I feel like this scene gets overlooked, and I consider it one of the best in the game—just as heartbreaking, if not more so, than the thousand years of dreams.
You often see people say that the children, Mack and Cooke, are somewhat annoying, but I have to say that they’re at the center of one of the best scenes in the game: the funeral.
“A Return, Indeed” starts playing, the visuals and the music speak for themselves, and the scene gradually gives way to a brief but beautifully written conversation between the children and Kaim. For someone who experienced the loss of a loved one at a young age, the way Mack describes what he’s going through makes it much easier to empathize with him. “I thought I’d cry more.” That strange feeling of being completely broken inside while, at the same time, feeling utterly numb.
And then Kaim appears, and the scene turns into a beautifully written back-and-forth between the two. What I find particularly interesting is the contrast between them: Mack is experiencing loss for the first time and doesn’t even know how to process what he’s feeling, while Kaim has spent centuries living with it. Kaim is probably the character who knows the most about loss and death, yet in that moment, it’s Mack who is discovering for the first time what it means to lose someone.
I think that’s a big part of what makes the scene so powerful. It doesn’t need grand speeches or exaggerated drama to be devastating. The music, the silences, and a few carefully chosen words manage to convey something as difficult to put into words as the emptiness left by loss.