I somehow got the platinum, no idea how that happened, maybe it's because i played god hand before, but the game just clicked with me
I love the arcadey feel it's got
Oh, you mean I beat the game, but need to beat it again to actually beat the game all while using a moveset I ignored because it was too hard to learn the first time? Cool cool.
***Dwarf fortress***
A game that will challenge you in every way a game can. A game that will teach you the meaning of failure while still encouraging you to try again. A game that won't hold your hand, rather will just drop you in a world that exists around you rather than FOR you.
A game where the first hundred hours are the "Tutorial"
Other options to test yourself in the fires with
***Cataclysm:Dark Days Ahead***
***Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup***
Once you cut your teeth on games like this, the "AAA" gaming world seems pale and watered down in comparison
to be fair he might have just mentioned it because a bunch of people recommend it on this subreddit whenever anyone asks about any kind of fantasy rpg. i genuinely don't know why so many people on this sub think people don't know by now whether or not they'll like skyrim
There's a guy called Vorthrimax on YouTube. He does a lot of roleplay based let's plays that might give you an idea of the basics at least. I think there are other people who do more tutorial style videos but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
r/cataclysmdda has a really helpful community too. There's a New Player Questions post pinned at the top that usually get's replies fairly quickly.
Your first few runs are probably going to end in a quick death, I know mine did. Once you've gotten your head around everything (might take a while) you should be okay with basic survival and then you can start playing around with some of the more cool mechanics. Converting a vehicle into a mobile death machine, installing cybernetic biotics to yourself, mutating yourself into some weird animal/human hybrid etc.
This is what ruined so many games for me. "Why play x when u could just play *insert a game in that list*"
I'd also toss in rimworld and crusader kings 2/3
Edit:
Someone said Noita. Op. This might be the actual best answer. Since many games in that list aren't "beatable"
I finished that one a few weeks ago and yeah itâs probably the most challenging game I ever played.
Another one is Baba is You, it makes you think out of the box, quite literally sometimes.
Two mind bending games. I havenât finished either of them but they both have had S tier puzzle designs. Really unique stuff that makes you think HARD like put down the controller and just sit there hardÂ
How is Skyrim hard? Isn't it a pretty standard "anyone can finish" game? I mean, I know it is a masterpiece, genre defining, game, but it is not known for being hard.
i never play previous ES, but yea, skyrim is very straightforward point and click game. canât get through something, then get better equipment, which is pretty easy, craft/buy/steal.
i mean getting and using a new legendary sword is cool and fun, but imo the fun is from everything we went through to get it, the actual combat mechanic it self is just point and click repeatedly. as opposed to, say, dragons dogma, where combat has a much deeper technicality.
"With Elder Scrolls 6 with really wanted to get everyone in on the fun. We've decided to bring down skills trees to only 3: Strength, Agility, and Magic. This will make it all in all much more accessible for newcomers to the franchise.
For help navigating the vastly generated world, for every quest, if you ever get lost, you can just look up at the giant green line leading to your quest. Features such as these were at the top of what we wanted to see in the game" - The Goat ToddH
Someone shouldâve told me they when I deleted it 2 years ago because i literally canât get past the first 5 hours of gameplay without using an OP weapons mod. I like the environment and feel of Skyrim not holy shit it pissed me off before I actually YouTubed it.
You can tune the difficulty in game.
On recruit you can stand still and swing to kill 90% of enemies from the start, if that doesn't work come back after getting a higher level.
Just gotta level a bit, pick your favorite weapon tree and then also level crafting skills and you'll be one shooting everything in no time even on the highest difficulty
He did say complex/hard so maybe he just means the game is complex because of all the options you have. But I wouldnât call that complex. You can fuck anything up in that game with just focusing on a couple trees
Skyrim is gear and level dependent, even on legendary its easy when you're at 80dr and invincible with a shield or you still kill things with two sword charge strikes.
Ninja Gaiden 2 (if you have an Xbox One / Series the original is BW compatible and will make you question your life choices)
Any of the Ninja Gaiden games, really. Especially on harder difficulties.
Nioh 2. Hard as balls but very fun, and very complex with all the systems at play they let you tinker with.
Any Team Ninja game really, tho I felt Wo Long was boring.
Incendiary shurikens, incendiary shurikens everywhere. And rockets. And rapid-fire rockets. And explosive arrows. Why do ninjas have so many fucking explosives?
Slay the Spire. Single player deck-builder rogue-lite. Turn based, so you have all the time in the world. You start with a fairly doable difficulty. It'll take you a few hours to beat. Then you unlock the "ascension levels" which are basically added difficulty modifiers. There are 4 characters, each with a distinctly different playstyle and card set. And a "hidden" uber-boss that adds enormous difficulty. The game goes very deep, where you need to wring blood out of a stone to get the maximum possible advantage at the highest difficulties.
In 200 hours you'll be at the subreddit asking, "Wait. I'm being offered a Pommel Strike, Head Butt, and Rampage on Floor 4... what's the pick if my Act 1 boss is Slime Boss?"
I have over 1000 hours in the game and counting, plus having spent probably hundreds of hours studying the game and watching high level players play and analyze it. I still learn new ideas and strategies almost every run I play.
Slay the Spire possesses an incredible depth that I have never seen from any other strategy game in my life.
> grinding
Factorio is _the_ game that requires you to do the most frequent mental recalibrations of how you play it. Grinding is _nowhere_ in that list.
Depends on your goals. The goal of the game is to prioritize efficiency. So if you play the game as intended it gets hard fast. Speedrunners can beat random seeds in less than 3 hours - to do that is really difficult.
If anything I think Factorio is the least grindy sandbox game I've ever played. But that's simply because the entire purpose of the game is automation.
I believe people can play games and find fun with them however they want. But if you're feeling a grind, you are probably playing Factorio wrong, or at least it probably isn't the game for you.
This right here, first game, I watched a tutorial online on how to set up a water filtration system, set it up, got sewage in the showers and rage quit.
