“I choose to play these games, not because it’s easy, but because it’s difficult.” The quote is said to have been said in 1962 by then-US President John F. Kennedy after losing 16 hours of progress in a perma death save.
While I welcome you to question the truth of this statement, there is one thing for sure. Sometimes, when the game gets more difficult it becomes a game worth playing.
I have put this list together based on my personal experiences of pain, victory, and on the basis of evidence of humanity’s stubbornness in the face of impossible odds.
Every time the game here encouraged me to cry or play a brainless round of FIFA, there’s another time in which I let my virtual victory go through just a way to love the media of video games more.
10
Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic
Rock to wealth
Building your own village, city, or empire is not a profound and unique gameplay format at all. What makes workers and resources unique is taking you out of the bondage of oppressive capitalism.
Armed with an unwavering resolve to build an independent socialist republic, this is one of the most relaxed games I have ever played. Of course, it’s tempting to cry when a small mess is cascaded into the deaths of 80% of the population, but there’s no perfect game.
It is a realistic difficulty mode that will make workers and resources shine. Rather than making the game difficult, When you turn on this setting, you will be painfully aware of the first law of thermodynamics.
For example, if you want to build something, you need to source the workers, materials, and the necessary machines. Also, unless you want the Republic to look like a dump, you need to dispose of the waste created by the process.
It is possible to import some elements here, but still means that you will need to send your car to the border to move the goods forward. It slows down the construction of your Soviet Republic, but you’re incredibly pleased.
9
Tsushima’s Ghost
Only one strike is required
The 2020 release of Ghost of Tsushima was the main catalyst for the Samurai Revival, which swept the entertainment scene, and for that reason we can’t thank the sucker punch.
Set during Japan’s first Mongol invasion, you can play a tough samurai in his quest to defeat the invaders of Tsushima Island.
Not everyone is familiar with the historical details of that era, but most people can guess that if they slash with their swords and get really badly injured they will kill you completely. That’s what the ghost of Tsushima’s fatal difficulties is all about.
Instead of buffing enemies, The fatal mode reduces almost everything in the game with less than three strikes including you. It punishes mistakes, but also rewards you heavily for the right techniques.
I don’t pretend I was sometimes not annoyed after groping through three (or 30) of a simple encounter, but after defeating the enemy, it wasn’t important.
8
Ghost Reconnaissance: Wildlands
Death means death
At the surface level, Ghost Recon: Wildlands plays like a sci-cario of Dennis Villeneuve with the bastard kid from Grand Theft Auto. You run around, shoot gangsters and corrupt cops, “borrow” cars, and shoot people again.
While far from a difficult game by most standards, Wildlands’ Ghost Mode is extremely unforgiving. The concept is simple: If you die, the game must delete save and start over again. Did you say this is a 30-40 hour game?
The threat of major heartbreak and embarrassing gamer’s rage turns all the games of relatively simple filming into realistic stealth masterpieces.
Most of the games rely on penetration cartels and gender merry compounds, while over the number with everything from 4:1 to 20:1. In other words, you’ll have to do it quietly or have a terrible time and start over again. It is an art that has transformed into masochism.
7
Sniper Elite: Resistance
The slow is smooth and the smooth is fast
Running operations behind the lines of enemy lines in World War II usually meant playing a long game. The timeline between the inserted agent and the operation can take several months as it was not redoed in the war.
Sniper Elite 5 and Sniper Elite: Resistance sent you to occupied France in 1944, but I’m in a reluctance as it’s a more sophisticated gameplay experience.
The series is usually well known for its ballistic vascular resection and bold killcams, A game that plays it on a real difficulty will turn the game into a slow, burning experience..
You will not receive health regeneration, ballistic computer cheats from emptying your lungs will be turned off, the enemy no longer has the persistence of the newborn baby object, and you will die much faster.
As a sniper elite and chronic skill deficiency person, playing it genuinely brought me to the edge of my sanity, but completing the mission “feels far more satisfying than screwing it down.”
6
Alien: Separation
That’s behind me, isn’t it?
Every day we don’t talk about aliens: quarantine is a waste of time. The game is an excellent video game adaptation of classic film franchise and is one of the best things brought to the survival horror genre.
I especially love that the creative assembly, which remains at the angle of “We Die Helpless” is stuck on the angle of the first film, rather than the sequel to “Space Rambo & Friends.”
Don’t get me wrong, Alien: Separation is a great game with difficulty, but I was never able to play it in settings other than Nightmare Mode after trying it. If the name hints gently, this is a bad time, but it’s a fun and moderately traumatic way.
