Best Difficult Games on Steam
Games designed to challenge mastery, patience, execution, planning, or persistence.
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1Black Myth: Wukong - Black Myth: Wukong is an action RPG rooted in Chinese mythology. You shall set out as the Destined One to venture into the challenges and marvels ahead, to uncover the obscured truth beneath the veil of a glorious legend from the past.
Aug 19, 2024
In this game, you can…
- turn into bosses you've defeated and use their forms in fights.
- play as Sun Wukong in the prologue.
- beat a chapter's main boss, then watch a stylized animated epilogue that turns your actions into a narrated painting.
- build energy by dodging and basic hits, then spend it on heavier attacks instead of blocking.
- chain perfect dodges to power up your next big hit.
- respec for free and switch your whole build at any rest point.
- stumble into secret zones, hidden bosses, and optional questlines by exploring and backtracking.
- fill a journal where every enemy kill can unlock a folklore story entry.
2ELDEN RING - THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED FANTASY ACTION RPG. Rise, Tarnished, and be guided by grace to brandish the power of the Elden Ring and become an Elden Lord in the Lands Between.
Feb 24, 2022
In this game, you can…
- discover a whole underground world layer with its own landscapes, secret bosses, and places you'd never guess existed.
- find bosses that only appear at night, turning a quiet road into a sudden unique fight with special loot.
- follow a side quest that escalates into meeting an entire eccentric family and ends with you marrying into it.
- walk away from a boss, roam somewhere else for gear and levels, then come back later and finally win.
- step out into a massive open world and immediately ride in any direction you can see.
- ride a spectral horse that can double-jump, then use mounted combat to fight huge enemies in the open field.
3Geometry Dash - Jump and fly your way through danger in this rhythm-based action platformer!
Dec 22, 2014
In this game, you can…
- build full animations, minigames, and even whole games inside the level editor using massive chains of objects and logic-like setups.
- dive into millions of community-made levels and keep finding completely different stages, from quick showcases to absurdly hard challenges.
- get thrown from normal jumping into rocket flight, then into upside-down gravity, without stopping, while squeezing through spike corridors on the beat.
- control a character that runs on its own, and restart the whole level the instant you mess up.
- tap mid-air orbs to launch yourself, hit portals that flip gravity or change speed, and swap into flight or teleport movement mid-run.
- drop and remove checkpoints in practice, drill the nastiest transitions, then go back and clear the entire level in one clean run.
- play levels where the jumps and gravity flips are timed to the soundtrack, so the song effectively tells you when to move.
4Hollow Knight - Forge your own path in Hollow Knight! An epic action adventure through a vast ruined kingdom of insects and heroes. Explore twisting caverns, battle tainted creatures and befriend bizarre bugs, all in a classic, hand-drawn 2D style.
Feb 24, 2017
In this game, you can…
- jump into the minds of characters and enemies to hear their thoughts and dig up secrets that aren't told in normal dialogue
- learn boss fights with no health bar, reading their patterns until you can tell you're winning just from how they move
- take on a near-mythic platforming gauntlet of saws and spikes that can take hours, then reach a hidden payoff at the end
- get dropped into a kingdom with no map, then slowly piece together where to go by exploring, backtracking, and unlocking routes
- customize your build with charms that can completely change how you fight and move, then swap setups to make the same boss feel different
- chain movement upgrades into fluid traversal: wall jump, double jump, dash, then dash through danger and bounce off enemies to keep flying forward
- realize you've charted a massive interconnected world when the full map finally clicks into place and you can see how everything connects
5Don't Starve Together - Fight, Farm, Build and Explore Together in the standalone multiplayer expansion to the uncompromising wilderness survival game, Don't Starve.
Apr 21, 2016
In this game, you can…
- get turned into a ghost when you die, then haunt specific items to resurrect yourself back into your body.
- steal a giant bird egg, keep it from overheating by the fire, and hatch it into a baby that follows you around.
- discover a friendly pig village, use it as a safe base, and then watch the pigs turn into werepigs later.
- turn a tiny camp into a real settlement with farms, spider dens, bee hives, and even a beefalo herd.
- build a trap-filled room just to protect a stolen egg from spiders until it finally hatches.
- bring friends back from death with things like a heart, an amulet, a touch stone, or the starting portal.
- watch a one-eyed giant arrive in winter with ground-shaking footsteps, smash your camp, and force you to survive in the dark.
