Bay 12 Games Forum

Just had the most unexpectedly poignant moment I've experienced in a video game in... years, probably. Completely unintentional on the part of the game's designers, but... still. Story is I accidentally picked up a tiny toy boat right at the start of the game -- it's worth nothing, can't be sold, can't be broke down, etc., etc., it's just useless prop-junk, so far as I've been able to tell (in fact, the moment in question is what pretty much verified that) -- that I had been carrying around mostly just 'cause, but partially thinking it was a unique item that held some kind of later import.

Anyway, hours, a few bosses, several dozen things murdered, towns looted, etc., etc., later I'm ransacking a temple full of miscellaneous junk, that probably had everyone in it murdered at some point but is currently empty, and I come across a room. In the room is nothing particularly valuable -- light source I'm not bothering to steal, some beer that's not worth carrying, a mug -- but in the corner... is another tiny toy boat. I look at it, think for a moment, and then set the other toy boat I've been carrying down on the table in the room and then... just kinda' stop for a minute. Looking at it.

Here's this group of inadvertent adventurers, ripped along with the land around them out of their homeland into a floating conglomerate of death, filled with things that want to kill them and a rare few non-hostile people, most of them not even able to speak the same language. The nominal leader, a literally faceless warrior that's been wading through blood and devastation for the last (by their perspective) few weeks, has been carrying this tiny toy boat, trinket, comfort, memory of what was lost... who really knows. But he's been carrying it for weeks, through what's probably the most trying time of his life.

And he sees another, leftover affection in some dead person's office, probably the first sign of actual happiness he's seen since his and his friends lives were thrust into hell. And just, I'unno, stops. Hurting? Whatever counts for crying for his species? Is he happy? Laughing? A small bit of lifted spirit at another -- the only other one he's yet seen -- memory of better times? Who knows.

But he stops, his teammates silent, watching. Reaches into his pack. Takes out the toy boat -- you can see it. Whatever's happening to him, his hands are shaking, posture somewhere between reverent and broken. He sets the boat down. Stares. Looks from boat to boat. This is the closest he's came to just stopping this entire damned struggle, almost finally brought down by a simple toy boat in the corner of some room in an empty, massacred temple.**

And then he reaches back down, hands firm once more. Picks up the little toy, sets it back in his pack, readies his axe, and walks out the room, friends trailing behind.

**It looked like this: Incidentally, no, none of the above was supported by the game itself's story, which is quite sparse. It's just what the actions themselves intimated, reading into a situation that's largely invented and a character reaction that's literally nonexistent in game. Still hit me harder than just about any bit of media has in a long time. The boat's coming with.