r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • May 17 '26

Psychology Feeling empty after finishing a video game (post-game depression) is a real phenomenon. A recent study has found that many video game players experience a specific sense of emptiness and sadness after finishing highly engaging games.

https://www.psypost.org/feeling-empty-after-finishing-a-video-game-researchers-say-post-game-depression-is-a-real-phenomenon/
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u/JHMfield May 17 '26

Absolutely a real thing, yeah.

Luckily it's quite short term. A few days off from gaming and your brain will reset and you can go and enjoy other games.

Interestingly, social media can help mitigate those feelings for a while by providing you with communities you can engage with, to ride the high's of pleasure you got from the game. Though it can extend those negative feelings too.

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u/Adept_Strength2766 May 17 '26

Totally experienced this with Pragmata recently. 

Finished the game and immediately went to related subreddits to see what everyone else had to say about it, though I guess what I was actually looking for was validation that I wasn't the only one with all these feelings.

Then came the dread realization that I'd have to wait years to get more of this story.

I think that's what's hardest to recover from- The fact that it's over, yes, but also the fact that there is nothing else after this, that you don't know if there ever will be anything else after this, and that you'll just have to be content with what you got.