History Woobie / VideoGames

[[caption-width-right:240:The cause of many UsefulNotes/{{Game Boy}}s hugged in public.]]

* ''Franchise/DotHack'':
** Elk from ''R1'' games. [[spoiler:His only friend, Mia, turns out to be one of the Eight Phases of Morganna, forcing him to fight against her. You can bring her back to the game in the BonusDungeon, but she gets destroyed anyway along with the rest of The World during the disaster before ''R2''. When Elk, now known as Endrance, thinks he is finally reunited with her in form of a cat, said cat turns out to be AIDA, and he has to watch her disintegrate as you defeat him.]] ''Ouch''.
** [[LoveFreak Atoli]] from ''[[VideoGame/DotHackGU R2]]'', whose entire life has her [[KickTheDog gets kicked]] by (almost) everyone, including ''her own parents''. And then Volume 2 happens...
** Bo, also from ''R2''. [[spoiler:Being sick in real life, it frustrates his parents to the point his mother wished that his stillborn twin sister Sakura was the one who lived instead. This leads him to create alternate personality based on his sister, Saku]]. The kid has his life rough.

** The second game gives us [[MeaningfulName Sparrow,]] a BrokenBird who begins as a young orphan living on the streets with his sister Rose. After making a wish they are taken to [[BigBad Lucian's]] castle, where he kills Rose and tries to kill Sparrow, who is saved by a gypsy who had set up Rose's death in order to give Sparrow a need for revenge. Later, Sparrow is forced to work in Lucian's Spire for over ten years as the people there try to BreakTheCutie. A banshee might torture Sparrow over Rose's death, then near the end after Lucian kill's Sparrow's dog and tries once again to kill Sparrow, ends up a kid again in paradise with Rose, who finally was able to provide the perfect life for her sibling. In order to defeat Lucian Sparrow must abandon this life, and a traumatic Rose. God. Damn. Someone give the kid a hug.

* ''Woobie/LonelyWolfTreat''

* ''VideoGame/{{Ultrakill}}'': [[TragicHero King Minos]]' story is heartbreaking. [[spoiler:After feeling sorrow for the sinners in the Layer of Lust, Minos turned the circle of Hell into a paradise because he believes eternal damnation is an [[DisproportionateRetribution unfair punishment]] for the sin of loving another. Minos' peaceful revolution is seen as defiance against God by The Council, angering them to the point of sending the Archangel Gabriel to kill him. King Minos tried to reason with Gabriel, but the angel refused to listen, ending the renaissance by killing its beloved king. Then the angels sealed Minos' soul into the Flesh Prison to prevent it from becoming a Prime Soul. As Minos is imprisoned in his own body, [[AndIMustScream he helplessly watched his undead corpse]], now controlled by parasites, undo all of the good he and his people worked hard for. After spending an eternity trapped in his prison, Minos was freed by V1 and becomes a Prime Soul. While grateful for his freedom, the king battles the robot for their involvement in humanity's extinction, but he was defeated. [[DeaderThanDead Before he truly dies]], King Minos sorrowfully apologizes to his people for failing to bring them salvation. A [[TheGoodKing kind king]] who was [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished unfairly punished for his compassion]], only to be completely killed upon his [[YankTheDogsChain short-lived freedom]], King Minos lived an afterlife of {{Tragedy}}.]]

** Solid Snake himself is also a great example of this trope. He's been betrayed many times by people who he felt were good friends and by the time of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' on the original Playstation, [[KnightInSourArmor he's a jaded, cynical and unwilling soldier.]] When you see all the crap he goes through in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' it's nearly impossible not to shed tears.

* ''VideoGame/{{Kindergarten}}'':

* Daniel from ''VideoGame/AmnesiaTheDarkDescent''. Even in a survival horror video game can find a Woobie as protagonist, not only because the poor young man was bullied physically for a school bully and for his own father as a child, it also has a number of physical and psychological damage suffered while trying to find Alexander in a castle filled with monstrous creatures. Even, he immediately realizes what a monster he is and it tears him up inside.

