The greatest moments in gaming are those that stay with you long after the credits roll. Fights that feel almost impossible, gorgeous sweeping landscapes, intimate meetings with other characters, or climaxes of great dramatic tension–these are the moments that blow us away.
Whether it’s through our own determination or skillful storytelling, games have the undeniable power to move us, surprise us, and make us feel deeply emotionally impacted. There’s some crossover with the most shocking deaths in video games, and these unmissable games with great stories to tell, but it doesn’t always have to be a tear-jerking moment. Sometimes you’re punching the air or racing to get online and see what others thought about what just happened, throwing theories and analysis around. Let us know in the comments below if there’s anything we’ve missed!
It goes without saying, but some of these moments will be spoilers for the game in question, so read with caution.
Black Myth Wukong: Four Heavenly Kings fight
It’s always nice when a game rewards your victories through achievements, hidden bonuses, or upgrades. Black Myth Wukong saves one of its most visually stunning fights as a victory lap for defeating the final boss in Mount Mei, introducing you to the towering Kings of the North, East, South, and West. The reward here doesn’t come from the challenge posed by the Four Heavenly Kings–the game recognises you’ve fought enough already–but from the cinematic appeal of these giant deities slugging it out in the mist. If anything is going to make you feel on a par with the gods, this is it.
Black Myth Wukong is already a beautiful game, one of the best ray-traced games you can play at the moment, but the sheer scale of these figures and the detail of their design is what makes the fight feel epic.
To find the fight, players have to complete chapter six, defeat the final boss, head back in from the main menu, then travel back to the Great Pagoda. An added bonus is that Black Myth Wukong’s secret giant boss fight gives fans more lore to speculate over. Were these colossal beings mere illusions after all? There’s plenty of evidence to say they were…
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Hades: true ending
If you played through Hades once, you’d be forgiven for missing this one. In fact, you could escape the underworld nine times and never even see the “true” ending. But unlocking it is a thing of beauty, giving us full closure and a chance to reap the rewards for collecting lore and friendship from the many diverse characters in this mythological cast.
To see the true ending of Hades, you have to complete your ascent out of the underworld ten times. Zagreus must exhaust all of Persephone’s dialogue, at which point she agrees to return to the underworld, and your family is reunited. In the Epilogue, a great feat is thrown, bringing together everyone from the game in a delicious moment that closes the loop on one of the best dungeon crawlers we’ve ever played.
Disco Elysium: Insulindian Phasmid
There are many moments in Disco Elysium that give way to jarring emotions, whether that’s heartbreak, elation, or somewhere in between. Such is the gift of a game with more writing than most books. It’s a powerful piece of writing, if you want it to be. It can also just be a kooky novella about a wayward cop with a penchant for casual racism. It’s up to you. But if you follow the path that leads to the discovery of the elusive Insulindian Phasmid, you’re presented with some of the most touching, thoughtful, yet minimalist dialogue in the entire game.
So much of the emotional weight comes from thinking the cryptid is a thing of legend. A silly superstition chased by unconventional conspiracy theorists and aged adventurers with nothing left to hunt. During the game, you focus on other things. The murder, for example, at the center of the plot. But there’s a moment when you hear something rustling out by the weeds. If you roll just right, out of the relative silence comes the Phasmid itself, an enormous spindly stick insect with philosophical depths beyond her station.
Perhaps the most surprising thing of all is how, when the touching conversation has played out, you’d expect Harry to be ridiculed by his companions for speaking to thin air. The narrative trope would be to say he was in a trance, or had imagined it, or it was the booze talking. But not only does Kim see this wonder, he captures it on camera. It was beautiful, surprising, devastating, and most crucially of all: real.
Red Dead Redemption 2: Arthur’s last ride
Another tear-jerker, and home to one of the most shocking deaths in video games, Red Dead Redemption 2’s final mission had us all needing a quiet moment alone. We all knew Arthur was going to die, his Tuberculosis-induced death sentence was given early on in the game, but we didn’t expect to make so many friends along the way. As Arthur makes his last ride, the song That’s The Way It Is playing as he gallops along, sun streaming across the hills, and quotes from people he’s bonded with bubbling back up in his subconscious, it’s clear it’s almost time to say goodbye.
