People usually play video games to enjoy their leisure hours or reduce their stress after a hard day at work. While most RPG or story-driven games deliver an enjoyable experience to players, some FPS titles tend to increase players’ stress levels due to the extreme competitiveness. So, the University of Leeds in the UK recently conducted a study to find out the most and least stressful FPS titles in the market, and the results are pretty surprising.
The study, which was commissioned by BetVictor, was conducted on 32 good and expert players of four different FPS titles. The FPS titles included popular battle royale games like Apex Legends, Call of Duty Warzone, PUBG, and Valve’s tactical FPS title Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO).
The researchers measured the heart rate and blood pressure of the players before and after playing the game of their choice. With the acquired data, they created a graphical representation of how the games affected the stress levels of the players. You can check out the average heart rate of players for different titles in the graph below.
So, according to the study, Respawn’s uber-popular battle royale title Apex Legends turned out to be the most stressful for players. The average heart rate of the Apex Legends players was 80.6bpm before playing the game. After playing it, however, the average heart rate increased to 83.1bpm.
Valve’s iconic tactical FPS title CS:GO, on the other hand, turned out to be the least stressful game as the average heart rate of the players decreased from 79.5bpm before playing the game to 77bpm after playing it. This might be due to the fact that CS:GO is a methodical game, much like Riot’s Valorant, that requires players to think. This is unlike Battle Royale titles like COD Warzone, PUBG, or Apex Legends that often put players in high-tension situations.
Now, coming to the stress levels of the players, although all the games decreased the overall stress levels of the players, some of them decreased stress levels more than the others. For instance, the average stress level of a CS:GO player decreased the most, while the average stress level of an Apex Legends player decreased the least. You can check out the overall stress level comparison for the FPS titles in the graph below.
So, with this study, the researchers from the University of Leeds concluded that CS:GO is the least stressful FPS title and Apex Legends is the most stressful one. Hence, if you are an Apex Legends fanatic, we’d suggest you try out other FPS titles in the market that would reduce your stress instead of increasing it. After all, video games are meant to entertain you instead of stressing you out.
Wow news articles about video games are so wrong and out of touch they only sampled 32 people there’s so many fps titles out there and csgo is the least stressful but apex is the most? I have played csgo but it’s definitely not the least stressful and apex being the most stressful, the most stressful game I’ve played is Escape From Tarkov I hate articles that just put almost no effort into this you could have just done more.
GPU prices, that’s I’m stressed about
Yes.
hi . bro im playing ape legends all over nights and i freekin love it . but sometimes after a long clutch i fell my heart is blowing up . i play apex for strees . if anyone want to relax , yeah apex is the worst choice . excuse my grammer
This article can’t be trusted; the author didn’t include Team Fortress 2.
Sure, sure, sure…….and I am a god!
This study is $hite.
Quake anyone? Bet it’s off the charts haha.
This is why Apex is the better game. It gets the heart pumping like no other. Also, this has to be a joke. If you are not constantly THINKING, rotating, out maneuvering other squads you’re dead quickly.
Have you ever been in a 1v1 situation located in A-long?
HELL NAH!
apex has higher ttks and the fights can last minutes, don’t think i need to say more here.
Well yeah. Counterstrike is less complex. By the title of the article alone I can answer the reason for it. Really? People get paid for this????
Sure, what a fucking joke. Apex Legends is fun and easy going even when playing ranked. Sure, it has its moments and its definitely competetive – as is any other FPS for that matter. But neither Apex, nor WZ, CSGO come even close to Rainbow Six Siege! Or even Tarkov, as someone mentioned. Braindead apes can do a study these days, as it seems. Its either that, or this article is utter BS and made up for views and Email data collection – its the 2nd for sure 🙂
Wtf is rainbow siege ive played dat game shit is pure dog shit fuck u mean
I don’t believe it! I have personally played both the games and Apex Legends is definitely MORE fun and relaxing than CSGO. And CSGO is also more famous for players rage quitting it or literally smashing their computer… Bad study really makes no sense
Whare is Valorant ?
Apparently nobody has ever heard of Escape from Tarkov. I’m surprised you don’t need a damn doctor’s note in order to play it.
Is this a joke?! Apex is way more fun than methodical FPS, so why are you advising people to not play it!
Lol, a sample size of 32 players total. Watching the VOD of the “expert” players on the study’s website itself just made me cringe. This study means literally nothing. Not only is the sample size WAY too small, besides that the “expert” players are rather low to average skill players (Dude had default FOV on apex like come on).
Players who are experts in either games wont give results of an average player though