The Most Heartbreaking Moment in Video game History.

I watched a video the other day from Outside Xtra about the 5 most heartbreaking moments in video game history, which you can watch for yourself here 5 Heartbreaks We're Not Ready to Talk About (But Like Heroes We Will Try).  In it each presenter talks about their most emotional moment in a game.  They almost touched on mine but didn't quite mention it so I thought I'd write about it myself.

Beware Spoilers Ahead!

In the video the guys and girls at Outside Xbox and Outside Xtra talk about which moment in Video games they found most emotional and heartbreaking.  They cover a different game each and Aeris dying in FFVII, John Marston's last stand in Red Dead Redemption, Lee and Clementine's last conversion in Telltale's The Walking Dead and being dumped by Alistair in Dragon Age: Origins are all mentioned.

Luke talks about the moment in The Last of Us at the end where Joel lies to Ellie about her not being the cure.  I get that, I think Ellie would have happily died if she had known she was the cure but Joel has taken that away from her and is now lying to her face when he knows she will believe whatever he says.  It is a sad moment but I don't think it is the most emotional moment in the game.

I loved the Last of Us and think it is easily one of the best stories told in video games.  It has a unique take on zombies which is refreshing and the game play is good but more importantly the story and the relationship between the characters is really good.  Like The Walking Dead or games like Dead of Winter it isn't really a zombie game, but a human game with zombies in it.  The story is more about the people in the apocalypse than the zombies.

For me the most emotional moment is the end of what was the end of a long build up of the relationship between Ellie and Joel.

At the start of the game we see Joel with his daughter, Sarah, as the first wave of zombies hits the US.  When she is injured Joel carries her through the streets in his arms and is calling her "baby girl" while he does.  However Sarah dies and we cut to years later when Joel is now a jaded smuggler getting things and people in and out of the quarantine zones.

When he first meets Ellie you can see that Joel isn't happy about it.  He doesn't want to do the job and when he does accept he wants to get it over with as soon as possible.  He seems to have an actual dislike of Ellie especially in the 1st part of the game.

As the game progresses it seems that nothing Ellie can do will make Joel warm to her, when she disobeys him by not staying put he tells her off even though she had saved his live by ignoring her.  He even tells her at one point "You're not my daughter".

As the game moves on Joel does start to lighten up on her and you can see a relationship starting to grow between them although Joel always seems to be trying to keep his distance because he lost his daughter and it is like he is worried he will lost Ellie too.

In the final part of the game we see the moment when you finally see how far their relationship has developed and for me that is the most heartbreaking moment of the game.  After finally reaching the Fireflies and handing Ellie over to their doctors to develop a cure Joel finds out that in order to get the cure they will have to kill Ellie.  He isn't willing to let that happen and so goes back to save her.

As you are running away trying to escape the facility he has Ellie in his arms the same as he had Sarah at the start of the game and is calling her "baby girl" just like he did with Sarah.  That for me is the most heartbreaking moment, when you realise that he now thinks of Ellie like his own daughter but it could already be too late.

I remember playing it through the first time and really thinking that either Ellie wasn't going to make it or, more likely, Joel would die saving her and she would never know how he now felt about her.  He has gone from almost hating this poor girl to thinking of her as a daughter and you aren't sure whether he has waited too long to realise it.

So yea, while the moment where Joel looks Ellie in the eye and tells her that there wasn't a cure is horrible, but I think the moment where he is running calling her Baby Girl while she is lifeless in his arms is far more heartbreaking since it is a flashback to the death of his own daughter and I really though that he would lose Ellie, or Ellie would lose him, as well.