Over the past few years, difficulty in video games has been closely linked to Soulsborne games’ influence on the industry.

Since FromSoftware’s titles are known, among other things, for their brutal challenges, many studios have followed their example, creating demanding video games within the Soulslike genre.

However, not all difficult experiences fall into this category, as numerous games, before and after this trend, have already put our controllers’ lives at risk.

As a result, it’s time to recognize these demanding adventures that manage to apply the pressure without the inherant difficulty of the Soulslike genre propping them up.

10 Dragon’s Dogma

A Merciless Open-World

When I first played Dragon’s Dogma, my impressions were a combination of Dark Souls’ difficulty with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’s freedom, and I was right on target.

With no difficulty modes at launch, as they were added in a patch after its original release, Capcom’s title was a relentless journey that didn’t give you easy solutions to its problems, but rather forced you to face them and fail until you emerged victorious.

Even with more accessibility options, the lack of unrestricted fast travel, the presence of colossal and powerful monsters, and terrifying nights where anything can end your life in a heartbeat make Gransys an unwelcoming land.

Although there comes a point in the game where you gather enough power that nothing is an issue anymore, reaching that moment is more than enough challenge for a lifetime.

9 The Talos Principle 2

Puzzles at Maximum Complexity

The Talos Principle 2 is an extremely challenging puzzle game that will push your mind to the limit.

Its progression curve is wonderful, and the game knows how to explain itself very well, but that didn’t stop several of its puzzles from taking me hours to figure out how to solve.

Fortunately, it’s designed so that not all challenges are mandatory and can be skipped, but I’m a stubborn player, so I forced myself to solve everything on my own and without shortcuts.

Consequently, I put more hours into The Talos Principle 2 than the average player because some puzzles require creative solutions beyond my traditional capabilities, making it one of my most satisfying but exhaustingly difficult playthroughs of a game.

8 Tunic

An Adventure to Get Lost In

Although the Soulsborne formula taught me spatial awareness, Tunic truly defied all my knowledge of the subject.

Except for one truly difficult boss, this wonderful indie game’s challenge lies in its lack of guidance, as it unfolds in an illegible language that can only be constructed through estimation and inferences.

Knowing where to go and what to do is the journey’s greatest challenge, to which we inevitably have to add the various encounters with dozens of enemies that don’t make the experience any easier either.

Even having finished Tunic, its approach to difficulty is such that a second playthrough would probably cost me almost as much time as the first because it requires a connection with it that few other games demand.

7 Darkest Dungeon

Unimaginable Horrors

Darkest Dungeon is one of the cruelest indie games I’ve ever played.

I’d never deny it’s also one of the best permadeath strategy games, but its difficulty did frustrate me considerably more than once.

Certainly, the level of satisfaction you achieve when you manage to understand and overcome it is almost unparalleled, though reaching this point feels almost like climbing a mountain. Managing all the stress, character information, financial hardship, health issues… It’s just too much.

While you can change its difficulty modes, Darkest Dungeon is meant to be experienced when you play it the way its developers intended.

That being said, I’ll never attempt a Stygian run again in my life. Those who have played the game will know perfectly well why it’s a bad decision for their mental health.

6 Cuphead

Run, Gun and Cry

I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say Cuphead is on par with FromSoftware’s most demanding challenges, but my death counter unmistakably aims in that direction.

Many bosses in this magnificent run-and-gun have forced me to retry them hundreds of times, with several landing on the list of the hardest I’ve ever beaten, like Dr. Kahl’s Robot or Beppi the Clown.

If you count the DLC, which probably surpasses all the base game’s fights in quality and difficulty, and its non-boss sections, which are also extremely challenging platforming runs, the complexity becomes even bigger.

Cuphead is definitely one of the best indie games of all time, and its difficulty is also one of the most pronounced in video game history.

5 Fear & Hunger

You Won’t Come Out Unscathed

Fear & Hunger is unforgiving in both its moral dilemmas and its gameplay.

The mercilessness this experience presents is unparalleled, and even seeing the first and most basic ending took me dozens of hours.

Whether it was due to not having the strength to make the necessary decisions to survive or simply not knowing its world’s laws, the result was almost always the same: starting over.

Its world’s cruelty pushes you to make unfathomable decisions, only to realize even the greatest sacrifice will probably only lead to your demise.

After seeing the credits for the first and only time, my entire exposure to Fear & Hunger has been reduced to watching people better than me play it. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it through its dungeons a second time.

4 Sifu

A Game That Demands Perfection

Among the list of video games in which you die countless times, Sifu stands out as one of the most prominent.

The level of perfection its gameplay demands has very few parallels in the video game industry, as you must become a master of martial arts to even see its first ending.

Given the bosses’ variety and speed in terms of combos and gimmicks, the number of things happening in parallel, and the depth of its mechanical composition, knowing how to fight in Sifu requires time, patience, and concentration.

Of course, when you reach a flow state and control everything, the satisfaction it offers is tremendous, but few actually achieve such a feat.

3 Contra 4

A Hellish Difficulty

I took my time choosing which Contra game would be on the list, as I know it’s impossible to talk about tough games without mentioning this iconic franchise.

I settled on Contra 4 because it’s my most recent memory of the series, and because absolutely everything in the game feels like a walk through Hell.

Between the projectiles’ speed, the player’s few lives available, and the bosses’ baffling health bars, every attempt to make progress felt like a life-or-death battle.

To be honest, it reaches such an extreme point where it stops being entertaining and becomes downright depressing. I have a lot of affection for the series, but I don’t miss feeling such a level of displeasure at all.

2 Ninja Gaiden 2

Anything But Fair

Among this series’ extensive history that could have made the list, I stuck with Ninja Gaiden 2 because it was the first time I felt like I could never finish a video game.

Feeling that any grab, carelessness, or poor positioning would lead to my death generated indescribable tension, both for better and for worse.

Its enemy input reading is some of the most brutal I’ve ever seen, elevating the challenge to a level I had never experienced in a game prior.

When Tomonobu Itagaki, the series’ director, once explained that the enemies in Ninja Gaiden 2 were there to kill you and not the other way around, he truly meant it. That’s the ultimate testament to the immeasurable difficulty of such a great classic.

1 Celeste

Dying is Part of the Climb

While it’s a video game that turns failure into fun, Celeste is the most difficult masterpiece I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing and suffering through.

The first seven chapters are challenging enough to warrant its presence in this article, featuring several of the most complex platforming sections in history.

However, when you consider each chapter’s alternate sides and the additional content that expanded the campaign, it’s clear to me that no other title requires as much skill from the controllers as this one.

The precision, composure, and memory required to execute the pinpoint jumps and dashes to advance pixel by pixel are simply unprecedented.

Dying 10,000 times in a single chapter is enough to make Celeste the hardest non-Soulslike game. A true work of art designed to teach you discipline and control like no other.