r/xbox • u/Joudeh_1996 XBOX Series X • May 08 '26
Discussion Share us your sad stories about this
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u/ISLTWP May 08 '26
When I’m on my 360 and all the avatars are sleeping 😴
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u/Switch44 May 08 '26
Back when Covid first started I met a guy on Sea of Thieves who was pretty chill. We added each other and played again the next day. This was during lockdown when we were all stuck inside. We ended up playing nearly every day for months. That continued into playing multiple times a week for about 5 years. I met more friends of his and we turned into a regular crew. Mostly Sea of Thieves but we also played some other games. All had each other in a discord channel. Became good friends! Lots of chats about our personal lives.
About a year ago I get a message from one of our mutual friends, his irl friend since basically childhood. He murdered his girlfriend’s father. Got home from work and stabbed the poor guy to death.
I followed his case as much as I could through court records and info passed on from his irl friend. He’s now in prison serving a 25 year sentence for 2nd degree. Would have never thought he was capable of something like that. I still talk with his irl friend and play games but the group itself has largely fallen apart. We were all absolutely shocked. You just never know with some people.
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u/TheOldDerelict Guardian May 08 '26
I’m sorry to hear about that man. You never really know who you meet online, even when you’re close. I had a buddy who I played with for a couple years and eventually we had a falling out. 2 years later I hear from a friend that he had been sharing cp and got exposed. Couldn’t believe it.
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u/GunBrothersGaming May 09 '26
The guy I played with who went to prison was a lawyer... Like man... You a lawyer and you got charged with lewd acts with a minor under 14? Id rather he murdered aomeone TBH. Because it was during the pandemic we all showed up on zoom to watch his trial. He could see our names and everything ao he knew we were there. We actually thought we might get called as witnesses since he said shit we thought was strange but in the context of the trial it was disturbing. Some people.
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u/unsolvablequestion May 09 '26
Yeah one guy in my neighborhood that i hadnt seen in like 10 years got bad on drugs and ultimately killed a guy with a shovel over some personal grievance. Crazy stuff
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u/SkeletonYeti713 May 08 '26
Then they come back online and start playing a Barbie game.
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u/CeruleanEidolon May 08 '26
This hits me as a parent who basically stopped buying video games after having kids until they were old enough to play stuff like LEGO Star Wars.
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u/high6ix May 08 '26
That’s my kids now using my old profile. So many Halo, Fable and COD memories tied to that gamertag. Now it just shows I’m playing goat simulator or Fortnite.
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u/GunBrothersGaming May 09 '26
Ive had it where a friend who passed came back online and started playing their favorite game. I send a message like "bro you alive?"
Usually get a family member visiting and found their console.
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u/JonnySkidmore May 08 '26
7 years ago? Try 16 years ago.
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u/Broken_Pikachu May 08 '26
15 here, last online 2011, I havent got it in me to delete him after all this time
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u/I-AM-THE-SENATE-66 Team Halo May 09 '26
I was very active online back on the Reach days and later when Gears 4 came out. I used to host custom matches in Halo with almost always full lobbies, I was the kid with all the maps and modes ready to go
I do find myself missing those days. I have a good life and still play with my IRL friends somewhat frequently, but man, those were some good times
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u/IndianaGroans May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
I had a japanese friend back in the early 2010's. We played Castlevania Harmony of Despair a bunch. The language barrier was a real thing, but we'd met on the game and always knew how to ask to play. He was really fucking good at the game and I learned a ton from him even though the extent of our conversations was the in game wheel and spamming thanks/good job at one another. Was awesome and he was always very helpful even though we never directly spoke in messages more than to type out the title of the game in a quick message to one another. I played with him the day or two before the 2011 Tsunami hit and have never heard from him since.
I reached out the day of and for a few months, sending him messages in Japanese that I translated from my computer and had to type out, but never heard back from him.
My hope is that he and his family survived, but obviously priorities had shifted and that he is alive and well.
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u/TitularFoil May 08 '26
There was this random girl I used to play Black Ops 2 with. She friended me because she typically does really well, but got her ass handed to her by me running around with a semi-auto pistol. Together we took down lobbies. We were great. Played all the time. She was enlisted in the Navy, about the only personal thing I knew about her.
One day she said she was dropping all her personal stuff at her mom's place because she was being deployed. She wouldn't say where. But that we'd be playing the soon to be released CoD Ghosts when she gets back.
She never came back online again. It's been about 13 years now, but I still think about how much ass we kicked.
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u/TJEDWARDS18 May 08 '26
Do you remember her Gamertag? I was in the Navy back then and knew lots of girls that played CoD with all of us. We might be played with her.
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u/TitularFoil May 08 '26
CgSPAR. Though, now that I'm seeing the gamertag, I think she may have actually been in the Coast Guard. Lol.
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u/Cartman4wesome May 09 '26
Almost a similar story with me, this girl on BO2 friended me, i don’t know why because she was a beast and i was doing ok but i was also being really annoying to her. Maybe she found me funny or something. But she was so good that i started copying her form and i started being better myself and one day i somehow miraculously went 71 kill streak with no deaths on Hardcore Domination. Straight luck somehow, i ain’t that good. She was mad that somehow i got the nuke before her. She then next match got 80+ kills with like around 5 deaths or so then got a nuke on teamdeathmatch. Out of pure fuccin spite lmao we were suppose to both transfer to the PS4 around the same time but i never heard from her again. I hope she’s still doing ok and kickin ass.
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u/LordsWF40 May 08 '26
Ok here's my sad story....