6Valheim - A brutal exploration and survival game for 1-10 players, set in a procedurally-generated purgatory inspired by viking culture. Battle, build, and conquer your way to a saga worthy of Odin’s patronage!
Feb 2, 2021
In this game, you can…
- build a house with a fireplace and die if you forget ventilation.
- drag a cart full of ore across the wilderness, then end up building roads and supply routes to get it home.
- ship ore and even livestock across islands by building docks and running maritime trade routes.
- hunt sea serpents on purpose at night for food.
- watch enemies from different regions start fighting each other while you just stand back.
- build with structural support so big halls and towers need real beams, not just stacked walls.
- sail in a night storm, guide a friend's ship to port by torchlight, then sprint to the walls when a raid warning hits.
- tear down a bad build and get all the materials back, so you can rebuild freely.
7The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth - The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is a randomly generated action RPG shooter with heavy Rogue-like elements. Following Isaac on his journey players will find bizarre treasures that change Isaac’s form giving him super human abilities and enabling him to fight off droves of mysterious creatures, discover secrets and fight his way to safety.
Nov 4, 2014
In this game, you can…
- shoot tears that orbit you, float in place, explode, become knives, or turn into screen-filling lasers.
- sell your soul for devil powers like wings, then keep descending into your mother's womb and even hell.
- unlock a dead version of yourself, use it to kill yourself, and get dice powers as the reward
- turn one item pickup into a complete reroute of how you fight and survive.
- find secret rooms and hidden shops by probing walls, then turn a quiet floor into a jackpot of weird items.
- step into a dice room and reroll the whole run's fate in a single gamble.
- start as a naked baby, get a cat for making a deal, then climb deeper through basement floors via holes in the ground.
- stack item synergies until bosses die instantly and your attacks become an unstoppable flood.
8DARK SOULS™ III - Dark Souls continues to push the boundaries with the latest, ambitious chapter in the critically-acclaimed and genre-defining series. Prepare yourself and Embrace The Darkness!
Apr 11, 2016
In this game, you can…
- unlock a door or elevator and realize the level loops back over itself to where you started.
- hit a chest that turns out to be a monster and fights back.
- get invaded by a hostile player in your world and fight them off mid-journey.
- find secret rooms by striking walls that look solid.
- use special weapon skills that change your moves and spend a magic-like meter.
- summon strangers to co-op, then beat the same bosses in both of your worlds together.
- do a full boss fight that's a puzzle, like breaking a giant's bracelets instead of dueling normally.
- gesture at the Fire Keeper and get a unique gesture response back.
9Bloons TD 6 - The Bloons are back and better than ever! Get ready for a massive 3D tower defense game designed to give you hours and hours of the best strategy gaming available.
Dec 17, 2018
In this game, you can…
- watch a necromancer tower raise zombie bloons that march backward and pop the bloons behind them.
- drag a helicopter around mid-wave, lock it in place, or set it to patrol between two points.
- spend three days building money, then drop a single Paragon tower that melts everything it touches.
- hit round 100 and get a free insta-monkey you can save for any future run.
- take a sniper tower and upgrade it into a rapid-fire machine-gun monster that plays nothing like the starter version.
- play co-op where the screen splits into sections and each player controls their own slice of the map.
- fight timed boss events where a single boss bloon becomes the whole match's win-or-lose objective.
- push into extreme late-game until the map is so packed with maxed-out towers and effects you can barely find your cursor.
10Sekiro™: Shadows Die Twice - GOTY Edition - Game of the Year - The Game Awards 2019 Best Action Game of 2019 - IGN Carve your own clever path to vengeance in the award winning adventure from developer FromSoftware, creators of Bloodborne and the Dark Souls series. Take Revenge. Restore Your Honor. Kill Ingeniously.
Mar 21, 2019
In this game, you can…
- come back to life mid-fight and keep swinging.
- stomp a spear thrust by stepping on the attacker's weapon.
- get ambushed by a giant ape that grabs its own poop and throws it at you.
- grapple across rooftops, trees, and cliffs to hit enemies from above.
- erase a mini-boss's first health bar by opening with a stealth backstab.
- turn boss fights into a posture-breaking duel where constant pressure leads to a single finishing blow.
- throw firecrackers and other tools to stun enemies and create openings instead of trading hits.
- replay major bosses in dedicated challenge modes after finishing the story.
