TL;DR
Rust
Rust is often cited as one of the hardest games due to its combination of mechanical difficulty and mental challenges. Players must constantly be on edge, as no progress is safe, and solo play can feel like a nightmare [3]. The game requires not only skill but also game sense, paranoia, and luck to survive. Despite its difficulty, Rust is praised for its replayability, as no two wipes are ever the same
[3:1].
Nioh Series
The Nioh series, particularly Nioh 2, is known for its challenging combat and steep learning curve. Players often find themselves dying frequently at the start, but mastering the counter timing and mechanics can lead to a satisfying gameplay experience [5:1],
[5:2]. While some players argue that the game becomes easier once you learn the mechanics, others still find it to be a significant challenge
[5:3].
Nine Sols
Nine Sols is another game recommended for those seeking a challenge. It features a difficult final boss fight and a trophy list that adds to the game's challenge [2]. Although not much detail is provided about the game itself, it is highly praised by players who enjoy difficult games
[2:1].
Sifu
Sifu is initially difficult, but players find it rewarding once they master the combos and dodging mechanics [5:9]. The game requires players to learn and adapt to its mechanics, and while it may not be the hardest game out there, it offers a good level of challenge for those looking for something new
[5:6].
Other Notable Mentions
These games provide a variety of challenges, from survival and combat to platforming, catering to different preferences for difficulty in gaming.
This is my first game, integrating the design concepts of the two games that I consider the most difficult, Jumpking and Celeste.
It not only has operational difficulty but also tests one's mindset.
If you want to take on some real challenges, then you've come to the right place.
Adopt a unique downward force jumping mode, which requires both controlling the force and making precise operations in the horizontal direction.
This is a game that's hard to clear by memorizing patterns—it relies on muscle memory and quick reflexes."
Try the web demo on itch
88% of the players give up in the first level. Will you be among that 12%?
Playable Link:https://liangzixiaoqiang.itch.io/hard-jump-demo
You can also find the game on steam
At present, no player has obtained three ending achievements.
If you think the game is too difficult, May be you can recommend it to your friends or your favorite streamer, and then get potato chips and cola ready. Start to enjoy.
From the demo on itchio, it wasnt really hard, i would put celeste harder and jump king way harder. It took me around 10 min to reach the character that tell you "path blocked end of demo"
I would personally like if there was a way to reach the max jumping height faster, cause a lots of the time, you're just waiting on a platform pressing a and a again doing nothing until you have the right height.
The coins have no explanation on them, beside putting them in the atm. What do they do?
For the vast majority of jumps, there is no need to push the height to the limit. If you want to pass quickly, you need to control each of your jumps, retain as much kinetic energy as possible, rather than reaching a place and starting to recharge in place again.
It seems that you are very good at this game. Gold coins can be used to unlock an npc codex in the steam version. This game is not truly more difficult; rather, it tests one's mindset more.thank you
Link's not loading at all for me :/
try again or seach "hard jump" on itch
I currently preparing for the next update
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(I didn’t attach the platinum screenshot because it was a black screen)
This game was a masterpiece and the final boss was the hardest fight I think I’ve ever done before. Highly recommend this game to anyone that enjoys difficult games, it’s phenomenal. Trophy wise the hardest one was literally just beating the game imo. 9/10 game and a 10/10 trophy list.
This game has 36 trophies: 15 bronze, 17 silver, 3 gold, and a platinum.
I don't know its difficulty or completion time. If you know this information, please reply to me so that I can add it to the PlatPrices.com database that this information is pulled from.
Price: $29.99
Other region prices, wishlist, or buy
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I've heard of this game, it's been on my radar for awhile now. Certainly looks fun, congrats on the plat! If you enjoy games with challenging combat, I'd recommend looking into Furi and maybe playing Hollow Knight. Not sure if Nine Sols is a metroidvania-type game, but if it is, then you'll probably enjoy Hollow Knight.
Hollow knight is my favorite game! Furi looks interesting, thank you!
