10 Most Tear-Jerking Deaths In Video Games
2. Persona 3 FES - The Protagonist
You'd think, in a game that opens with the words "Memento Mori" ("Remember, you will die"), you'd be mentally prepared for the moment the main character shuffles off this mortal coil. Yet Persona 3 still manages to turn the player into a quivering wreck by the time the credits roll.
The protagonist's death isn't the first gut-punch the game delivers. That honour goes to the brutal murder of Shinjiro, a party member who gets shot protecting a young boy. But where Shinji's death is sudden and violent, the protagonist's is expertly drawn out over the course of the game's 20 minute epilogue.
After the main character sacrifices all his HP in the final battle, the player gets given the chance to control him as he says his goodbyes to his friends. Watching the character you've spent the past 80 hours controlling gradually fade away, until he can no longer stand in the final cutscene, is devastating.
Then, as he closes his eyes for the last time, the games hits you with the most emotional song ever written for a video game.
Personas 4 & 5 may have been better games, but neither of them came close to matching the third entry in terms of raw emotion.