10 Times Video Games Made You Feel
5. Resident Evil 4 Forces Us To Empathise With Everyone We’ve Killed
Whether Resident Evil 4 marks a high point of the series or the beginning of its wayward journey into action game territory, its setting certainly sticks in the mind. Set in a decaying corner of Europe, its world is packed with bedraggled, parasite-infected locals who start out murderously unfriendly and only get worse.
While Resi 4 does plenty to keep us scared, its most truly emotional moment is hidden in the post-game credits. They show a series of illustrations about the history of the village our hero, series veteran Leon S. Kennedy, has just depopulated.
We see the villagers’ simple, rustic lives as they work the fields and tend their homes, lives based around community and family. We see them smiling, loving, living, as they have done for generations.
But then they are stricken by a plague which we know from the game’s events is caused by the prehistoric Las Plagas parasite. Their world falls apart as violence and horror enter their bucolic lives.
Finally, they witness the hideous deformities of the parasite’s later stages. And we are filled with horror, not because of the gruesomeness of the final scenes, but because these are the people we have just killed.
They had their story, too, and we were the final tragic act.