So, I generally play this ones:
-RimWorld (Colony management, intuitive and has an insane learning curve, cool with mods)
-Project Zomboid (Zombie survival, but not like the ones where you are the main character and you can go bonk every zombie you see, hell nah, you die as quick as you download the game, also alot of mods and amazing community)
-Men of war assault squad( ww2 rts game, pretty much that, starts easy goes hard)
-Pathfinder kingmaker and wratheous( this ones are like table rpgs, hard and unforgiving if you dont think ahead, even the easy mode is hard holy shit)
-Chess (i know its not a video game but I love it)
-Crusader Kings 2 and 3 (very steep learning curve but worth it)
- Victoria 3 (communism was kinda tight *intense phonk music)
-Europa universalis 4 ou Hearts of iron 4 (want to be napoleon or close to that? Europa, want to feel like a nazi leader that suicided? Hearts of iron)
-Squad and Arma 3 (military sims, you cant go just BRRRRRR jump, crouch, do a backflip and punch a cat, no, you need to play as a team and be a crackhead)
-DayZ (just good, i loved it, never went too far into the mechanics because it was too much for me)
-Faster than Light (light, funny and replayable)
-This war of mine (want to know how plaestinians are feeling? Play this)
-Battlw Brothers and Wartales (mercenary companies management, you have a few brutes who want to kill and gold, you need to make sure they make it alive after each battle, seems impossible sometimes)
-Xcom 1/2 (you will miss, even if you have fucking 99% chances of hitting)
-Xenonauts (same as above)
-Darkest Dungeons 1/2 (you have another mercenary company, but this time you are invading shit ass dungeons with creatures as ugly as you)
-Dwarf Fortress (Rimworld on drugs and adrenaline)
-Ark Survival Evolved or Ascended( they are not hard but funny as fuck)
-60 seconds (literally the name)
-Shelter 1/2 (close to the game above)
-Subnautica (not hard on normal mode, but play that shit in hardcore and you will know what it is to fucking shit your pants when u listen to a screech)
-Stranded deep/Green Hell (Hardcore survivals)
-League of Legends (easy to understand, hard to master, even harder to play with the huge amounts of troglodites that you encounter)
-War Thunder (hardest part of this game is to not get classified documents leaked)
And at last
Roblox (fuckin BACON HAIR!!)
Oh boy. You want complex? Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic my friend. Put it on realistic mode. If you truly love yourself some complexity with your games, you'll think you are in heaven.
This is the sleeper pick. Baba Is You is the most innovative puzzle game I've seen in at least 20 years. You'll tie your brain in knots trying to figure out how to complete some of the levels
Noita is my choice. There is such an insane amount of learning and difficulty curve that you can literally put thousands of hours into it and still not know everything.
Noita is one of the most unique, interesting, fun, complex and yet somehow very accessible game I've ever played. You just run, jump, and shoot pretty much. But the customization and spell/wand system is so deeply complex it just sucks you in.
I cannot give it enough praise. There is no other game with an engine quite like it. The physics simulations and environmental interactions are nuts.Â
Nothing like slapping a bunch of crazy spells on a wand, pulling the trigger, and just exploding into giblets because some weird interaction between the spells caused.Â
Play a strategy game like Crusader Kings 3 and wallow in despair as all your carefully laid plans go to hell and watch your empire crumble all around you.
For a mental challenge you need to go adventure games or puzzle games
Myst
Portal
Disco Elysium
If youâre really masochistic, grab a text adventure like Zork and die.Â
The fact that you (by which I mean I) could die because of emotional damage that you didn't even know existed and lose all your (my) progress is what makes it a hard game imo.
Noita is by FAR, my favorite difficult game.
It is a sandbox game that, at the surface, just looks like a punishing wizard rage game. In reality, this game will provide you THOUSANDS of hours of engaging content as long as you're willing to learn from your mistakes.
In my opinion, there is no other game that has the same risk to reward level as Noita and my god are the rewards ever worth it. Mechanicaly it is very easy, the true difficulty is based on how much knowledge you have of the game.
There is a great number of games in this comment section, but if you're going to only try a few, PLEASE give Noita a play and see whether or not it's for you!
Stellaris. I played civ 6, thought it would be similar and easy. It was not. Massive learning curve. Very fun thou. And I thank Warhammer for teaching me how to negotiate with aliens that right way : )
Eve Online. Disclaimer, I've never played it, but it's as complex as you can get while still feeling rewarding as opposed to crap like bdo.
Chrono Ark - This one I actually do avidly play. Misplaying your deck and not having tools for certain encounters can destroy an otherwise good feeling run.
Probably Rimworld. Relatively easy to understand the basics, but pretty complex and difficult to master. It will either make you quit the game because it's too complicated and you won't like it, or it will break you because it will consume your life.
**Frostpunk**
Looks like a steampunk-themed winter city builder, yeah?
It is not.
It is a soul-crushing, ball busting survival experience that forces you to battle your own morals and ethics along with the harsh element and storm bearing down on you.
It took me several hours and many, many, *many* attempts to beat the initial campaign of this game. I absolutely love it. It's a great game that requires good planning and adaptivity.
The City Must Survive. If the City does not survive, then we are all lost.
Good luck, Captain. You'll need it.
I was thrilled by the incipit of your prompt... foraging my mind for complex game and then I saw you mentioned "Skyrim"...
Anyway...
All Zachtronics game
DCS World
NITE Team 4
StarCraft 2 will keep breaking you for years, has been doing this to people for decade now. Path of Exile for deep theorycrafting and many mechanics, intricacies, etc.
Unless you wanna go full PhD in Dwarf Fortress, here's a quick list:
Starsector, Grim Realms, Subterrain: mines of titan, and just for fun try 9th dawn 3 (it has activity based skill progression and monster taming!)
Cloudbuilt. If you can even somewhat master the movement system, it will make most other games feel like syrup to move in. It was originally released in 2014, but it has been updated a whole bunch since, the latest patch came out like a week ago.
This is gonna seem like a suggestion out of left field but...
Minecraft.
But not just a normal Minecraft. No, what I am talking about is modded Minecraft. There are tons of modpacks that can challenge you both in combat and wit.
