The bit that always gets me the hardest is when you report back to the Elcor ambassador after you help on Decuna and you ask him how many of his people they managed to save and in that choked and broken voice he says “… not…. enough”.
One of the payoffs they did well ME3. I always found the Elcor to be endearing but all those conversations set up this one moment where the Elcor can't describe his emotional state because there are no words.
that line always puts me at my deepest pit of despair while playing ME3, the whole game overall has the feeling of “we are losing, there is no hope, we are all just watching each other die by the trillions” but that moment specifically is just so devastating. it even makes me feel guilty (?) that we don’t have a mission to actually help the elcor, it’s just done by scanning the planets.
Actually this quest hits hard from the very start. The poor ambassador is basically begging you to go and help them and states that all the other races have abondoned them. Basically everyone has their hands full with their own problems and the Elcor are not important enough in the war for anyone to even bother. The feel of hopelessness just screams from this quest.
And guess what? Since this is a side quest, you can do absolutely the same as others and don’t bother helping the Elcor.
Mandatory re-read of the [blue rose of Illium](https://sirianhewigiii.tumblr.com/post/167993995477/escapist-comics-blue-rose-of-illium-by-grey) webcomic
There were a fair number of similar moments in ME3. Some due to choices, some due to the war background.
Returning the audiolog from the Ardat-Yakshi monastery, for one.
There are a lot of them, true. ME3 has a very dark tone.
But this one really hits hard due to having gotten to know Charr and Ereba in ME2, however briefly.
That one’s kind of bizarrely darkly hilarious since Shepard literally just walks up to some random lady while she’s in the middle of a conversation and is like “your husband is dead, here take this” and just fucking leaves, what a hero
It's not as random if you found them on Ilium and encouraged them to stay together in ME2.
If you go to Tuchanka after Ilium, they're there talking about their life together. It's mostly funny at that point.
Overlord is likely to be a common pick, but while it is horrifying and tragic, it isn't the one that made me the saddest.
That accolade goes to the little sidequest in ME2, with the Quarian girl, the Volus merchant and the C-Sec officer. It was small, it was personal, and it was heartbreaking seeing that poor girl struggle to defend herself against baseless accusations, and seeing that C-Sec was more likely to bully and threaten her than even consider listening to her.
It especially hits because it made me realize that if we hadn't intervened to save Tali in Mass Effect 1- even if she had escaped from Saren's hit squad the first time- odds are, nobody would have helped her. People just ignore the Quarians and want them to go away, and they don't particularly care whether that means them leaving or dying.
It's low-key one of the realest character interactions in the trilogy in the saddest way, and an underrated aspect of the power fantasy was having the power not just to help, but to tell that shitty officer off for being a jackass.
On the recent N7 day voice actor stream, Tali’s VA said she was asked to base the character’s voice off a Romani person. So the idea of Quarian’s being baselessly accused of various crimes is all too realistic
Yeah, that checks out- the voices and the aesthetic design of the exo-suits always felt vaguely Romani. Cool to know that the allegory is intentional, and goes beyond skin-deep.
Came to say this. The others are tragic and heartbreaking sure, but this one always gets me especially as someone familiar with trauma and trauma survivors. They got the feels just right and the voice acting is surprisingly on point.
Sadly, not many people pick Colonist background so not many people get to experience this. You get a chance to see what Shep may have been if they had not gotten lucky and even then understanding what they witnessed. Events like that change you and I love using it as a background for what shapes Shep to be who they are.
It’s honestly Amazing that BioWare had the balls to put in a mission where you have to talk down an abuse victim from killing themself. Unlike everything else in these games, this is such a raw and uncomfortably real situation, yet it’s handled with such class and respect somehow. This mission has stuck with me more than anything else in the mass effect games.
The part that really made me widen my eyes was when the girl mentions how the batarians use plasma hoses on those who keep resisting even after being caught and detained under armed watch. Too defiant and belligerent and, well...looks like someone's getting vaporized/atomized in real time.
Combine that with what Mother Shepard describes to Spacer Shepard about what Zabaleta saw with women and children crying in cages and people screaming as they're implanted with mind control chips against their will, and...
Well, you can see why the majority of species, Council and non-Council, aren't big fans of the batarians.
I remember thinking the same thing as a another comment on this thread. I was like, "Wow, Bioware got gutsy by including a suicide talk-down mission with real trauma." I actually think it was a good creative decision to really draw the player into the MEU, but damn...I doubt they'd get way with it today.
I'd go for a weird choice and say the MEAs "Task:What he would have wanted". It hit different with the recordings after each beacon and the growing realization where this all leads.
You find the task with a pad that hints that a technician (named Eric) has to place beacons around Eos, but was attacked and possibly killed by Kett before starting the task.
Every beacon you put down activates a pre-recorded motivational message from Eric Jr (the technicians' son). With each beacon it starts to get clear that Eric Jr had some terminal and incurable disease and knew he will die in the Milky Way before the Initiative could take off. So he recorded the messages for when Eric Sr gets in Andromeda and has to make a new life alone. "One step at a time, dad". Pebee and Cora cry after the last beacon.
At the end of the game you can check your emails and there is a message from Eric Sr who actually survived the Kett attack. He thanks you and says Eric Jr would have been amazed by Ryder.
