Tear Jerker / Transformers: Fall of Cybertron

"Goodbye, old friend."

• For the World Premiere trailer, you can just feel how stricken with grief Optimus is over Bumblebee's injuries. In some ways, it could also count as heartwarming as it shows how much of A Father to His Men Optimus truly is.
• The trailer song, "The Humbling River" by Puscifer, is a song about how the singer must face an unstoppable, unprecedented threat, and pleads for as much help as possible. Only when they all unite can they survive and push on. In the game, Cybertron is in the final stages of shutdown, and it's a huge problem for every faction. Optimus makes several pleas to unite with Megatron so they can save everyone. The song's bleak nature befits just how bad things are for the cast.
• One of Ratchet's audio logs, where he deeply laments the fact his home is dying.
  • Another one, which perfectly encapsulates the entire War Is Hell message:
    Ratchet: Optimus may subsist on sheer determination and will alone. Great leaders draw their power from conviction. Their armies, however, march forward only under the power of Energon. This terrible war will reach its end. Not because all have finally become one. But simply, I fear, because all have become none.
    • It's not unheard of in Transformers lore, either. In Dreamwave's G1 comic series, the entire planet and everyone on it simply ran out of energy, grinding to a halt in mid-battle.
• In another audio log, we learn the fate of Omega Supreme: even though Optimus and Ratchet appeared to save him, the Dark Energon infection was still too much for the big guy and he was put into stasis lock to hopefully save his life.
• In Chapter II, if the player explores the Autobots' base, they'll come across a critically wounded Autobot who is being put into stasis lock to be stored on the Ark. The medic is trying to assure him it's for the best, and it won't even hurt. Meanwhile, the poor trooper is begging the medic, and then Optimus to not do this, and is forced into stasis lock mid-sentence. The implications are that he isn't going to wake up.
• Towards the end of Chapter II, Optimus races to save some Autobot troops from Starscream. He fails, and all he finds are the bloody, mangled corpses remaining behind. Optimus can barely bring himself to even speak and immediately begins lashing himself for his failure.
• Midway through Chapter IV, Cliffjumper explores an ancient and beautiful star map, with the most beautiful theme playing in the background. The map shows all these bright, colorful worlds including Earth, and thanks to the beauty of the room and the soundtrack, the player and Cliffjumper may want to stay there forever. But the moment Cliffjumper leaves this haven, he returns to the horrors of the dying Cybertron. The star map was just about the only point of light in the dark for the game, even it was just as sad and solemn as the rest of the game.
  • It gets worse when one remembers that this game is somewhat in continuity with Transformers: Prime. One day Cliffjumper will get to go to one of those worlds, and he will get to experience its beauty himself. And then Starscream will kill him.
• The way Grimlock sometimes struggles to even speak is a bit upsetting, since his ability to vocalize is no longer fully capable of keeping up with his own thoughts.
• At the end of chapter XII, Grimlock's apparent death after he's trying to escape from the exploding space bridge, followed by Metroplex giving his Energon to allow the Ark to get off Cybertron.
  • Way up to eleven for Metroplex, especially with the calm, matter of fact way he says it and insisting that it's his choice. And with him falling to his knees, watching as the Ark lifts off only to quietly say "Till all are one." as his eyes go dark.
• In the act where you play for a bit as a Decepticon mook, it becomes this when Starscream first kills their described best friend- something which makes them obviously distraught- and then them after making them beg. Also doubles as one in another way too, as it serves as a reminder that these mooks who are often mowed down indiscriminately are not just generic drones.
• In a way, Starscream gets one just from one of his picking-up-ammo sound bites: "Someone must have left this for me!" Even after being abandoned and deposed, with his few loyal followers slaughtered, Starscream is so deluded that he thinks he has silent support within the Decepticon army. One can imagine how desperately he clings to his delusions, and what might happen if he was forced to let go...
• While the credits become hilarious during the second half, the first half contains a somber remix of The Touch which further drives the darkness of the game, especially with the ending leaving so many things hanging in the air with the survival of the cast.
• Trypticon of all characters gets one of these moments, especially considering what both the Autobots and Decepticons do to the poor guy:
  • On the Decepticons' side of things, Megatron has him forcibly and permanently transformed into the Nemesis starship to atone for his failure to defeat the Autobots. Meanwhile, the Autobots removed his limbs and began leeching off of whatever Energon Trypticon has left within. It's made even worse when Megatron notes that the Autobots didn't remove his power core, meaning that while they're siphoning him of his Energon, Trypticon was kept alive while he's slowly being bled dry the whole time.
    • It's also clear that none of the Autobots are happy with the fact that they have to resort to such actions. In two audio logs, Ratchet expresses his unease over the situation, questioning the ethics over such decisions:
      Ratchet: Though it might be true we have no choice, I am still uneasy about treating a sentient, even one as savage as Trypticon, as a repository for Energon. Trypticon of course took the life of many Autobots. Perhaps it is only fitting he now gives life to so many in return.
      [...]
      Ratchet: Has Optimus witnessed, first hand, the sight of Trypticon disassembled, pulled from limb to limb? His still-living carcass slowly bled dry by our leeching tubes? Does war give us the right to live like parasites off our fallen enemies? I am hopeful that those wiser than me see issues such as this more clearly than I.
    • Even Megatron is stunned and impressed by the fact Optimus supposedly gave the greenlight to do this:
      Megatron: A bold move. I didn't think Optimus had it in him.