Nightmare mode removes your map, your health bar and makes Xenomorph act like a true predator. Your trustworthy motion tracker, which you previously had no mistake, now sometimes malfunctions. That noise alone can be enough to give you your position.
Between that and constantly holding your breath, Alien: Separation gives a better impression of a quiet place than the franchise’s own game adaptation.
5
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
New immersive fantasy
At this point, it’s safe to assume that most people are playing The Witcher 3, or at least have vague knowledge of the characters and overall premise. However, most adventurers have not completed the game at the March difficulty of death.
Despite its unnecessarily grand name, the March of Death is not a huge boost of hardship created in the lab.
With the greatest difficulty, The Witcher 3 will finally play you like a Witcher. As long as you understand how to beat them, all the challenges and enemies the game throws for you to manage.
Signs, potions, decorations become an absolute command from useful if you want to win. As the difficulty level expands later in the game, you will need to actually dive into the flesh.
It’s a much slower ride than other difficulties, but it brings out the best aspects of The Witcher 3 and brings it to an immersive RPG.
4
Our Last
I accept grounded misery
Naughty Dog is doing an unstoppable quest for Todd Howard to sell Skyrim by shoveling its throat.
I cannot blame the company for cashing out, especially when acting as a poster boy for the first time with a legend like Pedro Pascal. But even so, it’s becoming more and more meme-worthy at this point.
Our last is the most influential survival horror franchise of the last decade or so, but its grounded difficulty modes have not given enough attention. The first game that introduced this option is listed here. However, you can also choose to do so in subsequent sequels, remasters, and remakes.
Our final grounding mode is the first thing you throw towards the experience. You don’t have HUD and listening mode to help you find enemies in combat. On the survival side of things, materials, weapons and clauses become much more difficult.
If you feel that your day is going well and you want to ruin it over and over again, all versions of Part I remake and part II add the Perma-Death difficulty option. This means that when you die you will return to the start of the game, but you can also reset the current chapter only or reset the ACT progress.
3
Metro: Exodus
Otherwise, who?
Like an annoying child who brings in and tells them the exact same toys each week, I once again find myself talking about the book of Exodus on the subway. It’s not my fault 4A games have become a good game that checks so many boxes.
Now, Metro Exodus has earned plenty of praise for its dark atmosphere and smooth gameplay, but it’s not enough about the difficulty setting here.
Ranger’s hardcore difficulty changes the game from a somewhat inconvenient adventure to a true apocalyptic survival horror that it was intended to be. You have no HUD elements, the resources are incredibly few and you die as easily as other human enemies.
Aside from one unbalanced sequence at the start of the game, Metro Exodus ultimately feels fair when he breaks out of Hansa Base.
To be completely immersed in the experience, Ranger Hardcore also disables manual saves, so forget to save. The game is when you save progress during certain story points and rest in the shelter, but that’s it.
2
Kingdom Come: Rescue 2
Medieval farmer simulator
Oh, how, if I were a normal medieval man… exactly no one said. Still, the Kingdom Comes: Rescue 2 brings you exactly if you get bored of heroics and play it in hardcore mode instead.
Playing as Bohemia’s most popular Wanderer in Hardcore mode will help you level out the playing field between you and the people around you. Doing so makes sense Henry has no compass, no map markers, or indicators of attack direction.
In other words, you need to know where you are, where your enemies are, and where you are going. To help commit to bits, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 also disables fast travel and vending.
At the start of the game on hardcore difficulty, you will be encouraged/forced to choose three negative perks that will stick to you until the end of the playthrough. It slows down the game slightly and makes the world around you more highly appreciated.
Hey, I’m walking here
Considering your time and sanity, I don’t make a “buy Skyrim” joke here. But that’s mostly because I’ve already done that in this article. For all clowns, it’s not hard to see why Skyrim is one of the most popular RPGs in the world for over a decade since its first release.
What makes Skyrim special (except for the vibrant and completely strange mix of mods) is how immersive it is. After passing through the game in Survival mode, you start looking down at those who are too scared.
Introduced in the special release of 2017, survival mode must address hunger, fatigue and exposure to extreme temperatures. If you try to play tough, you can get sick. Health no longer automatically regenerates, so you need to keep items handy for this.
Inventory management has also been completely converted. This is particularly relevant to archer types that carry more arrows than are reasonably used in lifetime.
What brings this all together is the removal of fast travel. Unable to carry the entire town on its back and vulnerable to frozen water and fatigue can cause you to travel as hard as your destination and increase your attention to detail in the game.