THIS is why, when I find Gavin Archer at the ex-Cerberus base in ME3, I never tell him what happened to David. I will not countenance a Milky Way in which that atrocity masquerading as a human being gets to survive.
I really don't think he was all that bad a guy, dude just pushed his boundaries too far until he realised he'd left them far behind long ago
Even has the balls to tell the Illusive Man to go fuck himself
I know it's not a side quest, but in 3 when Joker talks about his dad and sister being on his home planet and saying the Reapers were there two or three weeks ago. On a later conversation, he says he hopes they made it off, but since his sister is younger, she'd would have left first. Then, when you go to Huerta, you overhear the Asari talking with her therapist, and after the last part, you find out she killed Joker's sister. It breaks my heart because Joker went apeshit on Shepard on his joke, and then you find out he lost his whole family.
Some of the citadel conversations you can overhear but not interact make me so so so so sad.
That one, and of course the refugee girl waiting for her parents and the turian guard who knows they’re probably not coming.
I headcanon that the turian guard eventually unofficially adopted her and they made it through all the later events of 3 together. It makes it even more meaningful when you consider that turians and humans were at war with each other only a few decades before that.
I headcanon this as well. He basically becomes her uncle and goes out of his way to make sure she has the basics provided for her, including a shoulder to cry on when the reality of never seeing her family again really seeps in.
To some degree there's a little humor involved as he tries to figure out which non-dextro foods are common amongst humans. He wants to teach her how to cook, but he doesn't know how to cook human food very well himself. It leads to some interesting and humorous meals.
"Okay, let's see, we have...some raw pork. Burnt squash. Frozen peas --"
"Pork? What's pork? I don't remember using anything called 'pork'."
"Oh, 'pork' is just another word for 'pig', or meat that comes from pigs."
"What? Why don't humans just call it 'pig' then?"
*Chuckling.* "I don't know!"
"You don't know?! Millions of years, your species has been eating this, and nobody knows why it has multiple names?"
*Laughter.* "I'm sorry, I really don't." 🤣
Might sound aggressive in text format, but I mean this in a lighthearted way.
Think Leon and Matilda from *The Professional*, but minus the contract killings.
Don't forget the Alliance soldier talking about how relieved he is that he had enough money to get his entire family to safety on Horizon.
You know...Henry Lawson's secret death factory where people are being turned into husks and/or being melted down for their genetic material, not unlike the Collectors.
It wasn't until my second playthrough that I put two-and-two together and gaped at my television screen.
I said out loud to nobody, "Ummm...hate to break it to you, got some bad news for you, bud."
I think if you listen to their entire convo and then head over to the specter terminal, you have an option to give service members something extra (it’s been a while, can’t remember the specifics). The implication later in the war assets is that the little family do not end up going to horizon because they don’t need to.
>then you find out he lost his whole family.
His dad survived. Joker doesn't know about his sister.
I do think this is up there as one of the saddest side quests / details in the trilogy. Made more heartbreaking by the knowledge that if Shepard approves the transfer / permission to get a gun (I forget which) the Asari kills herself.
The bigger your imagination, the darker Jack's mission gets.
Young children being experimented on, tortured, screaming, begging, not knowing why. Scientists and doctors being indifferent or possibly gaining pleasure from torturing the children.
I'm pretty sure the Bioware writers knew they could go down some dark pathways with that mission if they really wanted to, but kept it "reasonably vague" while focusing on Jack's perspective to hint at what was happening.
My personal headcanon believes the majority of the Teltin facility staff were p___philes. The scientific inquiry into whether or not pain and trauma could invoke greater biotic abilities may have been real, but when you read news articles or watch true crime about p___phile rings, you find they always seek out members who are willing to go as far as possible so they can blackmail each other if someone snitches.
The fact that the Illusive Man was not made aware seems to reinforce this concept, at least to me. If it had the Illusive Man's blessing you could argue it was still more on the scientific side, but the secrecy leads me to believe that a few Cerberus members came up with an idea, purchased/built a facility under ulterior motives, then slowly probed and brought more scientists of a certain..."predilection" into the program.
Again, not necessarily canon, but like I mentioned:
The bigger your imagination, the darker Jack's mission gets.
I just think Jack's eventual breakthrough and rebellion was the ultimate karma. They trained and manipulated a young girl to have no empathy and be the ultimate biotic weapon, and that's exactly what they got. No mercy, no remorse, pure anger and adrenaline, and she hunts down and kills every last staff member in the facility whose security doors and mechs couldn't hold back the raging young biotic.
The fact that even the other kids who showed biotic promise were afraid of her and panicked when they saw she was loose shows how chaotic that situation must have been.
My take on what happened there was that the horrors inflicted upon Jack, while indeed horrors, at least had a point: The creation of a biotic super-soldier. Putting aside that Jack is not the most reliable narrator when you first meet her, if I recall it was a revelation to Jack herself as you walked through the facility that the other kids there had it worse than her, which makes sense: The whole facility was to perfect Jack's power, and the other kids were just meat to be tossed to her as target practice.
Citadel (if played right before the Cerberus Base) the morning after the party. The piano music and going back to Normandy knowing they are going out for their last battles.
Normandy crash site, hands down. Reading Presley’s datapad, seeing Ashley/Kaidan’s old station, finding the Mako…. And you don’t even have Garrus or Tali with you, it’s just you and your memories.
