8. The Last Of Us
Naughty Dog's critically-praised masterpiece has mostly been hailed as gaming's "Citizen Kane moment", but the overwhelmingly positive nature of its reception belies a lot of the discussion on fan forums and comment sections that totally favour the opposite. In a nutshell: After surviving a perilous journey across a zombified, apocalyptic Boston countryside, protagonist and father Joel has built up one hell of a familial bond with travelling partner Ellie. Faced with the realisation she would have to be sacrificed to cure mankind, he instead butchers the surgeons working on her unconscious body, escapes the hospital facility and lies to her face, saying they could've never made a cure in the first place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TwdUn8WqOk The case for: The very reason the 'Citizen Kane moment' comparisons are thrown around is directly because of this scene. Games have done the whole "You're the villain all along" trick before, but never in such a morally grey kind of way. It works in the most direct way possible by asking you to think of the one person in your life you couldn't live without, and then if you'd make the call to let them go for the sake of saving millions of strangers. Such a question and its setup could translate to book, film or TV and be just as impactful, and as the scene played out and you realised what was happening and why it was happening, is what will truly stick with you. The case against: If the game really wanted you to consider what you would've done, it should've allowed for both outcomes and split the ending in half. Those who wanted to save Ellie were free to do so, whereas the rest of us could've turned Joel back during that pivotal moment in the surgery room, opting to let him walk out with no further damage done. Joel's anger and rage towards the Fireflies would've been his way of dealing with the loss, and as we never really saw him grieve over daughter Sarah aside from the immediate shock, could've let such an arc of destruction speak for itself.