Follow TV Tropes

Following

Video Game / Hatred

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hatred.jpg
No one will be safe. No one will be saved.

"My name is not important. What is important is what I'm going to do... I just fuckin' hate this world. And the human worms feasting on its carcass. My whole life is just cold, bitter hatred. And I always wanted to die violently. This is the time of vengeance and no life is worth saving. And I will put in the grave as many as I can. It's time for me to kill. And it's time for me to die. My genocide crusade begins here."
The Antagonist, teaser trailer

Hatred is an isometric third-person shooter released in June 1, 2015 exclusively for the PC. It revolves around the Antagonist, a misanthropic, dystheistic, misotheistic psychopath leading a one-man war on the citizens of New York State. Wanting to die violently in an insane and twisted Last Stand, the killer seeks to end as many lives as he possibly can after years of utter contempt for other human beings comes to a boiling point.

Developed by Polish game development newcomers Destructive Creations, the game became infamous for officially receiving an AO (Adults Only) rating from the ESRB, becoming one of the few video games in history (alongside Thrill Kill and Manhunt 2) to be given this rating simply based on violent content.

The game is only available via Steam,note  as GOG.com has refused to carry it, and the AO rating has all but prevented the game from being licensed for any major home gaming consoles. A Nintendo Switch release was announced, though whether it will be released in its current state, or get released at all, remains to be seen. Considering Nintendo prides themselves as purveyors of "family-friendly" media, the release of such a game on their platform is perhaps up to debate. However, considering they let Postal of all things on their platform, it's still a possibility. So make of that as you will.

A free Survival DLC was added on September 15, 2015. As the name implies, the DLC adds a new survival mode that chronologically takes place after the main campaign. The mode stars a trio of cultists who became affected by the events of the game and end up revering the Antagonist as a god, thus seeking to continue his work of "cleansing" the world. In February 2016, Steam Workshop support was also added.

The official website for the game can be viewed here.

Trailers: Trailer 1, Trailer 2.


Tropes used in Hatred:

