7 Heartbreaking Details You Didn’t Notice at the Time

Some game have obviously tragic storylines, but some have hidden heartbreaking details to tug at your heartstrings, make you see characters in a different light, or even occasionally take a long hard look at yourself and your various deeds. Here are seven such details we’ve encountered while playing games. Enjoy, and subscribe for more videos like this weekly from Outside Xbox.
---
Official Merch Store! store.outsidexbox.com/
If you like what we do, you can support us by joining the OX Supporters Club. It's totally optional but it helps us make more of the stuff you love: / oxclub
Outside Xbox brings you daily videos about videogames, especially Xbox games. Join us for new gameplay, original list videos, previews and other things (ask us about the other things).
Thanks for watching and be excellent to each other in the comments.
Find us at www.outsidexbox.com
Follow us on Twitter: / outsidexbox
Follow us on Instagram: / outsidexboxofficial
#outsidexbox #7things #videogames

[@JohnZ117]

I was playing Fallout 3, and my character intercepted a distress signal on her pip-boy. A man, trapped somewhere underground with his son, begging for a rescuer. Finally tracked down their location, only to discover she was two centuries too late to help.

[@zJoriz]

Fallout 4 has several of those too.

[@grasss.blades]

do you remember what the location was?

[@JohnZ117]

@@grasss.blades Apologies, but I can't go into specifics. Not close to settlements, maybe near a set of functioning radio towers. But, it might be best if you happened upon it yourself, like I did.

[@Lucas-zf6vp]

@@grasss.bladesI’ll look it up later and see if I can help ya find it

[@sabin1981]

Brutal!! That sounds like an episode of Star Trek DS9, called "The Sound of Her Voice" 🥰

[@danamaniac66]

In Majora's Mask if you help the sisters at the ranch on days 1 and 2, on the 3rd day the younger sister will mention that her sister is gonna let her drink Chateau Romani, which is heavily implied to be alcoholic milk, suggesting that she is intentionally getting her younger sister drunk so she won't be afraid when the moon crashes down and kills everyone

[@SrMorua]

It has been decades, Majora's Mask was my 2nd Zelda game (Ocarina of Time was the 1st) and my younger mind did not catch that, Oh my, maybe it's a good time to revisit it again

[@PollyNim]

The alternate reason isn't much better. Cremia's letting the Romani drink it because Romani's not going to get the chance to grow old enough to drink it at the usual age.

[@Nicooriia]

everything about Majora is so tragic. i was sold on the theory that Termina is Limbo, and each of the races'stories represent a different stage of grief.

[@paulfavell3018]

One of the worst ones for me in Watch_Dogs was when I was going round hacking money off people and I happened to see that one of the people I took some from was saving up to pay for cancer treatment. I genuinely reloaded my game so I didn't do that. I know he's only a virtual character but I still felt sooo guilty about doing it.

[@HylianFox3]

If only real criminals actually cared who they stole from. Not everyone is Robin Hood.

[@OzzyBen07]

I feel that. I hacked from a war veteran and immediately felt horrible about it 💀

[@Meursault24]

​@@OzzyBen07I dunno, I think stealing from someone who volunteered to murder strangers for a living is not so bad at all compared to doing it to a cancer patient.

[@MLBlue30]

​@@Meursault24Agreed. War is bullshit.

[@grendel824]

@@Meursault24 Murder is an illegal killing. It is not illegal for soldiers to kill in combat.

[@ThatCerberusGuy]

On the Citadel docking bay in Mass Effect 3, you can walk by a female engineer who's asking her CO for a transfer to Reaper space, because her brother joined Cerberus, and she doesn't want to risk having to fight him. If Shepard did the Cerberus Lab mission on Sanctum, and read all the data pads, you find out that you killed her brother.

[@daviddaugherty2816]

Between 2 and 3 there's a quarian child who lost both their parents. Their mom on the science ship in 2 and their dad on Rannoch in 3. That's just one of _many_ in the Mass Effect series. 3 especially has a ton if you listen to NPC conversations.

[@ThatCerberusGuy]

@@daviddaugherty2816 yup. Jonah. That one was rough.

[@louisewilson2044]

There was also ME2 when you speak to the bigoted Asari who lost both her daughters during the geth attack on the Citadel. It took me a moment to realise that I did speak to them during ME1 one was the receptionist at the embassy and other was the greeter for the consort.

[@Linkforlife199]

In Dragon Age Origins during the Human Noble origin, you meet an elven lady-in-waiting named Iona and if you talk to her in the library, you learn she has a daughter named Amethyne. Fast forward to the Landsmeet where you visit the Alienage and you discover little Amethyne wondering when her mother is going to be returning from Highever and how she was going to bring her a present. I tear up everytime I see little Amethyne. Every. Damn. Time.

[@kharnthebetrayer8251]

Something that got me, was in the Dwarf Prison. One of the guts says 'I was with another Dwarf here... but she.... gave up, just stopped eating...' And that's when I realised ALL the Origin Paths are Canon. It's just that Duncan is only at one of them. All the others died without him there to help

[@daviddaugherty2816]

@@kharnthebetrayer8251 Yeah, people all across Orzimar are talking about the exile of Endrin's middle child and how they're almost certainly dead.

[@MsCunningLinguistic]

There's a lot of tragic small stories in the Mass Effect games, but I think the saddest one is The Blue Rose of Illium. In ME2, you come across a krogan on Illium who is trying to woo his beloved with a poem he wrote to her. The asari in question has doubts about his sincerity, being that as a krogan, he's probably desperate for progeny, but you as Shepard can convince her that he's genuine in his affections. What's tragic is that if you bring this lovely couple together, in ME3, you find a krogan corpse in a Rachni mine that has an audio log on it. The message is a poem, for the Blue Rose of Illium... and now you get to find that same Asari woman on Illium to tell her that she is a widow. Breaks my heart every dang time.