Well done! I’ve never heard of this game but I might have to give it a try. The style looks cool.
I've played 4,000+ hours of Rust, and I still think it's the hardest game out there. Not just mechanically, but mentally.
No progress is safe – You can grind for days and lose it all in minutes.
Solo life is a nightmare – One wrong move, and you're wiped by a zerg.
No true "endgame" – Even when you're stacked, one bad fight or raid defense can reset everything.
Skill isn’t enough – You need game sense, paranoia, and luck to survive.
Even after all these hours, every wipe still feels like starting over from scratch. No other game keeps you on edge like this.
Does anything else even come close to Rust’s level of punishment? Let’s hear it.
I always tell everyone Rust is probably the best game for replayability. No two wipes are ever the same. Would probably play more of it if it wasn't so toxic. Not that I don't enjoy it sometimes, but it does get hard, lol.
The holy grail of gaming was endless replayability
That's why I insist Rust is one of the greatest video games ever created.
And in my opinion, the best first person multiplayer experience ever created, period point blank
You've gotta find the right server if you want good gameplay and less toxicity. Takes some hunting, but they're out there.
Rust life is an example. Mostly adult players and relatively chill.
I got 3.2k hours at Rust, but for me would say DayZ is way harder. I play DayZ once in a blue moon. Rust I'm my regular game to chill
Yeah, in dayz you could get so far, fully kitted out in armor and weapons, but all it takes is one shot to end you and send you back to the shore where it would take hours to get back to where you were, even if you had a base
For me, even getting overwhelmed with Zombies, or on one occasion accidentally running off a cliff in the dark 🙈🤣 And even with the map, it can take ages to navigate and not die of hunger by the time you get where you need to 😵💫
I would say dayz is harder just for the simple fact that hit registration is so fucking buggy. Trying to hit a zombie running at you. Good fucking luck.
Yeah but DayZ is only harder because the game is so fucking bad lmfao
It could be a lot more polished for sure 😇 I think when a game's good we overlook a certain amount of bugs and jankyness though 🤔 Every good game I've played for years seems to be full of bugs, maybe it's the modern way 😵💫🤣
If you love Rust, you should try a heroin addiction. It's long hours, lots of going out and trying to take other peoples stuff and gather supplies to pay for upkeep. It's equally as hard as Rust when it comes to holding a normal productive job (because you've got shit to do). Once you're in it and committed nothing else matters, and you freak out when people take your stuff. They're basically the same thing, as told from me with 13k hours and no heroin history.
No game ever makes me have panic attacks like this game haha. As a solo player it’s like a horror game sometimes. Creeping around in the dark trying to get some loot as a solo still gives me anxiety and has my heart pumping out of my chest haha. After 1.5k hours I’m not sure that’s gonna ever change. Absolutely brutal game but that’s why it’s cool.
Yea, I love playing solo. It definitely feels scary as fuck sometimes. You have to redefine success as a solo. Just getting a tier 3 and raiding 1 or 2 small bases to me is a huge win. But I’ve had more heart pounding moments at a solo than when I’m in a group.
Hey everyone, I’ve always been fascinated by hard games the ones that truly challenge you and give that insane reward once you finally “get good”.
With a friend, we recently launched something we wished existed: www.difficultyquest.com 🎮
The idea is to let players rate games by how difficult they are — not just in terms of frustration, but based on skill, reflexes, precision, and learning curve. Right now, we’re starting with hard games, because that’s what inspired the project in the first place but the long-term goal is much bigger: to eventually offer a difficulty rating for every game, whether it’s chill or brutal.
It’s ad-free, community-driven, and still fresh so we’d love feedback. Good or bad. Brutal honesty welcome. It’s our first public version.
We’ve also set up a small Discord and a Twitter account. If some of you are interested, I can share the links in the comments. We use them to discuss hard games in general, debate which ones are missing from the list, and follow the evolving rankings. 💬
Out of curiosity: what are your top 3 hardest games ever? I’d love to compare them to what’s already popping up in the rankings.
