21 Most Difficult Games From The PS4 Generation, Ranked

The PlayStation 4 had a great run. It gave this generation some of its best games, introduced unforgettable characters, and pushed the limits of video game storytelling. But alas, nothing can last forever, and with all eyes on the release of the PS5, the PlayStation 4’s chapter is slated to end.

So, in honor of our soon-to-be-vanquished comrade, let’s look back at the PS4 games that put up the biggest fights. Titles that took the most time, skill, and sheer determination to beat. Not only were they frustrating, but they were also difficult to get through, and they left both sweat and tears in their wake. Goodbyes can be hard, but these games were harder.

Updated on February 3, 2024, by Ritwik Mitra: The PlayStation has long been hailed as a platform that promotes mature and challenging games. The PS4 is no exception, even in an era where games strive to be as accessible as possible. A fair share of quality titles rely on their difficulty to uplift the emotions players can enjoy in these games, which can make for a brilliant payoff if done correctly. Players who want to test their skills across numerous genres will find these hardest PS4 games to be right up their alley.

21 Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy

A Remake Of Three Highly Challenging Platformers

With Naughty Dog shifting their attention to mature genre-defining experiences, most people assumed that the marsupial they used to make games about during the PS1 era would be nothing more than a forgotten period in history. So, fans were delighted when Sony announced that the first three Crash Bandicoot games would be remade for a new generation.

The work put in this remake was exemplary, and it helped that the game itself was quite challenging. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy features some truly challenging platforming sequences, with the rounded edges of the remake causing players to slip off a platform at times, which makes the game arguably more challenging than the original.

20 Devil May Cry 5

A Complex Combat System That Takes A While To Wrap One’s Head Around

After a rather disappointing attempt at rebooting the Devil May Cry series, Capcom went back to the drawing board. The next entry needed to be something spectacular that could finally bring the hack-and-slash series back to its glory days.

Devil May Cry 5 didn’t disappoint in this regard. The title served as a return to form for the series. Its incredible combat system takes a while to master but felt incredibly satisfying once players managed to pull off complicated combos. Of course, the initial moments of this game will be somewhat hard for beginners to handle, but it’ll get easier the more familiar they get with the game’s mechanics.

19 Monster Hunter: World

Preparing For A Tough Fight Is Important, And Battling Monsters Solo Is Extremely Challenging

For the longest time, the Monster Hunter series was a fairly niche title that not many mainstream gamers would’ve taken note of. All that changed with Monster Hunter: World, one of the biggest and most popular titles in the series.

All of a sudden, a new batch of gamers could finally ingratiate themselves with a series that was just out of their reach. This improved accessibility, coupled with an excellent community, turned Monster Hunter: World into one of the hardest games on PS4 and other platforms. It was important to prepare beforehand and deck out the player character with the best gear around to even the field against some powerful monsters who could incapacitate most hunters in no time flat if they weren’t equipped to deal with this threat.

18 Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus

A Single Misstep Can Shave Off A Lot Of Health, Which Is A Death Sentence When BJ’s Health Is Capped At 50 Early On

The Wolfenstein series has been going through a resurgence in recent times, courtesy of MachineGames’ excellent work on the series. While Wolfenstein: Youngblood might’ve besmirched this work, there’s no denying that the other games in the reboot have been phenomenal.

The second game in the rebooted series is notable for being quite a challenging experience as well, especially due to the handicap placed on the player’s health near the start of the game. Players will hone the skills required to blast through their enemies and complete this brilliant shooter. Using cover, prioritizing stealth, and taking out commanders as soon as possible is downright necessary to ensure that players aren’t overwhelmed by a wave of challenging enemies.

Turn-Based Tactics With A Permadeath Twist Made All The More Challenging By The Game’s Unforgiving Difficulty

Strategy titles always end up providing a ton of difficulty options to ease players into the game. However, XCOM 2 is an exception to this rule.

Not only is the game extremely hard, but players who mess up will be rewarded with permanently dead party members that will ultimately make their game even harder. XCOM 2 is not for the faint of heart; however, players who are patient enough to learn the game’s mechanics will be satisfied with one of the hardest video games ever made.

16 Alien: Isolation

The Xenomorph Has Advanced AI And Can End A Player’s Run In No Time

Released in 2014, Alien: Isolation paid homage to Ridley Scott’s classic film with one of the PS4’s most genuinely unsettling survival horror games. The stealth title took influence from games like Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Outlast. Much like those games, players receive minimal weaponry throughout the story and must rely on their survival instincts and thrifty crafting instead.

The best part of the game is the Xenomorph itself, which boasts advanced AI and can hunt down the player in moments if they’re not careful enough. The AI is designed in a way to always have the Xenomorph within the player’s vicinity, creating a constant feeling of being viciously hunted, with no reprieve for looting or completing quest tasks.

The title also comes with a Nightmare difficulty, which makes the Xenomorph increasingly aggressive. With no way to deter or kill the alien at least until players are able to craft Molotovs and use the flamethrower, Alien: Isolation is a bumpy ride from the beginning. It’s also an incredibly lengthy survival horror title, which tests the patience of even the most veteran survivalists.

15 Darkest Dungeon

It Takes A Long While For Players To Approach Dungeons Smartly And Accumulate The Best Party To Tackle Bosses

A dungeon-crawl RPG released in 2016, the indie title Darkest Dungeon was one of the year’s surprise success stories. Red Hook Studios didn’t pull any punches when it came to Darkest Dungeon‘s difficulty.