[@alcian91]

I also had to think about this when I saw the title. Definitely worth to be included innthe commentors edition

[@naomiskilling1093]

One that people always seem really shocked when I bring up is ME3. If you go to the hospital, you hear an Asari who is undergoing therapy for PTSD. She's jumpy, refuses to take showers, wants a gun on her at all times, and specifically doesn't want to be around humans. You keep going there and listening you get the whole story: She was an Asari Huntress who was deployed to help evacuate the human colony on Tiptree. When she was taking a shower at a farm, the Reapers attacked. She was unarmed but managed to save one of the humans on the farm: a little girl. The two tried to escape but ended up alerting the Reaper forces to their location when the girl freed some indoctrinated humans. The two ended up cornered by Ardat-Yakshi and by this point the girl had broken her leg and couldn't keep quiet so the Asari had to kill her in order to survive. The girl's name btw, was Hilary. And then Joker tells you his family live on a farm on Tiptree and he has a little sister called Hilary.

[@chrismanuel9768]

Eventually that Asari requisitions you for a gun in secret. If you give it to her, she kills herself.

[@vicentemileo]

Never caught that. 😢

[@alcian91]

Jupp. That's one very heartbreaking detail, you had to pay close attention to. The Blue Rose from Ilium with the Krogan poet and his asari love interest you find in ME2, which will end tragically in ME3 came to my mind too.

[@sergeib1233]

you just broke my heart

[@sergeib1233]

and as a Spectre you can allow her to have a gun, and she promptly kills herself.

[@sabin1981]

I can't believe you spoke about hostess Chloe in Detroit, and how she reacts to your actions, but neglected to mention how she herself starts to gain sentience and eventually asks you to either free her ... or wipe her memory so that she won't be trapped. That was brutal and fully in line with the game events too :)

[@eldritchcupcakes3195]

Do you mean that she asks you one or the other or asks you to decide between them?

[@wouldiwasshookspeared4087]

​@@eldritchcupcakes3195She asks you to decide.

[@eldritchcupcakes3195]

@@wouldiwasshookspeared4087 why would you not free her tho?

[@wouldiwasshookspeared4087]

@@eldritchcupcakes3195 I always do.

[@retrogamernes3121]

That part with Chloe was talked about in a previous video a long while ago

[@Survivingbutbadly]

I accidentally bodied a wolf on my horse in rdr2 online and it cried and dragged itself into a bush. I think that’s the worst I’ve ever felt in a video game.

[@joshuahammon4927]

They could do an entire series on the tragic little details tucked into the Fallout games. The one that always gets me is the holotape you can give the ghoul toy maker in 4.

[@HylianFox3]

Majora's Mask has a fair number of these. For instance, if you fail the 'protect the cows' scenario Romani gets abducted and lobotomized. The Deku Butler crying over the twisted tree that is implied to be his son. Listening in on Anju and her mother's conversation in the guest room with the crumbling wall.

[@davidmcgill1000]

The Deku son is well past implied. You got the other two masks from a ghost Goron and a dying Zora and took over their identities, effectively absorbing their souls into the masks. You got the Deku mask from the skull kid in the same area as that tree and you never met the Deku that the Deku mask belonged to.

[@mirih5368]

In the first part of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey's Legacy of the First Blade DLC, you get what seems to be a rescue quest that ends with you standing in front of a tree decorated with the hanging corpses of people you killed and then confronted by their grief-stricken family members. Really drives home that you are an assassin, but not necessarily a hero.

[@RazorO2Productions]

Dang, My Kassandra was generally "good" but still was a Grecian Terminator

[@Phi_Lix]

I chose for my Kassandra to say that she’s a monster at the end of that quest, just to make that scene a bit more tragic

[@shinyagumon7015]

I love what they did with Luis in the Resi 4 Remake, really elevated the character from just a funny sidekick to a truly tragic figure.

[@Colbio]

And I love the backstory they gave him too. Lore nut here. You can find some records of Luis' life in his lab. Guy was a part of Umbrella, specifically Europe Lab number six. If that's tickling something in your brain, it should. That's the lab that made Nemesis.

[@kamenanew9867]

In the og game it's kinda revealed in text stuff you can find that the merchant is most likely luis' father. He uh always had plenty of story to begin with, if you look.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

I still miss his campy OG self though.

[@clarafedde8674]

Even in the original, it's mentioned that he lived in the village most of his life and was partly responsible for said... everything. Only downside in remake is they even removed his demeaning and chauvinist lines. Yes, Ashley has boobs....

[@kamenanew9867]

@@clarafedde8674 no she doesn't ur a sick bastard rabble rabble rabble! Pitchforks and all this

[@Jonathon_Hennessey]

In the Outer Worlds, one of the enemy factions the player faces are the marauders who are violent drug addicts and the game's equivalent to Fallout's raiders. What you may not know however is that marauders used to be just ordinary people. Basically to make a long story short, the corporations created a drug that would make their employees work more and rest less. It turned it's test subjects violent and suicidal and the corporations had the drug shipped anyway fully aware of the impact it would have on their employees.

[@RedShirtSmith]

Sounds like the writers were fans of the 2005 movie Serenity.

[@Jonathon_Hennessey]

​@@RedShirtSmith the Reavers right?

[@fakjbf3129]

@@RedShirtSmith Technically the drug in Serenity was meant to make people calmer and more docile, not more productive. But yeah it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s where they got the inspiration.

[@thatjeff7550]

Sounds about right since Outer Worlds sounds like a Libertarian's wet dream.

[@SimuLord]

@@thatjeff7550 Bit like Bioshock, Outer Worlds is what happens when someone who doesn't share the libertarians' Mad Max idea of civilised behaviour gleefully deconstructs the core of the Randian ideology. Of course, Andrew Ryan beats you over the head with it with a Louisville Slugger, while Outer Worlds just points at it and laughs.

[@KeeperOfUntoldDreams]

Undertale has A LOT, but, one that hit me the hardest (that I've only seen videos of) is if you talk to Snowdrake's father in MTT resort in any run where you've killed Snowdrake, he flat out asks the player. "Have you seen him, have you seen my son?" And of course, my favorite, Asgore's reaction if you eat Toriel's pie during his fight.

