This player quit League of Legends and their life dramatically improved

League of Legends is a game some fans have been playing for over a decade at this point–but sometimes, calling it quits will free up the space for a whole new world to discover in video games. That’s the experience a player shared recently.

In a Reddit thread from Nov. 25, an author wrote they stopped playing League of Legends and Overwatch because those games took a toll on their mental health. “It got to the point where I was so dedicated to them that I would essentially play nothing else. This meant I missed out on a lot of games that I would ordinarily love,” they said.

They played multiplayer games in most of their free time, up to the point where it induced stress and anxiety rather than relaxing them, which drove them to uninstall those titles. “It got to the point where PvP games started to really negatively impact my mental health,” they wrote. “I just was not myself. My girlfriend would beg me to come off the game but I was addicted to them.”

After they stopped playing those, they discovered solo games instead: Starfield, Baldur’s Gate 3, and other triple-A games released this year. They saw them as “a breath of fresh air,” as written in the thread. “My mood has been lifted massively. I can’t believe I was missing out on all of these games!” In the thread’s comments, many players shared similar experiences with multiplayer games. They said it ended up being more stressful than fulfilling, and the word “addict” is found in numerous comments.

Multiplayer games can be played in a great number of ways, as there are both competitive and casual game modes. But in this thread, most have written they ended up only playing competitive games and cared more about their rank than having fun in the game. That’s the core of what seemingly pressured them and ended up driving them away from those titles. Others argued competition wasn’t necessarily the issue. “Playing Total War or Civilization VI and similar games on their hardest mode is like playing competitive multiplayer,” wrote a top-voted comment. Still, the user considered solo competitive games were better for the player’s mental health: “Your opponent doesn’t spam you with slurs.”

Video games can be challenging and frustrating, but they’re also supposed to feel fun and rewarding. Are you still having fun when playing a game in a competitive way? That seems to be the core of the thread’s talk.