10 Times Video Games Made You Feel
When video games go beyond action, into something that touches the soul.
Can video games be art? The debate isn't going to die out any time soon, but one strong argument is that if movies, books, plays or other forms of storytelling can be art, then video games can too. While it is similarly impossible to define what 'art' is, one helpful angle is to look at a given work's ability to produce emotions in an audience. And sometimes, video games can do exactly that.
Whether it's grief at a tragic event, wonderment at a game's environment, fondness for its characters or just the savage joy of exterminating your enemies, plenty of computer games have succeeded in creating an emotional reaction in their players. Creating an emotional response isn't just a function of programming, but of visual design, writing, voice acting, and a dozen other disciplines working in harmony.
Plenty of games are just excuses to throw polygons around and compare DPS like it's a mating ritual, but as the medium matures, a wider audience is demanding more from their games.
That includes strong emotional engagement, as shown by the following games and the moments where they dared to make us feel.
10. The Last Of Us' Ending Confounds Us With Moral Ambiguity
The scene where hero Joel loses his daughter at the start of the game could easily take its place here as a particularly harrowing moment. But for emotional complexity and sheer developer bravery, it’s his actions at the end of the game that make our list.
The character development of The Last Of Us sees resentful curmudgeon Joel come to not only tolerate Ellie, the subject of his game-long escort quest, but to love her. By the game’s final sequences, he will do anything to protect his surrogate daughter from the cruelty of the game’s post-fungus zombie world.
When he learns the fungal plague can only be cured by killing and dissecting young Ellie, he flies off the handle, kills everyone and spirits his charge out of the rebel-held hospital.
Then, he lies to her about whether she could have saved the human race in death. And so Joel deceives his only friend and compels the whole world to further decades of misery, purely because he learned to love. The cocktail of emotions sparked in the player is enough to place The Last Of Us at the pinnacle of emotionally memorable games.
Even as we sympathise with Joel, we cannot forgive him, and yet how many of us would have done any different?