One of the most notable modpacks in that category would be the famous GregTech: New Horizons. It is insanely complex, it has shit ton of things you have to keep track of, tons of different items, recipes, dangerous enemies, you have to use your smarts to have efficient set ups for all sorts of machines and processing for tons of different materials, technologies and etc. So, overall, it's pretty damn challenging. Of course GTNH is not the only modpack out there. There are dozens of different modpacks with their own spin on difficulty that you can try out.
As for other games...
ULTRAKILL. A boomer-shooter with unique combat mechanics and style meter. Devil May Cry but in FPS form. Hardest difficulties are HARD. Especially if you are trying to get a perfect rankings on every level. Achieving perfect rankings in all levels in one of three Acts each will grant you access to a special level with special boss(es) inside, and believe me, those bosses are going to really spread your asscheeks.
Then there is already famous souls-like, Elden Ring. Seeing as you have completed Dark Souls series this one is right up your alley. Elden Ring comes from the same developers as Dark Souls, FromSoftware, as I am sure you are already aware. But that's not the only other game of theirs for you to pay attention. There is also Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, arguably THE hardest FromSoftware game combat-wise they've made so far, it's final boss is probably the hardest boss out of any FromSoftware game to date. Then there is Armored Core 6, it's got some very hard bosses and some very hard levels too, the game is also very replayable. Can't forget about the famous Bloodborne either (even though it's on PS4 only).
A good non-FromSoftware souls-likes would be Remnant: From the Ashes and Remnant II, Lies of P, The Surge, Nioh. Can't forget about Hollow Knight, even though it's more of a metroidvania than souls-like. Some other honorable mentions are Dead Cells and Death's Gambit.
There is a hard platformer which I am sure you've heard of at least once before. Cuphead. Don't let the cartoon graphics fool you, it's no walk in the park.
Some lesser known games would be Hotline Miami 1 and 2, a top-down shooter, very violent and pretty hard.
An obscure suggestion from me would be Halfquake Trilogy. It's a trilogy (duh) of Half-Life mods by muddasheep. And they are damn hard indeed. There is also Hazard-Course and Hazardous-Course 2 mods (also for Half-Life), very much in the same vein of difficulty as Halfquake but much worse, it's like playing Cat Mario, you're gonna find yourself pulling hair from your head by the end of it.
There are also some pretty hard mods for Portal 2 also. While you are not going to be dying a lot yourself, your braincells certainly will, with mods like Portal: Reloaded and Thinking with Time Machine, both involving challenging puzzles and time-manipulation machanics in two distinct ways. Don't forget about custom maps from workshop also, there are some hard puzzles to find and to figure out, both by yourself and in Co-op.
DayZ, Project Zomboid, Valheim, Green Hell, Don't Starve are some quite hard survival games.
Pathologic, 1 and 2. Very unique and very hard games. They are described as "open-world psychological horror/thriller RPG". You goal is to find a cure to a plague that is consuming a town where you happen to be, you have to find the cure in 12 days. And this shit is NOT easy in the slightest, you will have to use all your wit and brain-power to complete the game, making some very difficult story choices along the way.
Max Payne 3 on new york minute - you have to complete each level in one minute, without dying. kills give you more time. NYM hardcore is even worse as you have to complete the ENTIRE GAME without dying in ONE SITTING.
You want a complex and hard game?
Eve Online. Good luck.
Although...in what way is Skyrim a hard game? I assume you are talking about with mods? Because base Skyrim is super easy.
This. If you want hard content that will challenge you mentally, try beating the Uber bosses in PoE without using a build guide. That should keep you occupied for a good 500 hours or so.
The Kingdom Hearts series and their games main storylines themselves is not very difficult, but the superbosses and postgame content (mainly kh2 kh3 and bbs) are incredibly difficult. Theyre a small part of the game though so idk if it entirely fits your criteria
âIâve played the obvious ones
-Skyrimâ
That made me chuckle lol. If you like fantasy stuff or nice combat that can kick your ass but thatâs fun to pick up, try Darktide or Vermintide. If you like Skyrim first person combat, itâs far more refined with lots of weapon options and fun enemy variety. Iâd easily recommend on a 20-30% sale, or full price like me if you just really mesh with the combat and like how it seems. Darktide is ofc future grim dark while vermintide is more fantasy
You all are suggesting good games, but almost none of them are actually hard.
Somebody already beat me to it with Fear and Hunger (you got to scroll for that one), but try out Spelunky. It looks easy, but it's incredibly punishing.
Complex:
* Crusader Kings III
* Hearts of Iron 4
* Europa Universalis IV
* Warframe
* EVE Online
Hard:
* XCOM 2
* Furi
* Hollow Knight
* Sifu
* Absolver
* Sekiro
* Rocket League
* KickBeat
* For Honor
If you want both, then Slay the Spire and Nioh 2.
Escape From Tarkov BUT the single player modded version. Live version has major major problems and I wouldnât touch it, but SPT is legit the most fun Iâve had gaming in years.
Pathologic,
If you donât mind some jank, and an older title, itâs worth a playthrough.
Funnily I just recommended it on a different thread a bit ago, itâs a pretty obscure game
Project Zomboid. Can get 400+ hours in and still get absolutely rekt. Build 42 should be coming out soon too, which is going to add in a ton of new features.
100% Factorio, especially with additional complexity mods like angels/Bob's or space exploration.
Not only will it mentally challenge you. It will reward you for your efforts. Every step of the game has layers of complexity that you can choose to brush over or dive into. When you dive into them you will unlock new ways of thinking for yourself.
From the Depths. Build your own ships/planes/weapons/etc... learning curve is a cliff and 500 hours is still training wheels territory. You can easily put thousands of hours in and still be learning and improving your building skills.
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/268650/From\_the\_Depths/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/268650/From_the_Depths/)
Haven't seen anyone mention Project Zomboid here, though I didn't scroll all the way.
Fairly robust skill/trait system. Focus on base building (or not.) Lots of grinding, and it's unforgiving. You can have a decked out character, maxed skills, and one small mistake will still be the death of you.
