While some people find it hard to see games as anything other than the rock-and-roll of our generation, corrupting the youths with its violence and destruction, some of the most moving, sentimental and sweet moments have come out of the media.
They say that without darkness, you would never be able to appreciate the light, and that has never been more true than when it comes to video games. Love can be found even in the most troubling of times, and it’s that love that pulls many of us in and keeps us connected and playing.
And to celebrate all the love in the air today, even if it’s represented as pixels in a digital sky, NAG has decided to take a minute and look back at those scenes across some of our favourite video games that made our hearts flutter.
So with that, we want to wish you, our readers, the best and most loved-filled Valentine’s Day today. Know that you are loved and appreciated and that spoilers lie ahead in NAG’s Favourite Romantic Moments In Gaming.
Days Gone – Sarah and Deacon’s Wedding
It’s funny because they say you never see love coming, which is precisely the case when it comes to Days Gone. The first time I sat down to play this game, I absolutely and completely hated it. I didn’t get through two hours of playtime before I was ready to delete it from my console and out of my mind forever.
And then, last year, I decided to give it another shot, and boy, oh boy, I am glad that I did. I don’t know what magic love spell Days Gone cast on me, but I fell, and I fell hard.
Maybe I’m just at a different place in my life, but Deacon and Sarah and their complicated relationship spoke to something in my very soul. While it’s easy to love someone when life is all sunshine and rainbows, holding onto that love in a world falling apart at the seams and amid a zombie apocalypse is another ball game.
Throughout the game, players will control Deacon as he searches for his love, Sarah. You’ll also start to understand their relationship thanks to a series of flashbacks into their past life. While many moments from these flashbacks could have made their way onto this list, their Wedding is the one that has stuck with me long after the game was finished and done.
While the relationship between Sarah and Deacon isn’t perfect, it’s perfect for them, and that’s what counts.
Final Fantasy X – Romance in the Lake
In everybody’s lives, there are moments and events that define and shape them into who they are. For me, that moment is this one: Romance in the Lake from Final Fantasy X. This was the moment that a switch got flipped for me, and the whole trajectory of my life changed.
What was nothing more than a Christmas gift to a small child from her parents turned into a lifelong love and passion for gaming and also marked my first-ever crushes because I don’t know who I fell for harder, Luna or Tidus, but fall for them I did, and now I’m here, writing about it for all of you.
While the Final Fantasy franchise is filled with countless romantic moments to include in this list, this is the one that is the most memorable for me because it’s the moment that I first fell in love.
Tidus comforting Yuna in a moment where she finds herself betrayed by the very thing she had devoted her entire life to is a powerful and romantic moment captured in what is arguably the most cinematically beautiful scene of all time.
The Last of Us: Left Behind – The Water Gun Fight
When talking about love, it’s easy to gatekeep it as something exclusively reserved for adults while forgetting how hard young love can hit and how life-changing it can be.
Much like Sarah and Deacon’s love in Days Gone, The Last of Us: Left Behind shows how we can’t stop living just because the world is crumbling around us.
The Last of Us isn’t a game filled with happy moments. There is hardly a happy ending to be found, but there are still moments of joy scattered throughout. They are the magic that makes this one of the best and most moving game franchises ever.
In the Left Behind DLC for The Last of Us, we get to see Ellie and Riley share multiple touching moments despite the carnage that surrounds them and has consumed their young lives. Still, among all the terrible jokes and dorky moments, the one scene that stands out and sets the tone for who Ellie is, down in her very soul, is a kiss shared between Ellie and Riley after a rare and brief moment of lightheartedness shared between them.
It’s a powerful moment that couldn’t be more important to Ellie’s character if it tried.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End – Dinner and Video Games
In life, there isn’t just one kind of love; there’s the love you first feel as a kid, and then there are the moments that feel like big, blockbuster cinematic masterpieces.
You also get the type of love that makes you want to commit forever to someone else, and then, there is the type of love that’s just so incredibly human and mundane.
Mundane love is sharing dinner with that special someone; it’s the arguments that come from a life shared and the moments that seem irrelevant at the time but are the ones that stay with us long after.
While Nate and Elena’s relationship in Uncharted is far from perfect, few relationships are, making this moment so great; it shows the type of everyday romance that many of us experience with our partner and only really appreciate when looking back at it.
It would be an impossible task to list all the romantic moments we’ve vicariously lived through in our favourite games, so if we’ve missed a moment that stands out to you, then make sure to list it in the comments below, and let’s all take a few minutes to feel that love, in all its forms, today.
Have a good one, everybody, and if no one else has said it:
We love you today and every day,
xoxo
NAG
P.S. If you’re looking for a date idea, why not try to get your special someone into gaming? You can follow our handy dandy guide here. And if you want to see which video game couples made us fall in love alongside them, you can read that post here.