* In ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'', it's only the power of love that stops Kalas from becoming a WoobieDestroyerofWorlds. Murdered little brother and grandfather. Also Lyude, especially at the Phantom Goldoba, where all his past insecurities come back to break him down HARD. And then, to an extent, there's Xelha. [[spoiler: She carries the ocean inside her, so when the group finally saves the world, she has to release that ocean back into the world. As in, she must sacrifice herself. She gets better, but still...that must be a huge burden for a 17-year-old young woman.]]

* ''VideoGame/TheCaligulaEffect'': [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds Thorn]], leader of the Ostinato Musicians plan on destroying all of humanity as revenge for the suicide of Ichika Saotome. Traumatized for the experience and knowing that Ichika preferred their friend Shogo Sake, Thorn tries to ensure a happy life for the inhabitants of Mobius, wanting them to die living their ideal life. Unable to left the past, Thorn kills herself after being defeated. A person able to empathize with the misfortune of her fellow Musicians, Thorn was consumed for grief that lead to her death.

* Alistair from ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins''. [[spoiler: Especially if you're a female PC and is in a relationship with Alistair, and you choose to not take up Morrigan's offer and sacrifice yourself. That eulogy is just.... "You will be missed. More than I can possibly say."]]

-->"In case you haven't caught on yet, [[DysfunctionJunction everyone]] [[CrapsackWorld here]] seems to be some mix of the FetishFuelStationAttendent and TheWoobie"

** While one would not think him so, Ben Finn from the third game definitely gets a Woobie-esque moment where you all just want to give him a big hug. This moment? [[spoiler: After you're done with the masquerade party, you have to go meet Ben at the castle, because your brother has an announcement/demonstration (which in ''VideoGame/FableIII'', is short for "Public execution, come and watch. we've got popcorn!" Once you meet up with him, you find that the person being executed is none other than Major Swift, Ben's friend, mentor, and the man who probably saved him from a life of crime. Just before Major Swift is shot, it cuts away to Ben, who's expression as the gun is fired is absolutely heart-shattering. If you did not want to give him the worlds biggest hug, you are NOT. HUMAN.]]

*** F.3.A.R shows Beckett as being quite insane. As in, "DON'T TOUCH HER! I'LL RIP OUT YOUR GUTS AND WEAR THEM AS A HAIR-NET IF YOU DO!" insane. Poor guy. Then it gets amplified even further when the Point Man and Fettel reach him, as Fettel [[spoiler:takes control of Beckett to rip his memories out of his body, a process which causes Beckett immense physical agony and eventually causes his whole body to explode]]. Fettel's commentary while this is happening doesn't help, as he notes that "This man is an empty shell" and "All he wants is to forget."

* Hephaestus in ''Videogame/GodOfWarIII''. Created Pandora, an ArtificialHuman, to serve as the key to opening Pandora's Box, and get roundly mocked by his fellow gods when he comes to love her as a father would love his daughter. When Kratos opens the box for the first time, Zeus punishes Hephaestus by cursing him with an ugly form, and sealing him away in a tiny cave in the underworld. The cave includes a portal so that his wife, [[UglyGuyHotWife Aphrodite]], can visit him at any time, but she prefers cheating on him and 'entertaining' herself with slave girls to his company. When he learns that Kratos intends to sacrifice Pandora so that the box can be opened a second time, he tries to use a UriahGambit to save his daughter's life, which backfires horribly when Kratos kills him by impaling him on his own anvil. His final words are a desperate, sorrowful plea for Kratos to spare the life of his daughter.