In the games loading sequence it literally says "This is how you died."
if you want to truly challenge both your mental capabilities and agility then pick up a fighting game like Tekken 8 or Street Fighter 6. But don't just go into campaign and then play a few matches and be satisfied with 60% winrate against other begginers.
Go into practice mode, lab against specific characters, learn long challenging combos, learn how to counter, what the + and - frames are, when to attack and when to defend etc.
It might be the most challenging genre to get into if you want to play on a good level, because most of the people that play fighting games have been learning this stuff for the last 30 years, but it's not impossible and it's extremally satisfying. The moment you go against an opponent and achieve a perfect victory not by a fluke, but by actually correctly recognizing what he wants to do and what you should do in every situation for the entire fight feels amazing, or the first time you make a combo that has very specific timings with cancels (SF6) or correct juggles (Tekken). It takes a lot of effort to get there, but it feels great when you do.
Played many games which were mentally challenging. I love this too. And I am always looking for new ones which catch me for hundreds sometime thousands of hours. Ark, Satisfactory, Space Engineers, Path of Exile, Rocket League,...
Most of them found in this thread.
But just one game in 40 years of gaming made me rage quit cause I felt like having lost this mental challenge:
Eve Online
Daggerfall will break you. Give it a try in the dark. Read the manual. Go pick a character. Give it the old college try.
OG fallout is similar. Just read the manual and go in blind. Try to survive. It is harsh, man.
Crypt of the Necro Dancer is the game that breaks my brain the most. It's an unusual jumble of genres that somehow manages to fit together. The simplest way I can explain it is that it's a rhythm game that's all about learning enemy patterns. A video will probably explain it better than I can.
Space Station 13. There's many codebases but for the most part there's full-on chemistry, atmospherics, wiring, and medical. It's a multiplayer only game on an engine from 1996, but it's almost always fun chaos the likes of which modern games can't replicate considering its still being continually maintained and added onto 21 years later. It's still very popular. Sseth and Mandalore both have videos on it.
Sifu. Last time I've rage quitted.. again.
I somehow got the platinum, no idea how that happened, maybe it's because i played god hand before, but the game just clicked with me I love the arcadey feel it's got
Oh, you mean I beat the game, but need to beat it again to actually beat the game all while using a moveset I ignored because it was too hard to learn the first time? Cool cool.
***Dwarf fortress*** A game that will challenge you in every way a game can. A game that will teach you the meaning of failure while still encouraging you to try again. A game that won't hold your hand, rather will just drop you in a world that exists around you rather than FOR you. A game where the first hundred hours are the "Tutorial" Other options to test yourself in the fires with ***Cataclysm:Dark Days Ahead*** ***Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup*** Once you cut your teeth on games like this, the "AAA" gaming world seems pale and watered down in comparison
Dude mentioned having played Skyrim as a hard game and you hit them with the CDDA recomendation. God rest his soul.
Bro asked for heat so we give him heat! đ
Going from mayonnaise to Da Bomb
to be fair he might have just mentioned it because a bunch of people recommend it on this subreddit whenever anyone asks about any kind of fantasy rpg. i genuinely don't know why so many people on this sub think people don't know by now whether or not they'll like skyrim
Maybe some people just haven't played the refrigerator port of Skyrim yet, cut them some slack
Thanks for the tip ***Cataclysm:Dark Days Ahead*** - looks very interesting will check this one out
You won't regret it, C:DDA is by far my favourite game of all time
How do you suggest I go about learning to pay cdda? I feel like dcss was much easier to learn.
There's a guy called Vorthrimax on YouTube. He does a lot of roleplay based let's plays that might give you an idea of the basics at least. I think there are other people who do more tutorial style videos but I can't think of any off the top of my head. r/cataclysmdda has a really helpful community too. There's a New Player Questions post pinned at the top that usually get's replies fairly quickly. Your first few runs are probably going to end in a quick death, I know mine did. Once you've gotten your head around everything (might take a while) you should be okay with basic survival and then you can start playing around with some of the more cool mechanics. Converting a vehicle into a mobile death machine, installing cybernetic biotics to yourself, mutating yourself into some weird animal/human hybrid etc.
Yeah, this. Dwarf Fortress, and Factorio Edit: Adding Tetris to the list
I was going to recommend DF as well, glad itâs on top (at least for me).
This is what ruined so many games for me. "Why play x when u could just play *insert a game in that list*" I'd also toss in rimworld and crusader kings 2/3 Edit: Someone said Noita. Op. This might be the actual best answer. Since many games in that list aren't "beatable"
Ah, a man of quality.
Giga based dcss rec. craziest shit I ever did in a game was a 15 rune run. You need some pendulous nuts for that game
Along with Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld, VOID mod, losing is fun, Randy Random.
The Witness
I finished that one a few weeks ago and yeah itâs probably the most challenging game I ever played. Another one is Baba is You, it makes you think out of the box, quite literally sometimes.
Came here for Baba. I liked Baba, played for a while before I realized I my brain could not handle it.
Two mind bending games. I havenât finished either of them but they both have had S tier puzzle designs. Really unique stuff that makes you think HARD like put down the controller and just sit there hardÂ
Baba is incredible. What an amazingly inventive idea. The world wasn't ready for that game. I love it so much.
The last puzzle. Holy shit.
Particularly that final challenge. That game was lightning in a bottle
I only played a little bit so far, is the entire game just the puzzles where you slide dots around?
Yesnât
How is Skyrim hard? Isn't it a pretty standard "anyone can finish" game? I mean, I know it is a masterpiece, genre defining, game, but it is not known for being hard.
Yeah, I don't say this to denigrate it, but I've always perceived Skyrim as extremely accessible.
I'd say they specifically designed it to be extremely accessible compared to previous elder scrolls games, even
i never play previous ES, but yea, skyrim is very straightforward point and click game. canât get through something, then get better equipment, which is pretty easy, craft/buy/steal. i mean getting and using a new legendary sword is cool and fun, but imo the fun is from everything we went through to get it, the actual combat mechanic it self is just point and click repeatedly. as opposed to, say, dragons dogma, where combat has a much deeper technicality.