[@Ahrpigi]

+1 for the pie, that one tugged at me

[@perfectlyhopeless]

It's an incredibly small detail, but if you side with the salarians during the Genophage arc of Mass Effect 3, you're forced to kill Mordin Solus, your former squadmate in ME2 who has been dedicated to correcting the mistakes he made in perpetuating the sterilization plague that had led to the destruction of krogan civilization. And when you take the shot, it's with the same pistol that he originally gave you when he first met you in his clinic on Omega.

[@thegreatpineapple4425]

Mordin gives you that Carnifex pistol "in good faith".

[@MultiClassGeek]

I first played ME2 on the PS3 during the period where PSN was down, so I couldn't access the Interactive Comic that let you make some of the key decisions from ME1. As a result, my first save started with all the Renegade options from the first game, including Wrex dead on Virmire, with Urdnot Wreav as the Krogan leader. At the end, I realised Wreav couldn't be trusted to lead a cured Krogan race, so I had to stop Mordin... My rationale was that it wasn't my fault, I'd have saved Wrex, if only I'd been given a chance... So, really, my hand was forced... It was a fait accompli, really...

[@jessragan6714]

Night in the Woods is a tough one. Like Celeste, it's full of feels, but most of the emotions are expressions of anger from millennials who feel like they've been cheated out of a future. One character, a bear, spends most of the game writing cutesy poems, only to unload in a furious, frustrated rant during a poetry slam.

[@Ceece20]

This one is a bit obscure and not many people really thought on it even in the game, but in Nier Automata there is a side quest where one of the androids in the space bunker asks you if you can find her friend (and presumably lover) who went missing during your intro mission. Tragically you already know everyone was killed besides yourself but since you are androids, you have back ups so there is still a chance to find her. So you go retrace your path during the introduction quest and you find the missing android’s body. She is, of course, dead, but upon examining her last recordings, you discover that she had planned to desert Yorha, the organization you are in. So there was no back up files because she wanted to leave. Now pretty standard so far. The real kicker comes when you report back to the quest giver. You can report two things: she died in combat or she died while trying to run away. The quest giver will react very differently on the information and it basically rectcons the whole thing. If you tell her she died in combat, the quest giver will mourn and remember all the good memories they had together. If you tell her she died as a run away, the quest giver will gleefully laugh and say she deserved it and that she was a sadistic and potentially abusive partner.

[@Stratelier]

The TVtropes wiki calls this "Schrodinger's gun" (derived from Chekhov's Gun) where the game creates/selects differing lore or backstory based on answers you gave it in real time. Like how in Sun and Moon, rival Hau's ace Pokemon always has a type disadvantage against whichever Pokemon you selected as your first, but nonetheless mentions that he raised it from an egg (i.e. before you made your choice). Ironically, Hau's script is actually the same regardless of your choice (and the ensuing battle is the first time you _actually see_ his Pokemon), but the _implications_ are different.

[@Ceece20]

@@Stratelier Never knew that was a term tbh. Learned something new today.

[@Stratelier]

@@Ceece20 Pretty sure they coined the term themselves. But you never know if a phrase invented somewhere will go viral and become "the" standard term everyone else uses ("Metroidvania", "Soulslike", etc).

[@addison_v_ertisement1678]

Personally, I like to think that they were in an abusive relationship, but that what you tell the android will determine if they fully realize it. I suspect that the lover did what is commonly called "love bombing," when an abuser suddenly does one small, kind thing for their victim(s) so that they would think of getting away from the abuser. This is where the "They aren't abusing me! They do nice things... sometimes" comes from. If you say "they died fighting," then they'll think that their lover was fighting in order to get back to them. If you say that their lover was planning on leaving, than that would be the straw that broke the camels back.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

TV Tropes sure helps a lot when it comes to extra stuff.

[@jackoyster1270]

What about the divine beast themes from BOTW? They contain SOS messages from the champions who died fighting their blights, and SADs from the blights themselves! Gives me chills every time!

[@JudgeMagisterSnow]

SADS?

[@jackoyster1270]

@@JudgeMagisterSnow Seek and Destroy. In the music, the Morse code signs given off my the blights overpower the SOS signals, showing the point the champions are either unable to call for help or are already dead.

[@soitspete]

They contain what 😮

[@diegoparga9324]

What?!?

[@Solarstormflare]

@@diegoparga9324 yeah iirc revali lasted the longest but the music shows the moment they all died if you believe the theory

[@JT_Lich]

I vote to add Great Grey Wolf Sif from Dark Souls to the list. If you do the Artorias of the Abyss DLC before going to the deepest section of Darkroot Garden, you can have a very touching moment with the wolf as a pup where you rescue them from the horrors of the Abyss. You can even fight alongside Sif if you summon them for the boss fight against Manus, Father of the Abyss - only to encounter the wolf later at their master's grave as a boss, taking up Artorias's sword to stop you from making the same mistake that caused Artorias to go mad. You even get a special cutscene where Sif recognizes you if you did the DLC first. Plus when they're at low health, they start walking with a limp and fall over when they try to do attacks that involve that leg :(

[@VentusFury]

That Watch_Dogs one hurts the most since it happens way more then one thinks happens. Cherish your loved ones.

[@HylianFox3]

One of the fun parts of living alone is wondering how long it will take for anyone to find your corpse.

[@VentusFury]

@@HylianFox3 still... it's obviously no joking matter. Just happened last month with a friend I saw almost daily

[@HylianFox3]

@@VentusFury Oh absolutely. I was informed a close friend of mine had died a week or so after I stopped hearing from him.

