Are you looking for sad games that will bring you on an emotional journey? In this list, we will go over some of the most intense games that will pull on your heartstrings. These games will bring you through heartfelt storylines that will leave a lasting impact on you.
Table of Contents
The Last of Us and The Last of Us 2
The Last of Us is an action-adventure game that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. An outbreak of a deadly fungus has wiped out the majority of civilization. You will play as Joel, who is forever impacted by the loss of his daughter, and now works as a smuggler with his partner Tess. The two are tasked with a mission to bring Ellie, a girl who has been infected but never changes, to a location where they can potentially make a cure from her immunity.
The story follows Joel and Ellie as they face difficult challenges and their bond grows stronger. The Last of Us explores the heavy weight of grief, as well as strength and growth. The game continually makes players deal with the harsh realities of the new world and what has taken place. In addition, this game has a deep emotionally powered story, which is why it was made into an amazing television show.
Metacritic Score: 95/100
Check out The Last of Us on Steam!
The Last of Us 2 picks up where the first one left off and immediately jumps back into its deep emotional storytelling. This sequel features a new main character named Abby. The story delves into the brutal struggles that Ellie and Abby go through to handle their grief and desire for revenge, leading to a series of tragic events. This game is one that notoriously makes players extremely sad, as the game explores grief, guilt, and trauma. The Last of Us games are two of the most recommended sad games and will have many feeling some deep emotions.
Metacritic Score: 93/100
Check out The Last of Us Part II!
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Brothers: a Tale of Two Sons is an adventure game where the main characters are two brothers, one older and one younger. The older brother is stronger and larger, allowing him to utilize his strengths to his advantage. The younger brother is smaller and can fit into small places with ease. Both characters are used to complete puzzles and challenges cooperatively.
However, this game is one of the saddest games to play. The game follows two brothers who have a sick father and have already lost their mother. Their journey begins when they are told that they need to get water from the Tree of Life in order to save their father. The two brothers must face many challenges and enemies along the way. This game tells a story of profound loss and grief and can be extremely emotional to play through.
Metacritic Score: 90/100
Check out Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons on Steam!
That Dragon, Cancer
That Dragon, Cancer is an art video game that was made with the intention of being a very sad game to experience. This game is based on the true life experiences that the creators had with their son. Their son ended up being diagnosed with terminal cancer when he was only one year old.
This game takes you through an exploratory storyline through scenes that the creators experienced caring for their son from diagnosis until his death. You will play as the boy’s parents as you experience 14 sections. You are able to interact with characters and make important choices, similar to the ones the parents had to face. This game is truly made to be a very emotional and tear-jerking game. You will find yourself immersed in a very intense story. This story is meant to make a lasting impression on its audience and is not one of your average sad games.
Metacritic Score: 78/100
Check out That Dragon, Cancer on Steam!
This War of Mine
This War of Mine is a survival game that is centered around a warzone. The player will control a group of one to four civilians who have managed to survive by hiding. The goal of the game is to continue your survival and gather resources. However, most of the people in the group do not have any survival experience and will require careful monitoring of their hunger, health, and mood. You must manage your shelter during the daytime, as going outside is too dangerous. By nightfall, you must go out to scavenge and find resources to aid your survival.
All of this needs to be done until the war is deemed over by a ceasefire. Your choices affect the story of each individual civilian who stays with you and what happens to them. This War of Mine puts you into continuous emotional situations that require choices that can be very hard to make. This War of Mine makes it onto this list of sad games because the game puts you into realistic positions experienced by civilians during a war. You find yourself bonding and feeling close to the other people that you care for over time. The weight of your choices and decisions will weigh on you, especially if something happens to one of the people in your care.
Metacritic Score: 83/100
Check out This War of Mine on Steam!
SOMA
SOMA is a survival horror game that is played in first-person view. This game takes place in the year 2104 in an underwater research facility. The crew that was located in this facility ended up becoming the last people to exist on Earth after a comet struck the planet. You play as a man named Simon who got into a car accident and had his brain damaged. He ended up getting his brain scanned and allowed science to keep it. Another version of Simon wakes up at the underwater facility many years in the future, learning that his consciousness was uploaded through his brain scan. Simon must figure out what is really going on and make important life-changing decisions along the way.
