10 Heartbreaking Video Game Deaths You Were Powerless To Stop

What makes this death worse, the fact you have to watch helplessly as your friend and mentor has his chest ripped through, or the fact there was no continuation of the story for another 14 years?

Half-Life 2 and its respective episodic continuations are praised not only for the use of the groundbreaking Source engine, but also for its narrative. Gordon Freeman himself doesn't utter a word, which allows the player to truly place themselves in his shoes. How Gordon reacts to the events of the game is completely down to the player, there isn't a scripted piece of dialogue to inform the player on how he feels.

This clearly worked effectively as people became very attached to Alyx and her father, Dr. Eli Vance. This made the second episode's cliffhanger even worse when it ended on Eli being killed while the player is restrained. There isn't a single thing you can do to save him and you're forced to watch him die. You don't even get a chance at revenge, as the episode ends right there and, as we know, there is no Half-Life 3... yet.

This would be higher on the list but Half-Life: Alyx actually did change the events regarding the death. Despite being a prequel to the Half-Life series, the events of Half-Life Alyx allow the player to prevent Eli from ever being killed in the first place. Strange.