Tear Jerker / Guardians of the Galaxy (2021)

• Peter and Rocket's falling out in the first part of the game, which results in Rocket and Groot leaving the team, before they are put back together to handle the Church of Truth problem. What is even sadder is that Rocket began the story admitting that Quill was the only person besides Groot that he even liked.
• Encountering Drax staring into the Rift during your first visit to Knowhere may be the first time players (especially if they haven't seen the films or read the comics) really see what a Heartbroken Badass Drax is. He and Quill commiserate for a while about how Drax's family and Quill's mother were both slaughtered not only mercilessly, but completely pointlessly by killers who didn't spare them a second thought. This is bad enough, but Drax then explains, with his usual matter-of-fact bluntness, that his culture's version of heaven is for those who have led lives filled with purpose, so the utterly meaningless deaths have denied both of their families paradise. This can prompt Quill to sad-angrily exclaim that his mother was a good person who deserves heaven. Drax's response to this is simply to ask to be left alone, clearly saddened further that his friend couldn't understand.
• In the second and third flashbacks to the day Peter’s mother was killed, you can find Kubrick, the Quill family’s dog. If you interact with him, Peter tells him that no matter how long he waits, Peter’s grandparents aren’t coming home.
  • This adds another layer to Peter's tragedy as well. He was likely still mourning his grandparents passing when his mother was killed and his life changed forever.
• Breaking free of The Promise requires destroying your Promise. For Peter and Drax, this means killing their lost family members themselves. Peter tearfully shoots at his mother as she tries to hug him. In Drax' case there's the double whammy that in his culture, people who die for no cause don't go to the after life, so he's doing that them again. There's also the implication that Gamora had to kill her sister Nebula a second time.
  • For Drax, he has to put himself in parallel with Thanos again. Yes, he's only killing an illusion of his family, but the thought is likely unsettling for him, especially after he'd willingly accepted his punishment for his rampage previously.
• Grand Unifier Raker's motivation for his actions and the reason behind his zealous and delusional mindset; he was once an accomplished scientist, but he lost his only son during the Galactic War. When Adam Warlock refused to aid him in bringing his son back (though more because he couldn't resurrect the dead, which he told him clearly but Raker wouldn't listen) the Magus fed into his grief and manipulated him, turning him from a rational scientist into a religious fanatic. His entire purpose for building the church and manipulating Nikki into becoming the Matriarch was built under the delusion that he could somehow save the others from their torment and a genuine desire to be reunited with his son.
• Peter having to shoot his mother to get out of his Promise. If you try to just walk away, he’ll be trapped, so he has no choice but to do what is probably the most difficult thing he’s ever done, and right after he just got to live the fantasy of saving her from the Chitauri.
• Gamora's breakdown in front of the Guardians where she admits to killing Nebula. Extra heartbreaking when you notice her voice is breaking, tears are coming down her face and her eyes are welling.
• The moments before Rocket finally overcomes his fear of water to save the team. When told he has to enter a hole that's behind a waterfall, he adamantly refuses in his usual manner. But as the endless fight goes on, with Groot and Gamora soon being incapacitated, his refusals turn into screamed apologies about how he just can't do it. It makes it all the more incredible when he finally manages to do it, but until then we see Rocket like we haven't seen him before: panicking and, from the tone of his voice, on the verge of a breakdown.
• After numerous things continuously go horribly wrong for the Guardians, the whole group begins arguing, until Peter has enough and yells at them to stop. This ends up alienating the group - Rocket storms off to do repairs, Gamora becomes completely frosty, Drax is already out of it due to the Promise, and even Groot looks disappointed in Peter - who also shuts him down with a "Just don't" when Groot tries to speak. The whole group is completely fractured, and Peter has no idea on what he can do to fix it. All he can do is go to sleep, lost and angry.
• What's Cosmo's promise? The same as Quill's, being back on Earth with his family, because just like him he was taken away from his home and thrown into outer space. What's makes it worse, is the Soviet's actually did this.
• When Peter re-enters Nikki's Promise, he momentarily forgets that Ko-Rel is dead. When her ghost's hand passes through his, his voice simply stops working for a second.
  Peter: "No. No, you brought me here, I'm seeing you here no—" ...
  Ko-Rel: "You're seeing a ghost. Some part of me is still inside the Soul Stone...but not in any way that's real."
  • Nikki is not Ko-Rel and Peter's biological child; rather, she’s a war orphan whom Ko-Rel saved from the Kree purity council's post-war purge.
    Ko-Rel: "Nikki was this...tiny little thing. ...I couldn't let them kill her."
  • Peter has to ruin the illusory birthday party in front of Nikki, who starts yelling in horror and denial, yelling at Peter to stop. Once he finishes, Nikki screams, "I hate you! You're not my dad!" She is more right about that than she knows, but it might still sting for any player who has had their children get upset with them.
• Rocket's backstory. After enduring painful torture by Kree Scientists on Half World that left him with a crippling fear of water, he finally decides to escape by rigging one of the control units to explode. Alongside his (girl)friend Lyla, he ran through the science complex, evading security drones. When he finally reached the door and hacked it open, Lyla pushed him through it, sacrificing herself to save him.

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