[@chrismanuel9768]

All it takes is one bad day

[@RainWelsh]

One that really got me is towards the start of Dragon Age: Inquisition, where you talk to a hunter about getting goats to feed people and he’s quite surly with you. Then you can go in his hut and read his diary, which he says he’s keeping because a healer told him he’ll feel better if he writes it down, before going into a story about how he could only watch as a group of refugees were burned to death by rebel mages, their corpses were looted by rebel templars, and then after most of the templars had gone one who’d stayed behind noticed a woman was still alive and, well. Hunter shot him, anyway. The note ends with the hunter begging to forget it all, and I was just sat there with a pit in my stomach. Because magic and spooky zombie monsters and dragons are all silly fantasy fun, but there was something about that that was so un-fantastic, it messed me up a little.

[@ThorsHammer-dy6ri]

In the original Resident Evil 4 you can find some documents from Sadler talking about his frustrations over Luis and how Luis keeps escaping the Ganados by using secret tunnels in the area he only knows about because the grandfather who raised him knew how to navigate them and showed him as a kid.

[@EncouragedEntity]

I love that Andy's beard shows that he's ageing like a fine Cabernet Sauvignon, and the rest of the world is going insane

[@GriffinWolf]

I miss the thoughtlessly-ruffled fluff-hair of 2012/13, though. He always looks like he's just climbed out of a wind tunnel in older vids.

[@EncouragedEntity]

@GriffinWolf Omg yes! I remember that hair! His conditioner was absolutely on point!

[@YayDee85]

"A bit more light hearted" he said. "A little more fun" he claimed. How does 7 side quests you should NEVER start, and 7 games that got harder the worse you're doing equate to that, huh, Andy? What do you have to say for yourself?! (Thanks though, premium content, 5/7 perfect score)

[@FaithfulHorrorhound]

With Detroit, I was NOT prepared for Chloe to suggest leaving the story as-is at one point. "Did a game just question my progress?" I thought to myself. 😢

[@onaraisedbeach]

The Westie in GTA V is based on Greyfriars Bobby, a real dog from Edinburgh. Though the story gets highly embellished, Bobby's owner, John Gray, died in 1858. Bobby spent the next few years at least by Gray's grave, some say 14 years but that would make him at least 18 when he died! People gave him food at the sounding of the One o'clock Gun, and "he" became a fixture on the Victorian tourist circuit. I say "he" because they almost certainly got dogs to impersonate Bobby to keep making £ after the real one went to the great glen in the sky.

[@aurelian1]

Thanks for the details - I remember hearing about this. The real-life one is the most touching, but it's hard not to shed a tear for the GTA V Westie.

[@stephb4012]

Came here to say this! (Didn’t know as much of the detail though). I’ve seen his memorial statue outside of the pub nearby the cemetery in Edinburgh

[@ChaosLightspeed]

It's not out of the question for dogs to live to that age.

[@MazogaTheDork]

Another, even more well hidden, heartbreaking detail in Fallout 4 appears in the generic scrolling code that is on a lot of terminals throughout the Commonwealth. The phrase "there's no one left is there oh god" can be seen if you look closely enough (for example, through a sniper scope)

[@alameachan]

Most of the F4 things in the comments I already knew, but this was new to me. Thank you.

[@MazogaTheDork]

@@alameachan Did you also know that Coast Guard Pier mentions fake wooden soldier toys, not unlike the one MacCready gives you?

[@alameachan]

@@MazogaTheDork Techically, the Jangles dolls were fake. The wooden toy soldiers don't have the "fake" qualifier. They were removed by the same government branch though, so maybe lead based paint from a chinese factory?

[@dainbramage9508]

I noticed in Dying Light on the Switch there's a beautiful memorial and weapon dedicated to the cat Moka who I assume was one of the developers' beloved pets. You also receive a weapon blueprint called Moka's Paw which create badass hand claws that I can only assume are as badass as Moka was. RIP Moka.

[@tevura3943]

Luke next door being a normal adult man as ever. 😅

[@tino9718]

I'd love to know which video he was filming!

[@SebasTian58323]

I've got to mention the traumatized Asari soldier that killed Joker's sister you can find in Mass Effect 3. By repeatedly visiting the hospital and listening to an Asari soldier and her therapist, you learn she was on leave(i think) and was taking a shower in a civilian home when the Reapers forces, including a banshee that was someone she knew, attacked. She took a girl,a resident of the house, with her and fled but was eventually forced to kill the girl to stay hidden after the girl was injured or something and couldn't stay quiet. It reminds me of an episode of NCIS where a soldier had to do the same thing in WWII and was so old that he'd forgotten some of the memory and thought he just straight up killed someone for no reason and wanted to turn himself in. It was only later with some help that he remembered the full thing

[@mattyt1961]

It is also in the series MASH, where they are hiding on a bus and the child won't stop crying so the mother kills her own child to save everyone else...and now I am crying again :(

[@michaelandreipalon359]

​@@mattyt1961Oh, God!

[@TwoWholeWorms]

​@@mattyt1961Jeeeeeeeesus…

[@itgscot5169]

🥺 "You've never been a bother, Dad." Brb..

[@Stratelier]

Skyrim shares that first example, as idle Bandit chatter includes such random quips as "might pay off my bounty this time, walk into the city a free man...", and Vampire idle chatter can include quips such as "...she said I'd forget, and usually I do, but sometimes... still remember their faces, their pleading..." Similarly, if you explore the "Lost Prospect Mine", you'll pick up a journal from a guy whose friend bought the mine for super cheap, was convinced they could profit from it, only for them to spend SIX MONTHS finding absolutely nothing of value, until one day his friend inexplicably disappeared while he was out making a supply run; three days later he gave up and left disappointed, thinking his friend might have abandoned him. But if you explore the mine enough, you might discover a passage above the cavern's waterfall leading to a vein of Gold Ore, with the skeleton of a miner lodged in a pile of collapsed rubble. Mainstream Pokemon games are also a surprisingly rich source of tragic background details: - In Pokemon X and Y, in one town there's an elderly man who lost his wife and asks if you can give him a (Lv.5 or lower) Pokemon for company. If you do, return there after beating the game and you'll find the Pokemon left by itself, with a final note from the old man before he died, about how much joy it brought him before the end. - Also in X and Y, there are two Skiddo hanging out near a station in the big city. Nobody knows all the details, but it's assumed they are waiting for their owner to return. - In Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, once you gain access to Poco Path Lighthouse (aka. Arven's home) you can find a family picture frame missing its photo. You can later find this photo in the professor's lab at Area Zero.

