8 Video Games That Made You Hate Yourself

It goes without saying that video games can be both stressful or relaxing, but above all else, they should absolutely be something that brings you joy. Otherwise, why the hell are you playing at all?

A video game shouldn’t make you feel bad, and it definitely shouldn’t foster your self-loathing, leaving you harboring a hot-burning hatred for yourself. When you’re paying for the “pleasure,” who needs this in their life?

And yet, sometimes games just bring out the worst in us all - our impatient refusal to just wait for reviews before splashing the cash on a rough end product, or the story itself holding a mirror up to our own personal failings.

Whatever the reason, these games all left us lamenting ourselves and what we’ve come to. 

Perhaps we just couldn’t resist pre-ordering that game we knew deep down wouldn’t live up to expectations, and so when we felt the disappointment first hand, we had only ourselves to blame.

When games make you feel this way, you might wonder what you’re even doing with your life.

If nothing else, we were all left seeking the warm comfort of a known quantity after getting burned by these titles...

If a publisher well and truly whiffs it with a highly anticipated AAA video game, you should probably take their claims about the sequel being a ton better with a truckload of salt.

Case in point, we have Star Wars Battlefront II, which DICE and EA assured fans would address every major issue with the first Battlefront - namely the lack of launch content, absence of a single-player campaign, and egregious doling out of DLC in a paid season pass.

Battlefront II promised a meaty, cinematic story mode while ditching the season pass model in favour of entirely free DLC, as left many fans doubtless that it would deliver a wildly superior sequel.

Except, in perhaps gaming's all-time greatest instance of "fool me twice...," Battlefront II's early reviews pointed out the game's implementation of predatory loot box mechanics, which heavily incentivised players to spend real money on microtransactions in order to speed up multiplayer progression.

This caused enough of a furore that EA actually pulled the plug on microtransactions before the game's full release, but this didn't remedy the fact that the game's progression system was still designed with them in mind, ensuring players were left grinding themselves silly to unlock even a single hero character.

Though Battlefront II was substantially improved in the months following release, it remains a shining example of the perils of pre-ordering. 

If you've got even a modicum of self-control, you're better off waiting a few days and letting other folks spend their money to test it first - especially where multiplayer games are concerned.

While Battlefront II missed EA's sales projections, likely due to the loot box controversy, it still sold 9 million copies during its launch window. 

That's... a lot of regret-filled purchases right there, and yet, so many of us are simply powerless to resist the shiny carrot that is the Star Wars IP.