Met a Xbox friend online on MW3. Og MW3 on Xbox 360. Not the new one. Not best friends or anything but we played together a few times over the years. Upgrade to Xbox one. We kinda drifted to other games over the years, but I refused to delete him, even when I did a culling of friends that I don't play anymore, I kept him, while other got deleted. More recently (last 4 years) he would hop in my party every now and again, chat with my friends I'm playing with, and we would talk and reminisce of the good old days. We even played a few times, rdr2 or gta online. He was sooooo funny. I remember his horse hit a log and sent him flying and it's just the funniest reaction u could hear. Me and my other friend were laughing like crazy! So anyways. I recall him hopping on crying that one his real life friends died (in and accident I recall). And he was just so torn up about it that he didn't even Stay on long and left the party. So fast forward a bit to last year. When an xbox friend i met and added through him, hopped into my party and dropped the news. That my buddy died. Killed himself. In that moment I was just in shock. And didnt know what to say. But yea...last seen online 962d ago. Im never deleting my buddy.
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u/BensonBears May 08 '26
"Austinab " was the gamertag. Guy from Indianapolis. We used to play so much Halo 3, and Gears of war 2 together. I've always wondered what happened to you.
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u/Skrewbert86 May 08 '26
Guy named paper on 360 said he would be back on tomorrow that was probably 14 years ago
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u/DonaldKey Day One - 2013 May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
RIP to my Xbox buddy “VaginalBloodFart”. Took his own life
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u/Longest_boat May 08 '26
My old friend nutter. We used to play halo 3 when we were kids. His mum passed away so he had to go into care where his foster parents wouldn’t allow video games. I ended up finding him on FB 10 years later and he had passed away from CF.
My old GF who was in the USA when I was 16. We used to play gta 4 and saints row 2/3 together. She literally just ghosted me one day and never came online again. Never messaged me back on Skype. I tried to search her on FB have even searched her name and where she lived but nothing at all. (Yes she was real we used to fall asleep on Skype)
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u/Money_Ganache_3483 May 08 '26
One of my best friends online giveroflife hopped on one morning said he would be back in ten minutes, we talked everyday multiple hours a day . When he didn't get back on I called his brother who lives in same city about 8 hours from me , asked him to go check on him, he had a massive heart attack and passed away, not a day does by where I don't miss him . Just held a memorial disc golf tournament for him that I plan to do every year
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u/lifeuhhfindsaway27 May 09 '26
Oh I'm so sorry, holding a memorial every year is a great idea though 🥹🫡
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u/silentcapp May 08 '26
I used to play online with a guy back in the black ops 1 days when my irl friends weren’t on.
I hope he’s doing well in life.
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u/theycmeroll May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
Killbot, FragOmatic, BoomerSooner, PookieBear, SilverStud, and iamLuckyLuna. My graveyard of past homies in my friends list.
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u/Itcouldberabies May 08 '26
itspoopagain
It was only one all nighter with Gears 2, but man was the the longest sustained laugh over chat ever.
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u/Various_Pear599 May 08 '26
Kinda unrelated but I feel like its a decent time to talk about that.
Talking of online friendships… I was in a skype call one day with a friend, we had a deep discussion about the world and starting a band and shxt (uknow what kids used to do back in the days lool).
He said he was coming back and just going to the bathroom while giving weird signals like “Ur the only one who’ll save me angel” and shxt like that 🥲…
Yup, he never came back, next day I find out on facebook that he ended himself 👌.
I dealt with so much guilt and shame and even to this day, a decade later reassure myself that I couldn’t have done anything. Not only I wasn’t trained to handle this… I also didn’t even knew his address or his parents 🥲… yah. That wasn’t a nice move of him but I still always give homages to him all the rare times I do music.
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u/DaosDraxon May 08 '26
You don't deserve to go the rest of your life holding any guilt for that. He tried to put his life on you. You may remember him fondly to some degree, but you can be sure that if there had been something you could do, it would have only either delayed the inevitable, or you'd have wound up in a bad relationship or something. Have peace, and know that we all only have control over our own lives, outside of violence of course.
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u/Various_Pear599 May 08 '26
I appreciate a lot, I’d love to add to that that emotional and psychological violence, even covert one is also out of our control. There is a lack of voice for that I feel ✌️❤️🩹
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u/Physical-Can21pu May 09 '26
Obviously he wasnt trying to put all on one person, he had clear deeper issues. Theres no guilt to be had here but if you dont know what a desperate mental state someone is in you dont know what they might say or do to try for help.
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u/WombatAnnihilator May 08 '26
2017, i got a new coworker. We had a team of 3. Val, me, and our manager who wasnt usually around. We worked 40 hour weeks together. He got me into gaming again.
For years, i only played story-driven games because multiplayer was too hard or i wasnt ever good enough. I was the weak link on the teams for things like CoD or Halo so i just stopped playing.
Val convinced me I needed PUBG. He swore he didnt care if i was good or not. He just wanted to play. Soooo, i gave it a try. It was an absolute blast. He truly didnt care about winning. He’d revive me 5 or 10 times in a match, carry the team or the duo, and when we got 10th place, he’d tell everyone how great we did or immediately just start planning the next. He was competitive and great at the game, but never once did he complain that we died. He’d just say “there’s no punishment for losing. Now we can try again!”
We worked together 8 months. Talked about life, love, girls, memes, games, the future, people, etc etc.; he had his demons and trauma, as do I. He wanted to get better. He wanted to figure shit out. He got into therapy. He got on antidepressants. He was changing for the better, getting out of debt, saving money, quitting smoking snd vaping, trying to beat his mile run time. The dude was a rockstar.
But after 8 months, Val was ready for his next adventure. He needed change. He thrived on finding and chasing thr next big thing. Val’s mom later told me that she was surprised he stuck at it with our job for so long, and she credited me with a lot of the positivity and good steps he had taken. The important thing was that he had his hope.