Thanks a lot for reading 🙂
Yo! I can beat the 100% difficulty game in 12 minutes and also the dev made an ending based on how I got softlocked at the final tower just before finishing the game. 😆
With 12 minutes for a game rated 100% difficulty respect. Maybe you just crushed it too hard. Anyway feel free to rate this one and others on our site. 🙂
Getting over it is not a difficult game. It takes you 4-8hours for your first win and each subsequent win is <30 minutes. It's as if Elden Ring decided to put Malenia as the first Boss and give an Endgame build from the start. Would that make Eldenring harder? I totally agree, a site which tries to rate games by difficulty but does not define what "difficult" means (Be it time to finish or possible skill ceiling or amount of grind needed or the steepness of the learning curve or the percentage of people who get a certain defined of progress, etc...) is pretty unimpressive.
You should take a look at https://thinkygames.com/ they did it right, but only for the specific subgenre of thinkygames.
"Claire Obscure" at 0% ? Where would that place "Putt Putt joins the Parade" then?
Thanks for the comment! That actually gives me a good opportunity to clarify something. The site shows the hardest game at 100% and the easiest at 0%, but we’ve set a threshold: a game needs enough votes to be officially rated. Since Claire Obscure was just recently added, it hasn’t received enough ratings yet — that’s why it’s still showing 0%.
And if you’re interested in discussing video game difficulty, have ideas to improve the site, or want to suggest games to add, feel free to join our Discord! We’ve got a small but growing community debating which games deserve their spot and how to define “difficulty” in the first place. 🙂
it’s neat, but without a concrete way to define “difficulty,” this is just another review site
Do you include puzzle games too ?
Yeah totally puzzle games is our target also! We didn’t include many at first since we weren’t too familiar with the hardest ones, but people have started suggesting some so we’re adding more now. If you’ve got tough ones in mind, feel free to share them here, join the Discord, or drop us an email we’d love to include them. 🙂
looking for a challenge. i have beat all dark souls, sekiro, bloodborne, lies of p, wukong, and elden ring. im looking for a new game that brings me a challenge.
Ninja gaiden series can be pretty tough. Otherwise I’d go maybe Metroid Dread, hollow knight.
For souls likes try Lies of P, Enotria, nioh1/2
Nioh 1 and 2 are challenging definitely. Just working through Nioh 2 and really enjoying it!
I love Nioh 2. At the start, I was dying to everything. By the end, I got all the counter timing down and was one shotting bosses with the split staff. So fun
Metroid Dread isn't challenging, is it? Is that game considered challenging? I've done 3 playthroughs, I absolutely love it. I felt the difficulty was balanced pretty well. Other than getting lost a few times and needing to spend time learning the bosses cadences and patterns, I never really got frustrated or stuck due to its difficulty.
Yeah, you might be right. It may be a biased suggestion. It’s such a great game, and it’s difficult enough I suppose, but it’s not hard per se.
does a game you never got into really count? game is not that difficult if it clicks and you know how to time the dodge. it's kinda like dark souls when you never ever played a game with i-frame dodging.
Sekiro might seem like the most difficult game at first where every enemy kills you easily but once you learn how to deflect it suddenly doesn't seem that bad.
obviously you have to learn the mechanics of a game before even knowing how difficult it actually is.
Yes it counts, 10 hours worth of attempts and getting nowhere = difficult. I've beaten Sekiro, it's far more forgiving than Returnal.
Keep going. Goated game. The permanent upgrade you get at the end of biome 2 makes it much easier.
I love this game but my Dypraxia makes it impossible to learn the inputs and controls etc. Could never master it to continue.
Platted Sifu not too long ago. It's difficult at first but you feel awesome once you get those combos and dodging mechanics down
Took me ages too but once you get the hang of it and get the feel for the advantage vs opportunity cost of certain things like parasites then it’s much more manageable. It used to be way harder, they had these flying enemies in act 3 and 5 that were absolute unmitigated bullshit but they nerfed them to be balanced with everything else.
