Flash back to the industry's bip n' boop origins, and the only way video games were going to make you cry was if your joystick gave out during a particularly vicious game of Pong. However, even back then when all was on screen was literally a handful of pixels, there was something so insanely engaging about trying to control them that it created quite the connection between digital form and reality. Come forward a few decades and stick a face on that mass of pixels, and now you've really got a connection that's somewhat indescribable - yet immensely important. It's the reason people champion guys like Link or Gordon Freeman despite them both being mute, and solidifies the fact that if there's one area video games completely dominate over film, it's realising silent protagonists in worlds that contextually feel appropriate. Naturally the last stopping point (so far) on the narrative-train is the likes of Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us, Gone Home etc, those games where you genuinely feel the humanity behind a particular character model, can understand and relate to their motives and can control them through their journey in a realistically animated and believable fashion. So what happens when you take all that away at the drop of a hat? Whether it be wrenching control away from you as a death plays out in-game or forcing you to watch through cutscene, major deaths in video games can easily be some of the most downright devastating across all of entertainment media, for all of the above reasons and more combined.