Gears Of War fans agree Dom's death is 'saddest in gaming history'

If you watched a Gears of War trailer for the first time, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind wouldn't be emotional storytelling.

The original Gears of War was released for the Xbox 360 in 2006 and alongside the likes of Halo, it became one of Microsoft’s flagship properties for the green brand. Gears of War was to be an inspiration for many third-person cover-based shooters, but no one was able to quite capture the magic quite like OG developers, Epic Games.

Gears of War is set on an Earth-like planet known as Sera and was governed by The Coalition of Ordered Governments or COG for short. However, with humans being humans, war was inevitable and when an alien race known as the Locust emerged to erase our kind, Sera would never be the same again following “Emergence Day”.

The Gears of War franchise later spawned multiple sequels as well as a few spin-offs. At the core of the series, its story would revolve around the bromance between Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago. This cherished bromance would come to its tragic conclusion in 2011 with the release of Gears of War 3.

I know the heading of this story gives away a spoiler, but in fairness, Gears of War 3 is 12 years old at this point. That being said, I’ll try to keep story details to a minimum, other than the obvious. But yeah, Dom dies in what can easily be described as one of the most dramatic and heartbreaking deaths in video game history, as well as what happened leading up to that moment. I cried, and I know for a fact that I am not alone.

The emotion of Dom’s death was intensified with the fantastic implementation of an instrumental version of the song “Mad World” by Gary Jules. A returning song that was also used in the original Gears of War trailer. It was a level of emotion that I don’t think any fan of the series quite expected for the time and for some, it still hits hard today.

“No matter what, Dom’s death will always be the saddest death to me in gaming history,” said GearsOfJacoby, opening up the discussion on the Reddit thread.

“As soon as I hear the piano of Mad World I get sad, combine that with Marcus making a desperate attempt to stop him,” replied Spartan17492. “Hits me every time.”

“I truly believe the cinematic experience in video games peaked when Dom died,” said wheel_of_cheese92. “Everything afterwards has just been a sad attempt at stirring up emotions and everything trying to be too epic and like a movie.”

I’m in the process of replaying the Gears of War series and I’m currently at the second game. This story has just reminded me that I am still not ready for what’s to come.

Speaking of this series, when are we going to get Gears 6? Microsoft and The Coalition, get a move on will ya! The entire Gears of War franchise is out now for PC and Xbox, and older titles are backwards compatible.