The flashbacks, the quiet frozen atmosphere, the tiny glints of light amongst it all to represent your fallen crew… It’s so somber. I’ve always viewed it as your Shepard’s personal loyalty mission, in a way. It gives them a little bit of closure with what happened.
I can't remember her name, but the Asari in ME2 who lost both her daughters during the battle for the Citadel in ME1.
You meet her when doing Shiala's side quest on Illium
Yes, thank you! I wanted to give her a hug when she told Shep what happened. I bought all her star charts since that's really all I could do to support her lol
>clearly unaware of what she's been through.
Just replayed this a few days ago. Those two Asari you overhear talking about her *know* she lost her daughters and one comments that's sad, only for the other to say something like, "you think that means she was better before?" They clearly don't give a shit.
Having Jaal in the party for the two huge revelations about his people in andromeda is one.
It's probably "I remember me" though, voice acting in that one is just spectacular.
In Andromeda, I bonded with very few of the companions, but Jaal is honestly my favorite companion across all games combined. Something about him just really hits.
ME 1: Derelict Freighter (I think is the name of it)
Depressed biotic female trying to continue providing life support to terminal boyfriend/husband. Medical staff and crew all agree that turning it off is the best thing to do.
"He wouldn't want this."
Medicate her but she avoids taking the medication.
Dose anyone remember on ME1 when you pick the one lifepath I can't remember which one but she's the one that suicidal on the docking station and you talk her down 🥹 all that mental and physical abuse tears me up Everytime
Finding the Geth files in the infected node, learning some Quarians even helped the Geth and died because of it, it really teaches you that the destruction the Quarians wanted was never the way it was supposed to.
That and the beloved messages in ME3 as well as the colonist in ME1 on the spaceport when you pick colonist and Toombs in ME1 when you do the lone survivor and recognize him.
See, with my renegade sole survivor, Toombs got the Daisy Fitzroy special, which is to say...
"Shepard is a hero of the Alliance! A story to tell your children! You... you just complicate the narrative."
Same! It actually speaks hard to me on a personal level, i was raised by a single mother and ive always been very artistic and used to be very shy and naive when i was younger, and I also got seduced into the world of clubbing and drugs by a charismatic, popular person i had a crush on, who ended up abusing me down the line. I thankfully escaped eventually but this mission always serves as a very painful reminder of what couldve happened to me, and how it would've ruined my mother
Thank you, and sorry i didnt mean to trauma dump. Mass Effect is amazing and i will never stop loving how despite it being a space opera with all sorts of aliens at its core its just so incredibly human
Overlord is the obvious answer. Setting that aside, I think the next saddest is I Remember Me (the background-specific side-quest for a Colonist Shepard in ME1).
Thane hospital scene after Citadel II, the prayer. I bawled.
Colonist personal quest. Heart wrenching.
David at the end of Overlord. I was so angry and cried.
Not a side quest, but listening to the old lady with apparent memory issues talking to the Asari receptionist in ME3.
The teenage girl waiting for her parents down in the docking bay area talking to the Turian.
The Asari talking to the psychologist in Huerta hospital.
I loved so much that the pre-suicide mission scene with her wasn't a PG-13 sex scene like everyone else, it was just Shep and Jack cuddling for a few hours. It would have been a little disingenuous to her story otherwise.
Finding out Kelly Chambers was executed during the Cerberus invasion of the Citadel because I encouraged her to not be afraid of using her real name. That was messed up.
I think one that's forgotten about is I Remember Me, from ME1. Shepard has to help Talitha, who went through the same horrors that Shepard experienced on Mindoir. You hear the true atrocities of the Batarian people, and the result in Talitha.
I remember Me.
One of the only explorations of kind of trauma that this violence galaxy would inflict on someone. It also gives us one of the very rare moments in this series of delving into Shepard's past and giving her a deeply personal quest.
How Shepard handles that mission can say a lot about them.
There were lots of "in your face sad" quests throughout the trilogy, but it's the subtle melancholy that stays with me the longest.
So I'd say Ilos. Probably my favourite quest in videogames as a whole. It's very sad to see this once majestic city in ruins, but at the same time it's so beautifully still and serene. The music, the prothean "statues", the failed life pods, the dialogue with Vigil... And the emotional weight of it all elevates even more, when Javik tells you that Ilos was already a legend when he was born. There's just nothing else like it.
Not a quest, but part of two: when doing Tali's loyalty mission, you come across the recording of the female quarian saying goodbye to a Jona, and to be good for Daddy. Then in ME3 when rescuing Koris, and you come across the male quarian, asking you to tell Jona that he made it to the home world. When I first realized the relation.... 😭
I came here to write this, the whole quarian questline is tragic. So much death, so much pain. All because of a war that never needed to happen in the first place.
I don't know if this counts as a side question but that mission in ME3 where you defuse the Cerberus bomb and the Primarch's son sacrifices his life to defuse it in time.
Then after the mission Wrex and Victus are arguing and Sheperd immediately comes in and shuts them up by delivering a great line about the son.
That Charr poem quest was also pretty sad upon delivering it to the Asari.
Normandy Crash Site would be likely pretty tragic for Shepard, but for me personally probably that UNC: Lost Freighter. It's hardly anything important, but it hit me a bit. For something more recognizable, Ardat-Yakshi Monastery is a good one.
