Punishingly difficult games have become all the rage, with the entire “masocore” genre developing around the idea that a video game shouldn’t hand you a win. No, you should have to work for it. At one point, this kind of tough-as-nails difficulty was synonymous with the classic gaming era, but that’s no longer the case. Games have got progressively harder since the late ‘00s as development tools have become ubiquitous and larger companies have responded to the collective call for less hand-holding.
While Dark Souls undoubtedly led the punishing games revolution for the 3D space, a horde of meticulously designed 2D games have brought the pain to every conceivable platform. Spelunky, for example, defined not only tough-but-fair difficulty, but also the idea that a game shouldn’t just be a brisk run from start to finish, but should also be peppered with secrets, have an in-depth meta game and boast a devoted community set on unearthing everything the game has to offer. Meanwhile, games like K-Shoot Mania, N+ and Darkest Dungeon have brought completely new mechanics to the table, cementing them as some of the best, hardest games the industry has to offer.
Everyone has different limits to their frustration, so it’s only natural that one person’s “impossible” is another’s “painfully easy.” That being said, if you’re on the lookout for a game that will treat you right (by treating you very, very wrong) then here's 30 more games that won't go down without a fight.
30 A Real Nuclear Deterrent
Metal Gear Solid V isn’t a hard game to beat, that much is true. But if players ever want to see the game’s true, final ending then they’re going to have to get a lot more… cooperative.
See, there’s a hidden ending squirreled away in the recesses of MGS V’s code. All players have to do to trigger this ending is achieve the unanimous disarmament of every nuclear weapon in the game’s online invasion mode. They’ve never even come close.
That being said, on Dec. 8, 2015 the Xbox 360 version of the game came the closest the community has ever got to seeing full disarmament. A mere 23 nukes existed in the game at that time. Close, but no Big Boss vape cigar. If you want to follow the exploits of the MGS V disarmament community you can do so at their subreddit.
29 Shop Til You Drop
If you hate time trials, there’s a very good chance you weren’t a fan of the original Dead Rising game. This Capcom-developed zombie apocalypse game saw photojournalist Frank West locked in a shopping mall after an undead outbreak. Frank soon realizes that the world inside the shopping mall had gone even crazier than the madness outside. He’s got 72 in-game hours to rescue survivors, fight various psychotic bosses and flee the mall before time is up.
While the 72-hour time limit is by no means a brutal time crunch, it ended many players’ runs prematurely. Additionally, there were time-wasting temptations everywhere. The mall itself is a vast, open space, the majority of which can be traversed at any time. It was so easy to wander off and ignore the time limit, but that meant giving up the chance at the true ending.
28 You'll Never Be Done With This Game
What does it mean to beat a game? If beating a game is defined by completing an overarching object that has been the result of hours of trials and tribulations, then no one has ever really beaten Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds. You might have got you chicken dinner, but you’re still going to play a gratuitous amount of the game.
Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds might fall into the “impossible to beat” category on a technicality. It’s not especially hard to collect a chicken dinner in the game (all it takes is a little skill and a dash of coordination), but winning a single round doesn’t mean the game is over. After you’re done fawning over your poultry .jpeg, it’s right back to the island and its murderous denizens. Beating a game usually means you put it down for a while, sometime years. But you could quit any time… couldn’t you?
27 That's A Lot Of Spikes
1001 Spikes sets the tone right out of the gate. You play as the son or daughter of the famed archeologist Jim Hawkins, who went missing in the icy Antarctic tundra. Before his disappearance, Jim left a map leading to an ancient temple in South America. The duo set off for the ruins, hoping to find the treasure their father could not claim, but must do so in less than 1001 tries.
Okay, not really. If you die 1002 times the game resets you with three lives, so it’s actually not that big of a deal. 1001 Spikes is a punishing game that will kill you repeatedly, though. While the game effectively offers unlimited lives, the only true way to win a game like 1001 Spikes is without losing a single life along the way. Completely doable… right?