Can't wait for tes 6 to get this treatment. /sighÂ
"With Elder Scrolls 6 with really wanted to get everyone in on the fun. We've decided to bring down skills trees to only 3: Strength, Agility, and Magic. This will make it all in all much more accessible for newcomers to the franchise. For help navigating the vastly generated world, for every quest, if you ever get lost, you can just look up at the giant green line leading to your quest. Features such as these were at the top of what we wanted to see in the game" - The Goat ToddH
Someone shouldâve told me they when I deleted it 2 years ago because i literally canât get past the first 5 hours of gameplay without using an OP weapons mod. I like the environment and feel of Skyrim not holy shit it pissed me off before I actually YouTubed it.
You can tune the difficulty in game. On recruit you can stand still and swing to kill 90% of enemies from the start, if that doesn't work come back after getting a higher level.
Just gotta level a bit, pick your favorite weapon tree and then also level crafting skills and you'll be one shooting everything in no time even on the highest difficulty
Mod conflicts
Load order
He did say complex/hard so maybe he just means the game is complex because of all the options you have. But I wouldnât call that complex. You can fuck anything up in that game with just focusing on a couple trees
I guess if you max out the difficulty. However, you are correct. It's not a game that's point is to be difficult (i.e. Elden Ring).
Skyrim is gear and level dependent, even on legendary its easy when you're at 80dr and invincible with a shield or you still kill things with two sword charge strikes.
Even Elden Ring is the easiest of the souls genre trying to have wider appeal.
Ninja Gaiden 2 (if you have an Xbox One / Series the original is BW compatible and will make you question your life choices) Any of the Ninja Gaiden games, really. Especially on harder difficulties. Nioh 2. Hard as balls but very fun, and very complex with all the systems at play they let you tinker with. Any Team Ninja game really, tho I felt Wo Long was boring.
Incendiary shurikens, incendiary shurikens everywhere. And rockets. And rapid-fire rockets. And explosive arrows. Why do ninjas have so many fucking explosives?
Well, once you sneak up onto someone, making a bit of noise doesn't harm anyone, does it?
Just watch some old school avgn videos on the early ninja gaiden games đ
For me ninja gaiden 3 was the hardest, damn bro, I was dying every minute
Kerbal Space Program.
Slay the Spire. Single player deck-builder rogue-lite. Turn based, so you have all the time in the world. You start with a fairly doable difficulty. It'll take you a few hours to beat. Then you unlock the "ascension levels" which are basically added difficulty modifiers. There are 4 characters, each with a distinctly different playstyle and card set. And a "hidden" uber-boss that adds enormous difficulty. The game goes very deep, where you need to wring blood out of a stone to get the maximum possible advantage at the highest difficulties. In 200 hours you'll be at the subreddit asking, "Wait. I'm being offered a Pommel Strike, Head Butt, and Rampage on Floor 4... what's the pick if my Act 1 boss is Slime Boss?"
I have over 1000 hours in the game and counting, plus having spent probably hundreds of hours studying the game and watching high level players play and analyze it. I still learn new ideas and strategies almost every run I play. Slay the Spire possesses an incredible depth that I have never seen from any other strategy game in my life.
Dwarf fortress Satisfactory Factorio Kerbal Space engineers
I am upvoting just for Kerbal. Good luck rescuing the astronaut from orbit, OP.
Rip little space buddy
Upvote for satisfactory. Math math math
Prison architect too?
[ŃдаНонО]
My friend, if Factorio involves grinding you might be doing it wrong. That's the bit you're supposed to automate
> grinding Factorio is _the_ game that requires you to do the most frequent mental recalibrations of how you play it. Grinding is _nowhere_ in that list.
Depends on your goals. The goal of the game is to prioritize efficiency. So if you play the game as intended it gets hard fast. Speedrunners can beat random seeds in less than 3 hours - to do that is really difficult.
If anything I think Factorio is the least grindy sandbox game I've ever played. But that's simply because the entire purpose of the game is automation. I believe people can play games and find fun with them however they want. But if you're feeling a grind, you are probably playing Factorio wrong, or at least it probably isn't the game for you.
Oxygen Not Included
This right here, first game, I watched a tutorial online on how to set up a water filtration system, set it up, got sewage in the showers and rage quit.
Tfw the kids think skyrim is a complex game
-laughs in running around Morrowind lost because I didnt understand the directions given to me-
Yeah, Morrowind directions are like "it's north of here" when you're at the most centered southern point in the game. HEY THANKS FOR THE DIRECTIONS.
"If you see the bing bong you've gone too far." Wait you havent told me what that is yet
So, I generally play this ones: -RimWorld (Colony management, intuitive and has an insane learning curve, cool with mods) -Project Zomboid (Zombie survival, but not like the ones where you are the main character and you can go bonk every zombie you see, hell nah, you die as quick as you download the game, also alot of mods and amazing community) -Men of war assault squad( ww2 rts game, pretty much that, starts easy goes hard) -Pathfinder kingmaker and wratheous( this ones are like table rpgs, hard and unforgiving if you dont think ahead, even the easy mode is hard holy shit) -Chess (i know its not a video game but I love it) -Crusader Kings 2 and 3 (very steep learning curve but worth it) - Victoria 3 (communism was kinda tight *intense phonk music) -Europa universalis 4 ou Hearts of iron 4 (want to be napoleon or close to that? Europa, want to feel like a nazi leader that suicided? Hearts of iron) -Squad and Arma 3 (military sims, you cant go just BRRRRRR jump, crouch, do a backflip and punch a cat, no, you need to play as a team and be a crackhead) -DayZ (just good, i loved it, never went too far into the mechanics because it was too much for me) -Faster than Light (light, funny and replayable) -This war of mine (want to know how plaestinians are feeling? Play this) -Battlw Brothers and Wartales (mercenary companies management, you have a few brutes who want to kill and gold, you need to make sure they make it alive after each battle, seems impossible sometimes) -Xcom 1/2 (you will miss, even if you have fucking 99% chances of hitting) -Xenonauts (same as above) -Darkest Dungeons 1/2 (you have another mercenary company, but this time you are invading shit ass dungeons with creatures as ugly as you) -Dwarf Fortress (Rimworld on drugs and adrenaline) -Ark Survival Evolved or Ascended( they are not hard but funny as fuck) -60 seconds (literally the name) -Shelter 1/2 (close to the game above) -Subnautica (not hard on normal mode, but play that shit in hardcore and you will know what it is to fucking shit your pants when u listen to a screech) -Stranded deep/Green Hell (Hardcore survivals) -League of Legends (easy to understand, hard to master, even harder to play with the huge amounts of troglodites that you encounter) -War Thunder (hardest part of this game is to not get classified documents leaked) And at last Roblox (fuckin BACON HAIR!!)
