We've all been there, haven't we? Sitting slack-jawed in front of the screen, controller in hand, wondering why the game just punched us in the gut. Sometimes, a death in a game hits like a freight train. Other times, it leaves us confused, frustrated, or downright angry. Why? Because not every character's death is earned.

Some are powerful, sure, but some feel like bad writing, done for shock value, or missteps in otherwise memorable stories.

8 Soap MacTavish — Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011)

An insignificant wooden table and the death of the story's heart

Strap in, lads — I'm about to rant. Soap was the emotional backbone of the OG Modern Warfare series. He was the grounded, fiercely loyal Scotsman who could crack jokes in one breath, and save your heinie the very next. The writers for Modern Warfare 3 (2011) did a great job at giving weight to his death, but it still felt... wrong. Soap wasn't just another soldier in the narrative meat grinder. He was the COD protagonist that fans latched onto across multiple games. And when he bled out on that wooden table, with Price screaming his name, it felt like a piece of the franchise died with him.

What was his death for? So we could double down on how evil Makarov is? Or the revelation that Makarov knew Yuri, which could've been a million different ways? This wasn't the way to raise the stakes, and instead, it gutted the heart of the story. Soap definitely earned his peace, but this wasn't the way to give it to him. He should've gone out fishing with Price, not dying on an insignificant wooden table after falling down several stories after an explosion.

7 Jesse — The Last of Us Part II

Shock value overtook narrative depth in this one

The Last of Us Part II's pacing may have been all over the place, but its narrative and plot have stayed with me for over five years now. It is a miserable game, no doubt, and full of death and pain. One death that sticks out, however, is that of Jesse during the middle of the game, right before the player's perspective switches over from Ellie's to Abby's.

As Abby unceremoniously shoots down Jesse, and he lies bleeding on the theater floor, I couldn't help but feel shocked and dejected over what I was seeing on the screen. If ever there was a character demise in the game that felt purely for shock value, it was this one. No buildup, no fanfare, just a bullet to the face and he's gone.

It was surely gutting to watch, but it also felt cheap. Jesse was calm, grounded, and he balanced Ellie's increasingly fractured mindset. He was a reliable presence, and his dynamic with both Ellie and Dina deserved more time. Instead, he gets the kind of abrupt send-off usually reserved for expendable side characters. For a game that handled grief and loss as seriously as The Last of Us Part II, Jesse deserved more than a blink-and-you-miss-it exit.

6 Aerith Gainsborough — Final Fantasy VII

Pure, unadulterated, boiling rage for Sephiroth

You could practically hear an entire generation of gamers scream in unison when Sephiroth dropped down and skewered Aerith through the chest. It was shocking and traumatic, but Aerith wasn't some side character. She was the very heart of the party. A literal healer, a symbol of hope, and the only one who could summon Holy to save the planet. And yet, the story took her away at the exact moment we needed her most.

Look, I know that her death served the story and became one of the most iconic plot twists in gaming. Still, I can't help but grieve over her demise, wishing it had simply never happened. No amount of Cloud brooding or ghostly whispers in the FFVII Remake timeline has undone that grief, either. I still wish Aerith could've stayed, helped defeat Sephiroth, and seen the planet she loved finally be free of the darkness.

5 Owen and Mel — The Last of Us Part II

They didn't deserve their ends, either

Now, I know this one is contentious, because I get it. Everybody loses someone in The Last of Us Part II, which was the whole point — exploring the endless back-and-forth cycle of revenge. However, that doesn't mean it didn't sting to watch Owen and Mel go out the way they did. Their deaths were violent, messy, painful, and devoid of any dignity, especially with Ellie discovering that Mel was pregnant only after she killed her.

Owen, meanwhile, was probably the most peace-minded character in the entire game. He was ready to walk away from the violence, to escape with Mel and start afresh. Instead, he gets caught in the middle, trying to keep things from boiling over. If the game's core theme was about empathy, Owen and Mel's deaths felt like the narrative pulling empathy away from the player on purpose. They didn't deserve to be sacrificed for another character's breaking point.