[@patrickphelan279]

FireRed and LeafGreen, at one watchtower. "My Pokemon's ashes are resting in Pokemon Tower. You can have this TM. I don't need it any more..." And it's the TM for "Return", the move that does more damage the stronger the friendship between trainer and Pokemon. And that was one of the generations that meant TMs were one-use items, meaning that this TM was unused, possibly being saved up for an anniversary, or the perfect moment. I don't mind telling you that I had some considerable "AAAAAWK" at that moment.

[@PazuzuDeamon4horsemen]

Still, no one has noticed the dog grave in the backyard of the first safe house in Dead Island 2 and the dog collar that goes with it on the owner's main bedroom couch.

[@Beredaman08]

There’s an easy to miss ambient dialog from Emma Jaunt as well regarding that - her late husband (the one from the PR marriage who gets everyone in the mess they are in at the start of the game) shot it.

[@dalynagarcia3861]

Undertale has tons of these. One of them is after you kill both Dogamy and Dogaressa. If you go into Snowdin and talk to the bear by the Christmas tree, you will get some dialogue about how they haven’t seen Dogamy or Dogaressa. The bear will also talk about how Dogamy and Dogaressa would give each other the same gift each year but they loved the gifts all the same. (This is from memory, please correct me if I am wrong) It’s a very effective way to make you feel guilty.

[@agentkmr]

Do they show up if you spare them.

[@junemageettv]

FFXIV - Early on in the story, while doing the first three dungeons, it can be easy to overlook the group of NPCs hanging about the entrances to those dungeons. But, if you hang around them, you'll learn a bit about them - they're an adventurer group attempting to clear the areas, same as you. Continue to find them as you play, and you'll discover their tragic ending - the tank perishes because the healer couldn't save him in time, and the rest of the party blames her. If you missed this little detail as you play, then the events of the Tam Tara Deepcroft (Hard) might not make any sense.

[@Ladywizard]

Actually both your competition teams you meet in the first three dungeons die... the one with actual teamwork and togetherness gets slaughtered in the mines. You just watch Edda's descent into madness take a few cutscenes

[@junemageettv]

@@Ladywizard I never knew there was a second? Wow. Better head back with NG+ to check it out.

[@patrickphelan279]

I can't find the bit where you find out that Avere was cheating on Edda with Avelinne and so both of them probably had displaced resentment towards Edda because, you know, the cheating, meaning they were harder on her than she deserved and building up her stress, but I'm pretty sure it's canon. The Tam-Tara party is really not okay.

[@Ladywizard]

@@patrickphelan279 pretty sure it was in the post potd wrapup quest

[@Eonymia]

Edda turns up in palace of the dead as well.

[@ChewieLewis]

In RDR2, the handwriting in the journal changes after Arthur gives it to John

[@silverwyhrecat5]

There's a survivor in Djose Temple after Operation Miihen in FFX who is grieving his chocobo. And after the devastation of Operation Miihen and hearing that there was only one chocobo survivor, that line is particular hard hitting.

[@Monkeyzforever]

The real tragedy is going out of your way to save Gatta from being an idiot and then finding him rocking himself on the beach having found Luzzu's body 😭 That whole section is done so well it never fails to make me cry 😭 (yours definitely fits better the 'details you didn't notice' title though)

[@fakjbf3129]

This video could be made entirely of Mass Effect 3 entries. There’s the asari commando who killed your pilot’s sister and then kills herself if you try to help her, the old lady with dementia talking to her daughter in law and not recognizing her, the krogan poet from ME2 dying and leaving a poem for his lover for you to find, the little girl befriending a C-SEC office while waiting for her parents to arrive, the asari pleading to have her child sent away to safety on her home planet just before said planet is invaded, the woman who sold her car to get he friend a top of the line suit of armor, and a dozen more little side stories. I loves these little side stories because they made the world feel so alive and did a lot to give the story actual stakes and drive home the horrors of what a galactic invasion would entail.

[@nycstreetpoet]

Remember the giant mourning the death of his mammoth friend in Skyrim? I consider that heartbreaking.

[@mattball8622]

I'm guessing the dog in GTA is a reference to Greyfriars Bobby, given Rockstar's connection to Edinburgh. If you don't know who that is, oh boy, have I got a story that'll make you cry.

[@AdamusPrime24]

Exactly what I was thinking. And in the relatively recent remake of the film the dog was a West Highland Terrier, as per this game. Got to be a reference.

[@jessragan6714]

(Seymore Asses and Hachiko have entered the chat)

[@waaa7732]

​@@AdamusPrime24greyfriars Bobby is a Skye Terrier, not a west highland terrier. He's always a Skye terrier in the films because that's what breed the real greyfriars Bobby was

[@gandering3815]

The oxtra cameo and Andy’s resulting exasperation really made it for me 😂

[@FredCDobbs-rd5wi]

If you kill any of the baby deathclaws in the quarry in Fallout: New Vegas, the deathclaw mother goes into a grief-stricken frenzy.

[@gamester512]

Which further explains why you can have a legitimately peaceful encounter (though Nate/Nora is still understandably uneasy during said encounter) with a mother Deathclaw in Fallout 4 if you return her egg to her nest. She simply watches as you return the egg, and then she allows you to leave unharmed as she adjusts the egg in the nest. Plus the fact that the mother's apparent mate was the hostile Deathclaw lurking in the Museum of Witchcraft, it stalked the men who'd stolen the eggs in the first place all the way into the ruins of Boston for the sole purpose of getting the eggs back. Deathclaws are clearly very good and loving parents for their children, while also clearly being intelligent enough to understand when you return with the Deathclaw Egg that you're returning her baby to her. Leads me to believe that given enough time, Deathclaws may eventually grow intelligent enough to be close to the same level of intelligence as a human.