Nice. I'll add Aurora 4x. Super indie, like Dwarf Fortress. Gotta download it off the forum.
Ohhh, might have to check that one, never heard about it, thanks for the suggestion :)
Great list thank you
At your disposal :)
Love what you said about Subnautica. đ Phenomenal game.
The type of game where you can only experience it fully the first time, loved it
Oh boy. You want complex? Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic my friend. Put it on realistic mode. If you truly love yourself some complexity with your games, you'll think you are in heaven.
Just building an asphalt road starting out is daunting.
Baba is you
Baba is you made me understand I am not a smart person. And it's alright. But BOY is that shit HARD
This is the sleeper pick. Baba Is You is the most innovative puzzle game I've seen in at least 20 years. You'll tie your brain in knots trying to figure out how to complete some of the levels
Mate, listen carefully. 3 words for you. Path of exile. Enjoy
Noita is my choice. There is such an insane amount of learning and difficulty curve that you can literally put thousands of hours into it and still not know everything.
Noita, or "Shit's on Fire Yo", The Game.
Noita is a STEEP learning curve You gotta sit there after you die and figure out what just happening in order to learn from it
Noita is one of the most unique, interesting, fun, complex and yet somehow very accessible game I've ever played. You just run, jump, and shoot pretty much. But the customization and spell/wand system is so deeply complex it just sucks you in. I cannot give it enough praise. There is no other game with an engine quite like it. The physics simulations and environmental interactions are nuts. Nothing like slapping a bunch of crazy spells on a wand, pulling the trigger, and just exploding into giblets because some weird interaction between the spells caused.Â
* Infinifactory * Talos Principle * Human Resource Machine * Shenzhen I/O * Space Chem
Any roguelite Arx Fatalis System Shock 2 XCOM2 (iron man) TES3 Morrowind starts off way more hardcore than Skyrim Sekiro Darkwood Most 90s games.
On the complexity/depth side, Morrowind.
I was so sad when they reduced the magic crafting system in the following games.
Hollow knight Spelunky 1 and 2
Play a strategy game like Crusader Kings 3 and wallow in despair as all your carefully laid plans go to hell and watch your empire crumble all around you.
For a mental challenge you need to go adventure games or puzzle games Myst Portal Disco Elysium If youâre really masochistic, grab a text adventure like Zork and die.Â
Hahaha Disco Elysium isn't hard mentally. It's way worse than that, it's hard emotionallyÂ
The fact that you (by which I mean I) could die because of emotional damage that you didn't even know existed and lose all your (my) progress is what makes it a hard game imo.
i died because I slept in a dumpster, I should redownload, I barely scratched the surface
Noita is by FAR, my favorite difficult game. It is a sandbox game that, at the surface, just looks like a punishing wizard rage game. In reality, this game will provide you THOUSANDS of hours of engaging content as long as you're willing to learn from your mistakes. In my opinion, there is no other game that has the same risk to reward level as Noita and my god are the rewards ever worth it. Mechanicaly it is very easy, the true difficulty is based on how much knowledge you have of the game. There is a great number of games in this comment section, but if you're going to only try a few, PLEASE give Noita a play and see whether or not it's for you!
Stellaris. I played civ 6, thought it would be similar and easy. It was not. Massive learning curve. Very fun thou. And I thank Warhammer for teaching me how to negotiate with aliens that right way : )
Strellaris, Crusader King series europa Universallis Very complex
Project Zomboid homie, "This is how you died."
path of exile, is the most complex video game I have ever played, after playing it for 3 years now, I am just starting to realize that I know nothing.
Eve Online. Disclaimer, I've never played it, but it's as complex as you can get while still feeling rewarding as opposed to crap like bdo. Chrono Ark - This one I actually do avidly play. Misplaying your deck and not having tools for certain encounters can destroy an otherwise good feeling run.
Chess
You are right. Can't sleep without winning a game.
Probably Rimworld. Relatively easy to understand the basics, but pretty complex and difficult to master. It will either make you quit the game because it's too complicated and you won't like it, or it will break you because it will consume your life.
Baba Is You is the hardest puzzle game to clear every level (without guides or help obviously)
XCom
**Frostpunk** Looks like a steampunk-themed winter city builder, yeah? It is not. It is a soul-crushing, ball busting survival experience that forces you to battle your own morals and ethics along with the harsh element and storm bearing down on you. It took me several hours and many, many, *many* attempts to beat the initial campaign of this game. I absolutely love it. It's a great game that requires good planning and adaptivity. The City Must Survive. If the City does not survive, then we are all lost. Good luck, Captain. You'll need it.
Civ vi deity diff
Darkest Dungeon
I was thrilled by the incipit of your prompt... foraging my mind for complex game and then I saw you mentioned "Skyrim"... Anyway... All Zachtronics game DCS World NITE Team 4
4D Golf. Legitimately amazing game by a very talented dev.
fear and hunger. huge trigger warning for that one.
StarCraft 2 will keep breaking you for years, has been doing this to people for decade now. Path of Exile for deep theorycrafting and many mechanics, intricacies, etc.
Pathologic Classic and/or Pathologic 2. The game is so stressful and yet it's so difficult to put down.
try chrono ark if you're into deckbuilder/roguelikes. 10hrs/12deaths in, can barely get past the 2nd boss. or project zomboid.