* While ''Videogame/GranblueFantasy'' has many potential examples, one of the earlier and more prominent ones has to be [[CuteGhostGirl Ferry]], who was "blessed" with [[CompleteImmortality immortality]]. Only that she never wanted this. This [[ShyBlueHairedGirl shy]] and [[BookWorm withdrawn]] girl wanted nothing more than to spend her life with her parents and her younger sister on the misty little island that was her home. But fate was not kind to this young [[LittleBitBeastly Erune]] girl. Ferry lost her parents to an epidemic and died soon afterwards, only to become an immortal spirit. She then spent the next +100 years lonely in her family's mansion (as she blamed herself for having inadvertently summoned the being that "stole away" death from all living things on the island, shrouded it in mist and kept its inhabitants from ever leaving), even forgetting her own name and eventually giving up all hope that things would ever change for the better. Even when the heroes defeat the being that stole death, Ferry is the ONLY inhabitant of the island who remains, [[FriendlyZombie everyone else]] crumbling to dust. Ferry then makes it her mission to find her precious younger sister who had left the island more than a century ago. Hoping for a "miraculous reunion", she sets out on an adventure with the party. [[spoiler: As could be reasonably expected, she eventually learns of her sister's death.]] In her fate episodes and many lines of dialogue, she often brings up the topic of her dead parents and missing her sister, as well as her memories of celebrating birthdays or Christmas with them, showing that despite the very long time that has passed, she never truly gets over them. And let's not forget how her younger sister must have felt either, who was probably around 11 to 12 years old when she left the island. Imagine being far away from home, where all your friends and family live - and then hearing that you'll never see them again, because your home just ''vanished''.

** The two girls that you didn't marry in AWL both get the woobiness cranked up even further. Celia gets forced into an ArrangedMarriage she didn't want and becomes a bitter man-hater, trying desperately to smile and failing. Muffy spends the rest of her life as a single waitress, and you can find her crying on the beach at night over losing her chance at having a family, the one thing she wanted most in life. Nami runs out of money and has to go back to live with her parents, and when she comes back later she spends all her time [[DrowningMySorrows Drowning Her Sorrows]] at the bar. AWL is, without a doubt, the [[DarkerAndEdgier darkest]] ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' game to date.

* ''[[VideoGame/DonkeyKong Donkey Kong 3]]'': Stanley the Bugman is incredibly pitiable from both a gameplay perspective ''and'' a meta perspective. From a gameplay perspective, whereas Mario had a known history with Donkey Kong before the events of the first two games, Stanley is merely an InnocentBystander-turned-protagonist who just wanted to keep his greenhouse free from pestilence before Donkey Kong came in and caused a raucous for [[ForTheEvulz no good reason]]. Stanley is shown to constantly be [[NervousWreck on edge]], losing his cool whenever something goes wrong, and when he loses a life, the bugs swarming his greenhouse ''[[CruelAndUnusualDeath devour him alive]]''. From a meta perspective, ''Donkey Kong 3'' is Stanley's only major appearance, meaning he got [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome Chuck Cunninghamed]] and never got the opportunity to show off his mettle again.

** Tails usually qualifies in most continuities. He's always depicted as [[CheerfulChild cheerful]], but not without implications that he's so cheerful because of how much better his life is. In general, Tails is both an orphan and was bullied. To what extent depends on the continuity, but his rarely-mentioned backstory in the games takes the cake and makes you want to hug the poor little fox.

* ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters'': Nameless has had it rough. He went through [[TrainingFromHell brutal training]] due to NESTS that nearly ended with him dead no less than 180 times, found out that his girlfriend [[TheLostLenore Isolde]] had her remains implanted into his PowerLimiter, and he basically ends up as NESTS' attack dog, still following them in vain hope of Isolde's resurrection. ''VideoGame/KOFAllStars'' makes it worse, as there he gets told upfront by his boss Igniz that Isolde is dead and he was seen as little more than a tool [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness to be disposed of]]. The final kick in the teeth? [[spoiler:His HeroicSacrifice ends with him sending his allies to safety before succumbing to his injuries... [[DyingAlone alone]]]].

* Despite [[EldritchAbomination what he is]], [[VideoGame/EarthBound Giygas]] as shown in ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'' had to fight Ninten, who in different circumstances, he would probably consider a son. He was raised by two abducted humans, George and Maria, who are also Ninten's great grandparents. George stole information about his species' PSI powers and escaped back to Earth without Maria. Giygas was tasked with stopping PSI powers spreading on Earth as they could be used against his people. He is forced to betray the people who raised him, and at the end of the game offers Ninten the chance to come back with him, but of course Ninten refuses and so Giygas is forced to attack him. How do you defeat him? By playing the lullaby Maria, who he was very close to, used to sing to him, driving him insane with guilt and loss for Maria. Ultimately, he went insane from thinking about the family he used to have and the desire to get his revenge on Earth, coupled with his massive power and became the Giygas we know from ''VideoGame/EarthBound''.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':

** ...And when the SurpriseCreepy happens, [[BreakTheCutie they all get it even worse]], and [[OnlySaneWoman Monika]] also joins the Woobie club, in her case via [[spoiler: AlasPoorVillain]]. Even the PlayerCharacter could count, considering what kind of things he has to watch happen with no possibility of stopping them, but blaming himself anyway at one of the most horrible points.