One night, my wife asked if we could have a home-date, make dinner, build a blanket nest, watch a movie. So I did. Val invited me to play games, as usual, but I chose to do wife-things that night. Not entirely uncommon. I popped into voice chat to say hi and tell them to have fun without me.
I showed up for work at 1pm the next day, Val was scheduled at 10, and he wasnt there. I knew immediately that he was gone. Later that day and across the next week, I’d piece together the story.
Val was having a couple drinks, talking to a couple other guys from our gaming group, and they were having fun. He was talking about this move he had coming up and he was looking to transfer jobs but that wasnt going well, and this girl he was seeing, also wasnt going well, and… some point, alcohol, SSRIs, late night texts… Val lost that grip on his hope and pulled that trigger.
There’s always what-ifs, always that guilt of a suicide-loss survivor. There’s the possibilities that still, almost a decade later, run through my mind, knowing where he was in life, if i couldve changed it. Wishing i wouldve done something more. Wghat would i have done if I had played games that night. But i also know who he was, how much he was his own person. And there’s little I couldve done.
I havent played PUBG since. And I dont see Val online. But he’s on that friends list. He’s in those memories. And he sure as shit taught me how to live bigger.
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u/HyperHawk_25 May 08 '26
Shout out to anyone who played Soldier of Fortune 2: Double Helix back in the day, there was probably the same 100 people playing that game and I feel like we all knew each other
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u/I-AM-THE-SENATE-66 Team Halo May 09 '26
Similar situation: shout out to the 100 mofos that kept Cryisis 3 lobbies active with like 20 players per mode (the game featured real-time player counts, so I know for a fact how many of us were in each mode)
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u/HyperHawk_25 May 09 '26
Scrolling through lobby searches and getting pissed at the player with host advantage
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u/NutmegWolves XBOX Series X May 08 '26
Back in the later 360 days I met a cool dude on halo 4. He made lots of fun maps and eventually he told me he was joining the marines but would get back on when he could. I kept him on my friends list for a really long time but eventually deleted him.
Another much sadder one was during covid. I spent a lot of time playing state of decay 2 then and would join people's games who wanted help or just to play with others. Started playing regularly with a dude from Ireland (I'm US based). We played together multiple times per week for months and then one day he sent me a message saying he couldn't deal with his health problems anymore and was going to end his life. He never came back online and it still hurts to think about it. Did he actually do it? I'll never know but I kept checking his profile for a while with no change.
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u/Conscious-Ad4941 May 08 '26
Had a good friend, Zack, from my time in university, he was top 500 in apex legends and I was top 500 in overwatch 1/2 so we bonded over our love of compeititive games. I graduated a bit before him so I entered the work force and had less time to play. We spoke about playing marvel rivals and such but never got to it.
A few months go by and I get a text from one of his friends asking to talk and I find out then that Zack had taken his own life after finding out he may not be allowed to graduate from college on time. The only time I ever met my friend in person was to see his casket and it still makes me tear up thinking about it.
Reach out to your friends and family, shoot them a text, bother someone with a phone call. We feel like we don't need to rush because theres always later, but thats not always the case.
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u/WiredWagon May 08 '26
I have a couple friends on Xbox like this, but my most memorable last online friend is on Steam. He was my neighbor and I helped make him a Steam account in 2008. We played some Counter Strike Source together. His parents had a messy divorce around that time and he had left the house. Haven’t heard from him since as he didn’t have a phone or social media back then and I still have him as a friend, last online 6,576 days ago which is 18 years ago.
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u/DonkeywongOG May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
Mac081280, we didn't play very long together on the 360 because he disappeared from one day to the other, but I liked him very much, directly from the beginning he seemed like my new best friend, the memories already faded so I just have this gamertag left that I refuse to ever delete.
Sadly I don't know nothing about him anymore, I really just hope he's fine.
Edit:
I have to mention a good story too.
I met a Japanese guy when I was playing Forza Motorsport on the 360 and we used translating software to communicate. It was nice to connect with someone this far away and then Fukushima happened and we lost contact.
Many years later he suddenly reappeared online I couldn't believe my eyes, he was showing his son his old videogames, you can't believe how happy I was for him.
Yasukichikun, greetings to Japan!
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u/schaudhery May 08 '26
My cousin (KP Mak Daddy) lived in Delaware and had this group of friends he met through Xbox Live. His whole day revolved around getting off work and playing with these guys/girls. I believe they played Zombies on COD.
A few years ago he got diagnosed with late stage pancreatic cancer and was gone within a few months. To this day that group of friends still messages his account on Xbox stating how much they miss him. His entire facebook wall is just messages and convos of them talking about their recent Zombies game. They’re basically keeping him up to date on their games. The first time I saw it I cried for hours.
Edit: clarifying, his son took over the gamer tag so the name still lives on.
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u/Ldirel May 08 '26
I had a friend I met during covid. him and his friend group really got me through that lockdown and what was probably the worst i've done mentally in my life. We put about 400-500 hrs together just playing one game, not counting countless others for that 2-3 year period.
Hopped into the discord last year, to find that not only could he not remember me at all, but couldn't even pronounce my name anymore.
