Everybody in the room who’s played a video game competitively knows the power of a rage quit. By competitively I don’t mean for money; I mean for pride. For glory. For bragging rights. For TV privileges. For the purpose of settling a dispute. For many of us, the dark shadow-force of rage quitting was born in our childhood basements, permeated to our college dorms, and for the lucky few, transcended into our daily lives. The rage quit is powerful precisely because it carries the most powerful of emotions: pride, shame, frustration, and bottomless, unquenchable anger. Rage quitting is the video games equivalent of taking your ball and going home, often midgame, often with flushed cheeks, and almost certainly with people laughing at you. Let’s dive into my top 5 rage quit games of all time. 

FIFA

Fifa is a because it’s a game so dependent on grooves. I don’t know if I’ve ever played a game where one rides the momentum of the moment in such an extreme way. Just as easily as one can stage a three point comeback can one squander a three goal lead.  When you’re feeling it, it seems like the easiest game in the world. You’re using touch passes, perfectly leading through balls, running the tiki-taka offense to perfection and scoring goals that would make Messi kiss your feet.

Then suddenly, it is the hardest game in the world. Now you seem capable of only kicking the ball to the opposing team. Your through balls go out of bounds. If you do manage to hang onto the ball for more than two passes, your player gets put in a body bag by the opposing Center Defensive Midfielder. All your players have fully regressed to park league skills, whereas your competition has feet that can, and always will, find the ball. You have zero shots on goal. Your one breakaway ends in you dribbling into the goalie.

Rage Quit Moment: At the end of the day you’ll find a way to blame your AI goalie before throwing your controller into the wall.

Super Smash Bros

Super Smash Bros deserves a special spot because few games encapsulate sibling, roommate, or friend rivalry better than this. Everybody’s got a favorite character, and any player who’s worth their salt knows every fucking move, combo, or dirty trick in the book. Luigi’s got his fire-punch, Donkey Kong’s got his clap and spike, Mario’s got his headbutt, Pikachu won’t stop grabbing you, and so on.

Super Smash Bros is so amazing because few games better display the impossibility of staying objective in the moment. When things are not going your way, no move sets are cheaper than your opponent’s, and no character is worse than the one you have burdened yourself through selection.

Rage Quit Moment: At the end of the day you’ll passive aggressively congratulate your opponent for playing as well as they did while button mashing before throwing your wired-N64 controllers into the wall.

Call of Duty 4: MW

Goldeneye would have been another great choice, but I didn’t have nearly enough spit and vinegar at the age of 7 to warrant a rage quit. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was the true game of my adolescence and so takes its righteous place among the most ragequit-inducing games of all time.

While Call of Duty has long been known for its emotional online multiplayer- we venture way back to the days of its split screen multiplayer. All of the odds even. All the classes preset. All the maps memorized.  At it’s most gently form, this was purely a test of skill, reflex, and who could more subtly look at the other person’s half of the TV. At it’s most aggressive, it spawned the modern day duel, the be-all-end-all for minor grievances. “1v1 me bro.” These games would proceed with civility as long as they stayed close, but it only took dying three times in row for the threads to loosen.

Rage Quit Moment: At the end of the day you scream at your brother for “blatantly” screen peaking and throw your controller into the wall.

Madden

Madden falls on this list simply because there are few games more emblematic of the stereotypical american childhood. Everybody thinks they’re hot shit at Madden and yet, somehow, there’s always someone better. The best players are those who have the play that scores every time against  zone defense, and the play that scores every time against a man defense, and then there’s everybody else.

Rage Quit Moment: At the end of the day you’ll resort to using hit stick nonstop, leading you to whiff on all tackles. You’ll say you hit the wrong button, call yourself a useless virgin, and throw your controller into the wall. 

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Sekiro’s hard as shit.

Single player games are special because there’s none of the competition of fighting other people, just disappointment in your self and rage at a machine. Sekiro hails from the Dark Soul family, and while it has some key differences, it uses the same formula of ‘be so frustratingly hard that only the most devoted fan can finish the game’.  the type of game where you study an opponent for two hours die in 2 hits when he is 1 hit away from dying, and then one time you just kill him without taking a hit once. It’s a game that somehow still feels good when you succeed, but even that seems incredible based off the number of times you spike your controller and scream, “how is this fucking shit so hard?” So I don’t know, would Sekiro make a list of games that make you feel accomplished when you succeed? Yes, likely. 

But we’re not talking about getting glad, we’re talking about getting mad. So fuck the sociopaths who made a game this difficult and fuck the masochists like me who keep them in business.

Rage Quit Moment: You won’t so much say anything when you fail at this game, more likely you’ll just let out a blood curdling scream. You don’t know where it comes from, but once it leaves your lips it almost drowns out the sound of your controller hitting the wall. Almost.