10 Hated Video Game Moments You're Totally Wrong About
1. Trevor's Torture - Grand Theft Auto V
Beloved though Grand Theft Auto V is, there's one story mission which caused considerable ire among the fanbase and critics alike.
In the mission "By the Book," Trevor is instructed to torture a man in order to ascertain the whereabouts of another man the FBI claims has links to terrorism.
You're given no option but to partake in brutalising the man via a multitude of gnarly methods - including waterboarding, electrocution, and removing his teeth with pliers - and after finally getting the required info, you switch to Michael and shoot the alleged terrorist dead.
By the Book remains one of the most-loathed missions in the entire franchise, many finding enormous discomfort in having to torture someone - a not unreasonable feeling, in honesty - while others felt that the mission was effectively endorsing "enhanced interrogation" in the real world.
But of course, it's important to remember that Trevor straight-up talks about the ineffectiveness of torture in the lead-up to the mission, and a Weazel News broadcast later reveals that the assassinated man was a totally innocent philanthropist.
Evidently Rockstar wanted to satirise the very American notion of using torture to gather intel, and did so in an incredibly edgy way where the player was offered no option not to participate.
Hating the mission for its discomfort is fair enough - though that's very much the point - but hating it for misreading its politics? Not so much.