SOMA delivers a sad and disturbing storyline that brings the topic of your own existence into question. This game makes you unravel the secrets of the underwater facility that you woke up in and makes you question the consequences of technology and its impact on humans. SOMA is often regarded as an amazing game with a dark and heavy story that is filled with struggle, loneliness, and existential dread. It will not disappoint when looking for good sad games to play.
Metacritic Score: 84/100
Among the Sleep
Among the Sleep is a survival horror game that is full of action. In this game, you will play as a vulnerable toddler who must get through challenges with the help of his teddy bear as a guiding light and source of support. However, lurking in the shadows are two terrifying monsters, one of which is a woman and one who wears a trench coat. There is no way for you to get rid of these monsters and when they appear, you must run away and hide until they leave. The relentless monsters represent the toddler’s traumatic experiences and they serve as a constant threat.
Through its unsettling and scary gameplay, Among the Sleep tells a symbolic story about the toddler’s real-life terrors. The player will come face to face with the impact that his abusive and alcoholic mother has had on him. Therefore, you should prepare yourself for one of the most emotional and truly sad games. As a result of this sadness, you are taken on a journey into the depths of childhood trauma and the fears that come with it.
Metacritic Score: 66/100
Check out Among the Sleep on Steam!
To the Moon
To the Moon is a psychological drama video game that offers plenty of adventure and will take you on quite an emotional journey. This is one of the best sad games that you can find. The story is centered around Johnny Wyles, an elderly man who is dying and in a coma. A corporation is capable of making artificial memories for people who are in irreversible comas like Wyles is. These memories are used in order to fulfill their lifetime wishes before they die. This company is tasked with creating memories for Wyles, whose lifelong dream was to go to the moon.
The doctors, in their quest to fulfill his dream, reveal hidden fragments of his past that he had entirely forgotten. However, past trauma and mysteries about his life prove themselves crucial to understanding and fulfilling his wish. As the story unfolds, you will uncover the impacts that Johnny’s memory loss has had on himself and his wife. Things take quite an emotional turn as the link between the lapse in memory and his wish to go to the moon becomes clear.
This is an excellent game to play because of its uniquely captivating storyline. To the Moon will take you on an emotional journey as it explores themes of love, loss, and the power of memories. Prepare to be taken on an adventure that will leave you contemplating life and how important individual moments are.
Metacritic Score: 81/100
Check out To the Moon on Steam!
Disco Elysium
Disco Elysium is an open-world role-playing game set in a place called Elysium. You play as a detective who is suffering from memory loss due to drugs and alcohol. He soon learns that he is working on a murder case but finds himself having to deal with his own demons and brokenness. As you play through the story, you will encounter many characters, each with their own challenges and issues. Faced with emotional choices, you must decide how you want to respond and interact. Will you choose to wallow in misery or try to be a better person?
Disco Elysium is one of the most unique sad games that you can play because it depicts a troubled world filled with corruption and harsh realities. This game takes a deep look into human suffering and how our choices affect our consequences. You will have to deal with moral dilemmas throughout the game, as well as deal with some dark topics. However, the game does offer quite a bit of dark humor throughout to lighten the mood of the game.
Metacritic Score: 91/100
Check out Disco Elysium on Steam!
What Remains of Edith Finch
What Remains of Edith Finch is a first-person exploration game that follows a teenage girl named Edith Finch. She is the last person in her family line left alive. In this game, you will play as Edith as you uncover the story of her life and her family, while you explore the inside of her family home. While exploring the house, she learns many hidden secrets about the family’s past, as well as a series of tragic deaths that occurred. Unravel the mysteries of the family that are so unsettling that they have cast a shadow over generations.
What Remains of Edith Finch offers a very new and different style of gaming. The game offers an immersive and interactive narrative style of gameplay that gives an emotionally deep and somber experience. Go along for a ride into the sad and haunting story of this unfortunate family.
Metacritic Score: 89/100
Check out What Remains of Edith Finch on Steam!
Outer Wilds
Outer Wilds is an action-adventure game that puts you into the role of a character who is stuck in a time loop while exploring space. Time in this solar system continually goes back 22 minutes before its star goes supernova. This forces the player to learn why this is happening and discover the hidden secrets of the Nomai people who used to inhabit the area. The purpose of the game is to explore the remnants of the Nomai civilization, find archives and information, and eventually figure out the cause of the time loop.