26 Your Kingdom Come
Cloudberry Kingdom doesn’t sound like the kind of game that would grind your face into a metal railing like a Tony Hawk skateboarder catching some air, but life is full of surprises. And those surprises are mostly pain–but if you’re reading this then that’s probably your thing.
The first few levels of Cloudberry Kingdom aren’t that difficult. The game is your basic run and avoid-the-obstacles kind of platformer. Lasers and swinging flails will send you back to a level’s start if you’re not careful. It’s the later levels, which actually fill the screen with projectiles, lasers and enemies, that turn an otherwise innocuous platformer into something resembling a deadly bullet hell puzzle. Back when the game released, it was common for players to upload videos of them completing these later levels simply as proof that it could be done.
25 Watch Out For That Loop
Trackmania is like no other racing game. While the series’ first console outing, Trackmania Turbo, offered a glimpse at what’s possible in the game’s level editor, the original, full-blown PC version has seen players’ creativity run wild in beautiful, terrible ways.
Trackmania has little to do with beating other players in a head-to-head race. All races take place asynchronously, with the winning factor being who can complete the track the fastest. That’s no small feat, as loops, unexpected perspective shifts and outlandish jumps are commonplace in Trackmania.
Sometimes just finishing a track feels like an achievement, and chances are there are players out there who have been playing this game for so many more hours than you. Trackmania is inviting enough for new players who just want to see the crazy, but it’ll take a lot of catching up if you want to win races.
24 The Shape That Haunts You
Super Hexagon is a game so simple it’s devious. Your only goal is to navigate a small arrow between rapidly descending blocks on a hexagonal playfield. Obstacles descend into view and occasionally change shape, meaning that you’ve got to be fast with your fingers if you want to survive more than a couple minutes, let alone set a new record. Did we mention the playfield itself is in a constant state of flux?
Super Hexagon shares a lineage with another tough-as-nails game on this list: VVVVVV, the gravity-shifting platformer about a spaceship captain trying to rescue his crew. Both games were made by Terry Cavanagh, an indie game developer who first got into game development by creating short, narrative games. So, you know, call someone’s game a “walking simulator” enough times and this is what you get.
23 I Ride My Bicycle
Dirt biking is supposed to be a fun, adventurous experience about setting out on vast, well-traveled trails and enjoying the sights and sounds of nature. Or it might be about trying to get over one infernal ramp for a whole minute before you fall into a pit and explode. That’s what Trials Evolution seems to think dirt biking is about, at least.
The follow-up to the massively popular Trials HD, Trials Evolution is a game about managing gravity from the seat of a very finicky motor bike. Each level is comprised of various devious obstacles that must be traverse with deft handling of acceleration, braking and weight distribution or else you’ll never make it to the finish line. The first few levels are pretty easy, but the difficulty ramps up fast and never really slows down.
22 V-V-V-V-V-Very Hard
VVVVVV’s reputation as a nigh impossible game is made all the more frustrating by the fact that your failings are just that–purely your own fault. The game’s mechanics are simple. The player is flung between floor and ceiling with the press of a button. Captain Veridian, the name for the player character, must traverse his spaceship, which has been caught in Dimension VVVVVV, and save his crew. Fat chance.
Countless spikes, hallways of death and moving platforms stand between Captain Veridian and his rescue mission. Even more devious mechanics and traps are added as the game goes on. Thankfully, the game is lenient in other ways. The checkpoint system is forgiving and the player is placed back at the beginning of the puzzle very quickly upon death – you know, so you can pound your head against that one puzzle again and again and again and again...
21 Cave Diving Is A Fun, Rewarding Hobby
Spelunky is a game that has been thoroughly deconstructed by numerous streamers and avid fans around the world–but the number of people who have achieved the game’s true ending, found all the secrets and conquered every challenge is staggeringly low. Spelunky challenges the player to platform their way through increasingly difficult levels and escape with an ancient artifact in hand. But there’s so much more.