[@lacytaylor1501]

​@@gamester512 It's also kind of depressing how this interaction must really hit home for your character given that it's not unlike their own situation. A stolen child with a dead partner who tried to save the child. It's no wonder they can try to take it back to it's mother.

[@dreadcthulhu5]

@@lacytaylor1501 I return the egg every playthrough no matter if I am going a heroic or villainous character for that very reason. I also help the little ghoul boy in the fridge get home.

[@ghostderazgriz]

If you kill enough innocents in RDR2, eventually you'll be confronted by widows of the people you murdered. They'll curse you or despair as you'll have no recollection of who they were.

[@thecatsaysmoo9274]

that part in vampire the masquerade bloodlines when Jeanette and Therese were fighting and the miserable details of their past were being revealed made me feel really bad for them

[@LtBasil]

I'll never forget the clone trooper memorial on Zeffo in Jedi Fallen Order. Made me tear up.

[@NexeL_NKC]

There’s a repair robot in Astral Chain you can find in various parts of the story. You cut a line messing with the programming, and make the robot gain sentience. He eventually finds a Hermit gun drone and befriends it, setting out on a journey across the ocean to presumably Argentina, which is completely overrun with Chimeras. It was a cool but kinda sad detail. If you find SAR-037 in his final area, he even gives you a fancy helmet for checking in on him every so often.

[@Michael_Lindell]

Tragedy + Time = A 7 Things List

[@Fullmetalsoup]

Okay so i dont see anyone mentioning this one, but it was kinda big in the Destiny community when it was noticed. So a long while back there was a super powerful hand cannon called Luna's Howl. You can get this weapon at the exotic kiosk. In the lore tab for this gun, it talks about a guardian and their dog named Luna. And how the gun was a gift in remembrance of Luna's death. Luna is buried on the moon. If you go to the moon, in the area that Garden of Salvation raid starts, you can find the grave. Its just a small pile of stones, and i believe it had a dog collar there.

[@xenthon8160]

Rest in peace, dearest Luna.

[@jakobthedragonboy]

While not being quite as hidden or as PERSONALLY heartbreaking to the PC as these and some of the other comments I have read is from Dying Light where there is a building that is over run by zombies with a message in giant letters meant for a helicopter or plane to read from the sky, (hence why *I* missed it) that reads "HELP! BABY INSIDE" and considering my nephew had been born less then a year earlier it hit me particularly hard.

[@wizkid924]

Anyone else really like this version of Andy's facial hair? Combined with the end bit about Oxtra, it gives some real "dad" vibes.

[@mantis638]

In Nier automata, you could access the computer run by the leader in the resistance camp. In it, it has a series of logs explaining the origin of the leader and A2 that led to her going rogue. If that doesn’t count, we could bring up the side quest where you have to find a killer of another android’s friend until you found out it was the quest giver because she was ordered to because she was thinking of going rogue.

[@hendrihendri3939]

9:15 I don't think i ever see any playthrough with Kara and Alice died naturally, only when going for 100% achievement But man, imagine getting that after finishing a gameplay recording 😭

[@PhoebeTheFairy56]

Imagine getting that when you tried to save them but were just terrible at quicktime events

[@samtaholo]

@@PhoebeTheFairy56 I got Kara and Alice across safely, but Connor had a rather serious disagreement with a truck. Oops.

[@Eddman368]

I haven't played RE 4 remake, but I remember in the concept art of the original of the RE 4 that also appears in the end credits there's a picture of the infected villagers buryng their children, apparently kids can't survive infestation and also why there's no Plagas children in the game.

[@staticradio724]

Say what you will about Fallout 4, I love how they tried to add a little more depth to the raiders, after they had been generic baddies for so long. I found Porter Gage to be one of the most interesting companions in the game.

[@alameachan]

There's a mod that allows you to keep him as a companion, even if you decide to clean house in Nuka World.

[@DC_Prox]

In Animal Crossing New Horizons, lazy-type villagers such as Sherb will sometimes talk about their grandmother in strange ways. Eventually you piece together that Grandma has passed on. Sometimes if you speak to the villager while they're napping, they might groggily say something like "Grandma? I thought you were..." without finishing that thought. Also, if they're sitting on a bench, they might tell you that the spot beside them is reserved for Grandma. There are many other clues, some cute but mostly sad.

[@majkiIX]

What about Vampyr? Each time you kill a civilian, it affects the ending, behaviour of other NPCs etcetc, but their name also appears at one of the thombstones at the cementary. I found out when I was trying to get the worst ending :D

[@jaketripp7934]

There was one invasion mission in watchdogs where you find a cannibal chopping up a victim of his.

[@coyraig8332]

Majora's Mask makes a love triangle one of the saddest parts of an already sad game. You don't even see most of it.

[@ciaralizabeth]

One tiny detail I noticed in totk is the destruction of Pondo's cabin. I spent so much time snow bowling in botw, so I rushed over to his cabin in the new game. I hope he wasn't in his cabin when it happened.

[@mizlia]

He's still alive! He's wandering.

[@HylianFox3]

At least Selmie's Spot is still okay. Shield surfing is more fun anyway

[@HylianFox3]

On a related note, Kass' hut near Hyrule Ridge is gone, too. In fact, Kass is nowhere to be found in TOTK. He actually made accordion music fun.

[@johnlarson8264]

For whatever reason, Dishonored was a series most likely to get me right in the feels. There are lots of grim details scattered around that would be worth mining for a followup video. My favorite is in the first one, where Princess Emily has various drawings in her room that will change depending on the chaos level of the world. Low chaos and they're innocuous (with details revealing her dad). High chaos and they're grim and distressing. Somehow, having my actions impact this child's development was the most wrenching in a game with a whole toolbox of wrenching moments.

