The moment that inspired this question:
A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.
The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.
One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”
I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.
… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.
I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.
The game OneShot was one of the few to ever have me emotionally invested to the point of tearing up. An excellent aspect of that game is having you the player be a character in the story in a organic way that makes sense plot wise. you converse with the character you are controlling, essentially a lost child that wakes up in a nearly dead world and wants to go home. You directly communicate, console, and encourage them. and it made me so much more invested. The original ending made you pick a very tough choice that leaves you emotionally deviststed, its dlc solstice finally gave a true definitive ending.
Everhood also gave me some emotions. Death is a very hard thing to contemplate and deal with, for me anyways. It helped make me a little more comfortable the nature of death and why its such an important aspect of existence. The game turns from fun cute psychadelic rythm game to heavy existential mercy killing of immortal beings who have gone fucking nuts and mentally decayed after trapping themselves in a legitimate eternity of immortality, and then their reality. The music is kick ass and the gameplay turns the old rhythm formula on its head.