While many of us pick up and put down games for many reasons, sometimes those games can simply be too difficult to make it through alone. While it doesn’t make it wrong to decide to move on to greener pastures, there are games we love that can still claim a shameful victory over us.
While retro arcade games tend to have unfair mechanics to encourage you to pop endless quarters into the machine, some modern games create a challenge just for the love of punishing their players. While owned by many, these games have a small percentage of their players who made it all the way through.
A FromSoftware title with a unique take on the soulslike genre, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice puts you in the role of Wolf, a shinobi with the ability to resurrect. However, even with the ability for a second chance after death, it sometimes feels like you need a dozen resurrections per boss battle.
Some bosses have even bested the most patient gamers, especially the Demon of Hatred and Sword Saint Isshin, which are the truest tests of skill from any soulslike. As long as you’re able to say you beat the headless monkey boss, then you’ve gone further than most.
Don’t let the cutesy, pixelated art style fool you. Celeste is one of the hardest platforming games available, using a handful of simple mechanics in increasingly elegant ways. While getting through the main game is hard on its own, trying to getall the collectible strawberriesis where most players throw in the towel.
Either way, the game never wants to hold your hand, putting you in increasingly difficult rooms that require pixel-perfect accuracy and timing. To those that do conquer the mountain and Madeline’s darkest fears, you can call yourself one of the less than one percent to have reached the end.
Revered for its adoption of the iconic style of cartoons from the 1930s, Cuphead allows you and up to one other friend to take on the Devil himself, fighting off bosses that scale dramatically in difficulty. Despite the ability to change your abilities and weapons, oftentimes you will have to rely on skill alone.
Even with a partner to slap you back to life, on some levels, you have to simply trust in your skills to make it through alive, let alone unscathed. It’s okay if you give up after reaching King Dice. After all, he has your souls. Beyond that, the DLCs offer even more difficult bosses, eclipsing the difficulty of the base game.
A rogue-like dungeon crawler giving you control of Zagreus, the son of Hades himself, you must attempt to escape from the underworld over and over to reach this game’s true ending. Even with the plethora of options to put the advantage in your court, you can’t be expected to win every time.
Even if you reach the end and defeat Hades to unlockthe game’s true ending, you must go through the dungeons and beat him ten times over, all while the bosses and enemies get stronger. Although, since getting there once is an achievement on its own, we won’t judge you for calling it quits there.
Taking the soulslike genre to the open world, Elden Ring gives you the freedom to explore the world and its many, deadly enemies at your own pace. However, the enemies are just as punishing as every FromSoftware game, and even more so in the world of The Lands Between.
Those who have made it as far as Malenia, Blade of Miquella, know that some bosses are just too difficult without hours of preparation and practice. So much so that this boss has spawned the gaming legend, Let Me Solo Her, who became famous just for his ability to fight her alone.
Elden Ring: Nightreign offers a unique spin on the main game if you prefer a more roguelike experience with enhanced co-op.
While all the Ninja Gaiden games in the series can claim to be especially difficult, none come close to the truly rage-inducing experience that is Ninja Gaiden 2. This is mostly due to the enemies who are experts at parrying your attacks and can be downright bloodthirsty.
With the release of the remake, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, the addition of the Hero Play Style difficulty made it much easier for newcomers to the series to survive. However, Path of the Master Ninja still exists for those wanting to experience one of the hardest action-adventure games ever made.
A simple, auto-scrolling platformer tied to iconic EDM soundtracks, Geometry Dash is familiar to anyone bored in class in the mid-2010s. As deceptive as the looks and simplicity imply, Geometry Dash proves to have some of the most challenging obstacle courses available.
With the base game having just over 20 levels, ranging in difficulty from ‘Easy’ to ‘Demon’, making it to the end requires Buddhist monk levels of skill, practice, and patience. If the base game’s levels weren’t hard enough for you, the game’sactive modding communityhas made truly inspired creations that put the original levels to shame.
Taking inspiration from Dark Souls and Sekiro, Nioh 2 does not give you any rest, throwing powerful enemies at you from around every corner while barely giving you enough breathing room to replenish ki, change stances, or even attack. Nioh 2 tests you right out of the gate with Mezuki, requiring many tries to beat him.
However, Nioh 2 doesn’t have that steep of a difficulty curve after the first few bosses, but maintains it throughout, which can simply be too much for some. It also helps to look up some guides, as Nioh 2 offers vague hints at best, expecting you to discover most of its mechanics on your own.
2Demon’s Souls
With the remake in 2020, more players have gotten to experience the truly controller-clenching experience that is Demon’s Souls. The first true soulslike game, this title has some of the most unique bosses in the genre, but also makes it especially difficult to reach them.
Checkpoints are often separated by vast distances with many dangerous enemies in between, making it especially excruciating when you are almost to that next archstone before dying for the hundredth time. Now, more fans than ever get to realize the true rage that comes from Demon’s Souls.
A game that makes the combination of a cauldron and a hammer recognizably iconic, Getting Over It is a game about patience, testing even the meditative gamers. Awkwardly swinging around your unconventional climbing tool, you must slowly rise over a series of random objects placed very precariously.
One misstep, and you will fall through the level, passing entire sections that took hours to complete, all while Bennett Foddy himself taunts you. For most of us, there is a point where falling to the very bottom for the ninth time has you uninstalling in frustration, but few have the honor of saying they persevered to the top.
If you prefer a co-op experience with added checkpoints, Bread & Fred lets you and a friend play as cliff-hanging penguins scaling a mountain.
