Achievement hunting is serious business, and if you combine that with the fast-paced action you only find in first-person shooters, you have a match made in heaven.

There are plenty of creative Achievements in the space, including speedrun-style, multiplayer, and slow-burn grinds.

You may be no stranger to formidable achievements, but how about some that are just plain unfair? Here’s a selection of the most brutal achievements in the FPS genre, and only the most hardcore need apply.

These Achievements are available on PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam and share the same names across all platforms.

10 Mile High Club

Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

There’s no doubt that Mile High Club is a problematic achievement for many, and it’s the only one on the list that’s considered iconic and known by the masses.

Call of Duty 4 has a superb campaign, and Mile High Club challenges players to beat the Mile High Club mission with a time limit on Veteran difficulty.

The restriction is so rigid that you must complete the level flawlessly. You have no chance if you don’t memorize enemy spawns, and the finished run resembles an armed ballet where every move is rehearsed.

It’ll take many attempts to achieve this, but it’s pretty doable with practice. Mile High Club makes the list for its status as a badge of honor among CoD veterans. There are more challenging Achievements, but it’s definitely the most recognizable.

9 Personal Decorator

Call of Duty Black Ops 3

Black Ops 3 is arguably the best Call of Duty if you want your Zombies fix. It also has some nasty Achievements reserved for completionists.

Personal Decorator is rewarded once you earn every Decoration. The issue is that Decorations are particularly tedious to collect, and some are locked behind nasty feats like completing every level on realistic difficulty.

Sure, you can argue there are tougher campaigns in the FPS genre, but BO3 on Realistic is a lesson in patience. Other challenges include racking up thousands of kills.

Personal Decorator has a surprisingly high completion rating of 6.1%, according to Steam, which means many CoD players are far more dedicated than I am!

8 …Becomes The Master

Titanfall 2

If you thought Mile High Club was unfair, you’ve not seen anything yet.

…Becomes the Master in Titanfall 2 tasks you with beating a training gauntlet and reaching the top 3 on the scoreboard. In practice, this means you must conquer the course in 32.90 seconds, and those tenths of a second mean everything.

Your run must be flawless, with perfect execution of the game’s iconic wall-running mechanics, all the while managing your loadout. Arc Grenades are essential, and it wouldn’t hurt to grab the secret EPG-1 gun near the start if you’re serious about going for the Achievement.

The good news is that while you must play flawlessly, you only have to do it for half a minute. You will quickly memorize every enemy spawn, and wall jump in the gauntlet, and the only thing standing in your way is execution.

7 Fatal Florist

The Finals

I love gimmicky Achievements, and The Finals is home to one of my favorites.

To earn the Fatal Florist Achievement, you must defeat an opponent with a flower pot. The good news is that you can pick up and throw items easily in The Finals.

The bad news is the flower pot does barely any damage, and you’ll never beat a gun-wielding opponent by simply chasing them with a chunk of terracotta.

Fatal Florist requires some setup. You can use something like a mine or wait in high-traffic areas, hoping to pick off a straggler. If you’re patient and set a decent trap, you can score this unique Achievement with some luck.

There are plenty of variables to consider, and you’ll never get this to work against a group or a Heavy contestant. Fatal Florist has a low completion rate of 0.3% on Steam for a reason, but it’s doable if you persevere.

6 Legendary Hunter of the Sea of Thieves

Sea of Thieves

Sea of Thieves offers a unique PvPvE experience you can’t find anywhere else. According to Steam, I’ve racked up 1200 hours on the game over the years, and I don’t even have this achievement.

The Legendary Hunter of the Sea of Thieves Achievement is locked behind an in-game award for completing 57 Grade 5 Commendations for the Hunter’s Call faction.

The grind to level up the Hunter’s Call is arduous and relies on you delivering tons of fish and gems to their outposts. The Achievement is tied to a shopping list of tasks, including 50 fishing-specific quests.

Sea of Thieves has an excellent fishing mini-game, but other players are always a threat. You can easily lose hours of progress to a PvP scrap, and many elements are simply out of your control.

5 Throw Hammer or Run

Hunt Showdown

Hunt Showdown‘s Throw Hammer or Run sounds like an easy Achievement until you remember that the Baiyou is infested with some of the sweatiest players in the FPS scene.

If you want this rare Achievement, you must kill an opponent by throwing a sledgehammer at them. The issue is that the sledgehammer won’t kill in a single hit, and you need the Tomahawk Trait before you can even attempt it.

In a game where sound is king, good luck sneaking up on a wounded opponent and getting close enough to lob a hammer at them.

While Throw Hammer or Run is challenging, I am a big fan of gimmick Achievements like this. It’s doable; you just need to wait for the opportune moment.

4 Mein Leben

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

Achievements for conquering games on their hardest difficulties are nothing new, but Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus takes this theme to the next level.

Mein Leben is a difficulty setting and is earned for completing the game the first time. The gameplay is identical to the hardest mode, “I am Death Incarnate,” but with one key difference. You must beat the game in a single sitting.

Saving is disabled, and there are no checkpoints. The lack of checkpoints also means a death will send you right back to the start. You can technically cheese the Achievement as you can pause and leave your console on.

Still, it doesn’t make the challenge much easier, as Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is a tough game regardless.

3 LASO Master

Halo: The Master Chief Collection

LASO Master tickles me because it’s based on a fanmade ruleset designed to make the Halo campaigns more difficult.

LASO stands for “Legendary All Skulls On.” Legendary is the hardest difficulty, and Skulls bestow modifiers like removing the HUD and increasing enemy health.

Having every Skull active simultaneously is horrific, particularly on Halo 2, and you must defeat every campaign with the ruleset to earn LASO Master.

Needless to say, this challenge is impossible without surgical knowledge of every level and optimal strategies. Oh, and Skulls like Iron exist that send you back to the start of the level if you die as a solo player. Ouch!

2 Number One

Quake 4

Online achievements are the bane of any completionist’s existence, but Quake 4 laughs at the usual complaints and slaps its player base with something much more sadistic.

Number One is a cruel achievement that can only be earned by reaching the top spot on a specific online leaderboard. Yes, you read that right. Not the top 100 or top 10; you must literally be the highest-ranked player on the planet.

Needless to say, Number One is from an era when developers were still figuring out how to make decent challenges for Trophies and Gamerscore.

One of my proudest achievements is reaching the top 10 on a rolling leaderboard in an indie game called Pix the Cat. This Quake 4 challenge makes mine look like child’s play.

1 Doom + Doom 2

Untouchable

The Doom + Doom 2 collection is the definitive way to enjoy these classic shooters. There are just enough modern enhancements to please new players and tough-as-nails gameplay to satisfy veterans.

The Untouchable Achievement is a great example of the latter, tasking players with beating eight levels on the Ultra-Violence difficulty in sequence. You’re not allowed to die and must finish every level within “par time.”

For the uninitiated, the par time assumes you know your way around the levels and effectively rush to the finish line. The “sequential” part makes Untouchable so much harder as it means you can’t just complete the first stage on repeat. Thanks to the eight-level requirement, you must play for an extended period flawlessly.

Even if you have low health, you’re forced to play aggressively if you want to make the par time, and a few unlucky dodges can kill your attempt.

The original Doom games are masterpieces soaked in old-school difficulty, so you must embody the Doom Slayer if you want to claim the title of “Untouchable.”