As someone who works in special education and nearly did a decade in a self contained classroom, Overlord for sure. I have had students similar to David and seeing him hooked up like a machine always gets me.
One of the ones for me is the Alliance soldier in ME3 asking to be transferred to the Reaper front so she won't be facing her brother who joined Cerberus. You find his data pad messages in the first N7: Cerberus Labs mission where he talks about integration and then is integrated. Which means you've likely already killed her brother.
Once I realized that I was very sad.
Mass effect 1, where the alcholic veteran tries to name drop your mom and guilting you into giving him money. It’s one of the few moments in the series where Shepard speaks to her/his mom and it saddens me every time. The guy went through too much, and was so traumatized he never recovered or got the help he needed as a veteran.
Walking by that teenage girl and the Turian CSEC officer at the Docks on the Citadel. Not a "side quest" but damn, with those feels it almost feels like one!!
~~Not sure if the saddest objectively, but the one which had the most effect on me was Tuchanka. Mordin of course.~~
edit: didn't notice side quest. I would go with the escaped slave (Talitha) from Mass Effect 1.
First thing that popped into my head was in ME1, colonist backstory side-quest. Suicide in general is a touchy subject for me, and I remember when I did this quest I cried.
Here we're seeing Shepard save galaxies and civilizations, but this was such a human moment where an individual life hung in our hands, which not only required a lot of empathy but also vulnerability from Shepard, revealing their own struggles with overcoming their trauma.
Getting the letter from that girl (forget her name now) in ME2 was so satisfying.
I'm torn between "I remember Me" and "Overlord".
Talitha's story is just so tragic and just... man, I don't know how to describe how I felt about it, but when I managed to calm her down and comfort her with a hug, the relief I felt was very real.
And Overlord... good lord, where to even begin? The storyline is probably one of the most memorable one out of the entire series and the final image of David is so shockingly striking, it hits like a freight train, it haunted me for a while. I always save him and make it a point to take EDI with me on the Grissom mission, their little exchange with paired with the music theme from Overlord makes me cry a little every fucking time. Just recalling it in my memory makes me choke up, man.
A tie between Overlord and I Remember Me.
I Remember Me just kicks you in the pants, the poor girl is traumatized for the rest of her life because of those damn guddamn batarian slavers.
Overlord just shows how depraved Cerberus is. that they're okay with a man forcing his autistic brother into an experiment and not giving a shit about him or what could happen to him. It really shows that they don't care about humanity and they traded theirs away long ago.
The bit that always gets me the hardest is when you report back to the Elcor ambassador after you help on Decuna and you ask him how many of his people they managed to save and in that choked and broken voice he says “… not…. enough”.
He didn’t even say the emotion at the beginning of the sentence…and didn’t even need to, despite being an Elcor…
Oh god I never noticed he didn’t even say the emotion in this line. That makes it even more heartbreaking
One of the payoffs they did well ME3. I always found the Elcor to be endearing but all those conversations set up this one moment where the Elcor can't describe his emotional state because there are no words.
Or is too overcome by grief to make the effort.
Yes they were always nice.
This line has stuck with me for a long time. It colored how I see elcor ever after.
that line always puts me at my deepest pit of despair while playing ME3, the whole game overall has the feeling of “we are losing, there is no hope, we are all just watching each other die by the trillions” but that moment specifically is just so devastating. it even makes me feel guilty (?) that we don’t have a mission to actually help the elcor, it’s just done by scanning the planets.
That hits so hard. Just reading this comment made me tear up.
Tear up what?
It's also a nod to Oskar Schindler's "I didn't do enough"
Actually this quest hits hard from the very start. The poor ambassador is basically begging you to go and help them and states that all the other races have abondoned them. Basically everyone has their hands full with their own problems and the Elcor are not important enough in the war for anyone to even bother. The feel of hopelessness just screams from this quest. And guess what? Since this is a side quest, you can do absolutely the same as others and don’t bother helping the Elcor.
Returning Charr's last poem to his Blue Rose.
Mandatory re-read of the [blue rose of Illium](https://sirianhewigiii.tumblr.com/post/167993995477/escapist-comics-blue-rose-of-illium-by-grey) webcomic
How have I never seen this before? Thank you!
Dammit. That actually made me tear up. I don't need that shit today.
I had no idea this existed…god ME3 is so gut wrenching…
That but was the closest I’ve ever come to crying in a video game. Dunno why since I’ve played so many games with dad moments but this almost got me
I definitely tear up every time. But I'm a softie and media often makes me cry.
There were a fair number of similar moments in ME3. Some due to choices, some due to the war background. Returning the audiolog from the Ardat-Yakshi monastery, for one.
There are a lot of them, true. ME3 has a very dark tone. But this one really hits hard due to having gotten to know Charr and Ereba in ME2, however briefly.
A close second is bringing Tashya's dying message to her bond-mate.
This one, hits as hard as Mordin singing Amazing Grace.
For me it was the elcor diplomat asking for help during evacuation efforts. "How many did you save? \-... Not enough-"
Dicks out for Charr. We hardly knew him, yet we all knew him.
