Playing an already difficult match can be even more draining and frustrating with the element of toxicity—whether from the enemy team or your own. Games by nature are relaxing, and fun but hiding in its shadow lies cheaters and toxic players. Today we will dip our toes into that shadow and show you our list of what we think are the most toxic games you can play right now.
Authors note: The list goes in no particular order.
Table of Contents
First up, we have Riot’s free first-person shooter game named Valorant. This free-to-play shooter is fairly new to the gaming community as it first appeared around April for its beta version, soon becoming available to the public around June 2020. And just like that boom—an array of team flashes, wall blocks, and satchel charge team damage for the unsuspecting victim.
Despite not having direct team damage with the available weapons just like CS: GO, toxic gamers use agents’ abilities to mess with their teammates instead of the fricking enemy. Players have the ability to mute teammates to avoid being harassed; however, it won’t stop the active trolling that the player will go through just to ruin your day.
Riot Games have plans to tackle Toxicity in Valorant, and that solution is to record in-game voice chats only when a report has been filed. So there’s hopefully more to this soon. And please stop asking for heals from my Jett; she ain’t healing nobody.
From what started as a mod in the classic Warcraft III, Dota or Defense of the Ancients has been around for a while, garnering epic tales of triumph and teammate prowess and its own share of, well, toxicity—a lot of it.
Have you ever searched the term “Peenoise” in the urban dictionary? Well, aside from its play on the word ‘Pinoy,’ it basically plots out three characteristics of a Peenoise: Toxic, Superiority Complex, and “Pabida.” In an old DOTA 2 subreddit that dates back to 2015, a user asked what Peenoise means and who they are. User Silentms07 answered it, stating that Peenoise is basically referring to the noise the Pinoy player makes in both in-game chat and voice comms. Pinoys are being singled out in DOTA due to their massive player base in SEA servers.
Surprised seeing this here? No? Yeah, me neither. League of Legends is Riot’s biggest title that has reached a count of 115 Million monthly players. With that count, you can bet that a lot of people are going to be toxic—I mean, even the chill players would get toxic from time to time.
Some gaming communities deem League players as complete masochists for continuing to play a toxic game. Here in the Philippines, it’s just as bad with toxic players trash-talking you, your family, your educational background, and even your dog—yeah, it happened, I swear. But you know what, people still log in, queue up, and deal with it, sometimes even becoming toxic themselves. So you don’t need to bash for that one missed smite. What about the other three dragons I secured, huh?!
I digress. To counter this, Riot placed out a reporting system for players to report another player for harassment, hate speech, intentionally ruining the game, etc. Not only is this available, but they also have an honor system that rewards good players with honor orbs used for things in-game.
We have the highly accessible Mobile Legends: Bang Bang on this list. With their 78 million monthly players, you know that some essence of toxicity will make its way to at least some of your games, if not all. Ever since the pandemic, and the gradual closing of computer shops, gamers had to choose either PC, console, or mobile gaming. And when each household has at least a mobile phone, you can guarantee that as a viable option for someone to play online games.
This is much more tolling on the younger demographic who absorbs information quicker without much thought about what’s behind it. Before you know it, you have a 7-year-old screaming God knows what to his friends, siblings, parents, or yes, his dog—yeah, I used that example again.
A blast from the past. You can almost hear the screams and shouts of people when Crossfire was played in computer shops— and a lot of cussing, don’t forget the cussing. This first-person shooter was home to trash talkers, hackers, salty gamers from all walks of life. Normally going against a hacker would be infuriating but being kicked by everyone just because your aim is on point for that match just gets the blood boiling.
The toxicity doesn’t stop within one match; it sometimes elongates to a different lobby to continue the harassment on a single-player—crazy.
Whether it be the paid multiplayer version Modern Warefare or its free-to-play battle royale Warzone option, the franchise itself holds a plethora of memories that include a boatload of toxicity. COD produced a gold mine of memes that we still use today; however, its toxicity has been engraved in the gaming community as well. It ranges from lobby voice comms, in-game camping, knifing, and teabagging. Some instances include equipping a riot shield just to trap players into a corner for the whole round.
Though hilarious, and I mean completely hilarious, it doesn’t undermine the fact that someone’s gaming experience had to be ruined at the expense of another. So tread lightly, or else you might be the victim of a 360 no scope placed in a highlights reel.
The survival multiplayer game Rust makes its way to our list of toxic games. The player’s objective is to survive against the elements that nature throws and survive against other players—now, this is where it gets toxic. Players have to gather resources to keep themselves safe; however, people who have been in the server longer tend to bully fresh spawns—people who literally have nothing but a singular rock on hand.
Voice comms are made available in hopes for players to talk it out and make a mutual agreement, but this is just a medium for more diss and trash talk. Some cases involve groups of players cornering a single person to do their resource gathering threatening to kill them if they disagree. Role-playing is great, but if the opposition call quits, it’s time to stop as well.
Enjoy being flashed for ten years? CSGO is present on our list for its iconic community. Launched on the 21st of August in 2012, CSGO is infamous for its own community toxicity that branches to other games as well, be it FPS or not. However, unlike valorant, players can actually commit to teamkills to vent out their frustrations—especially with their iconic taser.
Valves system for reporting toxic players doesn’t deal much action, if any at all, towards toxicity. The only real bans people get is the VAC ban reserved for spin bots, wallers, and aim hackers.
No matter how many walls you build, it can’t keep you safe from Fortnite’s toxicity. This popular battle royale capitalizes on its many pop culture references for players to fully enjoy.
Emotes are integrated into the game and mainly functions as a player’s expression outside of voice comms. This a double-edged sword, and some players out there may take excessive emote spamming irritating when they want to play the game to win.
Over the course of its time, stream sniping has been rampant, which hinders streamers from enjoying the game if they are met with players who literally join the lobby to kill you. If I were one of the first 50 to have died in all my ten games and be still given the “L,” I would’ve raged hard—affecting me and possibly my teammates.
Finally, we have Tom Clancy’s tactical first-person shooter Rainbow Six. This hectic game sometimes has uncoordinated breaches that result in teamkills, Candela flashes from Ying, or even C4 friendly casualties—it happens. However, this one-shot headshot game mixed in with unique operator gadgets can be abused by toxic players.
Players who choose operators with vital roles such as Doc, Rook, or Thermite and not use their unique gadgets can rile up the whole team, especially in ranked games. Doc can even use his stim pistol to heal downed enemies only to shoot them down again—funny but considered toxic.
Luckily, Ubisoft addresses the game’s toxicity through auto-bans and a teamkill system. People who use all-chat for racial, homosexual, or harassing terms will be promptly removed. In-game, Ubisoft implements the reverse friendly fire system, which allows the player to punish offenders for the previous teamkill.
There you have it; those are the 10 of the most toxic games you can play right now. Feel free to share with us your most toxic gaming moments in the comment section below.
Remember to stay safe, game on, and breath before ragin’ out!
marc says:
Basically happens in any MMO game as when you get a group of people together behind an anonymous wall they all act like idiots. The way to avoid it is to only play with people you actually know IRL.. like you know real friends. But that’s not what MMO games are, there’s no money in it.
Henie says:
League of Legends PH logic:
We’re losing. The other team can’t be better than us. That’s just not possible. My teammates just suck. Yeah that’s it. That’s the only reasonable explanation. In order to help the team, I will repeatedly remind my teammates how bad they are playing. Rather than assisting them with a gank or focusing on my gameplay, I will instead prioritize harassing my teammates with my very helpful numerous “?” pings so that they will magically play better.
Alerik says:
You can add Dead by Daylight here as a special mention, that community is really toxic between Survivors and Killers.