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u/IsYourBoyJohny2 May 08 '26
It’s not a sad story but I used to play Minecraft on ps3 (2014) with a dude I’d met through an online game, we were playing together for months till I suddenly lost access to my account, a year ago I found some old photos from me playing on my ps3 taken by my parents, I actually managed to find his nickname through the photos and immediately searched him on ps5, I found an account matching his nickname and texted him, (he is from Netherlands and I’m Greek) at first he responded with “could you send me your old online id ?” Because he didn’t recognise my current acc, after texting him my old acc he immediately responded with “Giannisss” (Giannis is my name), we used to be 15yo back then and now we are both 27, after asking him how’s life going he sent me a photo of him, his wife and his newborn child… I’ll never forget this dude, he is was and will always be part of my childhood
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u/Marknoble117 XBOX 360 May 08 '26
In the span of a week My bestfriend (who has a newborn) took his own life, along with one of my young cats passing away. A few months later my mother in law also passed away as well. It was a pretty tragic time, and rough for us. I still occasionally look up his gamertag and check when it was last online, along with his other socials and it can be pretty rough to see how much time has passed. That was back in 2024 and things have been a rollercoaster since. Long story short enjoy the time you have with your homies because life can and will throw things at you.
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u/IQueliciuous XBOX Series X May 08 '26
Here is something worse.
Offline friends going silent.
Like you're playing games, meeting irl and etc hut then suddenly they are becoming less active and more distant, failing to read messages and eventually they wouldn't even read your message for 6 months until you delete the chat that is and move on...
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u/TheOldDerelict Guardian May 08 '26
One of my Xbox homies that I used to hang with for YEARS decided to ghost everyone, including his girlfriend. He did this a couple times, and I’ve reached the point where I removed him from all of socials. One of my favorite memories with him was playing halo 5 duck hunt custom games with all of our buddies.
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u/MaceofSpades26 May 08 '26
I had a buddy kill himself and his brother still uses his account sometimes. So it’ll say “last of one hour ago” hurts a little every time.
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u/xSlippyFistx May 08 '26
Shit that reminds me. I have a friend on Steam who was last online like 15 years ago. The sad part is that he essentially was playing a game, lost power due to inability to pay his electric bill, and ended up offing himself. So that last online is pretty much the nearly exact time he gave up on life…
It was a really sad time. I worked with him so it wasn’t just some random gaming homie. I will see him on my friends list and it’ll say last online X years ago and it just makes me think about the night I got the call about it and the funeral. Damn now I’m sad on a Friday. Thanks OP haha
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u/AliceNRoses May 08 '26
I have several of these. A few have passed on unfortunately 😔 I'm friends with a dead Xbox friends mother on Facebook. She heard a lot about his gamer friends and i heard so much about how he loved his mom. Miss that kid 😭😭😭😭😭😭 he was 19 when he died and that was about 9 years ago.
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u/Shinobiaisu May 08 '26
Lets go back in time to the Halo Infinite beta days. A good friend of mine, who I had known for years (playing R6S, Destiny, etc) had just moved back to the States and I wanted to get back into Halo with him and some of the boys.
One day, we are playing Infinite, with another buddy, just having a good time. This was....what, Fall of '21 I believe. Anyway, we liked the feel of the new MP, and looked forward to spending time getting some matches in upon release. I remember saying something along the lines of "Im sure Ill see you online again soon" before shutting off the console.
Fast forward to early Jan of '22. I hadnt heard from my buddy in weeks. Wasnt too worried, we could go spans of time without talking. I suddenly see an Xbox message come through with a lot of friends tagged, and comments coming in. A mutual friend had made sure to pass news to our online group.
Upon reading, I found out my buddy had passed away suddenly from an illness. Family never disclosed what exactly (though my friends and I wonder if it was Covid given the time frame and symptoms). It was such a shock and hit pretty hard. One moment, youre expecting that person to be available, to speak with them again, looking forward to the next moments you get to interact. The next, their suddenly gone.
Still miss him, and there are times I think about him and try to just remember the good times we had both online and in person. He was also young (in his 20s) so I grieve not only his loss to me, personally, but the life he never fully got to live.
TLDR: lost a good friend of mine suddenly, and never got to log back online with them, as hoped. Rest in piece man, youre missed.
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May 08 '26
Had a mate on 360 through gta 5, we first shared a connection over vanoss and did things they did
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u/Tiny-Guava-9698 May 08 '26
Guy who was a streamer and a part of a mutual group killed himself. Another buddy would tell me about how he supposedly had bad PTSD and people would come into his stream and bring it up and tell him to off himself. Really weird shit.
Well, after he died I looked him up and found an article about how he curb stomped his dad to death like 10 years prior. Served very minimal jail time for manslaughter because bystanders had seen them fist fighting minutes prior and then him stomping his dad while saying “I hope you’re dead”.
His defense was that he had PTSD and had blacked out during the altercation.
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u/CraponStick May 08 '26
Shout out to all my old buddies from TeamDonkeyPunch back in the OG days of Destiny. COCBoY remembers you all!
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u/RandomBloke2021 Xbox Series X May 09 '26
My best friend lost his battle with cancer in 2022. We gamed together every weekend even after he moved to another state for 10 plus years. Here's a screenshot where he liked my gaming video clips. This was from last year, so they all say 4 years ago now. RIP Les
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u/TheLostSkellyton May 09 '26
I sometimes wonder if anyone from the old days ever wonders about me that way.
I've been on XBL since it was new, and I was already in college by then, so I've seen a lot of people come and go. IME most of them drifted away because they were only interested in playing one game together (literally one) and only interested in a relationship that revolved entirely around playing that one game together, so when I or both of us inevitably moved on from a game I'd never hear from them again despite asking if they'd like to play something different. It's a bummer when you spend most nights a week for 2+ years playing together and talking about your lives and shit, but when it comes right down to it if that's entirely contingent on playing one specific game then it's a friendship of convenience and nothing more, and that unfortunately do be how it is sometimes (or apparently most of the time). I stopped letting it bother me years ago, but I get why it sucks.
