What moments in games have emotionally affected you?

Sometimes our games — the ones we play, that become part of our lives — can actually get under our skin. Whether it be something exciting and enjoyable, like the way I felt when I first saw Aggramar smash down in front of my character in Legion, or something mournful like watching Commander Shepard say goodbye to everyone they’ve fought alongside before going for the portal up to the Citadel, it’s foolish to say that games aren’t art, and art inherently provokes emotional response. It’s just the nature of the medium, the immediacy of actually participating in the game via play creates an even more powerful method of communicating these emotions to us than simply watching or reading media can on its own. Playing a game, you’re often watching, reading, and participating in one go.

So I think the whole it’s only a game response when players are emotionally affected by video games is absurd — games have always had the power to reach us emotionally, or we wouldn’t have the flips table, storms off memes. And so, I’m curious about what moments in games have been able to reach you, whether because they made you laugh, rage, or cry, and how they did it. I mean, if a game made you angry because it was just terrible, that’s less what I mean, but it’s still a valid emotional response.

But for myself I remember laughing at Kassandra sticking the Cyclops’ eye up a goat’s nether regions, or Shepard telling Garrus he was already ugly so all he needed was some face paint to cover up his scars, or Hawke grieving their mother after failing to save her. There are a lot of moments, some I loved, others — the Burning of Teldrassil — hit me so deeply that I almost stopped playing altogether. So what about you? What moments in the games you’ve played over the years hit you and how?