Sometimes the best way to hook you into a game is to punch you right in the feels from the beginning. Today, we’re looking at five game openings that still make us emotional.
Everyone plays games for a variety of reasons. Some love the challenge, some enjoy competing, and others love the just turning off their brain and playing something fun. Personally, I love story-driven games and it’s the primary thing I look for when picking up a new title.
What this means, however, is that sometimes they begin the game with an emotional ass kicking to get you more invested in the characters/story. Today, I’m examining games that delivered an emotional ass-whipping right off the bat, while still keeping you hooked and ready for more.
Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
Don’t let the whimsical Ghibli animation and cartoony designs fool you. The first Ni No Kuni does NOT mess around when it comes to delving into a deeply emotional storyline. Everything starts off hunky-dorey as you explore the town and meet up with the main character’s best friend to test drive his home-built race car.
It’s lighthearted, fun, and serves as a cute introduction to the game’s overall style. This is all to lull you into a false sense of security before Oliver’s mother dies shortly after rescuing your butt from crashing the car!
It’s sudden, unexpected, and designed to make you feel like you (your character, I should say) are partially to blame. Her death serves as the catalyst for the rest of the story. Oliver’s grief helps open the portal to the other world, wherein you learn about coping with loss and growing beyond. It makes for an incredible thematic journey, but gets the waterworks going early.
The Last of Us
The opening to The Last of Us puts the focus on Joel’s daughter, Sarah, as you control her exploring the house and interacting with her dad, Joel, before things start to get crazy. While it’s not long before things get chaotic, the quieter opening does a stellar job of instantly endearing you to the characters and investing you on an emotional level.
When the outbreak happens and we’re thrust into a mad dash to escape the town, there’s a palpable white-knuckle tension. Despite having a general idea of what would happen (after all, Joel’s daughter never featured in any of the game/gameplay trailers), my heart wasn’t prepared for the scene that unfolded as Joel held Sarah while she died.
Having only played as her for a short while, the setup manages to hook you completely, and thus it’s devastating to watch as the first playable character in the game is taken away in such a heartbreaking sequence of events. It’s an opening that remains impactful no matter how many times I’ve played it, nor does it lessen any time I watch it when it happens on the HBO show.
Bioshock 2
Though it’s on the shorter side—and takes place completely within the first cinematic—Bioshock 2‘s opening sets a gripping tone for the game, while teasing new mysteries. Where the first Bioshock game opened up with an awe-inspiring look at the underwater city, this one wastes no time getting you invested on an emotional level.
We’re used to seeing Big Daddy’s as the enemy. As such, seeing a Little Sister lovingly talk to one (you) and grabbing your hand to drag you along, is at odds with our experiences. Now we’re getting the chance to see the relationship from the other side, and when we hear her cry out for help, there’s a gut instinct that hits you. Couple that with the unsettling visual of watching your character being forced to shoot himself in front of the horrified Little Sister, and you have one surprisingly emotional start to the game that leaves you eager to learn more.
Mass Effect 2
Coming off the incredible ending of Mass Effect and knowing you’re saved story info would transfer over into the next game, all of us were ready to see the ongoing journey of Reaper-killing badassery. Mass Effect 2 opens with you and your crew sent out on a mission to track down some of the remaining Geth. Just when you think it’s time to get the robot destruction party started, a mysterious ship arrives and blasts a hole in the Normandy.
From there it’s a race to try and evacuate your crew, while you traverse your once pristine ship. Navigating the ship as falls apart in an effort to save Joker from sacrificing himself is a harrowing, blood-pumping experience. When you think it’s all working out, it goes from bad to worse as Sheppard dies in the vacuum of space while pieces of the Normandy flare out…
The story picks up two years later as you’re revived, but your crew has been scattered, leaving you to start over. It’s shocking to have your character—someone you spent several hours with previously—die and lose all of the companions we grew close to. While some gamers were understandably frustrated at the turn of events, I loved the unexpected twist. It set the stage for important moments to come and ultimately made certain reunions more emotional.
Ori and the Blind Forest
Even without the use of any voiceover (and only minimal text/dialog), Ori and the Blind Forest manages to tug at those heartstrings almost immediately. The prologue of the game doesn’t feature much in the way of gameplay. If anything it’s more like an extended, somewhat interactive cinematic. Even so, it’s compelling in the way it establishes the world, these characters, and the overall style of the game.
In a lot of ways, I think of this intro like the opening of Pixar’s Up (though it’s a parental relationship instead of romantic). We get to see these characters meet and interact, while seeing how their (adorable) relationship grows over time.
In just a few short sequences, the developers sell players on the love and care between these two fantastical beings. This makes the death/sacrifice even more compelling and gets the eyes all teary. Even before diving into the meat of the gameplay and main story, you’re hooked.
There are many other games that start off on an emotional note (Life is Strange, Stray, etc), but these are the ones that have stuck with me the most. What are some of the games you think had the best emotional video game introductions?
