Most of us have particular movies or songs we turn to when we’re in a need of a little cry. But if you’re in the mood for something a little more immersive than listening to Morrissey sing sad songs at 1am, these video games are tear-jerking masters of story telling.
Whether you’re given a Sophie’s Choice option and forced to live with the ramifications or just see through a storyline to its bitter end to finish a game, these all made us put the controller down for a brief ‘mo. Obviously, spoilers abound, so read at your own risk.
THE LAST OF US
Available on: PS3
There’s not one specific moment we can point towards in The Last Of Us: set in a post-apocalyptic world, there’s lots of tear-inducing twists and turns where you’re forced to kill off characters as they grow infected.
Following Joel and the potentially immune Ellie as they travel towards a medical groups to create a cure, the emotion is in the cinematic air, reminiscent of Children Of Men. It’s a game of hope and loss of humanity, given a great weight thanks to the voice and motion-captured acting which adds painterly strokes of pain and endurance into the story.
HALF-LIFE 2: EPISODE 2
Available on: PC, PS3 and Xbox 360
Ten years and counting. That’s how long Half-Life fans have been waiting for a follow up to a follow up to Gordon Freeman and co’s lives, which ended with partner-in-crime Alyx crying over her father Eli’s dead body.
With Gordon incapacitated, all you can do is watch the final scene where Eli has been captured and he tries to reassure Alyx it’s okay. But it’s not! Given the time we’ve spent with them across the series, it’s all incredibly brutal, but the real kicker is that with no news of Half-Life 3, we’ve been left without closure.
SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS
Available on: PS2 (PS4 remaster on the way)
This 2006 game is routinely in all sorts of ‘best of’ lists, and rightfully so. Playing as a lone wanderer (called Wander, no less), the game balances serene horseback rides with massive boss battles, as you are set with the task of taking down the 16 colossus monsters throughout the land. Think Breath On The Wild, but with more divine beasts.
As the game progresses, it becomes clear these monsters are peaceful, and though the sacrifices may be for noble causes, there’s a mass bittersweet feeling to emptying out the land.
But the saddest moment is when your horse and only companion, Argo, loses her footing on some loose rock. Throwing you off to safety, the ground crumbles beneath her, and she falls down below. You gots to go solo from here out.
(Yes, I know she comes back at the end. But while playing, this hits HARD.)
RED DEAD REDEMPTION
Available on: PS3, XBOX360
Cowboys feel things too, you know. In Red Dead Redemption, American frontier outlaw John Marston is forced by the F.B.I. to bring in three former associates in exchange for amnesty. It’s a long ride reminiscent of that classic ‘one last job’ cliché, with John’s wife and son waiting back home.
Thanks to the voice and motion captured acting of Rob Weithoff, John is elevated from cliché to a multi-dimensional character. When the F.B.I. turn on him, the game follows his son, Jack, on his revenge. It’s satisfyingly sad, and is the video game equivalent of a cathartic western film end.
FINAL FANTASY VII
Available on: PSN
Know your history, gamers. When Final Fantasy VII dropped in 1997, gamers were shook by the death of team character Aerith, who is killed suddenly in a cut scene half-way through the game. By today’s standards, this doesn’t quite have the same shock value it had back in the day.
While video games aren’t quite at a Game Of Thrones level of relentlessness yet, but definitely can and do kill off major characters.
In Final Fantasy, the tears tend to flow around some noble sacrifice (FFX, looking at you), so the lack of lead-up really caught gamers off guard. So much so that at the time of release, there were rumours that you could revive Aerith or even avoid her death – but perhaps for the only time in the 20+ year-spanning series, the moment was final.
Well, until the HD remake for PS4, which is on its way.
GRAND THEFT AUTO IV
Available on: PC, Xbox360, PS3, PSN
More death! Are we sensing a theme? Thanks to the fork in the road choice towards the end of the game, it’s more than possible to get through GTAIV without shedding a tear. When protagonist Niko can either go through with a heroin deal or enact spicy revenge, who would’ve thought that revenge would cause your girlfriend Kate die. Oh no!
Looks like crime doesn’t pay, folks. But really, this is a pretty big moment and hurts a lot since, much like when playing Mass Effect, you can’t help but feel a sense of responsibility and guilt. If the greatest revenge of all is to live happily ever after, this ending has a twinge of failure that stays even as the credits roll.
METAL GEAR SOLID III
Available on: PS2, PS3
Plot. Fucking. Twist. The MGS series is a twisted ride of pseudo-conspiracy and alternate history that can only ever sound completely stupid when typed out.
But I will try. In short, MGSIII is set during the Cold War, and sees Solid Snake on a mission to eliminate his previous mentor and now Soviet defector, The Boss. But, whoa, it turns out that The Boss was pretending to defect as part of a master plan in which she must be killed to become a scapegoat. Of course, Snake only finds out when his mission has ended. w
In the final scenes, Snake visits The Boss’s anon grave, and a the lines of a letter pop-up over an incredibly solemn scene of a broken man saying goodbye to his mentor. The line that chokes me up is “She wanted to live on in your memory not as a soldier but as a woman…”, which is packed with more pathos than the last lines of The Great Gatsby, imo.
And with that, it’s crying time.
Image: House Of Wax/Sony
