What are your favorite cinematics or cutscenes in video games?

To this day, I think about the ending cinematic in Diablo. Now, it’s almost 30 years old, and we have to make allowances for that. I still think that in terms of making players stop and say what the heck it might just be the perfect cinematic for any game ever, and if not, it’s certainly in the top ten. It simultaneously slaps you across the face with how weird and outre and, well, Diablo it is — setting a tone for the game series it’s never stepped away from, one that says victory is fleeting, evil is always here and always twisting the world to suit itself — and also it serves as one heck of a teaser. How can you watch a person jam a bright red gem in their forehead and scream at the skies without wanting to know what happens next?

It’s not the only kind of storytelling I like in my game cinematics and cutscenes, of course. I was recently playing Cyberpunk 2077 and decided to do the Arasaka Tower mission with the Aldecaldos, and the ending cutscene with your V riding on a flying tank and tossing the necklace with the bullet taken from their head away into the wind hits pretty dang hard. I also still love the Legion Sargeras defeat cinematic, you know, the one with the sword and the noooo and Illidan getting to fight Sargeras forever in it. There’s a lot of really satisfying cinematics and cutscenes in Legion. Maybe it’s because it pioneered using our character in them, but I have always loved watching Aggramar stomp over and my character standing there waiting for him, or watching a flying dragon monster get knocked out with a punch.

So now I turn to you guys — what are your favorite cinematics or cutscenes from games? Which ones have stayed with you, impressed you, made you laugh or freak out?