Alright, this one's bound to get a lot of discussion.
What is the work?[]
Hatred is an isometric shoot em up video game where you play as an edgelord who decides to go on a shooting spree to kill as many people as possible because he "just f***ing hates this world". Most of the gameplay just consists of you going into areas and shooting every civilian you come across.
Who is the villain?[]
The protagonist and player character of the game, an individual known only as "the Crusader". The Crusader is an emo edgelord who wakes up one day and decides to go on a shooting spree because of his hatred (roll credits) for humanity. Beyond that, he doesn't really have much characterization and we know little about him or what led him to his misanthropy.
Why he doesn't qualify[]
At its core, Hatred doesn't have much more to offer beyond shock and edge. Which I can respect, but that means it's not conducive to having a PE villain. The Crusader himself is just a shell to facilitate the game's offensive and disturbing nature. There's no greater purpose to the Crusader's slaughter of thousands of people, the game developers even admitted that Hatred was designed solely to offend and strike back against "political correctness" in games.
With an exploitation work like Cannibal Holocaust, while it was also designed to appall people, it had a message it wanted to convey, that of the hypocrisy of western imperialism and how Alan and his crew were the "true cannibals" for using a tribe's perceived savagery as an excuse to massacre them. Hatred meanwhile falls more in line with works like A Serbian Film, media that is designed to be shocking, atrocious and disturbing... and not much else.
Honestly, the Crusader's monologue at the beginning of the game (see below) is so over-the-top it makes me wonder how the voice actor could even get through it without bursting out laughing. It bewilders me that anyone thinks this game was meant to be taken seriously.
Final Verdict[]
Definite cut for the Crusader, for the same reason as Vukmir. Hatred doesn't have any moral lesson woven into its gameplay, it's just a game that's designed to be offensive. And that's fine, but it's not enough to be PE.