[@lb6987]

Here is a kind of nice one in tears of the kingdom around the ruins of castle town, the great plateau, and some other destroyed buildings and ruins you can find monuments left by Zelda lamenting the lives lost in the calamity from breath of the wild

[@Life_Universe_Everything]

Honestly the guy attempting suicide in watch dogs 2 is rather depressing too, his wife left and he lost his job.

[@Altoryu]

You can save him though if you know what to do, same with that guy going to jump off a building due to Greystrom trying to punish him for being a whistleblower by freezing his money and also fabricating an affair story to turn his family against him.

[@justsomejoyousj]

Insomiac Spiderman has a memorial in the game of all the people who died from the bio weapon that was unleashed in the story

[@enlongjones2394]

Similarly, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom had a small memorial stone to honor those who died in the Calamity.

[@justsomejoyousj]

@@enlongjones2394 :(

[@metalshock20]

In Final Fantasy 14, after the events of the Heavensward Expansion, you can find the grave of a certain beloved Knight on a cliff in Corthas Central Highlands, overlooking the capital of Ishgard. If you approach this location, a non-interactable NPC will appear to approach the grave as well, and specifically talk to you about the lost Hero.

[@marneus90]

Heart-breaking, shield-breaking... But don't cry. A smile better suits a hero.

[@DigidesteinedSayian]

At the start of Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse, the hero Nanashi dies during an ambush, and the last thing he sees is his adopted sister Asahi lunging desperately towards him. Then he makes a deal to come back to life, and he has to save her. I later realized two things that makes the situation really messed up for Asahi: i) she doesn't know he had died for another few (in-game) hours, and ii) Nanashi has to walk a short distance to save her, showing that she dropped his corpse and ran. For all she knew, he was still alive when she ran away, and she abandoned her little brother to die.

[@healsallwounds]

In the Forbidden Oasis from Dragon Age: Inquisition, you can find a number of notes and journal entries referencing a miner named Saul Didot. Saul became entranced by the magic of the elven temple at the oasis, and it becomes clear he either dies in a mining accident or was murdered by his fellow miners who feared the possibility he would disturb the temple. Sadly, Saul only took the job as a miner because he wanted to support his wife, who is now a widow. There are a bunch of other sad codexes throughout DAI as well, but this is arguably the best example of a hidden tragedy.

[@FlopsoTheClown]

i mean, the raider dialogue you hear from that graveyard event isnt just tied to that location. you can hear it elsewhere if you stay hidden near raiders, though i suppose hearing that dialogue in that one scenario makes more sense than the raiders just openly talking to themselves ontop of some construction supports. there is one dialogue event tied to a location though with macready, one of the companions. if you take him to trinity church, specifically the nursery area, he'll make a rather emotional sounding comment, which could either be linked to the fact that he spent his entire youth having to hold together little lamplight, a settlement consisted entirely of children, or the fact that he had to abandon his son, duncan, in a rather far away location in order to find a cure for a disease which has more than likely killed him by now (the first fact you learn if you play fallout 3 and you meet him as a child, and the second if you have a high enough affinity with him to activate his companion questline).

[@0PercentImagination]

Interestingly there is different dialogue outcomes from the cops later on depending on what you do with Officer Owens, not only for not firing at all but firing the gun but missing all the shots is also an option. Though unfortunately I personally have not played the game and don't know whether Sharon still dies or not.

[@rodolfosantos9047]

Pathfinder: Kingmaker. In one of the first big dungeons you go to, in the surface there's a neutral shambling mound walking around and a mangled body of a wizard with research notes, where it tells how thar shambling mound was an elf experimented on until it became a shambling mound forever...

[@sweet.chickens]

Boc in Elden Ring. The description of the item that lets you SAFELY be reborn is such a small line it was easy to miss. I’m sorry Boc.

[@FelisImpurrator]

You can save him by playing the "You're beautiful" sound item next to him. It's a shrunken head from a dungeon.

[@sweet.chickens]

@@FelisImpurrator you’re a year too late buddy.

[@FelisImpurrator]

@@sweet.chickens Well, New Game Plus is another chance. DLC soon(tm).

[@13g0man]

One heartbreaking thing about DETROIT Become Human is the decisions you make during the campaign can kill Chloe. Yes, you can kill the android whose only purpose was to welcome you back to the game and hope you help her friends.

[@MrMBinder]

I wasn't ready for Chloe on this list 😥

[@CelticVictory]

I wasn't ready for Sharon.

[@Meursault24]

They didn't even mention her asking you to set her free, Genie-style at the end. And the fact that if you say no she wipes her own memory to save herself the existential sorrow and such.

[@TransmitHim]

@@Meursault24 That has been on another list video. It's really stuck with me, even though I've never played Detroit. Weird that I kinda want to play the game just for the main menu.

[@Meursault24]

@@TransmitHim I played the game in maybe 3 sittings, so we never talked much. I would have been way more upset had the game taken longer or I had any reason to use the main menu (who closes their game completely on the reg?). Still, I haven't opened the game since freeing her cause I don't want to have to choose whether or not to get a new one 😄

[@desmofan1864]

Tova Shatter-Shield's note in Skyrim. I quit and didn't play the game for days after finding that note.

[@edmg7]

In Persona 5 there are some NPCs in the neighborhood where you start the game, and like many of the NPCs in the game they just have unnecessary fluff dialogue that you can miss. This mother and daughter talk about their dog Kotaru who they mention is getting old. If you approach them over the course of the year that the story takes place you'll hear them discuss the dog's condition getting progressively worse until in late December the mother is trying to comfort the daughter because the dog has passed away. Although in the following March they have a new dog, but it's still pretty sad to follow that story.

[@thvlio]

If you sneak around in Fallout 4, there's actually a lot of unique dialogue in different raider groups. Once in a while, you might even feel bad about going on a mindless killing spree lol

[@SinBlade06]

It's a small detail, but terribly sad to see if you know happened. In Fallout: New Vegas, you get a mission to obtain a dog's brain for Rex, your robo-dog companion. If you speak with Lady Gibson, she'll put down one of her older dogs for you and you can have it's brain. Check her store later and you'll see a dog food bowl being sold, as she no longer needs it...

