As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Main Game
- When you visit Mary Kelley's mansion, you'll find a bunker where her slaves are kept. It's not just the conditions they're being kept in but the fact the older slaves are trying to convince the new ones that it's better to give up now because resistance will only get them killed.
- When exploring the Buckingham Royal Mews, the logs you find detail the story of Moira Ashcroft, a combat engineer with Albion who grew up on a farm, and naturally came to love the Royal Horses stabled at her post, and asked to be put in charge of the stables because of how appalled she was at how her colleagues were neglecting them. Her supervisor happens to agree with the idea and lets her look after the animals, but later, she finds out that Albion, as a cost-cutting measure, wants to get rid of about fifteen horses. Moira protests at the thought of euthanizing them, and comes up with a scheme where her parents would take care of them. Unfortunately, they've fallen on hard times and can only take three. The last entry reveals that Moira was put on indefinite medical leave after having a crippling panic attack, with the implication that she had to put down her beloved horses.
- Meanwhile, at Buckingham Palace itself, you can find two text files, one an excerpt of a news report, and the other written by a member of the aristocracy, Thomas George Clement III. In the first, it's implied that the Queen may have been assassinated by Albion, and in the second, Thomas laments the fact that though the oppressed people of London are looking to their rulers for guidance, even they have been forced into silence by Albion's oppressive rule.Thomas George Clement III: The United Kingdom burns, but I am old enough to remember other times barbarians have rattled the gates. In those times, you would step forward with a kind, firm voice and remind us of who we were, and what we could overcome when we pooled our strength. You were a beacon on the shore to ships lost in the night. And this is our darkest night in many, many years.I fear the customary sign-off may be interpreted as cruel, given the aforementioned tabloid reports. So I will modify it to underline my appeal.
- If the first text file's true, then this makes it all the more awesome and heartwarming to avenge the Queen by raining absolute hell down on the city's oppressors after recruiting Buckingham Palace's Royal Guards as operatives.
- Crosses over with Heartwarming: if you've recently lost one of your operatives to Permadeath in the main game, switching to Aiden may show him paying his respects at their grave.
- What Skye Larsen did to her mother Sinead and her brother Bradley is heartbreaking.
- Sinead was subjected to brutal mental torture after her mind was uploaded that left her a broken mess, just barely able to convey to you that she wants you to put her out of her misery. At one point you are shown video footage recorded by Skye that shows the neural deletion process in brief, but no less horrifying snapshots. On the first day Sinead is confused and begs Skye to let her die in peace, and as the days progress she is reduced to a crying wreck until finally being turned into a subservient house assistant, with the implication that Skye chose Sinead as a test subject out of spite because she believed her mother never appreciated her work. Even Bagley is appalled.
- Bradley received an experimental neural mapping procedure in order to cure his epilepsy, and it's implied that it caused him to develop early-onset dementia that eventually left him wheelchair-bound and unable to speak. Bagley was created from Bradley's neural patterns and sold to Blume after Skye erased his memories, with Bradley being made an Unperson in his databanks to keep Bagley from learning about him. Bagley doesn't start to remember any of this until the end of the main story campaign.
- In the garage of Skye's lab, you can also find her childhood dog Ada, whose brain has been uploaded into a spider drone, locked in a horribly small terrarium after Skye clearly grew bored with her. The drone is scratching at the side of the tank while whining in a way that will break the heart of any dog lover. You can then choose to put the poor thing out of its misery by pulling its plug. Bagley even comforts Ada as she dies:Bagley: There, there. Good girl.
- What happens to Sinead and Ada is made even sadder if you consider the fact that Bagley essentially watched his mother and potentially his childhood pet die, but didn't remember who they were or what they meant to him until later.
- If you take too long to shoot down a drone while Bagley is connecting to the FILAMENT servers, he names the drone Ada. It becomes a tearjerker when you remember that was the name of Bradley and Skye’s childhood dog mentioned above; Bagley using the name probably isn’t a coincidence, especially when it’s revealed later that he still has some of Bradley’s memories buried in his OS.
- The Guardian Protocol missions reveals that a A.I. named Albert's trying to trick you into freeing him so he can go on a killing spree. He succeeds and you destroy him. If you've completed Skye Larson's mission, it's easy to deduce that he was yet another one of her Brain Upload victims, and indeed, one of the four bodies in the basement was originally his.
- The "Finding Bagley" side mission is equal parts this and Heartwarming. For most of the mission, Bagley refers to Bradley like they are the same person, but he lacks the same emotional connection to the people in Bradley's memories, and doesn't recover more memories from the fragments the player is able to find for him. By the end, he has accepted that he and Bradley are different people, with their own distinct identities. In the hospital, the catatonic Bradley's able to register Bagley talking to him and smiles.Bagley: You lived a life that I never could. You are a good person, and I am someone else. (beat) This has been an illuminating conversation. Thank you, Bradley. I'm glad I finally met you.
- You may realize, as you are recruiting low-ranking Albion or Clan Kelley members, that a surprising number of them can be as young as 18 years old - only barely reaching adulthood. Then consider how many you may have killed each time you dealt with either factions with lethal force. What makes it worse is that their bios may state that they joined their respective factions out of need, (for Albion) patriotism or (for Clan Kelley) were just indoctrinated at a young age. Fortunately, you may turn some of their lives around by recruiting them into DedSec.
- Bagley's death. He comes back afterwards, having transferred some of his data into a drone before he went offline, but it's hard not to get emotional. Especially heartbreaking are the operatives' various reactions.
- If Wrench is chosen, he begs Bagley to think of another plan before you even start the mission, and gives this solemn goodbye to Bagley once he shuts down:
Wrench: You did great, Bagley. Thank you.- If Aiden is chosen, he tries to comfort Bagley by telling him to just focus on his voice. When Bagley asks if he’ll see him again when he is “old and gray”, Aiden regretfully tells him that he’s already old and gray.
- Darcy from the Season Pass. At the start of her recruitment mission, you learn the Brotherhood was driven out by the Templars, who then promised not to go after them so long as they stayed out of London. Her brother Lucas went back to the city to try and recover stolen artifacts relating to the Brotherhood and to find the Vault. By the time you and Darcy do find him, he dies not long afterwards after having been tortured for an unknown period of time by Graham. To reiterate, Darcy just found her brother long enough to see him die, and prior to that, her last conversations with him were via recordings one left for the other, with Darcy irritated with his stubbornness.
Bloodline
- Aiden's life hasn't been good since leaving Chicago. For the past fifteen years, he has been going around the world continuing his vigilante spree in other cities and hunting down crime lords, warlords, tyrants, etc. This self-destructive lifestyle have taken its toll and Aiden, ruining any chance for him to have a normal life. He has little to no friends he can contact with (barring Jodie), separated from his family, and has to live in his car.
- The discovery Wrench was married and divorced in the meantime. Apparently, it was a real heartbreaker because Wrench has the man's name etched out on his mask.
- Wrench reveals that he joined up with Rempart because he wanted to mature and change the world. Instead, he was taken for a sucker and his work was used to make weapons.
- Aiden's finally reunited with his nephew, Jackson, after 15 years. Unfortunately, their reunion isn't under the best circumstances; when Jackson catches his uncle breaking into his apartment, he's furious about how the other hasn't messaged him in years, showing how strained their relationship has become.
- When you get to play as Jackson and enter a simulation of Aiden's mind when he's in a coma, it shows that even after all this time, he's still haunted by Lena's death and the people he killed to the point he's a Death Seeker.
