Mario Kart tops the list of most stressful games to play, a study by Bonusfinder claims.
Bonusfinder, a website that focuses on online gambling, used a sample of fourteen gamers in the study that involved sixteen games. They asked the participants to play different video games while the researchers measured their beats per minute (BPM). The gamers played for at most thirty minutes for each of the fifteen games in the study.
Among these games, Mario Kart topped the list for the average heart rate increase. The players, who had an average resting heart rate of 64 BPM, had an average of 21 BPM increase while playing Mario Kart. This means that the game had a lot of tense moments that kept players consistently at the edge of their seats.
Mario Kart is followed closely by FIFA 20 with an average increase of 20 BPM. Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Dark Souls, and Fortnite completes the top five list of most stressful games to play.
Meanwhile, Dark Souls gives players the biggest spikes in heart rate. The game made players peak at most 127 BPM while playing the game, which was recorded during a boss fight with Darkeater Midir. The battle is so intense it almost doubled the heart rate of the participants.
Following Dark Souls was Fall Guys, which also made people's hearts racing for short bursts, peaking at 125 BPM. Mario Kart once again made the list at third, as well as Street Fighter and FIF Football.
Most relaxing games
On the other end of the spectrum, Bonusfinder also determined the most relaxing games to play. According to their study, the game players find most relaxing are Animal Crossing, The Sims, and surprisingly, Skyrim. These games barely made hearts burst, only increasing heart rate by at most 5%.
While the study provides a very intersting insight on some games' effects on human physiology, the study itself remains inconclusive. It had a small sample size and only tested dozens of games, as opposed to the diverse reactions people might have, and the thousands of games in existence.
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