There is a distinction to be made between a difficult game and one that utterly absorbs and frustrates its players, leaving them drained of mind, reflexes, patience, and pride. The greatest video game challenges are not merely tests of skill, but ordeals whose memory lingers long after the game's credits have rolled, and sometimes not even if you reach them.
These games demand mastery, perfection, and the ability to continue failing until something just clicks. Gaming history is littered with infamous difficulty spikes, but certain legends reign supreme when players make their case for the hardest game of all time. Each leaves players wondering how much punishment is possible.
A Nod to Souls-Like
The Dark Souls series popularized the “Souls-like” genre, but the original Dark Souls has not lost its edge when it comes to difficulty. Dark Souls has a reputation for being one of the most brutal video games of all time. The world of Lordran is a perfect labyrinth of lethal shortcuts, loops, and traps to make you look like an idiot. A single enemy could potentially beat you, and the only way to move forward is through repeated failures. Ornstein and Smough are not simply boss battles but also precise gauntlets where the player must execute flawless stamina management and timing.
A single mistake, a mistimed dodge, a greedy attack, and you are back at the bonfire. There are no tutorials, no guiding hand to hold, no checkpoints, no easy difficulty, and the game does not care if you live or fail. After finally beating a boss after hours of death, the euphoric sense of accomplishment hits you like a ton of bricks, and you feel like you conquered Mount Everest with only sheer will and a dull blade.
FromSoftware’s Legacy
For FromSoftware, it didn't stop there. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice took the studio's penchant for punishing difficulty to even newer levels, in a game that made every sword stroke count. Rather than dodging and side-stepping like in Dark Souls, Sekiro forces you to square up to your enemies, time your attacks to their pace, and literally break their posture by parrying their blows, again and again. Combat is a dance of death, a white-knuckle battle of attrition that requires razor-sharp focus and precision.
Even the most basic enemy can beat you if you make a mistake, and bosses like Genichiro and Isshin play cruel psychological games, breaking you down until you're ready to break through. Sekiro is all about player skill, far more so than any other game in the genre: either you play at the level of its mechanics, or you don't progress. Every victory tastes sweet not because the game is unfair, but because it won't allow you to coast. You level up only after it breaks you down and builds you back up through discipline and precision.
A Classic That Can’t Be Beat
Okay, so brutal difficulty does not a nearly impossible game make, nor is this a new phenomenon. Even back in the days of yore, when patches, game guides, and approachable design philosophies didn’t exist, the hardest games of all time were lying in wait, taunting and punching down.
Battletoads in Battlemaniacs is one of these. Limited continues, no checkpoints or passwords, levels designed to frustrate to the point of tears, and a general sadistic disregard for the enjoyment of your time is just some of what this most despised of games will throw at you. Skip to stage two, after you’ve adjusted to the breaks, and things will go downhill from there. That’s one of the most annoying roller coasters in video game history. Just gettin’ through it will take you a while because it’s designed to wear down your controller and your patience while requiring you to memorize huge portions of it in order to master it.
The question is then, what is the hardest video game ever? A loaded question, sure, but it could be one of these or it could be another. The answer will change depending on who’s playing and what era you were raised in. The hardest game will be whatever it is you’re willing to suffer through to see a challenge through to completion and overcome it.
