It’s also the game that showed millions just how difficult roguelike games could be. FTLįTL certainly wasn’t the first roguelike game, but this crowdfunded title elevated the genre with its incredible sci-fi setting, brilliant structure, and intense strategy-focused combat sequences. By that point, though, you’ll likely be too committed to seeing it through to realize that you’re actively being beaten down. Of course, that reality will rise up and smack you in the face the moment that you dare to try to beat the game’s later levels.Įven if you “grind” your way to the top of Dead Cells and unlock every weapon, attribute, and skill, you’ll still struggle to topple this game’s most devious challenges. Dead Cellsĭead Cells is so much fun to play that you might forget that it’s absolutely one of the most challenging action games of the last few years. Few gaming experiences match the feeling of getting a Hotline Miami level just right. While each level in Hotline Miami is essentially a puzzle, few puzzle games also demand perfect aim or the ability to pick up a makeshift weapon at just the right moment in order to salvage your plan of attack.
Hotline Miami is widely recognized for its all-time great soundtrack and absurd violence, but don’t let this game’s popularity somehow convince you that it is not one of the most unforgiving and mentally exhausting action games ever made. Building a fully functional rocket in this game’s nightmare world of physics and miniature components is only slightly less difficult than being asked to build a rocket in real life.
If you have, then you probably already know that Kerbal Space Program is one of the most complicated and mechanically advanced PC games ever made.
However, have you ever tried actually playing Kerbal Space Program well? It is, after all, a fairly goofy game about building spaceships where half the fun comes from watching your plans quite literally blow up in your face. It’s not hard to enjoy Kerbal Space Program. There are quite a few challenging “logic puzzle” games on the PC, but what separates this truly incredible experience from some of its immediate competition is the way that the game’s time manipulation mechanics require you to cross-reference nearly every piece of information that you acquire with every other piece of information you acquire. Don’t even get me started on those stealth sections… 22. The only word that properly describes Rogue Spear‘s difficulty is “unforgiving.” You have to be nearly perfect in your planning, aim, map, knowledge, and execution of all of those elements if you’re going to have any chance of completing this game’s most difficult missions.
If you’re only familiar with the Rainbow Six series because of Siege (which, to be fair, is a challenging game in its own right), then let me just warn you now that you’re probably in for a world of hurt if you ever dare to try to play the first few entries in this long-running franchise.
The first PC game many of us probably played dominated computer classrooms, ate up more free time than many of us will ever care to admit, and ultimately confounded a generation of gamers who desperately tried to see its victory screen. We’re also focusing on games that were initially released exclusively for various PC platforms (or at least games that weren’t simply ported to PC later on) in order to properly pay homage to the truly unique ways our personal computers have tortured us throughout the years. What are the most difficult PC games ever made, though? Well, answering that question is only slightly easier than actually playing the games on such a list, so in the interest of honoring the hardest PC games ever, we’re offering an extended look at the games that made you toss your mouse and keyboard in the air and briefly consider the benefits of smashing the family computer.
The most fascinating thing about the history of difficult PC games isn’t necessarily the difficulty of individual titles but rather the diversity of difficult experiences the platform has gifted us throughout the years.įrom meme games specifically designed to make you rage quit to underrated platformers and punishing puzzle titles, the history of difficult PC games essentially doubles as a fairly comprehensive look at all the ways developers have creatively punished us for daring to think we were ever good enough to beat their cruelest creations.