  • Absurdly-Spacious Sewer: The Marina level starts you out in one of these.
  • Animation Bump: It has been heavily noted and recognized that, while the death animations are extremely gruesome, they are surprisingly detailed and fluid. Many animations shown so far are very average considering the genre, but the "up close and personal" death animations are the ones that stand out.
  • Artificial Stupidity:
    • Civilians can suffer from this at times. Sometimes, a civilian may not run when you attack (or even may run directly towards you), and can even get stuck in walls or scenery.
    • Enemy A.I isn't much better. Enemies shoot at walls or the floor trying to hit you (no bullet penetration), rush through doorways into gunfire despite the presence of dozens of their allies' corpses, kill each other with friendly fire, or blow themselves up with grenades.
  • Artistic License – Military: Where to begin with the military base level? Nearly every building is generically labeled "Army Office", the armory is completely insecure with the front door agape and several missiles lying in the open, dozens of pistols are scattered around the barracks in full view instead of being locked up, the drill sergeant has his own two-story house in the middle of the base with full furnishings, and "canteen" is misspelled as "cantine". Almost nothing is gotten right when it came to the level's accuracy at portraying a base. This may be intentional - the game came inches away from being refused by all publishers and left to perish; at least it has "not being a suitable simulator for military base killing spree training" going for it.
  • Artistic License – Nuclear Physics: There is no way an actual nuclear plant would have enough material to reach critical mass and cause a nuclear detonation even with the help of explosives. Not to mention causing a core meltdown requires much more than simply inputting a code on a console.
  • Author Tract: The developer has gone for the record to say that the game was made as a reactionary statement to the trends seen in the video game industry. Namely, vivid color, political correctness, politeness, and games as art.
  • Ax-Crazy: The Antagonist wants to kill himself and take as many people with him as possible. At no point does he express any doubt about what he's doing or show sympathy to any other human being.
  • Badass Longcoat: The Antagonist wears a black one.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: Let's just say that the Antagonist's endgame is relatively easy compared to "taking over" New York, and leave it at that.
  • Barbarian Longhair: With an emphasis on barbarian. The Antagonist has straight black hair.
  • Big Applesauce: The game takes place in upstate New York.
  • Black Comedy: The achievements list is chock full of this. It's full of darkly humorous titles, quotes and take thats at many things.
  • Blood Knight: The Antagonist more than once mentions the rush he gets out of committing mass murder.
  • Bond One-Liner: The Antagonist cranks out some stone cold ones as he viciously executes people.
  • Character Overlap: The Antagonist is playable as an Easter Egg in the Updated Re-release of Postal.
  • Checkpoint: Sort of a cross between this and Video-Game Lives. The game awards the player with "respawn points" at certain points. However, these respawn points are finite, and if the player runs out they have to start the level over again.
  • Cop Killer: Cops make up the many victims you are tasked to murder. In fact, the final task in stage 1 is to storm the local police station after the survivors of the Antagonist's rampage hole up inside it.
  • Crapsack World: The Antagonist's monologue in the trailer seems to set this tone for the game as a whole pretty well. Then again since the Antagonist comes off as an angsty Straw Nihilist, this may be just his view of the setting.
  • Creative Closing Credits: The credits begin with a montage of the Antagonist killing people with names of the creators popping up in areas, giving an effect of some films in recent years.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Pretty much anyone the Antagonist gets his hands on receives this, due to his violent finishing moves.
  • Cruelty Is the Only Option: Oh very much, yes. Practically the only goal given for the game is to violently murder anyone within viewing distance.
  • Dark Action Girl: Widowmaker, one of the playable characters in the Survival DLC.
  • Death Seeker: In one of the darkest manners possible, one of the Antagonist's objectives other than killing everyone is to "die violently".
  • Dehumanization: The Antagonist calls his victims "parasites" and "worms". When the police arrive, one of his quips describes them as society's "meatshields".
  • Deliberately Monochrome: Of the Limited Palette variety. The entire game is in black and white, with certain special effects appearing in color such as blood, light up building signs, police car lights and large explosions.
  • Despair Speech: Almost everything the Antagonist says is a long, drawn-out speech which more or less can be shortened down to "I must kill them all!".
  • Die, Chair, Die!: Plenty of scenery can be destroyed or damaged if attacked, such as doors and furniture, as well as whole buildings.
  • Dog-Kicking Excuse: The Antagonist makes it clear that he has no definable reason for his spree killing other than he hates everyone and wants to die. Whatever excuse the player can come up with changes nothing, The Antagonist is just a suicidal spree killer.
