Last year back in late autumn videogame journalists around the world profoundly lifted up their flaming torches and pitchforks together and marched through the internet, forum by forum, news site by site. This collective hivemind-like outrage was aimed towards the announcement trailer of Hatred, the first game created by a Polish company Destructive Creations. The game displayed in the video truly lived up to its name, viewers are presented a man who's dressed up in a leather jacket and a black heavymetal haircuit and about to commit his “crusade”. We hear some delightfully colourful monologue where he informs us that he, and I quote, “fuckin' hates this world and the human worms feasting on its carcass”. So time to arm up and pew pew in the streets of a peaceful city and kill as many people as you can before you die. The game sparked a lot of conversation, as one might have expected. Some called it “the end of videogames”, stating that the existence of Hatred undermines what ground videogames have achieved in the eyes of media these past years and just how ungodly sick it all is. The other side of the debate however plead towards the freedom of artistic expression and that a videogame should not be banned just because some people got offended. All this just threw more fuel into the fire and the game got its free publicity and advertising.

Now that the game has been released, I cannot help but look back at the verbal warfare that took place few months ago and say “This is what we all got so riled up about?”. Instead of Satan's lost bastard child, all we got was a mediocre and boring stick shooter with some decent destructible environment. The game failed to gain any sort of emotional status. No anger, no guilt, no disgust, just nothing. Criticizing the game due to these failures has proven somewhat difficult due to “Uuh, you just don't like it because political correctness and edginess boohoo” stance some individuals have taken.

All this non-civilized debate has however brought up another, more important question: How did Hatred fail at delivering anything emotional? Judging by the first reactions to the trailer the game was practically good to go and able to dig up emotions the players didn't even know existed. So what went wrong? How can violence be used in videogames effectively?

Context. Ah, my favourite part when to comes to analysing basically anything. The players aren't given sort of context to this bloody “crusade”. New Game, shoot people. No reason or motivation other than “the game won't advance otherwise”. This is one of the reasons, the players are not given any other options except shoot innocents. If there are no other options, the game should build its world and characters before any violence in order for the player to feel self-hatred or guilt. A game where one controls your Average Joe who, after several dark and grim situations, ends up in the streets with a gun and the blood of innocent bystanders in his hands, would be an absolutely terrifying experience if the script is any good. Hatred however offers no such build-up and throws the player right at the climax, without knowing any of the character, including the one who the player controls.

An excellent example of well done violence can be found in last year's This War of Mine. Instead of a group of soldiers, the player controls a group of survivors, civilians stuck in the war ravaged city. Players have to make do with limited amounts of food, medicine and avoid soldiers and sometimes other survivors, lest you end up on the wrong side of the gun.

I still distinctly remember a very specific moment during my first playthrough. A group of bandits managed to sneak in and pillaged our safehouse, taking our entire medicine cabinet and leaving our cook in bad shape. I would have to go deeper into the city the following night to find more resources. After reaching an idyllic area yet untouched by the war, I found a house occupied by an elderly couple, spending a quiet evening in their living room. I felt my heart skip a beat, as I knew it was either robbing them or going back to the rest of the group, empty handed. I chose the former and breached into the house. The old man, agitated by my sudden entry, stood up from his chair and demanded I leave their house. I wish I could've left, if it didn't put my own survival at high risk. After giving the situation some thought I did something I still regret to this day: I repeatedly stab the man until his lifeless body dropped to the floor and ransacked their house, all the while the man's wife cries over his dead husband's body.

What differentiates This Was of Mine's portrayal of violence and Hatred's are the previously mentioned circumstances. This War of Mine lets the player experience the whole story from the start, the build up and the events that lead to violence. Not only that, the game gives players the choice to avoid them. I could've backed away and leave and never enter their home. I could've scavenged many other places, most of which were highly dangerous. Yet this is how it ended. This man died because of my own choice and cowardice.

Does this mean every game has to have some deeper meaning behind its polygons, that every single game needs to find a new , innovative way to immerse the player into the world? Of course not. Every form of media has its own “junkfood”, entertainment that you consume once and hope you get some enjoyment out of. Nothing wrong with that. However deep down I did hope Hatred would've been bigger than what it turned out to be. I wanted to foolishly believe that something even this violent and brutal would've managed to invoke something else other than bored shrugs. Hatred and Destructive Creations managed their marketing perfectly, letting the games media and community do their job for them. It's just a shame that we all made so much noise for nothing.