Outer Wilds is a thought-provoking game and can have a deep emotional impact on its players. The story is unique and causes a sense of sadness as you explore existence and the passing of time. The game also provides many original puzzles and challenges to solve. There is a lot to digest with Outer Wilds, making you feel like you are constantly fighting against the clock. Many gamers find the ending to this game to be quite depressing but we will leave that up for you to discover on your own! We do feel that you will agree that it deserves a place on this list of sad games.
Metacritic Score: 85/100
Check out Outer Wilds on Steam!
Ori and the Blind Forest
Ori and the Blind Forest is a platform adventure game that has impacted gamers worldwide with its beautiful and sad storyline. You are taken on an adventure as you are told the story of Ori, a guardian spirit, that fell from the Spirit Tree as a baby. Ori eventually was adopted by Naru, who cared for him and kept him safe until she eventually passed away after the forest withered. Now Ori is left to explore the forest and attempt to restore it back to what it used to be with Sein, a small orb who helps guide Ori on the journey.
Ori and the Blind Forest will take you through many difficult challenges and sad moments within the game. This game takes you through the struggles of sacrifice, loss, growth, and the power of a determined spirit. The beginning of the game puts you through a depressing story of the destruction of the beautiful forest and its inhabitants. However, much of the game offers a sense of hope as you seek to save it and bring back its beauty.
Metacritic Score: 88/100
Check out Ori and the Blind Forest on Steam!
Omori
Omori is a role-playing video game where you will play as a teenage boy named Omori. You will discover that Omori is dealing with emotional battles and inner burdens. The game explores emotional and mental health themes, such as depression, anxiety, and loneliness. As you play through the story, you learn more about Omori and unravel his emotional past. Omori and his mother are moving away, leaving him with important choices to make for himself.
What makes this game one of the top sad games is the main character’s mental health struggles and traumas. These difficult themes evoke empathy in the player. This tends to be a heavy game for some players, especially if you can relate to some of the struggles that the main character faces. This is one of the most amazing sad games to play if you want to be taken on an intense journey through the human mind and how it can transform.
Metacritic Score: 87/100
Green Hell
Green Hell is a survival video game that puts you in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest. You will have to survive in a dangerous and hostile environment. It is essential to balance your necessities, such as carbs, protein, fats, water, fatigue, and mental health to keep yourself healthy. You must do all this while navigating the main storyline.
Your character wakes in the middle of the Amazon, unsure how he ended up exactly where he is. You need to find out what happened to your wife, who is also somewhere in the jungle. Her mission was to make first contact with some of the local tribal villages. As you explore and find clues, you also take a tribal hallucinogen. The effects of this hallucinogen help you to piece your memories back together. However, regaining these memories leads to an emotional journey where you discover the truth about what happened to your wife and what role you played in the events that took place.
Metacritic Score: 78/100
Check out Green Hell on Steam!
Valiant Hearts: The Great War
Valiant Hearts is a puzzle adventure game that takes place in 1914 during World War I. The game follows different characters as you learn about their life and battles during the war. Each person’s story is very different, although linked together by the appearance of one dog. The game is a side scroller that contains a lot of puzzles that you need to solve to progress, with plenty of bosses along the way.
When it comes to sad games, Valiant Hearts: The Great War does an excellent job of creating a somber mood. It intentionally tries to stir up emotions with a story about the suffering that took place during this period in history. The storyline of the game focuses on the human aspect of the war and what the realities were for many people. It serves as a reminder of the devastating impact that war has on people.
Metacritic Score: 79/100
Check out Valiant Hearts: The Great War on Steam!
Gris
Gris is a platform adventure game that follows a girl named Gris, who is stuck in a desolate and colorless world. She must explore to find lights that look like stars to gain new abilities. As she travels around to gather as many lights as she can, she slowly restores color to the world. The result is a game that is a touching piece of art that moves many people who play it.
As you play through the game, you will learn about the emotional struggle that Gris is dealing with. You will learn of her grief and loss involving her mother. The atmosphere the game creates adds to the somber experience for the player. Gris deals with some heavy main themes, such as trauma, depression, growth, and healing on her journey. This is a game that can leave a lasting impact on you, especially if you can relate to the key elements of the story.
Metacritic Score: 84/100