Slip everything L1 I think and the counter. You'll melt the bosses
Which RPG really tested your skills? Was it the tough bosses, the constant grind, or complex mechanics that made it a challenge? Tell me about the game that had you struggling the most, and what made it stand out as your toughest experience! Thank you so much! :)
7th saga, Zelda 2, and Elden Ring are tough getting to the end.
Morrowind, it’s tough getting past the first crab.
Elden Ring end boss isn't too hard, but holy shit the optional bosses.
I whipped Melania but struggle with the Elden Beast to this day! I’m not sure why but I can’t beat it!
I was overlevelled as hell (like level 190 or something?) and Melania still mopped the floor with me for a few days.
The final boss first phase tripped me up, but yeah the final part wasn’t near as bad.
Damn I wanna play it again right now.
Fallout 1 and 2. I needed guides, grinding and a lot of time... I couldn't finish it.
Give it a shot on easier difficulties. Don’t think that you weren’t good enough but you just lacked the relevant experience to probably get the most out of your action economy. Put it on easy and your hp should shoot up.
The early game can be tough. Have you tried an easier difficulty?
The beginning (damn wolves) and the ending were awfully hard
Pathfinder: WofR is pretty brutal if you don't know how to build your character and wants to play the "normal" difficulty.
On the flip-side, if you manage to make it to mid-to-late game with an optimized build, you can absolutely wreck everything.
During my first playthrough (played on Core difficulty, the step just above Normal), by the end of the game my main character could pretty much solo anything without his party, as a melee Oracle/Angel.
main tip is the same for any owlcat/pathfinder game - follow meta or play on lower difficultues. if god forbid you are willing to roleplay some gimmick class on harder difficulty, find other, more balanced game.
Tarnesh killed me I don't know how many times the first time I played but then I had no difficulty with any other fights all the way up until Sarevok.
Basically any game that has a large portion being high difficulty I’ll let comments figure it out.
i agree on skill based boss fights. it feels impossible without others help
Find The Chomiks. Without tutorials.
Grace
Pillgrammed
Deepwoken is nearly an impossible game unless you invest mass amounts of hours into it. Pilgrammed is also very challenging but wayyyyy less punishing.
I'm genuinely starting to get annoyed at the number of "what should be my next hardest" posts.
It's not hard to find a harder level that you like by using GDDL, AREDL or any other list. Other people don't know your preferences for levels or your skillset.
You should create your own journey not just follow what others say. Imo that is just boring. And from my experience finding a level I enjoy and doing a practice run gives me may more motivation than if someone recommended me that level.
TL;DR: Stop posting about what should be your next hardest and create your own journey.
people don't even need to use stuff like gddl, just choose a level you find naturally, like what i do. this is how us old gd uncs did it.
Those were more like examples if you're really struggling to find one
sadly no one will listen to you, everyone just gives the most random answers to these posts and many of them are ass. rule 3 isn't enforced enough, i reported a lot of rate my icon posts etc and theyre not removed
This sub has gone downhill since like 2023
Weekly questions and achievements thread:
It's a shame the thread is brushed off by most people
think about it, the thread is right there in front of them when they open the sub, but:
the mods really need to push the thread more.
Couldn't agree more.
Amen.
It's kinda funny to me. I've had at least 50 levels in my to-do list for as long as I can remember. You can find them on youtube, on progression sites, everything
Most of the time the answers they get from these posts is just the commenters' favorite levels, generic picks, or the special funny fellas that go "TIDAL WAVE!"
The whole reason for why the game is special is YOU pick your journey, YOU build up your own skillset, YOU choose the levels you want to take on. It's okay to ask for suggestions but with hardests especially you should know man...
