10 Video Games That Let You Brutally Mess With Other Players
What's a good multiplayer game without some significant trolling?
As enjoyable as it is to be friendly and respectful while playing with other gamers, it’s often more tempting and fun to do everything we can to wreck their day in imaginative ways.
That’s as true in the modern digital age (with most multiplayer experiences being spread across the globe) as it was during the heyday of couch co-op between the 1980s and 2000s.
No matter if we’re talking trash while trolling our friends in the same room, or dishing out insults while intentionally aggravating strangers who’re thousands of miles away, the joys of brutally messing with other gamers have never truly diminished.
In particular, the ten titles on this list offer especially enticing, drastic, and rewarding ways to mislead, annoy, sabotage, or otherwise interfere with someone else in a virtual world.
Admittedly, deploying a blue shell in Mario Kart to prevent a first-place racer from crossing the finish line is perhaps the best and most famous example of such mischief. In fact, it’s so well-known that it’s not worth discussing for the umpteenth time here.
Instead, we’re discussing 10 lesser-known tactics for ruthless tomfoolery that are sure to get a laugh – or a yell – from your unassuming victims.
10. Among Us (Sabotage and Deception)
2018’s Among Us gained popularity after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, with countless players (who could only interact through their screens) becoming consumed by its social deduction gameplay.
After all, it centers around several astronauts who must complete tasks as they try to discover which of their crewmates are villainous “imposters.” Meanwhile, each “imposter” is encouraged to manipulate, trick, and kill their crewmates while remaining undetected until the end of each round.
Naturally, its premise and mechanics inherently demand deception and disruption, with each “imposter” being able to implement various “sabotages” to survive. For instance, and depending on the map, they can deplete oxygen, cause a reactor meltdown, reset seismic stabilizers, and interfere with comms.
Consequently, crewmates may be unable to view their tasks, use abilities, or even survive for more than a minute or two. They’re also pressured to abandon their searches for the “imposter[s]” in order to enter certain codes, scan their fingerprints, or do other things to resolve the issue(s) ASAP.
It’s also possibly to fool people with intentionally bad evidence, accusations, and argumentation, as well as act as a red herring to lead crewmates astray (whether you’re saving yourself or collaborating with the real “imposter[s]” for laughs).