The Ten Most Polarizing Games of All Time
You know what's the greatest thing about video games? They are not polarizing AT ALL. Video games are the one realm of popular entertainment where people just kinda get along and generally agree with each other! And when they do have slight disagreements, video game fans tend to keep them polite and respectful, knowing that the opinion on the other side is just as valid as their own.
And if you believe that, you must be as stupid as some of the idiots who love/hated the games on this list in a way that doesn't exactly agree with the way I felt about them! No, in fact the world of video games might be about the most highly polarized sector of entertainment which exists. And now, we're taking the risk of stirring the waters by highlighting the most contentious video games of all time.
We were actually happy to note that some of the games which have received the most press for dividing fans (cough cough Last of Us Part II) didn't make this list. But what do you think of those that do appear here? Ambivalence isn't an option: you must choose a side!
How was this calculated?
For every film with at a certain number of ratings, we calculate the percentage of people who loved it (percentle greater than 75%) and hated it (less than 25%). The "contentiousness" score is the lower of those two percentiles.
Consider the most contentious possible scenario -- an equal number love and hate it, with nobody in between. That would be 50% - 0% - 50%, for a score of "50". Let's say another film has a "love/ambivalence/hate" ratio of "38/30/32". That gets a score of 32: still extremely polarizing!
But a movie that almost everyone hates? Let's say a breakdown of 4/35/61. That's a score of just 4, which means it's not very contentious at all.
#10.
Team Fortress 2
22.09% High
"My most played game of all time. There is some magic hear that slowly dwindled with waning dev support and the explosion of crate/key lootbox systems. Oh to be back in the halcyon days of the Gold Rush Update era." - CMonster
23.52% Low
"Multiplayer shooters are not my jam, though this is a decent one. Low barrier to entry compared to e.g. Counterstrike." - tijmen
#9.
Death Stranding
30.77% High
"One of the best pieces of ridiculous nonsense I've ever seen." - Bown
22.17% Low
"Like my ex: gorgeous, self-important, convoluted and confusing." - Timmie Nimrod
#8.
Super Mario Kart
24.35% High
"This title still holds up so well. I know people expect certain add-ons that came in later titles, but really, the control in this one was sharp, the cast was 8 characters but fairly balanced, the maps were neat. This was a classic." - maddog
22.17% Low
"I get it, it was the nineties, but the graphic jesus christ" - MovieCinema
#7.
Control
24.76% High
"Control is a surreal action game blending sci-fi, horror, and mystery. As Jesse Faden, you explore a shifting brutalist building overtaken by a force called the Hiss. With powers like telekinesis and levitation, you fight enemies and uncover secrets. The game combines shooter combat with metroidvania design and rich environmental storytelling. Control delivers a visually stunning, atmospheric, and deeply original experience." - Temptershell
22.26% Low
"Decent atmosphere but chock-full of baffling, backward design choices imported from modern online chaff. It makes no sense to have timed repeating missions and a random, incremental modulation system in a linear single player action game. The story didn't offer enough to keep me interested, burying its lore in a mess of menus I couldn't be bothered to sift through." - Actionberg
22.33% High
"With it's razor sharp sense of humor and legendary graphics. Conker's Bad Fur Day is an unmatched success for RAREWare. It may not be as freeing as Banjo, but the story is well worth the journey and the game play features enough extras to go back to for years to come." - mwestscott
23.3% Low
"The difficulty was wildly uneven in frustrating ways, to the point of souring the whole thing in my mind. I still am amused by bits of it, though." - Daisoujou
#5.
Life Is Strange
25.16% High
"A perfect emotional hurricane—where Max’s rewind power, Chloe’s ”hella” angst, and Arcadia Bay’s looming storm make every choice hurt. The soundtrack? Indie dream. The ending? Soul-crushing" - Zaeba
23.28% Low
"Quite possibly one of the dumbest games I've ever encountered. If not for Adum Plaze's walkthrough of the game, I'd find this title unbearable. The time travel mechanics are never used in an interesting way, and the plot is written in the most moronic and juvenile way imaginable. I struggle to think of a protagonist more unlikable than Chloe, or a game that pulls off so many insulting ass pulls while acting like it's brilliant. It gets points for a solid atmosphere, but otherwise it's awful." - Velvet Crowe
24.53% High
"Despite changing the gameplay mechanics each time a massive update came. (I got to v3), SWTOR's strength is the engaging storylines it present across its 8 classes, though some are better than others (Imperial Agent). The graphics are great, there's only a limited need to carry out group missions with strangers, and it's a convincing return to Star Wars' Old Republic since KOTOR. For a F2P game, it's pretty great." - amazedemon
35.85% Low
"It's alright, the starter planets are really annoying/boring though. Tarris is just following tradition I guess. Pay to win is annoying." - BurstBubble
#3.
Terraria
30.59% High
"Terraria is a great and full experience." - Scuffed
24.67% Low
"Oh dear God, the hours I lost in this game. And I don't really say that in a negative sense, they were hours well-spent, but I didn't even scratch the surface of what you can do and explore in this game, and I'll be honest, that kind of turned me off. There's a lot to love here and IMO it's a superior version of Minecraft, but maybe this style of game just isn't for me. Still, it's addicting as all Hell to build and mine and build and mine and build and mine and build and mine and build..." - TheRealJ-Ro
25.49% High
"Fun silliness hampered by mediocre gameplay." - howabe
43.14% Low
"Arguably one, if not the worst best game ever made. If you don't know or like Twin Peaks, the game is probably even worse. Because even if it's bad, you can still smile because you recognize the references. If this is not the case I think everything goes down the drain" - Rayout
30.13% High
"To this day still the king of MMORPG. At its peak players were astoundingly numerous. Like most of the genre grinding becomes tedious but starting a guild with 20 of your friends that you know the real world and fucking sucking at everything but having a blast is priceless." - hellboy76
29.37% Low
"I played about 20 minutes of this on someone else's account in reality, but listened to enough stupid conversations about it circa 2006-2008 to feel justified in ranking it." - overrated