Also, I find it interesting if life-like models such as these (or fully indistinguishable) were placed in a combat game, would anyone start to feel empathy towards them and actually hesitate before 'attacking' them and change their approach?
Doubtful, in general the people playing the games, know its a game. That by itself buts a barrier between what they do and how they feel about it. Of course, there's varying degrees of it.
It doesn't help that games and media (music, video, movies) have been bombarding us with acts that no sane normal person would find acceptable. In movies we see visceral depictions of such things happening to real actors (although special effects obviously come into play). In music we can find explicit lyrics talking about such things. Games have been increasingly leaning on explicit and detailed depictions of violence by the gamer (just look at Last of Us 2). While some people were turned off by it, not many felt empathy towards the people they were butchering in that game.
Again to varying degrees of separation between games and reality depending on the person. Another example, VR and horror games. Some people viscerally react to being in VR to the point where they react to things as if it were happening to them in real life. Some people don't. I bought my first VR headset because I was hoping it would help me conquer my fear of heights. Unfortunately since I knew it wasn't real, there was no fear of heights while standing on top of a skyscraper. I just walked off of it and looked down. Similarly many people instinctively duck away from things coming at them. For me, it's all about why? It's not real. So unless there's some penalty in game for something hitting me, I just stand there and let it "pass through my head". In real life, I'd be violently trying to move out of the way.
Similarly for horror games. Some people get scared by them, some don't. The last time I felt anything approaching fear in a horror game was back when I first played Alone in the Dark when it originally released.
Although, looking back at your question, you did ask in such a way that if only one person in the world would feel empathy, then it would qualify as "yes"? However, that's already true. There are some people that currently do feel empathy towards in game characters and hesitate before doing anything "bad" to them.
So, I guess, the answer would be yes. Some people might feel empathy and hesitate just like they've been doing the past few decades.
But for the people that haven't been feeling empathy and hesitating, I don't think in game characters being more realistic and lifelike will change anything.
That said, I'm just waiting for the NSFW world to get ahold of explicit versions of something like this and going wild with actor likenesses in NSFW contexts.
Regards,
SB