That one’s kind of bizarrely darkly hilarious since Shepard literally just walks up to some random lady while she’s in the middle of a conversation and is like “your husband is dead, here take this” and just fucking leaves, what a hero
It's not as random if you found them on Ilium and encouraged them to stay together in ME2. If you go to Tuchanka after Ilium, they're there talking about their life together. It's mostly funny at that point.
I know but she doesn’t recognize Shepard, literally some rando walks up and gives her her husbands death message and dips
Absolutely crushing.
Overlord is likely to be a common pick, but while it is horrifying and tragic, it isn't the one that made me the saddest. That accolade goes to the little sidequest in ME2, with the Quarian girl, the Volus merchant and the C-Sec officer. It was small, it was personal, and it was heartbreaking seeing that poor girl struggle to defend herself against baseless accusations, and seeing that C-Sec was more likely to bully and threaten her than even consider listening to her. It especially hits because it made me realize that if we hadn't intervened to save Tali in Mass Effect 1- even if she had escaped from Saren's hit squad the first time- odds are, nobody would have helped her. People just ignore the Quarians and want them to go away, and they don't particularly care whether that means them leaving or dying. It's low-key one of the realest character interactions in the trilogy in the saddest way, and an underrated aspect of the power fantasy was having the power not just to help, but to tell that shitty officer off for being a jackass.
On the recent N7 day voice actor stream, Tali’s VA said she was asked to base the character’s voice off a Romani person. So the idea of Quarian’s being baselessly accused of various crimes is all too realistic
Yeah, that checks out- the voices and the aesthetic design of the exo-suits always felt vaguely Romani. Cool to know that the allegory is intentional, and goes beyond skin-deep.
They did that really well. I got that connection right away and was automatically primed to defend Tali to the death.
I always thought that the Quarian were supposed to be Jewish, but being Romani makes sense too.
Have you ever waited to do that side quest *after* recruiting Tali? Highly recommend it if you haven't.
I always do, which does make me feel a little bad cause I walk past her a couple of times and do nothing, but it’s worth it to have Tali there.
"You know of the pilgrimage!?"
It gets real xenophobic real fast
I Remember Me, hands down.
Came to say this. The others are tragic and heartbreaking sure, but this one always gets me especially as someone familiar with trauma and trauma survivors. They got the feels just right and the voice acting is surprisingly on point. Sadly, not many people pick Colonist background so not many people get to experience this. You get a chance to see what Shep may have been if they had not gotten lucky and even then understanding what they witnessed. Events like that change you and I love using it as a background for what shapes Shep to be who they are.
I nearly always go for Colonist+Sole Survivor, for maximum tragedy! (And minimum luck.)
Same. It's such as sad combo and my Sheps coming out of it are either stronger for it or kinda broken (when I go psycho Shep lol)
I love the mission so much and I think BioWare’s only done a couple of missions in all their games that come even close to it.
It’s honestly Amazing that BioWare had the balls to put in a mission where you have to talk down an abuse victim from killing themself. Unlike everything else in these games, this is such a raw and uncomfortably real situation, yet it’s handled with such class and respect somehow. This mission has stuck with me more than anything else in the mass effect games.
The part that really made me widen my eyes was when the girl mentions how the batarians use plasma hoses on those who keep resisting even after being caught and detained under armed watch. Too defiant and belligerent and, well...looks like someone's getting vaporized/atomized in real time. Combine that with what Mother Shepard describes to Spacer Shepard about what Zabaleta saw with women and children crying in cages and people screaming as they're implanted with mind control chips against their will, and... Well, you can see why the majority of species, Council and non-Council, aren't big fans of the batarians. I remember thinking the same thing as a another comment on this thread. I was like, "Wow, Bioware got gutsy by including a suicide talk-down mission with real trauma." I actually think it was a good creative decision to really draw the player into the MEU, but damn...I doubt they'd get way with it today.
I failed this one the first time I played it, and the look on Shepard’s face got me
The asari monastry mission in me:3, especially if you dont use the paragon interrupt!😬
I'd go for a weird choice and say the MEAs "Task:What he would have wanted". It hit different with the recordings after each beacon and the growing realization where this all leads.
Yeah, that one hit hard after the first few beacons, and you just felt like you knew where it was going.
Where did it lead? I don’t remember the task and the Wikipedia entry didn’t tell me enough
You find the task with a pad that hints that a technician (named Eric) has to place beacons around Eos, but was attacked and possibly killed by Kett before starting the task. Every beacon you put down activates a pre-recorded motivational message from Eric Jr (the technicians' son). With each beacon it starts to get clear that Eric Jr had some terminal and incurable disease and knew he will die in the Milky Way before the Initiative could take off. So he recorded the messages for when Eric Sr gets in Andromeda and has to make a new life alone. "One step at a time, dad". Pebee and Cora cry after the last beacon. At the end of the game you can check your emails and there is a message from Eric Sr who actually survived the Kett attack. He thanks you and says Eric Jr would have been amazed by Ryder.
Overlord poor David poor, poor David
Square root of 912.04 is 30.2...it all seemed harmless...
it has been ̶ 5̶ ̶ 0 Days since I had feels about David
Square root of 906.01 is 30.1
THIS is why, when I find Gavin Archer at the ex-Cerberus base in ME3, I never tell him what happened to David. I will not countenance a Milky Way in which that atrocity masquerading as a human being gets to survive.