4 Bloody Baron — The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The most human death in a world of monsters and magic

Say what you will about The Witcher 3's branching paths and difficult moral choices, but few quests hit as hard as the one involving the Bloody Baron. He was a cruel man, a broken man, and yet, somehow, he was also one of the most tragically human characters in the entire game. His storyline, which made for one of the most unforgettable side quests in gaming, walked the razor's edge between redemption and ruin, and more often than not, it leaned towards the latter.

Depending on your choices, the Baron either hangs himself out of grief, or leaves with his comatose wife, hoping to heal her. Neither outcome feels hopeful, but I'll take the latter over the former any day of the week. This guy was one of the few NPCs who had real narrative depth, and a chance to change, and the game (through both endings, to be honest), robbed us of that payoff. I'm not asking for a fairytale ending, especially not after a decade, but some semblance of redemption wasn't too much to expect. Instead, we got pain, and in a game filled with monsters and magic, the Baron's was the most human death of all.

3 Dominic Santiago — Gears of War 3

If ever there was a man who deserved peace rather than martyrdom

My keyboard might get damaged by the time I'm done writing this, considering just how angry this one has made me for eleven years now. Marcus may have been the guy carrying the war on his back, but Dom was the emotional soul that made the whole thing human. This man lost his children, his wife, and eventually his hope, but he kept going. That's what made his death in Gears 3 so terribly heartbreaking. He sacrificed himself to save his friends, driving a truck into a fuel bowser and going out in a blaze of martyrdom.

Yes, it was powerful and memorable. I mean, hey, I'm still talking about it fourteen years later, aren't I? Couldn't we have given him a quieter end, though? I wish he got the rest he so deserved, instead of going out in another act of violence. Letting him find something to live for, after everything, would have been a far more powerful message instead of driving him into a standing fuel truck. This one still hurts, and I doubt it will ever stop.

2 John Marston — Red Dead Redemption

And then, the government came knocking

If ever there was a death that defined the term 'bittersweet', it's John Marston's. After the betrayals, the bloodshed, and the fight for his family, John finally got his little ranch and the quiet life he had always wished for. For a few short scenes, the game really made me believe that he had made it out... and then the government came knocking.

His final stand, stepping out of that barn into a hail of gunfire, is nothing short of iconic. However, it's also deeply unfair. Marston did everything he could to redeem himself, and he wasn't even trying to live large. He just wanted to be a husband and a father, and killing him off felt like the game's way of punishing hope itself. It gave Jack a reason to carry on in the epilogue, sure, but at what cost? In the brutally realistic world of Red Dead Redemption, I still believe it would have been a way more powerful message to let him grow old and finally be free.

1 Desmond Miles — Assassin's Creed III

I'm never forgiving Ubisoft for this one

I'm not alone in stating that Desmond Miles' death is one of the most useless character deaths in all gaming. From the very first Assassin's Creed game, he was our link to the past, serving as the modern-day anchor to the whirlwind of historical conspiracies and timelines. As gamers growing up with this franchise in its early years, we trained with him, watched him grow, and learned to see through the eyes of his ancestors. By the time AC III rolled around, Desmond had become more than just a framing device. It was clear that everything was leading up to him becoming a protagonist with real stakes in his own, modern-day AC game. So why did Ubisoft kill him off in a cutscene with barely any closure?

Desmond's death felt rushed, because it was. It was clear that the studio was eager to dump the entire present-day storyline. The build-up, the bleeding effect, and the Isu temples in the modern day were all tossed aside so that the series could continue churning out new titles without having to link all protagonists to Desmond. His arc deserved a proper ending instead of a surface-level sacrificial moment in a glowing sci-fi chamber. Desmond was the modern-day Assassin that Ezio had a conversation with. He was the thread tying it all together, and they cut it far too soon.

These eight deaths live rent-free in my head

There's a fine line between bold narrative choices and unnecessary heartbreak.

Don't get me wrong. I love a story that takes risks. Games aren't always supposed to wrap up neatly with everyone smiling at the sunset. But there's a fine line between bold narrative choices and unnecessary heartbreak. When characters resonate, we don't want to lose them just for the sake of a plot twist or tonal weight.

These eight deaths, in particular, live rent-free in my head, right next to the save files I'll never overwrite.