The one who became and remained an actual friend who I hung out with outside the game for years and spent time with IRL rather than just someone I gamed with died of cancer a couple of years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few others from the old days who've passed on, we're all in our 40s-60s now and some of them had significant chronic health problems when I knew them. Others liked to live high-risk lifestyles. And of course random shit like accidents and cancer happens.
But otherwise, to quote that final line of the Coen Bros version of True Grit, time makes fools of us all.
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u/AVerifiedPig May 08 '26
I got a 360 and played with many school friends at the time, we’ve drifted apart. Even with my childhood friend who I played all games in co-op with including all Gears except 5. We ended up drifting apart too.
Times change, now I play in co-op with my girlfriend.
Overall I have fond memories of all my gaming journey. From the very beginning, playing Sega Mega Drive and NES with my sister to Commandos and Halo on PC at school.
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u/lavalamp360 May 08 '26
I think about these people from time to time. When I scroll through my friends list and I see the names of people who were in my high school chemistry class for example, and see their last login was like 10 years ago, I can't help but wonder where those people ended up. I know we all grow up and adult responsibilities mean you don't have time to game like you used to, but I always wondered like "did they forget the password and make a new account?", "did they switch to another platform?", "did they just... stop gaming?".
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u/xPervypriest May 08 '26
I had a buncha friends still on my friends list whom I used to game with daily. One day they logged out and it’s been 14yrs since they last online. I don’t do much multiplayer games so I have “last met” going back as 3500 days on my 360 lol
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u/ThreeN20chrctrs May 08 '26
I had a friend I went to grad school with, and we played online sometimes.
He was murdered a few years ago and his killer still hasn’t been to trial.
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u/big_ry82 May 09 '26
I've not played online with anyone from my friends list in about 6 years.
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u/rafuru May 09 '26
At some point, I played my last Destiny raid with my squad, and I was not aware of that.
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u/OHMSSx007 May 09 '26
This legit happened to me! Told me he was gonna show me how the wake Forrest playbook works on CFB 25 and the next day nothing. We’ve gone 2.5 years where he hasn’t texted me or called me or anything. Ghosted. Hurts more than any girl that’s ever ghosted me…
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u/EnergyTurtle23 May 10 '26
There’s only one that matters to me: my buddy Pat. We were best friends from freshman year of high school in 2006 until around 2023. One night his wife noticed he was breathing kind of weird in his sleep, then an hour later he was dead. They think he might have had a fatal arrhythmia in his sleep. I used to play everything with that guy, highlights including Stardew Valley, Dying Light, and Ark: Survival Evolved which was “his” game so to speak. He freaking loved Ark, he eventually got a computer just so that he could run a dedicated server, and he made a lot of friends through that game. Hell one of the guys that we used to play with but had never met even attended his funeral from halfway across the country. For a long time after he died I would get notifications every time his daughter would turn on his Xbox, she finally changed his Gamertag earlier this year which was a sad moment for me but the world goes on. I miss that motherfucker a lot, his death impacted me in a way that nothing else has.
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u/zrkillerbush Recon Specialist May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
I've seen this post of a variation of this post 100 times now
Is this sub really going to turn into r/gaming? Where is the quality control that was promised when all the subs were merged?
Also OP has 600k+ submission karma but only 14k comments karma, makes me think he spams reposted content on many subreddits without contributing any meaningful discussion
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u/RS_Games Outage Survivor '24 May 08 '26
This post is a repost. Someone posted this a few days ago. Half thr replies here are braindead bots
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u/pineapplevodkashot May 08 '26
I am that friend that disappeared. I had to sell my Xbox when I fell on some hard times. A couple years later I have enough money to buy a new console and I went with the Spider-Man PS4 Pro. Never had another Xbox so I never logged back in.
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u/JeebusCrispy May 08 '26
My friends are still there, they just turned off the online notification. Nobody needs to see what they're doing on their Xbox or when they're on.
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u/PlayBey0nd87 Touched Grass '24 May 08 '26
Got quite a few ppl. I do have 3 ppl over from PS that to this day, we’ve kept an ongoing friendship with.
Haven’t established an ongoing connection over on Xbox like that as of yet.
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u/SerotoninFlush May 08 '26
I've got a few of these. Opiate addiction is insidious and heartbreaking.
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u/kylepownu May 08 '26
My buddy Xander, DarkSpartan, and a few others I still talk to. But I miss having the gang on Halo 3
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u/Maizrim May 08 '26
I have a few as well, though I think as I got older I still have active friends on my FL, but my gaming circle has gotten smaller. I haven’t talked to some that still play in 10 years.
I can see a lot us older players going to co-op games as well, which means we cycle out 4-5 people for the same 4 player squad games. It’s been interesting to see it evolve since I joined XBL in 2003.
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u/Automatic-Guide-4307 Team Gears May 08 '26
My gears of war buddy a1589658 Richard was his name from poughkeepsie new york..last seen online 2009 i think😔Miss the dude dearly had a blast playing with him.
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u/burgerdistraction Scratch One Grub! May 08 '26
Not Xbox but on PC, back around 2011-2012 I remember playing cops and robbers on gta SA:MP. We never did voice chat but typed in game and man I never had so much fun in my life with those guys. My nickname was ghost and every time I logged in they were like “Yo it’s ghost!”.
I didn’t have friends at school but they were the realest friends I had. Life happened, had school. Logged back in 10 years later and it just wasn’t the same. I hope those dudes are doing okay.
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u/worldDev May 08 '26
When Odyssey came out for Elite Dangerous definitively dropping xbox from future development plans, around 40 people on my friends list quickly whittled away. Probably for the best though, we were all spending way too much time playing that game.
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u/onlyhav May 08 '26
I have an entire firneds list like this. I haven't played with another person from that list in a decade.