  • Downer Ending: The Antagonist gets the violent death he desires, but not before causing a nuclear meltdown that destroys the entire town.
  • Down the Drain: Level 2 has the Antagonist flee into the sewers to move on to the next area and plan an ambush for approaching SWAT teams.
  • Elite Mooks: SWAT officers are much tougher than standard police officers, being able to take around 3 times as much punishment and using sub-machine guns, in addition to travelling in larger groups than police officers. Soldiers show up in the later levels and have even more health and firepower.
  • Every Car Is a Pinto: Every car in the game can be blown to bits in a fiery explosion. You can even make it explode just by kicking it seven times.
  • Evil Laugh: The Antagonist, near the end.
  • Finishing Move: The Antagonist can perform various brutal finishing moves with his weapons on an incapacitated target.
  • Finishing Stomp: One of the Antagonist's finishing moves involves stomping a person's head into mush.
  • Fire-Breathing Weapon: During the Downtown stage, the Antagonist gets his hands on a flamethrower.
  • Flat Character: We aren't given much about the Antagonist's character and backstory other than he hates humanity, wants to kill everyone and wants to die violently. Mostly intentional on the creators' part, seeing as the gameplay is the main focus of the game.
  • Forbidden Fruit: Many people bought the game not because they were interested in the gameplay or premise, but because they wanted to spite the Moral Guardians trying to get the game banned.
  • The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: The main menu has The Antagonist pointing his pistol at you, and would shoot you as soon as you'd quit the game.
  • From Bad to Worse: Pretty much what goes down with the rampage you inflict upon society. The longer your rampage goes on, the higher the escalation becomes.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: The main point of the game. The Antagonist was just an Average Joe who decides to violently kill everyone in sight and die violently himself, because of his Hatred for humanity. Truth in Television, sadly, which is the reason the game has gained so much controversy and dislike in the gaming media.
  • Going Critical: The Antagonist's final mission before getting killed is to initiate an explosive-facilitated meltdown at a nuclear power plant, destroying most of the city.
  • Going Postal: This game is all about a psychopath going on a murderous rampage.
  • Gorn: The violence in the game is undeniably unsettling, allowing the Antagonist to blow the heads of his victims up with shotgun blasts or brutally knife people and stick guns in their mouths, among other horrifically gory deaths.
  • Groin Attack: One of the executions involves grabbing your victim and stabbing them repeatedly in the groin area.
  • Hates Everyone Equally: The Antagonist really hates everyone regardless of race, gender, etc. as the developers has stated in their website (in their forums, they even made a Shout-Out to Postal):
    "The Antagonist is killing everyone equally, race doesn't matter (it's randomly generated for all NPC's), sex doesn't matter (it's random too), so you can call it the most tolerant game, promoting equality. Here everybody dies."
    • This adds some irony considering there's an achievement called "feminist" and another called "misogynist" for killing a certain amount of men/women respectively, regardless of whether the player was actually singling out either group. Though this might just be the game talking and not the views of The Antagonist himself.
  • Heroic Bystander: Though most civilians will run in terror of your rampage, there are plenty you will run into that are well armed. In fact, it is possible for cowering civilians to find weapons on the ground and attempt to stop you with them.
  • Hidden Depths: The Antagonist seems to be quite capable of thinking things through, instead of just mindlessly slaughtering everything in his way. He hides from the cops in the sewer, takes a train to the power plant and waits until he's close, even arming himself with stolen military weapons. This just serves to make him more terrifying, as he takes the most effective possible route to kill everyone.
  • Human Shield: Doesn't appear in the game proper, but the Antagonist considers the police to be a literal example.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The Antagonist can sometimes seem like an alumni, as the aiming controls leave a lot to be desired.
  • Ironic Name: The Antagonist is the title given to the Villain Protagonist, who granted acts as an antagonist to everyone around him.
  • Karma Houdini: The Antagonist is ultimately shot to death — but of course, he's a Death Seeker anyway. Furthermore, he even gets to Go Out with a Smile, knowing that his nuclear meltdown is successful.
  • Lack of Empathy: The Antagonist shows no empathy to those he kills (or anyone else).
  • Limited Loadout: In a rare nod to realism, the Antagonist can only carry three guns at a time.
  • Loads and Loads of Loading: The game suffers from this in its earliest release version. The creators are trying their best to fix this as well and performance issues in later updates.
  • Misanthrope Supreme: The Antagonist's entire motivation is his hatred of all humanity.