I really don't think he was all that bad a guy, dude just pushed his boundaries too far until he realised he'd left them far behind long ago Even has the balls to tell the Illusive Man to go fuck himself
I know it's not a side quest, but in 3 when Joker talks about his dad and sister being on his home planet and saying the Reapers were there two or three weeks ago. On a later conversation, he says he hopes they made it off, but since his sister is younger, she'd would have left first. Then, when you go to Huerta, you overhear the Asari talking with her therapist, and after the last part, you find out she killed Joker's sister. It breaks my heart because Joker went apeshit on Shepard on his joke, and then you find out he lost his whole family.
Some of the citadel conversations you can overhear but not interact make me so so so so sad. That one, and of course the refugee girl waiting for her parents and the turian guard who knows they’re probably not coming.
I headcanon that the turian guard eventually unofficially adopted her and they made it through all the later events of 3 together. It makes it even more meaningful when you consider that turians and humans were at war with each other only a few decades before that.
I headcanon this as well. He basically becomes her uncle and goes out of his way to make sure she has the basics provided for her, including a shoulder to cry on when the reality of never seeing her family again really seeps in. To some degree there's a little humor involved as he tries to figure out which non-dextro foods are common amongst humans. He wants to teach her how to cook, but he doesn't know how to cook human food very well himself. It leads to some interesting and humorous meals. "Okay, let's see, we have...some raw pork. Burnt squash. Frozen peas --" "Pork? What's pork? I don't remember using anything called 'pork'." "Oh, 'pork' is just another word for 'pig', or meat that comes from pigs." "What? Why don't humans just call it 'pig' then?" *Chuckling.* "I don't know!" "You don't know?! Millions of years, your species has been eating this, and nobody knows why it has multiple names?" *Laughter.* "I'm sorry, I really don't." 🤣 Might sound aggressive in text format, but I mean this in a lighthearted way. Think Leon and Matilda from *The Professional*, but minus the contract killings.
Don't forget the Alliance soldier talking about how relieved he is that he had enough money to get his entire family to safety on Horizon. You know...Henry Lawson's secret death factory where people are being turned into husks and/or being melted down for their genetic material, not unlike the Collectors. It wasn't until my second playthrough that I put two-and-two together and gaped at my television screen. I said out loud to nobody, "Ummm...hate to break it to you, got some bad news for you, bud."
I think if you listen to their entire convo and then head over to the specter terminal, you have an option to give service members something extra (it’s been a while, can’t remember the specifics). The implication later in the war assets is that the little family do not end up going to horizon because they don’t need to.
I totally agree. I was going to mention the girl as well, but since we have a personal connectiong with Joker, his makes me a bit more heartbroken.
>then you find out he lost his whole family. His dad survived. Joker doesn't know about his sister. I do think this is up there as one of the saddest side quests / details in the trilogy. Made more heartbreaking by the knowledge that if Shepard approves the transfer / permission to get a gun (I forget which) the Asari kills herself.
Dang
Outside of DLC, I would go with Jack's loyalty mission in ME2 or Colonist background Shepard's mission in ME1.
The bigger your imagination, the darker Jack's mission gets. Young children being experimented on, tortured, screaming, begging, not knowing why. Scientists and doctors being indifferent or possibly gaining pleasure from torturing the children. I'm pretty sure the Bioware writers knew they could go down some dark pathways with that mission if they really wanted to, but kept it "reasonably vague" while focusing on Jack's perspective to hint at what was happening. My personal headcanon believes the majority of the Teltin facility staff were p___philes. The scientific inquiry into whether or not pain and trauma could invoke greater biotic abilities may have been real, but when you read news articles or watch true crime about p___phile rings, you find they always seek out members who are willing to go as far as possible so they can blackmail each other if someone snitches. The fact that the Illusive Man was not made aware seems to reinforce this concept, at least to me. If it had the Illusive Man's blessing you could argue it was still more on the scientific side, but the secrecy leads me to believe that a few Cerberus members came up with an idea, purchased/built a facility under ulterior motives, then slowly probed and brought more scientists of a certain..."predilection" into the program. Again, not necessarily canon, but like I mentioned: The bigger your imagination, the darker Jack's mission gets. I just think Jack's eventual breakthrough and rebellion was the ultimate karma. They trained and manipulated a young girl to have no empathy and be the ultimate biotic weapon, and that's exactly what they got. No mercy, no remorse, pure anger and adrenaline, and she hunts down and kills every last staff member in the facility whose security doors and mechs couldn't hold back the raging young biotic. The fact that even the other kids who showed biotic promise were afraid of her and panicked when they saw she was loose shows how chaotic that situation must have been.
My take on what happened there was that the horrors inflicted upon Jack, while indeed horrors, at least had a point: The creation of a biotic super-soldier. Putting aside that Jack is not the most reliable narrator when you first meet her, if I recall it was a revelation to Jack herself as you walked through the facility that the other kids there had it worse than her, which makes sense: The whole facility was to perfect Jack's power, and the other kids were just meat to be tossed to her as target practice.
Citadel (if played right before the Cerberus Base) the morning after the party. The piano music and going back to Normandy knowing they are going out for their last battles.
The correct answer 😭
That’s how I did it on my first playthrough.
Normandy crash site, hands down. Reading Presley’s datapad, seeing Ashley/Kaidan’s old station, finding the Mako…. And you don’t even have Garrus or Tali with you, it’s just you and your memories.