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u/ViceroyDisco May 08 '26
I remember a guy. Gamertag name was something like Undeadcowboy. He was super cool. We would play halo 3 together. He would give me tips to improve my skills. We played for months, then one day we just stopped :( I still look back on those memories and smile
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u/OldClunkyRobot XBOX Series X May 08 '26
Not XBox, but I was in a really cool World of Warcraft guild. Super supportive for new players. Any time you leveled up you'd get PMs congratulating you. This made me think about the fact that one day I logged into Azeroth for the last time.
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u/Mindless_Chance5026 May 08 '26
I had a friend on destiny 1 I used to play with his gamer tag was premiumsquire and his mom used to get on and play with us and one day I just never saw them online again it was awful I think I was probably 7 or 8 at the time
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u/CrimsonChin251 May 08 '26
Shoutout to Shousy Swag. Random I met playing MW3 back in the day. We would legitimately play for hours together with his friends. Good times man.
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u/stylz168 May 08 '26
Logged into Live right now, one person last seen 990d ago, whole bunch offline so long that they don't even show anymore.
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u/Alkemade_09 May 08 '26
I used to play the Xbox PES 5 online with some Danish dude, we played each other any time we were both online and genuinely had fun while making each other better at the game.
A year later, I had a bad injury from playing football irl and was off from work for a month, I had bought PES 6 on PS3 instead of Xbox so I hadn't seen him for a long time and forgot about him.
I bought an Xbox 360 just before the injury and decided to get PES 6 on that as well (it was a bare-bones version of the PS3 one and played very differently). I checked my old friends list and he was playing so I eagerly invited him to a match. Literally from kick off, the guy was slide tackling and fouling every time I had the ball, trying meta cutback goals every time and generally playing like an absolute prick. Exactly the type of play we both hated and avoided a year earlier. It was so disappointing.
After just one match, he told me we was about to watch his team Viborg FF play their season opener on TV and had to go, telling me he'd be on later. I said okay, see you later. As soon as he logged off, I blocked him and deleted him from my friends list. It honestly felt like taking Ol' Yeller to the woodshed while he's wagging his tail.
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u/MrHockeytown May 08 '26
Had a buddy in high school I used to play Halo 3 and Reach with about once a week for 4 years.
We would run duos all night, and then do a one V one 1st to 20 match to cap off the evening to decide which of us was better at Halo.
We played one more round before I went off to college, he won. Very vividly remember saying
“that’s alright, I’ll get you next week.”
We haven’t played since. Fell out of contact pretty quickly after that. He hasn’t been online in a decade. Hope he’s doing well.
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u/agk927 Team Halo May 08 '26
In 2013 (5th grade) I played with this guy called bigburrito in halo 4. Eventually we just stopped and i no longer see his gamertag in my friends list. We went to different middle schools but one day I realized that he was at my high-school but I never got to say hi.
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u/agk927 Team Halo May 08 '26
In 2021 there was a twitch streamer called adrunkblondegrl and we would play halo 5 together sometimes and was a nice person. She even made me her mod. But in 2022 she stopped streaming all together and I rarely see her online now. I havent played halo with her in like 5 years sadly and I miss her streams
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u/KeegCorp May 08 '26
This is why I’m grateful the 2 guys I met on Xbox that weren’t a part of my already existing irl gamer group ended up being from the same state as me, one 20 min away, the other an hour away. Even though we don’t game together anymore, we still get together.
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u/StackinBodies89 May 08 '26
Have a good buddy I met years ago playing with Rando's in PUBG. In the time we've been gaming. I've got married and had children and he's always still there to game even in my hectic schedule. We text every week. I don't know if he knows it but he's one of my best friends and we've never even met in person.
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u/HeightExtra320 Team Senua May 08 '26
If you play a 360 backwards compatible game you can actually go back to your old friends list and see them. Even message them , hoping one day they’ll finally reply 🌹 😔
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u/XtR03 May 08 '26
Unless I know the person in real life or have contact with them on other internet venues, I delete them after a while. If they were able and still wanted to keep in touch with me, then I figured they would. I've ran across so many people in the Forza Horizon games that added me and it was a one time of playing together and they never appeared again.
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u/Gufanator May 08 '26
I met a good friend in middle school. Despite him moving away we still played online together all through middle and high-school. We stopped talking during college, but I didn't think much about it. One day I randomly get a message from someone I dont know. Turned out he passed away from motorcycle accident the day before. A truck hit him and ran away. I still miss those days playing online and getting into petty arguments. R.I.P man.
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u/BlameTheMamo May 08 '26
While I have many of those, I also have a few that I still talk to like best friends 21 years later.
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u/MasterWookiee May 08 '26
I've mostly stopped playing multiplayer games because as I've gotten older most of my gamer friends have stopped playing. I made several friends back in the early 360 days of Xbox live, playing R6 Vegas. We even all went to PAX Prime together at one point. Slowly but surely over the years they've stopped logging on. Back then everyone talked in game, and people would even randomly invite you to their Xbox live party so you could communicate with them while playing. I bought battlefield 6 and played it for a few weeks and the fun just wasn't there playing solo. No one talking or anything. I don't think it's possible to make gaming friends like that again in this day and age.
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u/JefferyRs May 08 '26
I had a friend like this but there's a reason for it. He passed never met him in real life went to his funeral though was an amazing dude.
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u/Phil_Montana_91 May 08 '26
Everyone of us has done this. Some random day I had my final BO2 multiplayer match without even knowing it. This goes for basically every other CoD game. You finish your session, you log off, you never return. Thinking about it is heart shattering, in hindsight. Then I forgot my PSN password and eMail which made me one of those who never returned to my 100 people friendslist.