There’s a High and Low Honor version of the moment, but either way, once that music kicks in and Arthur starts to reminisce, we’re set for one of the most beautiful departures in gaming history.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Snake in the microwave tunnel
It’s a bit of a tease to include Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, when it’s still only available on PS3 (although Konami have suggested it might be coming to modern platforms) but for so many of us witnessing the end of the Solid Snake saga, this game was full of memorable moments. One of these being the infamous microwave tunnel.
Playing for the first time and not knowing what to expect, you almost believed you could get through it quicker if you pushed that button even harder. Impossibly hard, thumb-breakingly hard. We were all yelling in unison as Snake–like his namesake–slithered through the tunnel, being blasted by heat and radiation. As we pushed the button and watched his pained crawling, this was where many of us thought Snake would die. Unceremoniously, here in this tunnel.
It’s a beautiful piece of storytelling, matching the dramatic tone of Kojima’s narrative with a slow pace to complement the stealthier gameplay focus. It was gradual and drawn-out, and made many of us realise just how much we wanted to keep Snake alive.
Image source: Shirrako on YouTube
Oblivion: leaving the dungeon
One of the greatest moments in modern gaming comes from an older game that continues to hold a special place in our hearts almost 20 years after its release. The Oblivion Remaster has been one of the best selling games of 2025, and for good reason. Although there are more epic moments in Oblivion than we could possibly count, the one spot on this list goes to the first ‘wow’ of many: the feeling we got when we left the underground for the first time.
It was at this point we realised just how big this open world was, saw the sky and the ground, the buildings and the flora and fauna. We’d been creeping about in sewers and dungeons for a while, learning tutorials and building our character, but suddenly Oblivion felt like a real world to explore. It’s hard to explain this moment to people who have never played the game, but veterans of The Elder Scrolls know exactly what we’re talking about.
If you need a hand in knowing where to go after the prison, check out our Oblivion Remastered guide and full walkthrough.
The Last Guardian: winning over Trico
The Last Guardian doesn’t give you much backstory at the start. You wake up as a young child at the bottom of a pit. There’s a huge, aggressive beast down there with you, and if you try to help him he’ll reward you with a concussion. But this isn’t an enemy. This is a scared wild animal, just as vulnerable as you are, if not more so. So you try again. You bring him some food, but he waits for you to move away before he eats. He’s nervous of you, but maybe you can break through.
Once you’ve addressed the source of Trico’s pain, and been knocked out all over again, the trial and error finally works. It could be the relentless care of this young boy in the face of danger, the empathy we feel for this frightened and injured animal, or the beautiful tear-jerking soundtrack by Takeshi Furukawa, but when you finally win Trico over and he follows your directions, it’s a beautifully emotive moment that sets the tone for the rest of the game.
Super Metroid: Samus’ baby
Whether Samus Aran takes pity on the infant Metroid in Metroid 2, or just grabs the small specimen for further study is up for debate, but the baby’s feelings for Samus are fairly straightforward. The baby has imprinted on Samus, and as far as it knows, this is its mother. It takes until Super Metroid for this love to become clear, as in the final boss battle against the Mother Brain, a surprise blast from the past arrives just in time: the baby.
It looks different, and mistreatment and distance has changed it almost beyond recognition, but it still remembers Samus. Just as the Mother Brain is about to deal the final blow, the baby puts itself in harm’s way and sacrifices itself to save Samus. It’s a long time coming, and has a brutally tragic ending, but this touching reunion rewards mercy in a game universe where generosity of spirit is hard to come by.
