10 Most Important Video Game Deaths This Decade

3. Lee Everett (The Walking Dead: Season One)

The emotional linchpin of Telltale Games' brilliant graphic adventure series was always the relationship between player character Lee Everett and Clementine, a young girl who is desperately trying to find her parents.

Over the course of the five episodes, the pair develop a clear father-daughter bond, which, if you've read the comics or watched the Walking Dead TV show, means that disaster isn't just a possibility. It is and inevitably.

In the final episode of the first season, Lee wakes up to find Clem missing, and in the ensuing search for her, ends up being bitten by a walker. This moment alone is like a nail in the heart, but it gets worse as the player then has to decide their own fate; they can ask Clem to shoot them before they turn, or they can allow themselves to turn while telling Clem to leave the scene.

It's one of the toughest recent dilemmas in a game, but Lee's death is important because in a way, he had to die. Lee was the dying remnants of the old world, he had taught Clem everything and in his passing she is forced to take charge of her own life. It's a horrible lesson to learn, but it's something that helps her survive.