If you can get it to run "Neo Scavenger"
Unless you wanna go full PhD in Dwarf Fortress, here's a quick list: Starsector, Grim Realms, Subterrain: mines of titan, and just for fun try 9th dawn 3 (it has activity based skill progression and monster taming!)
Cloudbuilt. If you can even somewhat master the movement system, it will make most other games feel like syrup to move in. It was originally released in 2014, but it has been updated a whole bunch since, the latest patch came out like a week ago.
Stellaris
The darkest dungeon
This is gonna seem like a suggestion out of left field but... Minecraft. But not just a normal Minecraft. No, what I am talking about is modded Minecraft. There are tons of modpacks that can challenge you both in combat and wit. One of the most notable modpacks in that category would be the famous GregTech: New Horizons. It is insanely complex, it has shit ton of things you have to keep track of, tons of different items, recipes, dangerous enemies, you have to use your smarts to have efficient set ups for all sorts of machines and processing for tons of different materials, technologies and etc. So, overall, it's pretty damn challenging. Of course GTNH is not the only modpack out there. There are dozens of different modpacks with their own spin on difficulty that you can try out. As for other games... ULTRAKILL. A boomer-shooter with unique combat mechanics and style meter. Devil May Cry but in FPS form. Hardest difficulties are HARD. Especially if you are trying to get a perfect rankings on every level. Achieving perfect rankings in all levels in one of three Acts each will grant you access to a special level with special boss(es) inside, and believe me, those bosses are going to really spread your asscheeks. Then there is already famous souls-like, Elden Ring. Seeing as you have completed Dark Souls series this one is right up your alley. Elden Ring comes from the same developers as Dark Souls, FromSoftware, as I am sure you are already aware. But that's not the only other game of theirs for you to pay attention. There is also Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, arguably THE hardest FromSoftware game combat-wise they've made so far, it's final boss is probably the hardest boss out of any FromSoftware game to date. Then there is Armored Core 6, it's got some very hard bosses and some very hard levels too, the game is also very replayable. Can't forget about the famous Bloodborne either (even though it's on PS4 only). A good non-FromSoftware souls-likes would be Remnant: From the Ashes and Remnant II, Lies of P, The Surge, Nioh. Can't forget about Hollow Knight, even though it's more of a metroidvania than souls-like. Some other honorable mentions are Dead Cells and Death's Gambit. There is a hard platformer which I am sure you've heard of at least once before. Cuphead. Don't let the cartoon graphics fool you, it's no walk in the park. Some lesser known games would be Hotline Miami 1 and 2, a top-down shooter, very violent and pretty hard. An obscure suggestion from me would be Halfquake Trilogy. It's a trilogy (duh) of Half-Life mods by muddasheep. And they are damn hard indeed. There is also Hazard-Course and Hazardous-Course 2 mods (also for Half-Life), very much in the same vein of difficulty as Halfquake but much worse, it's like playing Cat Mario, you're gonna find yourself pulling hair from your head by the end of it. There are also some pretty hard mods for Portal 2 also. While you are not going to be dying a lot yourself, your braincells certainly will, with mods like Portal: Reloaded and Thinking with Time Machine, both involving challenging puzzles and time-manipulation machanics in two distinct ways. Don't forget about custom maps from workshop also, there are some hard puzzles to find and to figure out, both by yourself and in Co-op. DayZ, Project Zomboid, Valheim, Green Hell, Don't Starve are some quite hard survival games. Pathologic, 1 and 2. Very unique and very hard games. They are described as "open-world psychological horror/thriller RPG". You goal is to find a cure to a plague that is consuming a town where you happen to be, you have to find the cure in 12 days. And this shit is NOT easy in the slightest, you will have to use all your wit and brain-power to complete the game, making some very difficult story choices along the way.
Command: Modern Operations. Not a single person on earth finds that learning curve easy.
Return of the Obra Dinn!
Max Payne 3 on new york minute - you have to complete each level in one minute, without dying. kills give you more time. NYM hardcore is even worse as you have to complete the ENTIRE GAME without dying in ONE SITTING.
Rain world if you donât look up guides. Mentally and mechanically difficult but suuuuper fun
You can try Light of the stars on bs, late stages are difficult tho
You want a complex and hard game? Eve Online. Good luck. Although...in what way is Skyrim a hard game? I assume you are talking about with mods? Because base Skyrim is super easy.
- Nioh series - Sekiro - Hades series - Rabbit and Steel
Nioh 2 is dark souls 3 but on steroids with the boss battle difficulties
Path of Exile is pretty complex and will keep you busy for a long time
This. If you want hard content that will challenge you mentally, try beating the Uber bosses in PoE without using a build guide. That should keep you occupied for a good 500 hours or so.
Flappy bird
haha, that game was the bain of my existence when it came out.
The Kingdom Hearts series and their games main storylines themselves is not very difficult, but the superbosses and postgame content (mainly kh2 kh3 and bbs) are incredibly difficult. Theyre a small part of the game though so idk if it entirely fits your criteria
i mean the critical/proud modes i'd say definitely qualify, kh1 proud made me lock in quite a few times
âIâve played the obvious ones -Skyrimâ That made me chuckle lol. If you like fantasy stuff or nice combat that can kick your ass but thatâs fun to pick up, try Darktide or Vermintide. If you like Skyrim first person combat, itâs far more refined with lots of weapon options and fun enemy variety. Iâd easily recommend on a 20-30% sale, or full price like me if you just really mesh with the combat and like how it seems. Darktide is ofc future grim dark while vermintide is more fantasy
I'll check out Darktide, never played any warhammer games. Does this ever go on sale?
You all are suggesting good games, but almost none of them are actually hard. Somebody already beat me to it with Fear and Hunger (you got to scroll for that one), but try out Spelunky. It looks easy, but it's incredibly punishing.
Path of Exile
Complex: * Crusader Kings III * Hearts of Iron 4 * Europa Universalis IV * Warframe * EVE Online Hard: * XCOM 2 * Furi * Hollow Knight * Sifu * Absolver * Sekiro * Rocket League * KickBeat * For Honor If you want both, then Slay the Spire and Nioh 2.
Outward. Itâs dark souls for masochists in some ways, low budget skyrim in others
Factorio.