Players must complete an elaborate in-game puzzle to find the game’s true boss, a towering beast at the heart of Hell. One wrong move could see the spelunker slip into a pool of lava, be defenestrated by spiders or slain by mummy vomit. That’s not even saying anything about the wildly difficult Eggplant Run, which requires a co-op partner but has miraculously been completed solo. Not impossible? Go ahead. Give it a try.
20 I Wanna Be The Guy So Bad
Beating I Wanna Be the Guy isn’t an example of inhuman fortitude or skill, it’s proof miracles exist. Upon its release in 2007, the game was basically the hardest platformer on the block. I Wanna Be the Guy’s difficulty largely stems from its devious level design and complete disregard for the player’s safety. It’s a game that tries to kill you, often in surprising and inventive ways.
I Wanna Be the Guy features four difficulty levels: Medium, Hard, Very Hard and Impossible. The various difficulties don’t affect much in-game, except for the presence of checkpoints, the number of which decreases as the difficulty is raised. The Impossible difficulty offers no checkpoints throughout the entire game, meaning that there’s no room for even a single mistake.
19 The Real List Starts Here
Dark Souls is arguably the game that brought masocore into the world of 3D gaming after the genre spent decades chained to the 2D perspective. Naturally, Dark Souls and its two official sequels hold a special place in many gamers’ hearts. Beautiful, otherworldly and full of tons of tantalizing lore nuggets, Dark Souls truly is something special. It’s also still an extremely difficult game.
The game has been covered so liberally in YouTube series and explainer articles at this point that it can be hard to understand what made Dark Souls so special–and sinister– back in the day. For starters, you can go anywhere from the start. This is a mistake.
Beasts of all manner lurk in every corner ready to curse, paralyze and eat you whole. And that’s not to say anything about Ornstein and Smough, the boss duo that sends most players running for the hills.
18 Super Meat Boy Forever And Ever
Technically, Super Meat Boy Forever isn’t out yet. Technically, that doesn’t matter at all. The game is the follow-up to the 2010 masocore platforming megahit Super Meat Boy, the game that put Tommy Refenes and Edmund McMillen’s Team Meat on the map. The game looks to have a lot in common with the original Super Meat Boy, except that Meat Boy, the game’s pungent protagonist, can punch enemies this time around. Somehow, that doesn’t sound like it will make the game any easier.
In truth, the Super Meat Boy legacy began back on Newgrounds, a website devoted to hosting short Flash animations and games. Meat Boy was created over the course of three weeks, and the response was positive enough that McMillen, then a freelance designer and occasional artist on games, figured it was worth giving a full game release a shot. Seems like that worked out.
17 This Island Plays Dirty
Nostalgia is a heck of a thing. It’s easy to look back on games like Super Mario Sunshine and feel some fondness for the goofy aesthetic and bizarre gimmicks, but at this game’s core beats a heart of pure, punishing evil.
The first 3D Mario game to follow-up on Super Mario 64, Sunshine equipped players with a backpack that fired steady streams of pressurized water, allowing for a brief hover move and ranged combat. Over time, it was easy to start relying on F.L.U.D.D. to get yourself out of hairy situations. And then it was taken away.
Secret levels challenged the player to complete exceedingly hard levels without the aid of F.L.U.D.D., levels that could easy eat several lives. Compounded with poorly realized level layouts, a slew of hidden objectives and controls that simply weren’t tight enough and it’s easy to see why few people fully completed Super Mario Sunshine.
16 The End Is Extremely Nigh
The End is Nigh is Edmund McMillen’s latest, hyper-punishing game that draws inspiration from various other tough-as-nails platformers, like VVVVVV, 1001 Spikes and Spelunky. The game puts the player in control of Ash, a small black blob living in a post-apocalyptic world who sets out to make a friend after his favorite video game console catches on fire.
