Tear Jerker / Assassin's Creed Rogue

• Almost every time Shay kills one of his old comrades, it's a very depressing experience.
  • During the final chase against Liam, he reveals that he'd found Hope Jensen's body and he demands to know whether Shay had been the one to do her in, and Shay's answer is an anguished-seeming "I'm sorry!" Not hard to believe that by this point he meant it.
  • What's even better? You steadily kill more and more sympathetic people...The first kill is a guy you barely know, the second is a jerkass...then you get a beloved NPC, and then more and more people...
• Lawrence Washington's death is set up to be one of these but he ruins it by being Defiant to the End.
• Early in the game, both Shay and Liam spoke proudly of Achilles' son, Connor Davenport (and Ratonhnhaké:ton's namesake) and how he will one day inherits his father's land. Sadly, both Connor and his mother died of Typhoid Fever. While their deaths greatly sadden Achilles (to the point Shay saw him crying), it also made him so focused on his mission to find the Precursor Temples faster, setting up the conflict between Shay and the Assassins.
• For players who come freshly from Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, there is a chance for this upon entering their first tavern cause one of the songs that might be played inside is "The Parting Glass".
• James Wardrop's death is lacking the usual dignity of an Assassination. He's terrified of what the Assassins will do with the box. With good reason. He also is afraid of what's going to happen to the colonies since he thinks the Templars are the only people looking out for their best interests.
• Near the end Achilles admits that he was wrong^note and his warding Liam away at the Precursor site is informed by Achilles' newfound knowledge, which means that all your actions were basically for nothing if he'd just done that earlier.
• At the end of Sequence 2, seemingly every single man, woman, and child in the Homestead turns around to kill you. As an Assassin village, the order of Achilles to kill you was akin to a commandment of God himself, and not a single person hesitated to turn on Shay.
  • Even worse, when's the last time we saw something like this? All the way back in Assassin's Creed, even if back then Al-Mualim had an Apple of Eden.
  • When you're forced to infiltrate Davenport Manor, it's the first time that the place doesn't feel warm and comforting.
• The Lisbon Earthquake is shown in horrifying, tragic detail, and it's made all the worse because you know that you're the one who caused it.
• "Please don't make me kill Adéwalé. Please don't make me kill Adéwalé."
  • The worst part? Adé's death isn't in a cutscene. You, the player, are in complete control of Shay as he approaches Adéwale, and kills him.
  • Not to mention, Shay's accomplice in his assasination, Edward's own son.
• The biggest one? THE ENTIRE GAME could have been averted if either Achilles or Shay had been less pig-headed. If Shay hadn't immediately stolen the manuscript, or Achilles had just LISTENED...(Or, for that matter, done more then just ignore Shay...even "Hope, Liam...guard him and talk to him")...none of this would have happened.
• The Fallen Hero vibe at the end of the game when Shay tells a dying Charles Dorian that the Templars will engineer their own revolution. Shay was driven to join the Templars because his work as an Assassin caused him to unwittingly cause the deaths of thousands in the Lisbon earthquake, but twenty years of membership in the Templar Order have now corrupted him so thoroughly that he's ready, willing, and able to help kickstart the Reign of Terror just so the Templars can undo some of the damage Connor did to them in III. For someone who once questioned the point of the unending conflict between Assassin and Templar, seeing Shay fall to such a degree is indeed depressing. He's now perfectly content to perpetuate the cycle instead of seeking to end it.
• Hope has the opportunity to kill Shay outright - he crashes into her lair and is dazed, she removes the bandana he uses as a face mask to breathe through poisoned air, and then unleashes enough poison that will kill him if he doesn't keep moving... But she doesn't just outright kill him like she easily could - she just as easily could have stabbed him in the heart with her Hidden Blade as taken his bandana. It comes across as her not being able to bring herself to kill him directly, either out of friendly affection, or even some element of attraction neither had quite been able to act on prior to Shay's defection.