What gaming one-liner lives in your head rent-free?

Recently I re-watched Inside Out and thanks to the Triple Dent Gum commercial I’ve been thinking about gaming one-liners that routinely pop in to my head, prompted or not. There are plenty of iconic lines and exchanges in gaming but, similar to Riley, I think we’ve all experienced moments where a random quote will appear in our brains, regardless of the circumstances.

After taking some time to think about it, these are some of the sillier one-liners that make random appearances in my brain:

“Dragonborn, huh? Was it your ma or your pa that was the dragon?”

If you choose to join the Imperial Legion in Skyrim’s civil war questline, one of the characters you’ll work with is Hadvar. During a later a pivotal quest for the Legion, he will take the time to straight-face ask you, “Dragonborn huh? Was it your ma or your pa that was dragon?”

While sarcastic remarks made by guards about arrows to the knee and sweet roll theft are the most recognizable in Skyrim, this elite dad-joke frequently makes an appearance in my brain and would be the first line to pop in my head if you asked me about the game.

“All we had to do was follow the train, CJ!”

In GTA: San Andreas, one of the central characters — Big Smoke — tasks you with following a train as a mission objective. If you fail, he will berate you, “All we had to do was follow the train, CJ!”

This mission was incredibly frustrating to complete because you could fail randomly and immediately if you even slightly deviated from the train. Since I routinely failed and heard this line, there are times in real life whenever something doesn’t work out — for myself or for others — I’ll hear Big Smoke’s voice, “All we had to do was follow the train.”

“You’re on fire, Kratos! It will pass.”

When you take fire damage in God of War Ragnarök, Mimir will let you know, “You’re on fire, Kratos! It will pass.” This is very clearly a notification to the player informing them that whatever they’re currently standing in is causing damage and to get out immediately but when I first heard it I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling because there is nothing more obvious than being on fire.

Since Ragnarök just released, so it makes sense why it would promptly pop appear in my head more often whenever something goes wrong, but it’s nice to have Alistair Duncan — Mimir’s voice actor — remind me this will pass.

“It’s just been revoked.”

I know this one-liner is from Lethal Weapon 2 and a Family Guy skit but it frequently comes up for my friends and I while playing team PVP games like Fortnite or Warzone. Whenever someone downs an enemy, they’ll get up close and personal for the finish and pull this line out. It happens without fail and always makes me laugh uncontrollably.

How about you — what gaming one-liners randomly appear in your head, regardless of what you’re doing?