[@soundpreacher]

How about the Skyrim anniversary edition quest for the missing farm boy? When you piece everything together, you see how the parents turned on each other.

[@xenthon8160]

That quest broke my heart...

[@KitDreamer]

I honestly just have to comment because the opening alone not only threw (very well deserved) shade on rockstar studios' travesty of a "remaster" but also was a perfect reference combined with a joke, that legit made me cackle like the goblin I am. That alone deserves a thumbs up and a full watch.

[@alexcurtis6180]

Blaidd slowly and subtly losing his mind as his loyalty to Ranni conflicts with his duty given to him by the Greater Will in Elden Ring hurts me way more than I ever expected when first meeting him

[@pandax5359]

Love these videos. Feckin bingeing a bunch of them while doing chores or studying is awesome! Thanks for doing what yall do.

[@OrenjiMura]

The watch dogs is incredibly sad. Just as sad as finding that suicidal man in watch dogs 2 that you can help or leave him to his devices

[@spamuel98]

There are a few moments like this in World of Warcraft that you can easily miss, and while I'm pretty sure plenty of people are familiar with the deaths of the Redpath family to the scourge, or the red dragon Rheastrasza entrusting the player with her last egg while she sacrifices her life to save them from deathwing, but I can guarantee very few people, if any, are familiar with the lovers' letters in Frostfire Ridge. In the alternate universe Draenor, you can find two different letters on either side of a frozen plain, both addressed to another, and both making plans to run away and live together far away from the current conflict. But you find these letters on dead bodies, and I can pretty much guarantee almost nobody has seen them, because there is no reward for them. It's not a quest, there's no achievement, and there isn't even a stash of gold waiting to reward players for exploring. And I was always okay with that.

[@yetigrandnephew]

I want to know what video oxtra was recording so I can know the exact moment they ruined Andy’s take

[@connortheandroidsentbycybe7740]

11:14 I mean, the fact that that exact story likely happened hundreds, thousands, of times is rather upsetting

[@stapuft]

BOTW, kakariko village, there is a little girl playing, who wants you to play with her, after doing this a few times, you end up visiting her house, and you get to talk to her dad, who tells you the heartbreaking story of how they lost the girls mother, and how she continues to wait for her, because he doesn't have the strength to properly tell her/she doesn't understand.

[@chrysanthemumfire6456]

I saw the dog in the thumbnail and got scared it would be tragic but it was even worse than I thought =(

[@BOTHthosearetaken]

Fallout 4 before the bombs fall "We're never gonna find that dog"

[@haroldgloom8637]

A friend and I started DETROIT with a clear goal to make the first run the worst run ever (Kill everyone in the worst way, make Hank depressed, leave Alice, etc...) and once when Chloe ask us in the title screen if she can be free we said no - the Game crashed and wouldn't get started anymore and we had to delete everything and re-install the game altogether, starting fresh.

[@TrixibelleDuBois]

I started Cyberpunk 2077 again recently, and for the first time I tried to call Jackie after the heist. I presumed it would ring out, but no - V gets the chance to leave a heartbroken voice mail.

[@apinkchameleon]

Not entirely sure if this counts, but the fact that there are piles of bones, armor and some small weaponry all over Hyrule Castle in BotW. It's already a game with a very dark premise, yet that somehow took the cake for me when I realized it

[@thecodemachine]

Watch dogs and the Single Father loving himself while his baby cries. He eventually gives up, and takes care of the baby. That moment personifies parenthood.

[@HylianFox3]

I'm guessing 'loving himself' is a euphemism for masturbation

[@zimfreak4242]

Can't wait to see what Xtra were making that interrupted Andy's outro!

[@briandanger8165]

In the Left 4 Dead 2 DLC: The Passing, it's so great interacting with 3/4 of the characters from the first game, but ABSOLUTELY heart breaking when you find the body of Bill (the final member from the first game) dead. I remember playing this at 2AM online upon its release with a friend and we said "FOR BILL..." all Aragon-like before blasting away zombies. Vengeance!

[@michaelblack7962]

The life is strange ending where Chloe dies had me going hard. Dramatics aside before she is killed she is told no one cares for her and no one would attend her funeral. It turned out most everyone in the town went

[@tinyterra6466]

How can you not include Tiny Tina’s past in Borderlands 2 which you discover via ECHO recordings scattered about the map?

[@ciaranmcguinness8900]

The little westie in GTA was a reference to Greyfriars Bobby an old Scottish Legend that may have in fact been real about a dog who guarded his masters grave in Edinburgh for 14 years until he died himself. GTA V was made in Scotland by Rockstar North so this seems pretty plausible. And given that he was said to be the dog of a policeman, its not unlikely that he's at the grave of a cop Trevor killed

[@JoshHenderson16]

Weird how they didn't go into detail about the Greyfriars Bobby reference in GTA. It's a touching story.

[@zacharysmith4856]

The dog broke my heart. 😭

[@Cigarboar]

Who could forget the OG FromSoftware ending change in Lost Kingdoms 2? You play the game all the way through and watch Sol, your childhood friend die and revisit the level only to visit his lifeless body until you play through the game a second time, doing the hidden Isamat Urber quest line so you get the "worthless" necklace only to realize Tara gives it to Sol before he attacks the Kendari and the thing saves his life!!

[@ChaosLightspeed]

Uhhh... Think you may have some crossed wires there.

[@Cigarboar]

@@ChaosLightspeed, to my knowledge, Fromsoftware had 8 games before Lost Kingdoms 2 and all of those games had linear endings. This was their first game where you had a controllable event where your choices changed cinematic outcomes in the game. If you have proof of an earlier game with an ending change then please share it! I want to see it.

[@ChaosLightspeed]

@@Cigarboar you... Keep saying Kingdom Hearts 2.

[@Cigarboar]

@@ChaosLightspeed; thanks!