What lore moment in gaming hit you the hardest?

I’m not specifically speaking about World of Warcraft lore here — it can be any game, from Deckard Cain’s last act in Diablo 3 to the fate of Phoibe in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, from Ethan discovering the truth in Resident Evil Village to the final confrontation with Adam Smasher in Cyberpunk 2077. There are a lot of moments in games that have had an impact on me, some of them positive — I remember feeling very happy and excited at the end of Mass Effect Andromeda when all of the factions and people you made alliances with showed up to help you in the final fight, while I was actually upset when Hawke’s mother… well, spoilers for Dragon Age 2, I guess.

There’s a few candidates in World of Warcraft, of course — I’ve talked about the Burning of Teldrassil before, so I won’t belabor it here. But Varian’s death, seeing Vol’jin lose his life, even Tirion’s demise formed a heck of a gut punch at the beginning of Legion. I also remember feeling somewhat excited for the end of the Dragon Soul raid — I didn’t always like the story choice to make Deathwing primarily a huge kaiju, but I can’t deny that the significance of the Aspects surrendering their power reminded me a lot of the end of Warcraft 3 and the coming of the Age of Mortals. And in Diablo there are a lot of them — the end of the original game is a huge moment of No, don’t put that in your head, are you crazy and the ramifications shape Diablo 2, which ends on the biggest moment of woah, this changes everything I’ve ever seen in a game franchise.

So what about you all? Is there a moment that upset you, excited you, freaked you out or hit you emotionally in a way you weren’t expecting?