Current Events > Anyone else have games that you just can't go back to for relationship reasons?

(+) Yeah! (+)

As most of y'all know, my wife of 11 years passed away back in July.

I was watching a review/retrospective of FF14 and while I was watching that, I kinda came to realize that I don't think I could ever go back to playing the game. It was something that my wife and I played together during the last couple years of her life. We beat Endwalker, and decided to stop paying the monthly fee to focus on other things. I don't think it would ever feel right to me to play it again honestly. I guess without realizing it, it became so intrinsically connected to my relationship with my wife that the idea of playing it without her just feels weird.

For the same reason I feel the same way about Overcooked (we played it ONLY together, the whole series thus far) and even Tears of the Kingdom a bit, as she loved Zelda and I bought it mostly for it to be the last game that she would ever complete. I have no desire to boot it up and I dunno, just feels weird.

Anyone else get a similar experience like this? Doesn't necessarily have to deal with this kind of loss, but I dunno maybe games you could only ever see yourself playing with friends and shit like that?

I'd have to have a relationship first

terraria and minecraft, probably.

Sorry for your loss. I have the same but my ex wife didnt play video games. Theres places that I avoid, and things though.

I've had the same issue with my brother when he passed 8 years ago. Couldn't play any of the games we played together, I probably could now but it's sill depressing. It gets easier but it doesn't. Grief is weird.

nah, but a few i used to play exclusively with people that i've lost touch with. and i have no desire to go back. The halo series, first and foremost.

Astral Chain to some extent. I was having an issue with a fling with someone at work, so while we were closing down & waiting for our last week of babysitting the store to end, I would bring the switch in to play a bit to kill time. I got a negative association with it in my head after that point & never came back to finish the last 20%

Thankfully no, but I completely understand you having trouble there. I hope that eventually you'll reach a point in your healing journey where you can play those games and it makes you happy to remember, rather than sad.

Not games, but up until recently it had been quite difficult for me to watch Venture Bros again as my ex got into it very much while we were together and it pretty much became a regular we would watch all the time.

Still cant watch a few certain episodes just yet though..

Guild Wars 2. My ex was an elite on that and she got me into it but I ended up getting out of it and don't plan to go back after we broke up.

kinda
my ex-gf and I played the hell out of stardew valley, we got the golden clock and all of the totems. basically 100% the game with around 700 hours of playtime on just our multiplayer farm
i love that game, but have trouble revisiting it because all of our relationship, the ups and downs and everything in between, comes pouring back.
i do have a new file that I've been playing on and off, but it is tough because it does make me consider contacting her every time I play it. I know 100% it's a bad idea (she's not a good match for me, very high intensity rollercoaster type of relationship we had) but I still play that game in my head of "what if? it's just a quick text" whenever I start it.

There's a lot of media I liked that is difficult for me to enjoy due to my last relationship. My ex wasn't a good person to me towards the end and their mental illness made things too difficult, but I'll always remember the good times whenever seeing or being reminded of a lot of little things.

Also, I just realized who you were. I'm sorry for your loss dude.

Yeah, during the pandemic my ex and I played through Resident Evil 5,6, Revelations 2, and a number of other coop games. She hardly played any video games but had a passing interest in Resident Evil, and once we started 5 together she was hooked. I remember later on we played OG 4 and she beat the game knife only on Professional. Those were some of the best gaming experiences I ever had. I havent even bothered with 4 remake as I get really sad whenever I even see Leon. Oh well.

I'm so sorry to read whenever you post about that Jeff, I never knew what to type. So I don't . I am just in my own head. But it's just sometimes hard for me to watch King of the Hill because I used to be so much happier back then. I can still watch it, but it's odd at times.

I understand that but on the other hand wouldn't she want you to be happy and enjoy Dawntrail to see where the Warrior of Light goes to next?

Games? No, never been fortunate enough to be with a gamer.

I've had a few bands temporarily ruined for me.

Vagrant Story.

Few years after it came out my sister was playing it. She was at the last boss, but couldn't beat him. She needed to go back and work on her build some. Years later when I played it brought me back to that time when she struggled. Although I didn't finish ( got distracted by Tactics Ogre), iI think if I knew then what I know now I could have helped her. She died in 2015 and I played it in 2017. I had the ps1 disc for a decade just never got around to playing. I played it on Vita actually