  • Made of Iron: The Antagonist is capable of surviving dozens of bullets with nary a bullet hole on his coat, and is never once seen administering first aid to himself or showing pain the entire game. In the ending, he laughs as soldiers riddle his chest with dozens of assault rifle bullets at close range. Somehow, he survives that and is able to activate the explosive charges he placed, and apparently survives the explosion long enough to give one last one-liner. Maybe his pure hatred keeps him alive.
  • Made of Plasticine: The civilians seem to suffer from this. The Antagonist is perfectly capable of smashing a victim's head in with one clean stomp with his boot, a feat that would be quite difficult to pull off in real life. Not to mention people can have their heads blown off with one clean blast with a shotgun or other weapons without hassle.
  • Motive Rant: The Antagonist gives one in the trailer, as shown in the page quote above. He also deploys many more throughout the game's cutscenes as well.
  • Murder Simulator: Has been accused of being one by various gaming websites due to its controversial premise.
  • Narcissist: The Antagonist seems to think he's some kind of Übermensch.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: The Antagonist to a T, except he actually acts on his wishes to kill and be killed horribly.
  • Nintendo Hard: The Antagonist hates the world, and above the lowest difficulty level, you'll find that the world hates him just as much back.
  • No Name Given: The main character straight up states that his name is "not important", and indeed it is never revealed. He's alternately referred to as the Antagonist (which doesn't really make sense since he's objectively a Villain Protagonist), the Crusader, or Not Important.
  • No Plot? No Problem!: What makes Hatred different from other violent video games is that while other violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto, Postal, Call of Duty, and Mortal Kombat have some degree of storytelling and characterization (as well as punishing the player for any cruel actions), Hatred has virtually no plot or characterization at all. In fact, the developers said the purpose of this game is to simply kill everyone in your path and the game will not have any form of plot or characterization.
    • The DLC's give a little bit more story, with the setting being New York and the aftermath of the massacre, and how the Antagonist's rampage affected three people for the worse, and they too become killers.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: The Antagonist's stated aspiration, from the opening monolog of the game.
  • One-Hit Kill:
    • Appears to be the case when using guns against civilians, though multiple hits may be needed for some.
    • The Antagonist can go down in a single hit if he is run over by a car.
  • One-Man Army: Of the more sinister variety. You are essentially playing as a walking apocalypse. The Antagonist is able to slaughter his way through hundreds of police officers, SWAT officers, and even soldiers. The achievements for killing 10,000 people is called "Raider of Apocalypse". It's even lampshaded by the Antagonist himself after his rampage through the army base.
    The Antagonist: "One man conquering an army base. Nothing compares to this feeling. Absolutely nothing."
  • Out of the Inferno: When the game starts up, the Antagonist walks out of an explosion and points his pistol at the screen before the menu appears.
  • The Password Is Always "Swordfish": The code to trigger a nuclear meltdown at the end of the game is not only a simple 3-digit number, but is also just whatever the player decides to enter on the number pad. The first video to showcase this scene went with 666.
  • Paint the Town Red: So much death and destruction.
  • Precision F-Strike: "I just fuckin' hate this world. And the human worms feasting on its carcass."
  • Psycho Knife Nut: While the Antagonist's main weapons are guns, he also really likes to stab and cut people. You can even perform various psychotic finishers with knives.
  • Ragdoll Physics: Runs on the Unreal Engine.
  • Random Drop: You can loot any enemies you kill for extra weapons.
  • Refuge in Audacity: A meta-example. It seems that this game's purpose is cause as much controversy as possible, to the utter enjoyment of the developers of the game and those who support it. For example, when it was put up on Steam Greenlight, it was one of the highest recommended games (top 10), got taken down, was then reinstated by Gabe Newell himself, and then proceeded to be the most popular game in Greenlight before being accepted. Upon release, it was briefly the bestselling game on Steam despite negative reception.
  • Revenge: The Antagonist's alleged motivation for the whole rampage he inflicts. Alleged, because what the world did to set him off (if anything) is left to the player's imagination.
  • Ripped from the Headlines: The reason the game is so controversial is due to the fact that it's based partly on real life mass shootings.
  • Sadist: The Antagonist describes his murder spree as "feeling like the most intense drug". Many of his executions of incapacitated civilians also involve more violence than is truly necessary to finish them off.
  • Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: The Antagonist adopts this pose in the main menu.
  • Shout-Out:
    • The game's logo is very similar in design to the famous logo for the Doom series. Most likely intentional, considering the controversies Doom has under its belt in comparison with this game.
    • The game is similar to the original Postal, due to its isometric viewpoint and mass murder premise. So much so that it is considered a Spiritual Successor.
    • Speaking of Postal, the achievement for setting 500 people on fire is called "Postal Dude Would Be Proud".
    • Related to that, the achievement for setting 200 people on fire is "Kentucky Fried People"
    • The muted colour palette with splashes of colour on an otherwise black and white background and gritty tone brings to mind The Spirit or Sin City in some viewers. It might also remind some people of MadWorld, another game known for its tremendous violence.
    • "Bay Would be Proud", the achievement requires you to "Destroy 50 explosive items".
  • The Social Darwinist: The Antagonist, type I, IV and VI.
  • The Sociopath: The Antagonist, who shows little emotion aside from, well, hatred during his shooting spree.
  • Spiritual Successor: It's essentially the first Postal game, but with a modern engine and an even more unlikable "protagonist".
  • Straw Nihilist: The Antagonist, of course.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Objects such as cars and compressed air tanks can explode if fired upon. The Antagonist also has grenades and molotovs in his arsenal.
  • Suicide by Cop: The Antagonist wants to die, but he also wants to die violently. So he sets off on a one-man crusade to murder everybody. The cops come in at the end and take the Crusader down just before he triggers a nuclear explosion, which he still manages to do.
  • Talking Is a Free Action: After completing each level, the Antagonist proceeds to talk throughout the whole succeeding cutscene, with no more opposition opting to just shoot him in the midst of it.
  • Take That!: Meta-example. The creators of the game have publicly stated that the creation of the game is a response to the over-saturation of Art Games and Political Correctness Is Evil in the gaming community as of recent. To further rub the anti-PC attitude that the game is presented in, a straw poll was created for the game on 4chan that suggested that they add children as killable npcs - and the fans made it one of the most supported options. However, the developers officially stated that children and animals will not appear in the game, killable or otherwise.
  • Take That, Audience!: Playing the game for 50 hours gets you the achievement "You Should See a Shrink".
  • Take That, Critics!: Developer comments in the free "Survival" Expansion Pack video on YouTube makes fun of the moral guardian game website(s) that originally called the game racist and sexist.
    "Yep, now you can play as a chick and a black guy. Where is Polygon's god now?"
  • Title Drop: The Antagonist's hatred is mentioned in the opening monologue.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The Antagonist carries an assortment of military grade weaponry just to kill civilians and police officers.
  • Tragic Villain: Implied with the Antagonist. While it's never outright stated that he is this, at the beginning of the game he talks about how his whole life has been nothing but "cold, bitter hatred" and how he plans revenge on the human race, strongly suggesting he's lived a very miserable life where he's been mistreated and wronged by other people, turning him into what he is.
  • Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000: The closest thing to a real-life commercial example of this trope.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: Invoked. It's your outright stated goal to murder waves of innocent civilians in various horrific ways throughout the game. Civilians even outright beg the Antagonist to spare them.
  • Villain Protagonist: The Antagonist is a ruthless and psychopathic mass murderer driven by hatred for humanity and a desire to die violently taking as many innocent civilians and other people with him as he can. It's a bit... disturbing. In fact, the developers outright state that you're playing as the villain here. One of the loading screen tips encourages you to run from combat and hunt down civilians to get health back if things get too tough, stating that "you're not a hero" and shouldn't be ashamed.
  • Wide-Open Sandbox: Of the more limited variety. The game offers seven large inclosed free-to-roam areas of which the player can rampage through.
  • Would Hit a Girl: The Antagonist has absolutely no qualms about shooting or knifing women to death, though to be fair, he has no qualms shooting or knifing just about anyone anyway.
  • Would Not Shoot a Civilian: Averted. Most of the Antagonist's targets are civilians.
  • You Bastard!:
    • It is currently ambiguous if this is an aversion or not, given that the developers encourage players to kill people in the game. The violence itself is Played for Drama in a horrifying fashion, so it's not clear if the game has this as a message. Nonetheless, the achievement for playing for 50 hours ("You Should See a Shrink") invokes this.
    • In the tutorial, the hostage that you execute addresses you in this way.
  • You're Insane!: Gets directed at the Antagonist near the end of the game, when the control room guy learns of the Crusader's intent to overload the reactors of the power plant.
  • Your Head Asplode: Can be inflicted on poor defenseless civilians with specific weapons such as the shotgun.

Top