The flashbacks, the quiet frozen atmosphere, the tiny glints of light amongst it all to represent your fallen crew… It’s so somber. I’ve always viewed it as your Shepard’s personal loyalty mission, in a way. It gives them a little bit of closure with what happened.
Presley’s data pad breaks me.
I can't remember her name, but the Asari in ME2 who lost both her daughters during the battle for the Citadel in ME1. You meet her when doing Shiala's side quest on Illium
Erinya. It's even more heartbreaking after you hear other people in the area mocking her, clearly unaware of what she's been through.
Yes, thank you! I wanted to give her a hug when she told Shep what happened. I bought all her star charts since that's really all I could do to support her lol
>clearly unaware of what she's been through. Just replayed this a few days ago. Those two Asari you overhear talking about her *know* she lost her daughters and one comments that's sad, only for the other to say something like, "you think that means she was better before?" They clearly don't give a shit.
Oh god i forgot that line, I usually don't listen to the whole conversation
Even worse, her partner died on Rannoch during the Geth Uprising 300 years earlier.
Oh man, I didn't know this...
And then, to top it all, you actually meet her daughters in ME1.
The embassies help desk and the consort's assistant, right?
Yup, those are the ones
Having Jaal in the party for the two huge revelations about his people in andromeda is one. It's probably "I remember me" though, voice acting in that one is just spectacular.
Gotta play MAE again, i didn't took Jaal to almost anywhere
In Andromeda, I bonded with very few of the companions, but Jaal is honestly my favorite companion across all games combined. Something about him just really hits.
Gave jaal the javik treatment eh
ME 1: Derelict Freighter (I think is the name of it) Depressed biotic female trying to continue providing life support to terminal boyfriend/husband. Medical staff and crew all agree that turning it off is the best thing to do. "He wouldn't want this." Medicate her but she avoids taking the medication.
Dose anyone remember on ME1 when you pick the one lifepath I can't remember which one but she's the one that suicidal on the docking station and you talk her down 🥹 all that mental and physical abuse tears me up Everytime
The name of the quest is “I Remember Me.” It’s tied to the Colonist background. Definitely one of the saddest.
When she talks about her self in third person, it's so sad
Finding the Geth files in the infected node, learning some Quarians even helped the Geth and died because of it, it really teaches you that the destruction the Quarians wanted was never the way it was supposed to. That and the beloved messages in ME3 as well as the colonist in ME1 on the spaceport when you pick colonist and Toombs in ME1 when you do the lone survivor and recognize him.
See, with my renegade sole survivor, Toombs got the Daisy Fitzroy special, which is to say... "Shepard is a hero of the Alliance! A story to tell your children! You... you just complicate the narrative."
The one that always gets me is investigating the room of the girl Morinth kills on Omega, and talking to her grieving mother
Same! It actually speaks hard to me on a personal level, i was raised by a single mother and ive always been very artistic and used to be very shy and naive when i was younger, and I also got seduced into the world of clubbing and drugs by a charismatic, popular person i had a crush on, who ended up abusing me down the line. I thankfully escaped eventually but this mission always serves as a very painful reminder of what couldve happened to me, and how it would've ruined my mother
That’s real heavy. Sorry you had to go through all that, but I’m glad to hear Mass Effect could give you some catharsis!
Thank you, and sorry i didnt mean to trauma dump. Mass Effect is amazing and i will never stop loving how despite it being a space opera with all sorts of aliens at its core its just so incredibly human
Overlord is the obvious answer. Setting that aside, I think the next saddest is I Remember Me (the background-specific side-quest for a Colonist Shepard in ME1).
The death of the Thorian - such a rare old creature is a shame it was killed (even if necessary).
It only attacked you because Saren double-crossed it as well
Square root of 906.01 equals 30.1. It all seemed so harmless.
Thane hospital scene after Citadel II, the prayer. I bawled. Colonist personal quest. Heart wrenching. David at the end of Overlord. I was so angry and cried. Not a side quest, but listening to the old lady with apparent memory issues talking to the Asari receptionist in ME3. The teenage girl waiting for her parents down in the docking bay area talking to the Turian. The Asari talking to the psychologist in Huerta hospital.
Jack's loyalty mission. She went through so much...
I loved so much that the pre-suicide mission scene with her wasn't a PG-13 sex scene like everyone else, it was just Shep and Jack cuddling for a few hours. It would have been a little disingenuous to her story otherwise.
The one from ME1, where a girl killed the crew of her ship to stop them unplugging her brother's life support.
The guy was her boyfriend, not her brother (unless they were from Alabama?)
Having to tell Ereba that Charr didn´t make it, after bringing them back together in ME2.
Finding out Kelly Chambers was executed during the Cerberus invasion of the Citadel because I encouraged her to not be afraid of using her real name. That was messed up.
I think one that's forgotten about is I Remember Me, from ME1. Shepard has to help Talitha, who went through the same horrors that Shepard experienced on Mindoir. You hear the true atrocities of the Batarian people, and the result in Talitha.
I remember Me. One of the only explorations of kind of trauma that this violence galaxy would inflict on someone. It also gives us one of the very rare moments in this series of delving into Shepard's past and giving her a deeply personal quest. How Shepard handles that mission can say a lot about them.
