Shadow of the Colossus. Games to emotionally shatter you

• Pain Instead of Entertainment: The Most Painful, Heartbreaking Games
• Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
• This War of Mine
• Pathologic 2
• That Dragon, Cancer
• Spec Ops: The Line
• The Walking Dead – Season One
• Dark Souls
• Silent Hill 2
• Shadow of the Colossus
• Papers, Please
• Valiant Hearts: The Great War
• Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Shadow of the Colossus

Everything seems fine throughout most of Shadow of the Colossus. We are the heroic prince saving his princess. The situation looks dramatic, because the princess seems dead, but it's enough to defeat the terrible giants, i.e. the title colossi, for the extremely powerful creature – Dormin – to resurrect her. So, we fight spectacular battles with opponents the size of a hill, in the name of a noble goal, just to eventually find out that...

the eponymous colossi are mostly innocent creatures, guardians of goodness and peace – whose mission is to make sure that the cruel demon Dormin remains dormant. We are merely puppets in his hands all the while, helping him to implement the sinister plan. In a single moment, we find out that we're not the hero of this story at all, but its vile antagonist, driven by absolutely selfish motives. In addition, we kill sixteen dignified, good, unique creatures. It's hard to feel good after something like that.

1. Shadow of the Colossus in our encyclopedia