If that sounds like a harsh life, Ash’s travails confirm how much his world sucks. The planet is decimated, with seemingly all life eradicated–Ash ends up talking to a lot of dead things. The game demands tight platforming from the player if they’re to snap up every collectible, which are tiny tumors with faces. Platforms fall, spikes are everywhere and it’s painfully easy to slip to your death. Dying this many times could send you into a depressing spiral that mirrors Ash’s.
15 Wake Up, Time To Die
In Hyper Light Drifter you wake in a strange land with little more than a sword and your wits. Naturally, everything is out to kill you–and the monsters in this world are good at their job. You’ve got a dodge roll and a couple other weapons you find over time in your arsenal, but it’s Hyper Light Drifter’s unforgiving environment that is the true enemy. Crushing blocks, precipitous falls and an array of traps make for a punishing experience.
With all of that in mind, sometimes it’s hard to know where to go and what to do in Hyper Light Drifter. All communication in the game is done visually; the denizens of this new world you’ve stumbled into don’t speak your language. That language can be decoded, but some players succumb to frustration long before they start drawing up a dictionary.
14 One Shot, One Kill
Titan Souls is a boss rush game with an ingenious premise. While the player can only take a single hit from any of the massive boss creatures before them, the same goes for that boss, each of which have a weak spot that can be exploited. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, though.
The player has a single arrow that can be retrieved after being fired, but that’s all you’ve got in the way of offensive capabilities. If you’re not careful, you’re liable to find yourself squashed, pummeled or burnt to a crisp by one of the game’s many titanic monsters.
The good news is that, like any great, punishing game, you’re free to try to take down the sinister bosses as many times as you’d like. If you can keep your controller in one piece, that is.
13 Here's Lookin' At Me, Kid
Echo is a brand-new space horror game from developer Ultra Ultra, a team that has its roots in the Hitman franchise. Much like Hitman, Echo is all about stealthily making your way through a lush, winding environment without alerting the guards. That’s where the similarities end, though, because Echo takes place in the deep future and those guards are your clones.
If the prospect of fighting yourself sounds terrifying, well, don’t worry. It gets worse. See, those clones are also learning from everything you do, and then they’ll start doing those things to you. Starting to rely on your gun? You might start catching shots. Choking out your adversaries from behind? Better watch your back. Jumping from landing to landing? Look out above.
Sometimes the hardest game to beat is the game that learns from its greatest foe: you.
12 Welcome To Music Hell
It’s very likely that no rhythm game has ever wanted to destroy you as much as Thumper. Everything about the game is aggressive, from its brooding surrealist aesthetic to its somber-then-erratic music–if the sounds in the game can collectively be called music. The game’s obstacles–bumps, spikes and blockades on an ever-expanding, non-Euclidean track–come at the player fast and furious. Violent twists and turns aren’t uncommon, as the game consistently hides information from you via obstruction.
It’s no wonder some have described Thumper as “rhythm violence.” The game takes its toll and offers only slight reprieves between boss encounters and the start of the next level–just enough to catch a breath, but never enough to compose yourself. Developer Drool was kind enough to offer a new game plus mode upon completion, where everything is just a little harder and faster.
11 Try Jumping... In 2D
Salt and Sanctuary brought the look and feel of a Dark Souls game to the 2D gaming world. It also brought the Souls series’ punishing difficulty with it. The game features all sorts of mechanics Dark Souls fans will find familiar: weapons with unique patterns and animations, a chance to retrieve your belongings upon death and co-op functionality for jolly cooperation.
The game brings little in the way of mercy, though. There are over 20 bosses in the game, each with their own strategies and tactics attached to them. One boss, The Witch of the Lake, is notorious for giving players a hard time. This boss’s ranged magic attacks are capable of killing even the most prudently outfitted adventure in a single shot. If there’s one thing that can send players running from a video game, it’s getting continuously one-shot.