10 Incredibly Dumb Things Video Game Heroes Need To STOP DOING

Revenge is the motivation for a huge number of video games, and seems to confirm the depressing reality that we humans are nothing more than animals driven by our basest desires.

The Last of Us Part II's depiction of revenge, hate, and the violence that spills from it was widely debated by fans and critics, some appreciating it as a self-reflexive meditation on the utter empty futility of blood-thirsty vengeance, while others couldn't stop screaming at Ellie and Abby to just stop.

The game, in its brilliance, is perhaps the medium's greatest example of characters doing something that infuriates players to make a wider thematic point: the ending isn't supposed to be satisfying as much as it is true to the characters.

Did Abby feel any better when she beat a defenseless Joel to death with a golf club? What was Ellie reduced to by the time she was forcing an emaciated Abby into a fight to the death at game's end?

But The Last of Us Part II is just one example.

Take the original God of War trilogy, which basically shows Kratos caught in a looping spiral of revenge and death, or Max Payne, which sees Max fail to fill the void in his life by littering the streets with literally thousands of corpses.

Revenge is a great excuse for a video game to give players the power fantasy of going full scorched Earth on a fleet of adversaries, but how often is it really the right or smart thing for the character to do?