Puzzles appear in a lot of different types of games. Of course, there is an entire genre based on them, but they also feature in other genres, such as action-adventure, survival horror, RPGs, and more. They're an enjoyable part of gaming, as they provide plenty of variety and test you in different ways. At least, it's easy to see them as a positive thing when you're regularly solving them.
However, once you're faced with a very difficult one, your opinion of them may change. After all, there is nothing more frustrating than getting stuck on a puzzle for a long time. That happened to most people when they tried to complete the following ones, as they're extremely difficult.
Updated July 14, 2023 By Ben Jessey: Video game puzzles are often great as they provide clever and unique challenges for you to overcome. Yet, some developers go too far with their level of challenge, as they task you with puzzles that are almost impossible to complete without a guide.
In the original version of this list, we highlighted the hardest puzzles gaming has ever seen. Now, we've returned to the piece to add a few more extremely taxing puzzles.
8 Owl - Metal Gear 2
The hardest puzzle in the entire Metal Gear series tasks you with getting past a laser gate. There's no way to squeeze through it or go around it. So, you need to turn it off. Luckily, a guard switches the thing off at night. Yet, there is no day and night cycle in the game.
This is where things get absolutely ridiculous as you have to convince the guard at the gate that it's nighttime. To do that, you have to hatch an owl egg. The sound of the said owl will somehow make the guard think it's getting late, meaning he turns off the gate. He doesn't take a look at the clock or realize that the sun is still out. Hearing an owl is all he needs to believe it's nighttime. It doesn't make any sense, which is why most players struggle with this puzzle.
7 The Goat Puzzle - Broken Sword: The Shadow Of The Templars
To complete the Goat Puzzle, you have to find your way past an aggressive tethered goat and reach a ladder. The problem is the goat knocks you back when you head to the said ladder. To solve most puzzles in the game, you need to find and sometimes combine items. This is why the goat puzzle is so difficult, as it requires a different sort of method.
You need to get hit by the goat on purpose, and when it's moving back into position, you need to move a piece of machinery on the other side of the screen. This will cause the goat's tether to become tangled, which stops the animal from halting your progress to the ladder. It doesn't sound particularly complicated, but it's so different from players' expectations of a Broken Sword puzzle that most never think of it.
6 Rubber Duck - The Longest Journey
The most convoluted puzzle in The Longest Journey begins with a key on an electrified subway track. You need to get your hands on the key, but the electricity makes it difficult. So, you have to first return to your apartment and use a gold ring to get a clamp. Then you must throw bread crumbs on a rubber ducky outside your window to convince a bird to damage and move it.
Following that, you pick up a clothesline before heading outside to get the damaged duck. Finally, you need to combine the clamp, clothesline, and rubber duck to make a makeshift fishing line that can be used to grab the key from the subway track. It is unbelievably complicated and seems impossible to figure out without a guide.
5 Babel Fish Dispenser - The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
The Babel Fish from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy game is one of the best fishes the industry has ever seen. This is because it can translate the language spoken by the alien race known as Volgons. As such, one is required to beat the game. Unfortunately, acquiring one is very difficult.
Initially, it seems easy, as they're available from a dispenser. Yet, you can't just input a code to get a fish. There are all sorts of obstacles, from holes to cleaning robots, that will take your fish away. And you don't really know they're there until they snatch your scaly translators. So, there's plenty of trial and error needed. This wouldn't be so bad if there weren't a limited amount of fish. If you run out of them, things will go bad for you later in the game.
4 Steal The Gold Belt Buckle - Discworld
At one point during this point-and-click adventure game, you must hand over a bunch of gold to a dragon, including items such as a gold belt buckle. The only one in the game is helping to hold the fishmonger's pants up. So, you must figure out a way to steal it. It sounds simpler than it is, as the process is needlessly complicated.
To start, you must tie up the octopus the fishmonger is selling and pick it up. Then you must put the creature in a nearby outhouse before feeding him a pot of custard. After that, you must place some prunes in the fishmonger's caviar. When he eats it, he'll immediately have to visit the outhouse. In the process, he gets attacked by the octopus, and you can steal the buckle from his discarded pants. Working all of that out without any help seems impossible, as a rational person wouldn't consider doing any of that to steal a buckle.
3 Shakespeare’s Stanzas - Silent Hill 3
The developers of Silent Hill 3 thought that everyone playing their game on hard must be very knowledgeable about Shakespeare. After all, they included a riddle you can only solve if you're well aware of the writer's work. The basic premise is that you must figure out a four-digit code to a door, and your only clue is a poem.
The piece references several Shakespeare plays. And you have to figure out which ones and put them in order based on when they appear in the poem. When you've put them in the correct order, you receive a five-digit code. Yet, that's one digit too many. So, based on the poem, you have to work out which number needs removing while multiplying a few of the others. Even for a series known for having several tough puzzles, this one is particularly taxing.
2 Guessing The Gnome's Name - King's Quest
Guessing somebody's name with no real clues is less of a puzzle and more of an impossible task. However, this is what the original King's Quest game has you do. If you know fairy tales, though, you may think it's easy as the subject is a gnome. So, you may guess the common gnome name, Rumpelstiltskin.
Yet, that guess would be wrong. Then you may remember a vague note in the game that mentions thinking backward. The reverse of Rumpelstiltskin is "Nikstlitslepmur," but that is also not the correct answer. By things going backward, it's actually talking about the alphabet. So, as the letter 'R' is the 18th letter of the alphabet, you have to count 18 back from 'Z' to find the first letter of the name. Then do that for every other letter in Rumpelstiltskin. It's a ridiculous puzzle.
1 The Black Monolith - Fez
Fez is one of the best puzzle games around due to its clever design and beautiful art style. However, it is also a tricky game to beat. But the true challenge is in new game plus, when you attempt to collect the red cubes. This is because one of them is inside a black monolith. Getting the monolith to come out in the first place takes a bit of working out, but that part is doable.
You need to do another button sequence, though, to get the red cubes to appear. And figuring it out on your own may literally be impossible, as it seems nobody has ever actually solved it. The game's community painstakingly came together to figure out the sequence by brute force. There have been theories about how you figure out the code in a legitimate way, but there has never been anything concrete.