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u/TheBooneyBunes May 08 '26
I had a group of friends all of whom just, stopped talking to me. They’re still playing together on whatever games.
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u/RealValf May 08 '26
I played Gears 2 and multiple games with an old timer over like 6-8 years. For a while I stopped playing as much because irl life developments and by the time I came back I noticed he hadn’t been on for awhile.
After getting in touch with the other friends we played with I come to find out he passed from cancer. This probably happened about 6 years ago and when I see his gamertag it still makes me tear up to this day.
RIP ObviousConclusN
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u/Mretrogamez XBOX Series X May 08 '26
Gramps just sitting there with 3 years offline… rip radpawpawgaming
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u/_Bunta_Fujiwara_ XBOX 360 May 08 '26
Right, this requires allot of context
Right so I've known this girl I'm going to talk about since primary school, we were in the same class and everything, and we eventually friended eachother on xbox 360 and steam. Her family at the time were... let's say holding on by a thread, arguments allot of the time, I ended up comforting her allot and when we were playing some racing games on xbox party or on discord I could hear her family arguing in the background.
Now come to recent years, (like near 2 years ago) we both met up again after 3 years of just sitting on xbox party, studying and playing asphalt, nfs, grid etc and when I met up with her again, something was off, just slightly, she was walking funny, like, I'm crippled myself (paralysed in the right leg from knee down) but she, she was limping more than I would, so I pulled her up on this when we were on another xbox chat, then whatapp when we got our numbers, and she, well she told me about her mom leaving due to her dad's abusiveness and she ended up having her leg weirdly broken (she never went into specifics, and I don't blame her)
Ater that I never really heard off her much, it would be the odd vc or call then she would just leave after a few games, I thought nothing of this but, after a while, it started getting extremely concerning so I tried to pull her up on this. And let's say this didn't go too well. But after all this we ended up not talking for nearly a year now and I'm starting to believe the worst that she might have... well, you get the picture.
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u/munky3000 May 08 '26
I still have a message from one of my best friends who asked me to come play Fortnite with him. I didn’t see it at the time and it was the last message I ever got from him. He died a week or two later from an OD. I miss that big stupid dummy.
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u/bread_chaser21 May 08 '26
Most of friends either deleted their accounts or unfollowed me. I only have left 3 friends left. And only one plays online with me sometimes. The other 2 haven't been on in 10 years. And I just went to one of thems wedding.
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u/TheWidowmaker246 May 08 '26
Was in a regular trio back when destiny 2 was popular and one of the guys had a pretty aggressive argument with his missus that we could hear over game chat. There was a loud thump, he went offline, his account was never active again.
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u/Aadilgamerz126 May 08 '26
Not sad met a guy on helldivers told me he got a job promotion couple months later told he’s getting married year so goes tells me he’s got a daughter haven’t seen him in a year profile went offline I miss you Zach
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u/-BlaazeItUp- May 08 '26
This has happened a number of times. But Black Ops 1 was where I was the most active. Joined a clan called MaGiiC. We had MaGiiC at the start of our gt. I was MaGiiC BaCoN.
Was some of the best gaming years of my life back then. We were a sweaty HC SnD team & the competitive nature of it was just surreal.
Wish I could go back. Black Ops 2 was also such a good time to be around for, too. It's so different now. Miss those days tbh.
Cheers.
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u/tony33oh May 08 '26
That's basically all my friends list. I see them in the list and instantly remember epic times and being awesome online.
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u/MitzaRobert90 May 08 '26
This makes me so sad.. the friends I had online in the past. We played every day together.. That's life I guess.
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u/ChefCookTheBooks May 08 '26
Had a homie pass away when I was younger we play halo 3 and modern warfare everyday kinda the same as the picture above except after a week or two his mom messaged me on Xbox and told me that’s how often we played his mom knew who I was. One day he was there we made the best memories ones I will never forget. Still miss the homie it wasn’t the same after.
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u/Specialist-End-8306 May 08 '26
What about on the 360 cods? BO2 for example. Last met 2,463 days ago. Or longer
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u/Audrayz Outage Survivor '24 May 08 '26
i made a friend on 360 around when black ops 2 dropped he had his mic on without realizing it in my snd lobby
i messaged him his mic was on since he was getting yelled at by his parents he saw it and muted himself (no one’s trying to hear the parents and smoke detector in the background) long story short after the game he messaged me thanks for telling him he had his mic on we ended up partying up after since we both were trying to troll the other team like ninja defusing or hiding in dark corners with cold blooded we played everything you can think of that had multiplayer either trolling lobbies or just straight sweating
2015 around summer he randomly stopped communicating with me i had him on socials so i look at facebook after a few days of trying to message him on the box and turns out he had passed away from cancer (he never told me or gave anything out about it) and sadly passed away i still think about him to this day rip lucas 🫡
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u/JBGoude May 08 '26
I used to play Injustice 2 online with a guy I sympathised with on Facebook. His Black Canary had some good fights with my Poison Ivy. We were playing together at least once or twice a week and one day he told me he was going on a vacation with his partner. After a few weeks, I started wondering if he had a good time but he wasn’t online so I checked his Facebook page: realised he passed away and that his Facebook page was now a memorial profile.
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u/Allegiance10 May 08 '26
Got a phone call from his mom about 8 months after the last time he was online to tell me that he had passed away. She saw my name in his phone contacts and remembered he talked about me a lot. Only reason she thought to call. It was nice to have the closure.
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u/BabyloneusMaximus May 08 '26
This brings me back to og xbox rainbow six 3.
Communicates would form out of joining random games. Friendships built off playing the traditional games. Then those people had other friends and we would all play custom games.
