With the lifespan of the PS4 nearing its end facing the impending release of the PS5 and the whole of the next-gen for console gaming, it’s time that we look at what the PS4 had to offer us. Not in terms of what’s the best necessarily, but at what’s the most difficult. Whether we’re talking about platformers, action-adventure games, or RPGs, the PS4 definitely had tons of hair-pullingly, controller snappingly hard games.
So whether you’re a hardcore gamer or just someone who wants to sit down with Skyrim and have a good time, this article should be fun for plotting your next conquest or to marvel at the audacity of software devs to construct challenges as unholy as these.
10 Celeste
Celeste is a platformer. “I used to play those all the time as a kid, what could be so difficult about it?” you might think. Well, it turns out, a lot. This game tells the story of Madeleine, a youth who’s attempting to climb Celeste Mountain. As it turns out, there’s a memorial at the foot of the mountain for those who have perished on their journey. They wouldn’t let people climb this thing if it wasn’t safe, would they?
Nah… they would. This game throws tons of different mechanics at you constantly, and as if that weren’t enough, they expect you to master each one of them perfectly, making sure that certain jumps and dashes are done nearly frame-perfectly. Oh, and then there are collectible strawberries everywhere only for bragging rights, placed within even tougher puzzles. Good luck.
9 Bloodborne
FromSoftware’s Bloodborne throws you into the thick of a Gothic horror nightmare after you awake in a clinic after some sort of strange blood transfusion. After most definitely being killed by a werewolf just a little bit down the stairs after the starting area, you awaken in a strange, dreamlike place to meet a man in a wheelchair who tells you you’re trapped in an endless night, and the only way to escape is to hunt beasts.
After leaving, you realize the town is filled with punishing monstrosities, gigantic bosses that’ll down you in a couple hits, and raving lunatics with pitchforks wandering the streets. If you can survive long enough, you might be able to figure out what’s behind your nightmare.
8 Nier: Automata
Surprisingly enough for those who aren’t familiar with the series, Nier: Automata is a sequel to Nier which is a spin-off of the Drakengard series. You play as an android in a proxy-war who’s protecting a prototype model that’s on the run from the other side.
The gameplay has roleplaying elements, action-adventure combat, and umm… mixed genre spots? Sometimes it turns into a side-scroller or a top-down view, and then suddenly you’re platforming? Think maybe you’ve beaten the game? Congratulations! Which of the 26 endings did you get? The right one?
7 Monster Hunter World
Monster Hunter World is a game in the Monster Hunter universe, where you do what else but hunt monsters? Occasionally when asking for recommendations based on Dark Souls types of games, you’ll get Monster Hunter World as a suggestion which is actually fairly apt other than that the game has a somewhat cheerier atmosphere and isn’t quite as punishing when it comes to the player making wrong moves.
Another important part of the gameplay is that up to 4 people can get a group together at a time if you’re ever faced with a monster who’s just absolutely too difficult.
6 Alien Isolation
Alien Isolation is one of the first great games to come out that’s set in the expanded universe of the critically acclaimed Ridley Scott’s Alien franchise. You play as the daughter of the protagonist of the series, Amanda Ripley, and do your best to run, hide, and occasionally fight your way through the ship Sevastopol in hopes of finding a recording of what happened to her mother Ellen during the events of the film Alien, since her mother has been pretty much absent since then.
Your character, Amanda, was originally supposed to be introduced in the first film, only to be cut for time constraints. You’ll quickly see what about this game makes it so difficult as you deal with androids, desperate humans, and a Xenomorph itself that’s taken up residence on the ship.
5 Dark Souls 3
Dark Souls 3 is another entry on FromSoftware that’ll leave you ready to throw your controller at a wall after facing the same boss for the 53rd time in a row during that playthrough alone. You’re on a quest to leaven the Firelink Shrine, and bring with you the souls of the rogue Lords Of Cinder who refuse to come peacefully to their thrones, so that the fire can continue to burn, hopefully, to reverse the curse that’s been ravaging the land.
The gameplay consists of customizing a build, picking out your favorite weapons and upgrading them to the max, and a whole bunch of rolling out of the way of attacks that come at you thanks to huge macabre fantasy creatures.
4 XCOM 2
This is one of the games on this list that’s potentially unfairly hard. After the reboot of the XCOM series came out and fans complained that it was too hard, XCOM 2 was released.
The game included occasional missions popping up that, if failed, would cause the player to lose their entire game. The gameplay consists of you commanding a resistance force of humans against an alien invasion, making modifications to your team and developing new technologies between rounds. During the rounds, you give them commands and make sure that things get done by controlling them when you need to, in an RTS type fashion.
3 Enter The Gungeon
Enter The Gungeon is a roguelike, which means that it’s probably bound to be pretty difficult to anyone familiar with the genre, but it’s not just any roguelike.
This game isn’t as nice as many other ones that’ll reward you with some areas or events that carry over to other playthroughs (unless you encounter some of the incredibly sparse NPCs) but instead opts to make sure that the main way you play the game is just by slowly learning the skills it takes not to die over, and over, and over again. The gameplay is gun-based as you might have figured which means that you’ll most likely run your way through some screens that are mostly bullets.
2 Nioh
Nioh is a Koei Tecmo game that is somewhat of a precursor to FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice if it wasn’t for the fact that a good amount of people think that Nioh itself is a bit of a Dark Souls clone.
That being said, we’ve known people who have blazed through almost every Souls game just to have Nioh making them put the game down for good after the first couple of levels. The game takes place in a fantasy version of Japan slightly before the turn of the 20th century, and the art and environments do a great job of reflecting that.
1 The Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth
The Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth is perhaps one of the games that’s responsible for the huge swath of roguelikes and rogue-lites that followed it, and that’s probably because it’s a perfect version of the formula.
At first, it had criticisms leveled at it for being a Legend Of Zelda clone but the number of power-ups, the art direction, and the elements that it introduces on its own really help to differentiate it as its own thing. Also, this game is HARD. Prepare to die a lot, but it’s okay! You’re making progress (maybe) and that’s all that matters.
NEXT: Ranked: The 10 Best Roguelikes On PS4
