Of stress, I mean, but let’s not rule out a blue shell murder.
So, according to a team of sports scientists BonusFinder who actually did the maths, Nintendo’s arcade racer caused an increase of up to almost 33 percent in the average heart rate level of the test subjects, over the group’s average resting heart rate of about 64 beats-per-minute (BPM). That’s more or less equivalent to “light exercise”, so remember to tell your mom that video games count as much as her yoga class next time she complains that you don’t get out enough.
The complete results include:
| Game | Average in-game heart rate (BPM) | Increase in heart rate level (%) |
| Mario Kart | 85 | 32.81 |
| FIFA 20 | 84 | 31.25 |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 83 | 29.69 |
| Dark Souls 3 | 81 | 26.56 |
| Fortnite | 81 | 26.56 |
| Doom Eternal | 80 | 25.00 |
| Fall Guys | 78 | 21.88 |
| Battlefield V | 76 | 18.75 |
| Street Fighter | 75 | 17.19 |
| Among Us | 69 | 7.81 |
There’s even more to the data, though. The experiment also measured test subjects’ peak heart rate increases to work out which games caused the most significant temporary boosts, finding – not unexpectedly, perhaps – that Dark Souls 3 was on top, and Fall Guys just behind it.
Those results:
| Game | Peak heart rate (BPM) | Increase in heart rate level (%) |
| Dark Souls 3 | 127 | 98.44 |
| Fall Guys | 125 | 95.31 |
| Mario Kart | 111 | 73.44 |
| Street Fighter | 110 | 71.88 |
| FIFA 20 | 107 | 67.19 |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 106 | 65.63 |
| Battlefield V | 100 | 56.25 |
| Fortnite | 95 | 48.44 |
| Doom Eternal | 93 | 45.31 |
| Among Us | 88 | 37.50 |