Could be a console startup, title screen, intro cutscene, etc. I just got wired off an energy drink so I apologize in advance if this post is unhinged.
I personally associate it with Kirby Super Star’s intro, the Sega CD boot screen (non-US, I associate the US ones with Christmas), and the original Xbox startup.
Minecraft, satisfactory, factorio are ones that come to mind that keep me up too late as an adult. The TES games are ones I remember from my childhood. Morrowind was my jam back in the day, as was NWN.
Definitely tf2
Usually community servers are empty but pub players are practically infinite
Nier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8XTbluLDyE
The opening rant of Kaine refers to something in the late game and it’s soulcrushing, but I love it and how they chose to scream at you on the first launch of the game when you don’t even know who’s speaking. That sets the tone.
For me, the Civilization V intro, lots of lan parties and online sessions where we suddenly found ourselves playing while the birds were waking up to the mørning sun outside our window.
Minecraft, though it’s because I usually open it after sunrise if I’m still awake. most of the time if I’m up all night I’m really deep into surfing the web to the point of like, obscure sites about aliens or something.
Guild wars 1
Command and conquer : red alert
Diablo (the original)
Starcraft 1 & Warcraft 2
For me it was the Star Wars Rebellion main menu. I played that game tons back in the day on a PC that couldn’t handle much more. Starting it up locked me into just wanting to finish a game in one night.
Loved that game!
I actually recently bought it on CD after both the Steam and GOG versions gave me visual glitches. It’s really great even if the enemy AI has infinite resource cheats.
none. staying up past sunrise is insane. even for work
