Bit of an explanation as to what prompted me to make this post: I recently played through Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 1 and 2 and I just felt off. I've slaughtered hundreds of innocents for my amusement in games like Fallout and TES, I play through No Russian with a grin, but for some reason, I refrain from killing bad guys in SGW? The first one has you hunt down Russian oligarchs and war criminals, while the second one is about Middle Eastern terrorists and this is the game where I feel bad about killing? There's just something about the soldiers talking about their daily problems like making no money, uncomfortable boots and sweating too much, or showing eachother pictures of their dogs, not to mention the absolute horror when you've got a knife against their throat or when they find a body. I hope this isn't weird, but I've never experienced remorse for killing a video game enemy, and I've played a lot of different games. I'd like to hear about your experiences, and which games do a good job humanising common enemies, the concept intrigues me.
In world of Warcraft there are two spots that make me feel bad.
Slaughtering the people in stratholm as they don’t know why there king is murdering them all.
And one farmer outside of stormwind gets super depressed if you cast an Aoe and kill all his sheep. Dude just straight plops on his ass and just has this very sad animation. Like you just cast a fire from the sky that murdered his entire livelihood and even if he wanted to their is no chance or even reason for him to get revenge.