10 Saddest Moments In Horror Games (2024)

Horror games are generally seen as emotional thrill rides fraught with fear and unease. They're best known for keeping us on our toes: always on edge for what's around the corner, what's behind the curtain, and what goes bump in the night.

But there's something else horror games are good at, and that's making us feel sorrow. When we've already let down our guard, these stories can't help but hit us hard—not to scare us but to make us grieve. Here are some of the most striking moments when horror games stepped back from spiking our heart rate and opted to tug at our heartstrings instead.

10 Silent Hill 3 - Endgame Confessional

Silent Hill 3 possesses an uncanny knack for putting players in moral dilemmas. The most esoteric choice of all takes place in a confessional near the end of the game, where an unseen woman cries out to God for her sins. You can forgive the lady to ease her torment or say nothing. It's hard to hold back from comforting the woman; she sounds so anguished. But is it really our place to do so?

Whatever your choice, you're never told whether it was the right or wrong thing to do. Who would know, after all? Like many of Silent Hill 3's story beats, ambiguity is a core part of the experience. That's why it still fascinates fans today.

9 Amnesia: Rebirth - For Amari's Long Life

Surrendering her child is the hardest thing a mother can be asked to do. Giving them away when she's already lost one is unthinkable. Yet that is the choice you're given at the end of Amnesia: Rebirth. Protagonist Tasi is asked to give her daughter Amari up so that the supposed villain can keep her safe, healthy, and unaffected by the mysterious illness that Tasi's first daughter succumbed to.

You're allowed a few last moments with Amari to say goodbye, before being turned into a ghoul. Yet even then Tasi clings onto her humanity. Fragmented as they are, nothing can remove her memories of motherhood.

8 The Witch's House MV - Just For A Day

The Witch's House MV is a short horror game about a hunter's daughter, Viola, who explores a haunted abode - an evil residence if you will. She escapes with a demonic entity at her heels and is rescued by her father via two shots to the witch's head.

That's unless you get the true ending. There you learn that the witch had already swapped bodies with Viola, convincing her that they were friends and it would be just for a day. Of course, this was a lie. The witch will replace her forever and enjoy a charmed life, while Viola... well, let's just hope her father never finds out what exactly he shot.

7 Omori - When Mari Was There

While navigating the dreamy locales of Omori's early game, the act of stopping to have a picnic and save your game doesn't really stir a second thought. Your party's there, the protagonist's big sister Mari is there; everyone is happy.

However, once the game switches to its real-life setting, you find out that the protagonist's sister, Mari, passed away years ago, and their friend group is now splintered. The friend group reconvenes at Mari's grave and delivers some halting eulogies. If, at this point, you interact with her grave, you can choose to have another picnic. Only this time, Mari isn't there.

6 The Walking Dead - Food Rationing

The pain of starvation is a special kind of despair. It's hard to begrudge Lilly when she gives up in the second episode, Starved For Help, of The Walking Dead and hands over her food-distributing responsibilities to Lee. You're left with four edible items, to share among ten hungry people.

While the adults either gruffly accept what you give them or ask you to feed their children instead, it's hard to stomach the little ones' reactions. Overjoyed at the prospect of getting to eat, they can't help but wish for more appetizing rations.

5 Silent Hill 2 - The Burning Staircase

It's hard to pick one out of the many melancholy moments Silent Hill 2 provides, but the most poignant one involves Angela Orosco, a supporting character seeking to end a lifetime of abuse. Unable to trust other people due to suffering at the hands of her family, Angela refuses any help from protagonist James Sunderland, even in her final moments.

As she ascends a burning staircase, berating James for thinking he could help her put herself back together, she turns around one last time. James, having nothing left to offer, simply says, "It's hot as hell in here." Angela's response is chilling: "For me, it's always like this."

4 Deadly Premonition - Isn't That Right, York?

Deadly Premonition plays host to one of the most charming protagonists in horror. Throughout the game, Francis York Morgan talks constantly to an unseen person named Zach. Most townspeople in the game dismiss Zach as a strange imaginary friend of York's, a figment of a city boy's imagination.

But Zach is real. He's more real than York, in fact. Deadly Premonition has a heartrending story that, like its hero, is artfully disguised with humour. After witnessing a traumatic event as a child, Zach created an alter ego for himself - the kind of suave, self-assured man he could never hope to be. York is the imaginary friend, and when Zach is confronted with his loved one's life being taken away, the facade crumbles.

3 Rule Of Rose - I'll Protect You, Forever And Ever

Perspective plays a large part in how we analyze things. In Rule of Rose, the final shot is through the eyes of a puppy, shackled and locked in a shed. Outwardly depicting a selfish girl imprisoning an animal for her desire to keep a pet, the context makes it tragically poetic.

Jennifer was an orphan who imagined grisly, nightmarish worlds to protect herself from the waking nightmare her childhood had been. She survived; her fellow orphans didn't. What we see in the end is a little girl trying her best to keep something alive from those days. Through the eyes of a puppy, we're rendered incapable – but she's helpless, too.

2 Resident Evil 4 - The End Of Luis

2005's Resident Evil 4 introduced fans to one of the best-loved supporting characters in the series: the smooth-talking, gunslinging Spaniard, Luis Sera. In the desolate isolation of the game's setting, Luis's style and wit were only compounded by his helpfulness when enemies laid siege to your cabin shelter. He even gave you his spare ammo! Suffice it to say, this guy won us over.

Which made it all the more heartbreaking when he was taken away from us. At that point, Luis had become much more than a cutscene companion or one-time AI partner - he was a friend. If you didn't have enough reasons to defeat Saddler already, you sure did now. Capcom recreated the heartbreak 18 years later with their 2023 remake of Resident Evil 4 - this time at the hands of a different opponent.

1 Silent Hill - Otherworldly Epiphany

Lisa Garland is one of the most enigmatic characters in the Silent Hill series. Rigidly controlled by a cult, Lisa's short and tragic life ends before the events of 1999's Silent Hill. Only she doesn't know it. Throughout the game, Lisa keeps popping up, refusing to leave the hospital she dwells in.

Finally, it dawns on her why she can't leave: she is just one of the monsters roaming Silent Hill, bound to its supernatural laws. As she transforms, she begs Harry for comfort. Harry's too scared to help; he pushes her away and runs. The last we hear of Lisa Garland are some broken sobs behind a barricaded door. Akira Yamaoka's beautiful soundtrack accentuates the tragedy: she may have become a monster, but once, she was just a kind-hearted nurse.