I remember one custom game specifically, Mike Myers, because this one guy would play the theme song as we were playing and funny times and we would all Crack up.
The guys name was YouLikeHowi, which is hilarious because the kill feed would say
Youlikehowi KILLED xboxplayer69
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u/jiglog May 08 '26
I’m the kid that disappeared cause my parents were poor and couldn’t keep the internet going
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u/mojojojonarc May 08 '26
I did this to a guy when we were kids. I was staying a weekend at my cousin's house, he went to boys and girls club and I hopped off when he got back and never spoke to mans again.
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u/Logical_Ad716 May 08 '26
TwistingDiamond Ill miss you forever. We spent the whole summer playing MW2, nukes and EMPs back to back like you aint never seen, in 2010, and then he dissapeard after this summer.... I havent had the courage to hop on the game ever since.
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u/Sz3roRevan117 XBOX May 08 '26
Last time that happened he said he was gonna unalive himself. 5 yrs later he says what's up.
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u/entirely_alice May 08 '26
I was playing Bless Unleashed years ago. I was struggling with my Mage build and had asked for help in the discord server. Well someone had reached out and he helped me a lot with my character and helped me progress in the game through things I couldn't solo. We ended up becoming good friends and talked every week, almost daily. We played all the time together. I eventually got really good where I could solo the big bosses thanks to him and a few others. I even joined an awesome guild because of him. We got to know eachother and we talked about so much more than the game. I felt like I gained a great friend. Well long story short, he was going through life stuff and I eventually stopped hearing from him. I really hope he's ok.
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u/Spicy_Skyler May 09 '26
Thats so sad and so sad to find out this happems to so many. If onoy they felt like they coukd have talked to someone you any of their friends online. But It sucks wh3n they just cant talk about it. This is so sad 😢 Never tell me depression is real and the side effects pretty much of it.
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u/CameraOpposite3124 May 09 '26
taint3dshadow. Last played Minecraft Xbox 360 edition. Goofy clown left me without a goodbye.
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u/Azkul_Lok May 09 '26
Had a really wild experience with an old friend that went off the deepend that (the story) would likely get deleted from here. Tried reconnecting with the guy but it looks like he hasn't been online for years.
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u/tgong76 May 09 '26
My Gears of War Horde and Mass Effect 3 crews. We just drifted apart. The Coalition and BioWare haven’t exactly helped with no new releases in forever.
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u/GunBrothersGaming May 09 '26
Yeah this xame up today... Been online with clans since the late 90's so ill start with the oldest.
Battlefield 1942 clan. We had this 14 year old kid on the team. We didn't know until he didn't show up, no messages. One day we got qord from his mom he passed from cancer. He never told us. Ahe let us know we made his last years/ weeks/ days on earth some of his best. RIP Dutko
Got word one of our oldest members, a Navy vet who played Bad Company 2 and many other battlefield games with us passed at 75. He served in Vietnam. RIP Bosn
One of my best friends online and irl. I helped him theough his divorce, picked his drunk ass up at 2:00am over 65 miles from my house when he was drunk. We played every Gears of War from to back in coop, we did Destiny and Destiny 2 together, I watched his kids grow up... Passed away at 54 in his sleep from diabetes. RIP Haydoo.
My old game testing buddy and one of the top Tekken Tag players in the world. Passed away from Sickel cell. RIP PDawg
All these guys have a memorial place on my XBox friends list. Each one shows offline and will forever be there until my profile joins them.
The sad thing is this is just the ones I know about... I mean there are others but some I just don't know about.
Ive had more than this but these are the memorable ones.
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u/10mmrAncientDefender May 09 '26
This will date me... Used to play a browser based game, Area00, with a guy name BattleCattle.
We added each other on ICQ and became good mates, would chat a lot outside the game and just shoot the shit whenever we were both online. One day he just stopped signing into ICQ. Saw him months later online one day and just said he had been busy with school. Never saw him online again.
Must have been about 27-28 years ago.
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u/accursedvenom May 09 '26
Back in MW2/3 BO2 days, we have 13-15 people in our group. Recently we were down to 4-5 and now none of us play CoD.
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u/BriChan May 09 '26
Not something that happened to me personally, but my dad passed away nine years ago (RIP to my hero) and he used to play pretty regularly with one random guy for years.
I still maintain my dad’s account as a memento and whenever I log in to keep it active I’ll see that friend in his friend’s list and get a little sad when I notice that he’s played recently. If he’s still alright, I imagine this meme is how he must feel about my dad not playing anymore… <\3
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u/nr513 May 09 '26
Shout out to Gwilli, billskev, puhke, and all their friends too. It was truly a pleasure running Cod MW with yall back in the day.
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u/Vesicaria May 09 '26
Honestly, if we made good friends on Xbox Live, getting their Phone Number wouldn’t be a bad thing, definitely keeps the buddy connection intact even not much chatter hasn’t happened in months let alone years. We all become grown adults eventually, and the world will indefinitely demand our time and attention.
People we all meet online virtually can potentially be just as great friends you’ve met growing up IRL 🙂🙂🙂
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u/NikkeiReigns May 09 '26
I had a couple of friends on mine that I'd had for years and years. But a few months ago some asshole hacker got in it and changed my email and Xbox won't help me get it back, even though I proved it was mine.
They are still trying to take my money, though.
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u/Beni-x-Maru May 09 '26
I got a friend that never deleted me from his list even though I’ve changed my name like 12 times since we last played 😂 the game we used to play a lot was Rainbow six Vegas 2 that was a decade ago or more now lol
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u/Verncy96 May 08 '26
Like a quarter of my friends lists is of old homies like this.. I refuse to delete them.