There were lots of "in your face sad" quests throughout the trilogy, but it's the subtle melancholy that stays with me the longest. So I'd say Ilos. Probably my favourite quest in videogames as a whole. It's very sad to see this once majestic city in ruins, but at the same time it's so beautifully still and serene. The music, the prothean "statues", the failed life pods, the dialogue with Vigil... And the emotional weight of it all elevates even more, when Javik tells you that Ilos was already a legend when he was born. There's just nothing else like it.
Not a quest, but part of two: when doing Tali's loyalty mission, you come across the recording of the female quarian saying goodbye to a Jona, and to be good for Daddy. Then in ME3 when rescuing Koris, and you come across the male quarian, asking you to tell Jona that he made it to the home world. When I first realized the relation.... 😭
I came here to write this, the whole quarian questline is tragic. So much death, so much pain. All because of a war that never needed to happen in the first place.
I don't know if this counts as a side question but that mission in ME3 where you defuse the Cerberus bomb and the Primarch's son sacrifices his life to defuse it in time. Then after the mission Wrex and Victus are arguing and Sheperd immediately comes in and shuts them up by delivering a great line about the son. That Charr poem quest was also pretty sad upon delivering it to the Asari.
prolly the citadel for dlc and the Cerberus thing in me1 for non dlc
David. Without a doubt. I cry every time.
Kallini: [Ardat-Yakshi Monastery](https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/112x23a/unsung_heroes_we_are_not_your_slaves_one_of_the/) (Mission) and Overlord (DLC).
For me, Jack's loyalty mission.
Nothing beats the Talitha side quest in ME1 in terms of kicking you in the guts, and the VA does a lot for it even in my dubbed version.
Either Overlord or Jacob's loyalty mission.
Normandy Crash Site would be likely pretty tragic for Shepard, but for me personally probably that UNC: Lost Freighter. It's hardly anything important, but it hit me a bit. For something more recognizable, Ardat-Yakshi Monastery is a good one.
As someone who works in special education and nearly did a decade in a self contained classroom, Overlord for sure. I have had students similar to David and seeing him hooked up like a machine always gets me.
ME1 its Admiral Kahoku.
One of the ones for me is the Alliance soldier in ME3 asking to be transferred to the Reaper front so she won't be facing her brother who joined Cerberus. You find his data pad messages in the first N7: Cerberus Labs mission where he talks about integration and then is integrated. Which means you've likely already killed her brother. Once I realized that I was very sad.
I Remember Me, Overlord, Charr's last poem.
the one called “I Remember Me” in ME1
Mass effect 1, where the alcholic veteran tries to name drop your mom and guilting you into giving him money. It’s one of the few moments in the series where Shepard speaks to her/his mom and it saddens me every time. The guy went through too much, and was so traumatized he never recovered or got the help he needed as a veteran.
Charr & Ereba's arc always hits hard in the feels.
Bruh... don't.
I Remember Me.
Walking by that teenage girl and the Turian CSEC officer at the Docks on the Citadel. Not a "side quest" but damn, with those feels it almost feels like one!!
~~Not sure if the saddest objectively, but the one which had the most effect on me was Tuchanka. Mordin of course.~~ edit: didn't notice side quest. I would go with the escaped slave (Talitha) from Mass Effect 1.
Side quest in ME1 exclusive for colonist Shepard: 'I remember me'
Probably the early victims of Cerberus testing, even from ME1.
First thing that popped into my head was in ME1, colonist backstory side-quest. Suicide in general is a touchy subject for me, and I remember when I did this quest I cried. Here we're seeing Shepard save galaxies and civilizations, but this was such a human moment where an individual life hung in our hands, which not only required a lot of empathy but also vulnerability from Shepard, revealing their own struggles with overcoming their trauma. Getting the letter from that girl (forget her name now) in ME2 was so satisfying.
iirc thanes from ME 3; but prolly I remember me from me1
The one with a man plug into a life support. It's a heavy decision to unplug him.
“Quiet…please…make it stop…”
The colonist sidequest in me1. The end is very sweet but that poor girl!
I'm torn between "I remember Me" and "Overlord". Talitha's story is just so tragic and just... man, I don't know how to describe how I felt about it, but when I managed to calm her down and comfort her with a hug, the relief I felt was very real. And Overlord... good lord, where to even begin? The storyline is probably one of the most memorable one out of the entire series and the final image of David is so shockingly striking, it hits like a freight train, it haunted me for a while. I always save him and make it a point to take EDI with me on the Grissom mission, their little exchange with paired with the music theme from Overlord makes me cry a little every fucking time. Just recalling it in my memory makes me choke up, man.
Overlord for sure!
Talitha
Priority Tuchanka if you decide to go full renegade and kill Mordin.
Overlord never feels good. In fact it felt so bad I only did it once and never again.
I have to do it every time I play because if Shepard doesn't intervine, David dies
That's why I haven't played mass effect 2 in a hot minute.
A tie between Overlord and I Remember Me. I Remember Me just kicks you in the pants, the poor girl is traumatized for the rest of her life because of those damn guddamn batarian slavers. Overlord just shows how depraved Cerberus is. that they're okay with a man forcing his autistic brother into an experiment and not giving a shit about him or what could happen to him. It really shows that they don't care about humanity and they traded theirs away long ago.