV.

During the game awards last year, there was a virtual concert announced in the game Sky: Children of the Light. It started immediately after the awards ended. I'd never played this game before that night. I loaded it up and joined something like 1000 other people in a virtual stadium around the artist in the center. It then teleported you outside where you followed her around, floating through landscapes, the clouds, etc while the concert continued. It was a surreal moment and I've experienced nothing like it before or since. It was way different from an IRL concert or a simple video streamed to my computer. It's hard to describe.

I encountered a rogue AI in Starfield that was kind of a trip. I ended up letting it go to be its own person.

Destiny 2, the death of Caide-6. I was pissed and wanted to avenge him so much.

He was such a beloved character by the whole community that Bungie is bringing him back from the dead (somehow) for the final chapter of the game story.

Any round of Space Station 13 or 14

Tackling a hard Souls' boss is always a roller coaster of emotion. Usually it's a bunch of anger, some despair, some hope, and ultimately victory. So cathartic.

My guy, you spared those slaves lives of abject torture and misery by sinking that ship. There was nothing immoral about what you did; it arguably would've been even more fucked up to keep them alive as they would have been recaptured and put through all of that all over again. You absolutely did solve the problem explicitly by using force.

Even if it was, you had no way of knowing the developers clearly didn't take into consideration the fact that people would purposefully raid slave ships to save the slaves anyway.

Just because it didn't go as planned doesn't make what you did wrong. What matters is your intent and only your intent. Things don't have to go perfectly or even correctly for force to be justified.

🤦 Why the fuck people feel guilty for using force in such contexts is beyond me.

Genshin Impact had an event where you had to deliver food to customers. The customers would be in the most out of the way places, and if you managed to find them, they would reject the food for the stupidest reasons. Many players complained about the difficulty, but maybe it was a commentary on how delivery boys partners are treated.

There was nothing quite as intense as a ServerSmash in Planetside 2. Which means ~800 people doing joint ops on a single map and everything is highly coordinated.
I think blob fights in EVE are even larger, but this was a first person shooter and also rather arcadey, not a thousand spreadsheets fighting at a server tick rate of 1 ^^

Two come to mind. The first was when I was about 6 years old and walked in on my older brother playing Sim City 2000 on our family computer. It was the first time I had seen a video game of any kind. Before that, I thought computers were just boring machines for doing adult work. Seeing him playing a game on there changed my life, I've been a PC gamer ever since.

The second was when I beat Super Mario Bros on GameBoy. It was the first game I've ever beat fully and it was an incredible feeling. Took me almost a year to do, incredible grind at that age.

For me, that moment was in Kingdom Hearts 2. I hadn't played the first game (or the second game) and didn't really understand the concept of sequels that continued a story. My parents had gotten me the game probably because it had Disney characters in it. But this moment stuck with me nonetheless.

It was the game's first boss fight, the Twilight Thorn. Everything leading up to it and the fight itself was just utter cinematography to my young eyes. I wasn't even able to actually beat the fight (and I was the older brother, so I didn't have anyone to help). But it stuck with me for years. I ended up getting a PS4, the first console I bought with my own money, for the sole reason of playing the Kingdom Hearts collections.

I was playing "The friends of Ringo Ishikawa" and realized that, instead of simulating Ringo getting his life together, I should be getting my own life together. Not a bad game, to be clear.

I feel like I had an epiphany at the end of Omori, but I am too lazy to write it out. Play Omori.

The first season of telltale the walking dead. The ending with Lee and Clementine had my newly Dad self crying.

Stray. Honestly the entire game.

I am a cat dad to 3 cats and I rescue anywhere from 1 - 5 alley cats every year. I take them in, clean them up, get them spay/neuter and their vaccines and find them homes.

That game captures cats so incredibly well. The entire game was a pleasure, but there are a few moments that stick out to me.

Spoilers

At the beginning when he falls and is separated from his friends.

The way that the guardians react to him.

The desperation of being so incredibly close to freeing them and so nearly being thwarted.

But most of all, when his friend dies and when the ceiling opens.

And last but not least, at the very end he sniffs the air and smells his friends.

So some god amongst men on YouTube did the painstaking work of figuring out where stray fell, and where he exited and found that stray exited only a 20 second walk from where his home was, and towards his home is the direction he took at the end (but the game doesn't tell you this).

That game was the most wonderful and amazing experience I have had in a game since I can remember. I cannot recommend it enough.

Permanently Deleted

The Stanley Parable was a great exploration of the nature of free will. It was a game that made me think about the nature of the relationship between me and the creator of the game.

CoD: Black Ops 1 is a freaking masterpiece. It made me expect more from videogames and appreciate the little details. Then Ghost Recon: Wildlands and Fallout 4 were the first games that made me realize that an open world with such content was possible and the RPGs world. I know they are not massive, but I had only played in an Xbox and I had to be picky because I'm no rich. But yeah, I only have good anecdotes with those games and how impressive it was for me, mostly Fallout 4 because of secondary missions that had an impact on me, and then the other Fallouts which I'm playing in order right now and every one has its own impact, I love the franchise.

Extra: I love R6 and it was one of my favorites of all time, then I was introduced to the enshittifcation concept without knowing it lol. I kept playing Battlefield 4 rather than returning to R6.