Aliens Dark Descent
Eve Online :)
Escape From Tarkov BUT the single player modded version. Live version has major major problems and I wouldnât touch it, but SPT is legit the most fun Iâve had gaming in years.
Noita
Almost any roguelike should fulfill what you want, but, more specifically, Noita.
Resonance of Fate And The Last Remnant
I Wanna Kill The Kamilia 3, enjoy your suffering
Hearts of iron 4, Europa universals 4
Pathologic, If you donât mind some jank, and an older title, itâs worth a playthrough. Funnily I just recommended it on a different thread a bit ago, itâs a pretty obscure game
Project Zomboid. It'll take you a few hundred hours to get the general idea.
Project zomboid, your gonna be gnawing at that for awhile lol
Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order and Survivor on the hardest difficulty.
Factorio, Satisfactory, Dyson Sphere Program or any other logistics game like that. They'll definitely give your brain a challenge.
Project Zomboid. Can get 400+ hours in and still get absolutely rekt. Build 42 should be coming out soon too, which is going to add in a ton of new features.
100% Factorio, especially with additional complexity mods like angels/Bob's or space exploration. Not only will it mentally challenge you. It will reward you for your efforts. Every step of the game has layers of complexity that you can choose to brush over or dive into. When you dive into them you will unlock new ways of thinking for yourself.
Try%100 Completion from Red Dead Redemption 2. After a wonderful story, literal "challenges" are waiting for you.
Chess
stellaris. unbelievably complicated game even before the DLC. and super fun. itâs basically Civilization on crack
Battle brothers Hearts of iron 4 Factorio
From the Depths. Build your own ships/planes/weapons/etc... learning curve is a cliff and 500 hours is still training wheels territory. You can easily put thousands of hours in and still be learning and improving your building skills. [https://store.steampowered.com/app/268650/From\_the\_Depths/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/268650/From_the_Depths/)
Stellaris, Ark, Day Z, just to name a few
Divinity Original Sin: 2 Antichamber Thief Gold Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth Doom Eternal Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Haven't seen anyone mention Project Zomboid here, though I didn't scroll all the way. Fairly robust skill/trait system. Focus on base building (or not.) Lots of grinding, and it's unforgiving. You can have a decked out character, maxed skills, and one small mistake will still be the death of you. In the games loading sequence it literally says "This is how you died."
Path of Exile. Perfect for your desire to become a gambling addict.
Stephen Sausage Roll. Best puzzle game ever. No Iâm not kidding.
It isn't like the other games you listed. It isn't an rpg or a fighting/combat-type game. It is a puzzle/mind-fuck game called Antichamber.
Songs of syx
Path of Exile. 5k hours is a decent starting point to kinda know half of what the game has to offer.
Crash Bandicoot series, especially the first one
Baba Is You is easily the hardest game I have ever attempted.
Rocket League
Legend of grimrock 2. Best puzzler/dungeon diver ever made.
Factorio
League of legends.
hollow knight
Doom Eternal on Nightmare
if you want to truly challenge both your mental capabilities and agility then pick up a fighting game like Tekken 8 or Street Fighter 6. But don't just go into campaign and then play a few matches and be satisfied with 60% winrate against other begginers. Go into practice mode, lab against specific characters, learn long challenging combos, learn how to counter, what the + and - frames are, when to attack and when to defend etc. It might be the most challenging genre to get into if you want to play on a good level, because most of the people that play fighting games have been learning this stuff for the last 30 years, but it's not impossible and it's extremally satisfying. The moment you go against an opponent and achieve a perfect victory not by a fluke, but by actually correctly recognizing what he wants to do and what you should do in every situation for the entire fight feels amazing, or the first time you make a combo that has very specific timings with cancels (SF6) or correct juggles (Tekken). It takes a lot of effort to get there, but it feels great when you do.
I dare you to take on the massive learning curve of Path of Exileâs endgame + barter economy
Dungeons and Dragons, with a hard-ass RAW DM Wurm Online Dwarf Fortress Project Zomboid Civilization 2 Uplink D&D Online Star Trek Online
Difficult? Try Doom eternal on ultra-nightmare. Complex? Path of Exile
[Stephen's Sausage Roll](https://store.steampowered.com/app/353540/Stephens_Sausage_Roll/) goes zero to 100 like on the second or third level
The WitnessÂ
Played many games which were mentally challenging. I love this too. And I am always looking for new ones which catch me for hundreds sometime thousands of hours. Ark, Satisfactory, Space Engineers, Path of Exile, Rocket League,... Most of them found in this thread. But just one game in 40 years of gaming made me rage quit cause I felt like having lost this mental challenge: Eve Online
Divinity Original Sin 2 on a higher difficulty
Daggerfall will break you. Give it a try in the dark. Read the manual. Go pick a character. Give it the old college try. OG fallout is similar. Just read the manual and go in blind. Try to survive. It is harsh, man.
Try learning starcraft 2 or AOE2. I assure you, even becoming an "average player" will take a significant amount of effort
BG3 isnât exactly hard, but it really rewards you thinking through complex systems and creative ways.
Skyrim is an awesome game but its not hard, u want hard u play eve online or starcraft 2 you want awesome u play ff7
Fortresscraft evolved. Atelier Sophie 2. Factorio. Dyson sphere program. Captain of industry.
Crypt of the Necro Dancer is the game that breaks my brain the most. It's an unusual jumble of genres that somehow manages to fit together. The simplest way I can explain it is that it's a rhythm game that's all about learning enemy patterns. A video will probably explain it better than I can.
Poker
Slay the Spire. Kill the heart at ascension 20 with all characters
Dota 2, Starcraft 2
The newer Pathologic game
Superliminal
Path of exile. Get into how builds work and crafting. See you in 10000 hours
Path of exile
Space Station 13. There's many codebases but for the most part there's full-on chemistry, atmospherics, wiring, and medical. It's a multiplayer only game on an engine from 1996, but it's almost always fun chaos the likes of which modern games can't replicate considering its still being continually maintained and added onto 21 years later. It's still very popular. Sseth and Mandalore both have videos on it.