What are the hardest games you have ever played? I am beating any game that is suggested and documenting my journey
I've played my fair share of difficult games but struggling to think of which one I'd recommend. I think a lot of difficult games tend to even out once you play them enough... but yeah Bennett Foddy may not be mechanically complex compared to something like Dark Souls but it will test your endurance and patience in ways that few games do. But it's also quite an interesting meta commentary on games and culture while also being poetic about it as well. I'm glad I played it, I got my golden kettle, but I'm never going back to it again 😆
It was the only game (at the time) that I was actually able to beat, because it held my attention long enough (because it was hard). Kinda weird logic there
That's not even the hardest level.
If you haven’t played Tunic, omg… it captures this exact feeling. You find the game’s manual pages and mechanics are revealed to you as you progress. It’s also difficult but more in a puzzling way than difficult enemies (though it has those as well). Very easy recommend, 10/10 experience
Look, you can't beat Battletoads without cheating (save state is also cheating), unless you dedicate your life to it. It's unfairly difficult, unlike Dark Souls.
I won't judge you if you in fact cheat.
I'm not sure how hard it was really but I remember beating Earthworm Jim in a single playthrough felt like a lifetime achievement. Actually, I'm in my 40s and it still feels like it.
Yes it is. Beat it when I was 13. That was my biggest life’s accomplishment at that point. It might still be actually. Wow kinda sad now
I too chose overcooked 2 with this guy's wife /j
ay I guess honeygf - since it made me "hardest"
Dude the snake level….insane
I successfully did that level in 2p mode playing both controllers myself. I consider it one of my greatest accomplishments.
Hijacking this, getting over it is on the easy-ish side of foddian game, "Pogostuck", "This is hell", "Sklime", "Get tilted :)", "Pushing it with sisyphus", and "Ascending inferno" Are much harder then it as a few good quality example i could give.
If you count this as a comment op, i personally would be interested in This is hell, as its the only one where there is no video of someone clearing it.
Please suggest me best FPS game under 10GB, which you have played and like it very much.
Every time I try some new and shiny FPS game I just end up going back to FEAR.
Trepang2 might scratch the itch if you want something more recent.
Half-Life 1 and 2,Portal,Watchmen Part 1 and 2,Postal 1,2 and Redux,Hitman Contracts and Blood and Money and Panakapu
Postal 2 is where it’s at.
Steam
Dishonored steam page says 9GB required
Dishonored is one of the greatest of all time, but it's not FPS. OP said he wants FPS
What is it then?
Ultrakill
This is the answer if you don't suffer from motion sickness.
If you do, like me, I recommend Driminate. lmao
Something different, but Neon White. It's 6-7GB, I think.
Neon White is fucking incredible. Such a satisfying game to play.
best hardest game on PC
Key Considerations for the Hardest PC Games:
Game Mechanics: Look for games that have complex mechanics, requiring precise timing and strategy. Games with steep learning curves often fall into this category.
Difficulty Settings: Some games offer multiple difficulty levels, but the hardest games typically have a reputation for being unforgiving even on lower settings.
Community Feedback: Check forums and gaming communities for discussions on difficulty. Games that are frequently mentioned as "hard" often have a strong reputation among players.
Genre: Certain genres, like roguelikes, platformers, and souls-like games, are known for their challenging gameplay.
Top Recommendations:
Dark Souls Series: Known for its punishing difficulty, intricate level design, and deep lore. Players must learn enemy patterns and master combat mechanics.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice: This game emphasizes skillful combat and timing, with a steep learning curve that rewards patience and practice.
Cuphead: A run-and-gun platformer with a unique art style, it features challenging boss battles that require precision and memorization.
Super Meat Boy: A fast-paced platformer that demands quick reflexes and precise movements, with levels designed to test your skills.
The Binding of Isaac: A roguelike dungeon crawler that offers a high level of difficulty with permadeath and randomly generated levels, making each run unique and challenging.
Takeaway: If you're looking for a true test of skill and patience, consider diving into the Dark Souls series or Sekiro. Both games are renowned for their difficulty and will provide a rewarding experience for those who enjoy a challenge.
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