World of warcraft. Simply for the escapism. But also because I've made friends with whom I still talk to 20 years later. At this point they're my oldest friends since life happened to some of the others.
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2025
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Lunacid, probably. Or MGS3. Or any of the Nier games
Death Stranding. Ok not sure if that actually really changed my life, but it left me in a bit of a mixed emotional state.
See the thing is that I became a dad not that long ago and during the pregnancy and maybe a year or so after the birth of my kid I had this somewhat irrational fear of finding my kid just dead at some point in the crib or something like that. I fought past that fear eventually and the kid is now three and as healthy as one can be.
Then was it 2024 or something when the Director's Cut was released on Xbox. I never had a PlayStation (not for any other reason other than I just never happened to get one) so I was exicted to finally start playing this game I've heard so much about. I bought the game and played whenever I had time (if you have kids, you know how it can be) and loved the game, especially for the atmosphere and the sort of weird lore that was exciting to uncover for me.
Rest of the post contains spoilers
Then I got the the part where you have to cut the umbilical cord of Mama's BT baby.
I wasn't prepared for that at all and it kinda just broke something in me. I had to stop playing and didn't play for like at least 6 months or so. It brought back too many of the feelings and fears I had previously gone through so I just needed to take a break. Like don't get me wrong, I actually DID like the scene for the beautiful moment it was and think it was amazing storywriting, it just caught me so off guard that I had to take a moment or ten.
After the break I kept going and the game still managed to keep me hooked and the story just kept getting better and better imo.
And then the ending.
I cried. A lot. I have never ever cried out loud to any piece of media, but I could literally feel Sam's emotions when he noticed that BB wasn't moving and was likely dead already. That was pretty much exactly the fear I had so you'll probably understand why it hit me so hard. And then when I hear that cry come from the game, the relief I felt was something I can't really describe well.
And after that I was sitting there in the living room, tears in my eyes, laugh-crying and just... wow. I don't know, if I'd played the game when it came out in 2019 before my kid was born and before the pregnancy and everything, I would've probably just thought it to be maybe a decent story and maybe tear up a bit at the end. But with all the other stuff that piled on before I got to play the game, it just added it's own effect to the experience. I really don't know if I can say that I was changed in any meaningful way, but I do kinda think that it might have at least helped me deal with the past fears a bit better so maybe in the future if I need to face them again, I can do it with more confidence.
One thing that I can say for sure at least is that I loved the game and I kinda wish I could play it again for the first time. The emotional roller coaster might've been a bit rough at times but damn it was a good one.
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I'm going way back, almost 30 years.
Phantasmagoria 2: The Puzzle of Flesh
Assuming I remember correctly, some ways into the game, you, the player, realizes your character is the one who has been committing all the horrible, tortures and murders. I stopped playing at that point. I never play "evil". For instance, in FO4, I never took over the Commonwealth with the raiders, raiders are always cannon fodder.
So, it didn't really change my life, per se, but I have remembered it all these years, and still have no interest in finishing the game.
Duke Nukem 3D.
Spiritfarer, though it's more crying than drinking. It took playing the game alongside my best friend to get me to finish it, because I cried at the first spirit and couldn't continue on my own.
It didn't help that my grandma died right as I started playing the game with my friend, and I was beating myself up for missing that last phone call.
Civ 1 was what got me into gaming, and influenced a lifetime passion of history and studying, as well as strategy/4x/gsg gaming.
- NieR Gestalt
- NieR Automata Ending E
- Silent Hill 2 (the original, not the remake)
- Doki Doki Literature Club!
- A Girl Who Chants Love At the Bound of this World: YU-NO (the original, not the remake)
I dont know about changing my life, but they certainly had incredibly impactful/emotional endings IMO.
The first two that come to mind whenever this discussion comes up are Dragon Age: Origins and Bioshock.
If it were possible to erase memories, I'd erase my memories of these games and play them for the first time again.
DA:O is peak CRPG. I love that game so much. I should do another solo nightmare playthrough, with a different class this time...
This question has two answers.
the game that practically changed your life in terms of how it affected you.. and the game that made you change the way you think.
For practicalitys sake, the game that had the most change and influence on my life was, ironically, Second Life. Just through the people I met and experiences I had over the course of the 15-16 years I played it.
I cant really tell you what one had the most profound impact psychologically, I was going to say the Sims or Fallout for the impact they had on like, how I see people vs how I see society. but Im gonna cop-out and go with Mass Effect 2 and 3. since The story is such an "epic" in that it tackles so many philisophical and existential questions, Mainly revolving around what living beings, and in some cases, individual heroes do in the face of death. the whole story is a broad tale of Machines vs Organics, but its done in a very doomsday/armagedon tone. stretched across a sci-fi galaxy instead of just talking about humanity.
Doom Eternal after completing the game and all the DLC. They put you through HELL (literally) and these levels are a BITCH at the end and the sigh of relief to see this arc of the story finally come to a close is so satisfying.
Doom 2016 was an overall better game from an atmospheric perspective, and it had better direction overall, but Eternal was just fun and hard. If you can bare it on at least ultra-violence the sense of completion at the end of it all is quite gratifying.
The first time I finished all the left 4 dead campaigns felt epic
Can't say any one game was life changing for me. They are more a collection of experiences that I reflect upon. Hundreds of games, that have refined me my thoughts and feelings over the decades.