God of War: Ragnarok: Thor fight resurrection
From the moment we heard Thor was going to feature in a fight, fans of God of War knew this would be a battle to remember. The fight itself is varied and showcases Thor’s range as a heavy hitter able to quickly dodge and zip around the arena. You’re evenly matched here, lore-wise. Going in all guns blazing is a sure-fire way to get killed, and you’ll need to parry and block many of the attacks coming your way.
Even if you angle your retaliation perfectly and make it into the later phases of battle, Thor will ultimately kill Kratos. But the momentary frustration and confusion as the game over screen descends is quickly replaced with a dawning sense that this game might be even better than we thought. The all-powerful Thor literally pulls Kratos out of the game over screen and shocks him back to life. He’s not getting away that easily.
Danganronpa 2: the reveal of the Neo World Program
Danganronpa works best when you don’t know much about the plot, so avoid spoilers where you can, including the following entry.
The first game in the series has the upper hand. None of the big reveals have happened yet, and you’re in a total state of confusion for almost all of the story. Toward the end, things start making more sense, and eventually, the how, who, why, and what of the plot is revealed. When it came to Danganronpa 2, the writers had to do it all over again, but somehow not reuse the same tropes.
How can we be back in this situation if the first game’s plot was to be believed? Why does the world keep glitching out? Why do characters seem to not be consistent with reality, and where is the outside world? All these questions were answered in the shocking ending to Danganronpa 2, where it is revealed that the game’s events have taken place inside the Neo World Program, a virtual reality designed by the survivors of the first game. The realisation is shocking, and one of the best twists in the entire series, which somehow managed to keep us guessing through all three mainline games.
Portal 2: portal on the moon
Although it was recently unseated as the best-rated game of all time on Steam, Portal 2 has enjoyed a long reign as a staple PC favourite. And for good reason–it’s a complex and rewarding puzzle game that can be played alone or with a friend, and the story contains surprising depth across characters we barely saw fleshed out in the original Portal.
Dragged back into the facility to try once again to escape, Chell’s story is explored more thoroughly, as well as that of big bad GLaDOS (who turns out to be more of a tragic victim) and friendly personality core Wheatley (who turns out to be absolutely nothing we expected). The final boss fight is huge, gruelling, and terrifying–but ultimately all for naught as the facility begins to collapse. There’s a frantic moment of panic–all you’ve done for two whole games is place portals and zip through them. How do you react to this overwhelming level of threat?
And then the answer dawns on us. There’s one surface left, and it’s a big one: the moon. Casting that final portal and being sucked out into space is such a colossal moment for what was–until now–a series confined to tiny rooms and tight corridors, that it definitely deserves a place on this list.
Chants of Sennaar: connecting languages
Chants of Sennaar is a bit of a hidden gem. Throughout the game, you’ll find plenty of emotional moments and solve puzzles that will have you feeling that your IQ just went up by a few points. The premise is that languages have diverged across the levels of this tower, with inhabitants sealing themselves off from anyone above or below them, unable to communicate. Your goal is to translate each language, then find a common thread between them.
One of the most beautiful moments of the game is when you’ve translated more than one language in full and can then translate between two of the different civilizations. Their animosity and fear fades into a mutual understanding, and the joy between them when they find shared interests is enough to bring a tear to anyone’s eye. You also get to feel incredibly smart, which is an added bonus.
Silent Hill 2: Pyramid Head’s introduction
Silent Hill 2 has one of the best stories in video games, but also arguably one of the best enemy introductions of all time. Enemies are not hard to come by in Silent Hill, but this one just hit differently. With the static cranked up and the thudding of James’ feet keeping time, he reaches the end of a hallway, blocked by jagged iron bars. Standing just beyond them–still, silent, watchful–is Pyramid Head. James has no choice but to back away, but the hairs on the back of your neck start to rise–just who is this guy and where is he now?
As you enter the room with him in, you see him tackling two enemies with ease, enemies that would overpower you given half a chance. He’s powerful, and bloodthirsty. James hides in a locker, watching the humanoid villain move unnaturally. It seems like he knows where you are, but saves you for a later treat. James is going to have to face this guy, and it’s not going to be pretty.