The moment that inspired this question:
A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.
The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.
One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”
I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.
… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.
I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.
For me, it was the surprise song in Dragon Age Inquisition, when they performed “The Dawn Will Come.”
You’d just had a huge battle, the hero was a low point, and they break out into this… thing. It’s stunning and so well done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsxE0dwLICU
I love to see this moment mentioned. It was so moving. Even thinking about it now, I have chills.
Man Inquisition was one of those games you played once and went “meh it was okay” but then you see a video like this and go “shit I should play that again”