What was the last game to devastate you emotionally?

I completed Persona 3 Reload three weeks ago and I still haven’t recovered. I’m obviously not going to get into details for spoiler reasons but it’s been years since a game hit me so hard in the feels. Not that other games I’ve been playing recently have been all sunshine and rainbows — I have been playing a lot of “choices matter” games and virtual novels lately and they’re big on emotional impact — but it’s definitely a huge change from the games of my youth when the most dramatic moments were worrying whether a frog could make it safely across a highway.

Of course the entire Persona series is big on emotional moments so I shouldn’t’ve been surprised. Persona 4 had a plot twist that legit made me angry at the game and everyone involved in making it, and all three games have times where you’re alternating between laughing and crying.

While P3R is currently top of my gaming trauma list, there have been multiple moments in World of Warcraft that have stuck with me over the years. It’s been almost a decade since I’ve read the Tear-Stained Letter and I still get furious thinking about it (I may have just walked away from my computer for the past ten minutes to calm down). I also still tear up when I get to the end of the Fault Lines comic when I reread it. Even Diablo 3 has impacted me emotionally, although that’s more a case of vicious annoyance at the raw deal Leah got.

Of course the reason I play video games is enjoyment, but that’s the standard default state of gameplay anyway (otherwise I wouldn’t be playing the game to begin with). So when anger or sadness or devastation intrude it becomes a lot more notable and memorable.

So what about you? Is there a game you’ve played recently that really hit you in your emotions? Which feels do you like to get from gaming, and which would you rather avoid?