Heartwarming / Outside Xbox

Show of the Week(end)

• In "Dishonored Death of the Outsider and Ellen's Superpowered Void Arm", after Ellen goes on a promotional jaunt to LEGO-land Denmark and visits the LEGO factory, because Luke was unable to go she reveals that she's bought him a dinosaur LEGO set for his birthday.
• "Showdown of the Week" has a Friendship phase styled like The Newlywed Game: Luke was asked a question and Ellen has to guess what his answer was to: "What is Ellen's best quality?" Ellen guesses it was her laughter, because he mentioned it's so frequent that it makes him look funnier than he is. While this is true, he also said it was because her laughter is the best way to describe her joyful nature, and the world should emulate it.
• In "Mario Tennis Aces and Luke's Tabletop Tennis Tournament," Luke mentions that he often Forgets to Eat when he gets busy working in the studio, and that Ellen makes sure to bring him food.
• During the second Showdown of the Week, someone in the audience winces, at which point Mike reassures them it's mostly in good fun. He proves this after commiserating both Luke and Ellen with a hug once Team Xbox win.
  • When Mike gets a bit carried away with the taunting, Jane reminds him not to be cruel, and Mike actually listens.

Let's Plays

• Outside Xtra's let's play of Link's Awakening with Producer Jon is full of this. With one commenter claiming (correctly) that it feels like a Dad showing off his favorite game to his two kids.
• In one episode of their Red Dead Redemption play-through, Andy is getting a bit disheartened about the Stranger missions he's playing through because in each of them, his every attempt to do the right thing always seems to backfire on John. In one, his attempt to help a pregnant woman abandoned by the father of the baby results in John killing the father in a duel only to later learn from the man's widow that the woman was probably lying to manipulate him, and in another he warns a prohibitionist preacher of a forthcoming assassination attempt only to be informed that he'll now have to pay extra for drinks across the whole frontier. Just when it seems like John can never do the right thing without being punished for it somehow, a random encounter spawns where a man approaches John, thanks him for helping out a friend, and gives him some money as a gift.
• In the Doomsday Heist part 2 in Grand Theft Auto V Online, Andy runs into a griefer dressed as the Joker who kills him repeatedly, messes up the heist by killing the mechanic in the spray shop, as well as stealing the car required to complete the heist and driving it into the sea. When hearing about this, Mike offers to spend $750,000 of his character's own money to fire up an Orbital Laser to wreak vengeance against the griefer. Sadly, the Joker cosplayer logged off the server before Mike has a chance to obliterate him - so Mike instead bombards the next player to kill Andy, who happened to be a second griefer who had repeatedly strafed Jane and Andy with a fighter jet when they were trying to do the heist. In this same video, Oxbox runs into an old Heist intern Nerascus, whom they remember with great fondness. Despite having had an incredibly frustrating past few hours trying to obtain four vehicles while being shot at by rival heist crews, Mike immediately declares "Best Day Ever!"

Other

• In livestreams, there are usually quite a few commenters thanking the OX crew for helping them through difficult times such as stress at school/college/university, illnesses and injuries, the death of a loved one, and so on.
  • In general, the crew always seem really genuine, friendly and enthusiastic about dealing with their fan base. In turn, in a social media environment which is no stranger to stereotypically possessing toxic and obnoxious commenters, their videos frequently seem to have a high amount of positive and constructive comments.
• The group hug at the end of the "8 Achievements That Took Serious Planning: Commenter Edition" video. It's Played for Laughs, but still very sweet.
• When Ellen was off sick for quite a large chunk of 2019, the Outside Xbox team stepped in to help Luke cover the channel without hesitation. In a follow-up vlog Ellen thanked the team for helping Luke and for not losing their temper with her for being sick with pneumonia for so long.
  • The comments section when Ellen returned was similarly heartwarming.
• During the end of November 2019, the team released a song with the proceeds going to a mental health charity. Not only was their livestream full of people praising the Oxventurers for bringing awareness to the charity, but many discussed how the team's friendly, positive attitudes helped them feel less alone in the world, and eventually overcome their own mental problems. In an Awesome moment as well, the team met their goal in under half an hour, and their song charted in the Top Twenty for downloads on iTunes.
• During a livestream in June 2019, Producer Jon took apart Ellen's old Game Boy and modded it for her as a gift after noticing his Mr Fix It tendencies.
• In "Ellen's Souls Academy", an invader named Charlotte shows up in the Duke's Archives to give some unexpected help, moving a staircase for Ellen and leaving multiple gifts. Both Ellen and Luke are very appreciative, and Ellen wears the witch hat Charlotte gave her for the rest of the stream.
• During an Among Us stream Luke and Eurogamers Ian Higton decided, after being killed off early twice, that they would team up as “Space Buddies”, agreeing no matter what happened if they were imposters or crewmates they would stick together and if one of them were the imposter and had to kill the other, that would be okay. They then spent two rounds where they were both crewmates adorably going round together watching out for each other and being alive at the end of the game.
  • In a later round, which also doubles as being hilariously funny, when Ian was the imposter he killed Andy in front of Luke (choosing not to kill Luke). Feeling conflicted Luke reported the murder to the group but did not at any moment mention the fact he saw Ian kill Andy refusing to turn on his buddy but instead covering for him. Even when the group (especially Eurogamer’s Aoife Wilson) started grilling Luke incorrectly suspecting he might be an imposter he still didn’t turn on his Space Buddy.
  • Unfortunately, when Aoife and Luke were standing too close to each other in the next phase of the game Ian accidently killed Luke when he meant to kill Aoife. Ian’s face after realising he killed his Space Buddy showed the guilt he felt and Luke’s face seemed to show acceptance almost straight away that it was an accident and wasn’t angry with Ian. Despite the betrayal and everyone working out Ian was the imposter pretty quickly in the discussion that followed, Luke hid his face during the discussion phase because he didn’t want his face to bias anyone’s decision on Ian and then after Ian was unsurprisingly voted out, Luke offered to become “Ghost Buddies” which Ian accepted and they still followed each other round. After the game ended Luke and Ian confessed to the group their side of the story and they both confirmed they were never planning to turn on each other.
• Also during Among Us streams, other players such as Luke, Jane and Eurogamer’s Aoife Wilson have on numerous occasions trusted Ellen to also be a crewmate despite having no real reason to believe so, they seem to just use their instinct and gut feeling that Ellen is a good person.

For moments from the Oxventures, see Heartwarming.Oxventure