* You've gotta feel sorry for VideoGame/MegaManX. Not only is he the progenitor of all Reploids (and therefore Mavericks), he's also the one best equipped to hunt them down and kill them, and thus feels duty-bound to do so even though he hates violence. Fate hasn't been kind to Zero either, but he's a {{Jerkass}}, so it's not so bad.
** Zero is a [[JerkassWoobie jerk because of the things that made him a Woobie in the first place]]. Come on, [[spoiler:having your love interest fight you out of revenge (and having to kill her in the end)]], and [[spoiler:fighting in over 200 years for a peaceful world (arguably longer than X, though he spent half that in stasis), and when that peace actually comes, Zero couldn't even see it, seeing as ''he's dead''..]].
** Zero is the originator of the maverick virus. The existence of X and Zero allowed the continuation of Wily and Light's feud for centuries. If they'd never have existed, Wily's evil would have died with him. Light, Wily, X and Zero are the four most important individuals in the world, and all but Wily feel responsible.
** And as it's been mentioned X feels duty-bound to do what he's doing. Until he used his body to reinforce the Dark Elf seal and Copy X was made, Neo-Arcadia was a place of Peace for Reploids and Humans to live together, and he ruled it. For all those years he was able to stop forcing himself to be a TechnicalPacifist and ruled as a peaceful leader. People complain that he was Emo in ''VideoGame/MegaManX7'', but that is the end result of an ActualPacifist forcing themselves to be a TechnicalPacifist.
** And when Zero sealed himself it's implied that he did not let himself have a break, that he would not let himself retired like he did in X7, and it hit him hard, to the point he started to adopt part of Zero's own [[{{Jerkass}} jerkass front]] and BloodKnight tendency, no longer caring about the enemies he fought. To see X, the one of two Mega Man that had a mental Age high enough to understand what peace truly was and what was needed to achieve it, go so against his belief is just...lip quivering inducing.
** Although she wasn't hit as harder as X or Zero above, Ciel would also qualify. In two separate occasions, she ''thought'' that she was doing the right thing, but it only ended up giving rise to worse problems. The first one would be for creating Copy-X, and we all know how ''that'' turned out. The second time was successfully researching an energy source that she believes would put an end to the war, only for it to be a catalyst to a new conflict. Mind you, this is a person who longs for peace as much as X, and she is ''very'' young at the series' start, and also human. And, then there's the fact that, at series' end, [[spoiler:she is [[IWillWaitForYou waiting faithfully for Zero to come back]], when it was [[TearJerker completely impossible]]]].
** And then there's Elpizo. Lets see, sentenced to assassination for ''accidentally'' stumbling on some secret files? Check. forced to flee for his life from the city he grew up in? Check. Being appointed leader of the Resistance, but lacking the willpower and patience needed to effectively run it? Check. Getting more then half the Resistance slaughtered in a disastrous attack on the local fascist government and being wracked with guilt over the debacle? Oh god, double check. Is it any wonder he [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds snapped]]?

* Butters' woobieness is actually used as a game mechanic in ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheStickOfTruth'' as enemies are far more likely to target him than your player character: his innate ability is known as "born victim" and describes him as "so innocent he naturally makes people want to punch him. Enemies are twice as likely to attack him in combat" (complete with a picture of his head with a bulls-eye on it for an icon). As this was meant to be the trade-off for his otherwise above-average abilities but is [[FakeBalance actually unintentionally useful]], it ironically makes Butters an absolute DiscOneNuke bordering on GameBreaker.