Along with the punishing turn-based combat, players have to keep a constant eye on their stress level, which punishes players who don’t bring food or light sources. Playing it slow is the name of the game, and impatient gamers will find it hard to make any progress in this tough game.

14 Remnant: From The Ashes

Combines Soulslike Combat With Third-Person Shooting For A Challenging And Intriguing Spectacle

Developed by Gunfire Games, Remnant: From The Ashes was released in 2019 and was instantly branded by the tagline “Dark Souls with guns.” As the phrase suggests, the game is brutally difficult.

Remnant: From The Ashes’ difficulty, like Dark Souls, comes from its bosses; unlike FromSoftware’s game, though, Remnant features a randomly generated world, giving players less time to prepare for tough encounters. The game certainly wasn’t up there with some of 2019’s best releases, but it did provide an enjoyable alternative that will appeal to fans of the Soulsborne franchise.

13 Grim Fandango Remastered

A Bit Of Moon Logic Coupled With Tough Puzzles Make It Hard To Finish This Game Without A Guide

Originally released in 1998, Grim Fandango was a fitting end to the point-and-click genre’s time of popularity. It provided one of the best graphic adventures in gaming history, exemplified by its eye-watering 94 Metascore.

The game wasn’t just a fitting end for its quality. It also perfectly encapsulated the genre’s infuriating difficulty. With the internet still making its way into the mainstream, players couldn’t simply hop onto an online walkthrough when getting stuck. To take advantage of this, LucasArts, Sierra, and other point-and-click developers often ramped up the difficulty in their games and advertised tie-in guidebooks or helplines for players to seek help from if they became stuck.

12 Cuphead

Ridiculously Challenging Side-Scroller Where Players Only Have Three Lives To Get Past Numerous Tough Bosses

Cuphead was originally released on Xbox One and PC in 2017 before coming to the PlayStation 4 in July 2020. Studio MDHR’s indie game was an instant hit with fans and critics, with praise being directed towards its smooth platforming action and stunning hand-drawn 30s-inspired animations.

The game’s story predominantly centers around simply defeating boss after boss. This is far easier said than done, though. The side-scrolling boss fights will take players back to the brutal difficulty of classic arcade titles.

11 Surgeon Simulator

Control The Unwieldiest Hand Known To Man And Perform Delicate Surgeries

• Playable on: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Mobile, and PC
• Release Date: April 19, 2013
• Main Story Completion Time: 3 Hours

This meme game may not have been in the conversation for game of the year, but it is incredibly fun. At least, it’s fun at first when accidentally reaping irreversible destruction is both shocking and amusing. But the hilarity quickly wears off, and players are left with unpredictable controls and an impossible task.

Scalpels are extra slippery, players’ hands feel like crab legs, and human organs seem resolute on flying across the room. This simulator is simply not designed for the surgeon to succeed. It’s designed to produce accidental atrocities that no one believed were possible. It’s carnage and a good argument as to why surgeons need many years of schooling.

10 God Of War (Give Me God Of War Mode)

At Its Highest Difficulty, The God Of War Reboot Is No Joke

God of War is not a top “10 most difficult” candidate for most gamers. It tells an amazing story, and the combat system comes with both complexities and a learning curve. But it’s not that hard — that is until players pick the “Give Me God Of War” difficulty setting.

Suddenly, everything about the game is ratcheted up in intensity. Kratos’ insanely powerful weapons do crumbs of damage, and the timing windows for dodges and parries are shortened to nanoseconds. Atreus’ potency as a sidekick is squashed, and a sneeze from an enemy can send Kratos to the underworld. Only the real Gods Of War even tried the game in this mode. Even fewer finished it.

9 Sundered

A Metroidvania That Loves To Bombard Players With Numerous Enemies At Once

• Playable on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Google Stadia, and PC
• Release Date: July 28, 2017
• Main Story Completion Time: 12 Hours

Sundered is just another one of those atmospheric independent titles that love to blur the line between gaming and art. Truly, every Lovecraftian scene in this Metroidvania is just dripping with mood. But players must not be misled by the top-class concept art: this hand-drawn hero’s journey is incredibly hard.

What makes Sundered unique is the giant hordes of enemies that randomly pop out of nowhere. Random riots of enemies can swarm the screen in seconds, and they very routinely cause death, which is kind of the point of Sundered. Death comes for everyone, no matter where players are in the level.

8 The Witness

A Simple Puzzle Structure That Becomes Deceptively Complex After A Point

If players have ever walked the island of Myst, they know that first-person puzzle games set on deserted islands are guaranteed to be both scenic and hard. The Witness is no exception to this trend, as it’s a gorgeous adventure on a labyrinthian island where nothing is ever explained

Things are basic at first, and clues to the puzzles are hidden all over the map. But matters quickly get mind-bending, and discovering the story becomes part of the maze. While The Witness can be beaten with attention and determination, it’s going to furrow your brow for an obnoxiously long time.

7 Dead Cells

Combines Roguelike Design With Side-Scrolling Soulslike Combat

In Motion Twin’s Dead Cells, players take control of a headless, reanimated corpse tasked with traversing the procedurally generated halls of an island prison fortress. Success in this beautiful gulag is predicated upon timing and skill, and players will find themselves dying time and time again, only to come back and use what they’ve learned to make it just a little bit farther.

Normal playthroughs involve hundreds of attempted runs, items are never in the same place twice, and level layouts continue to change even after the final boss is defeated. Death is always waiting around every newly generated corner, and the players’ only choice is to keep charging ahead.

6 Elden Ring

It Might Be The Easiest FromSoftware Game, But Still Boasts Numerous Challenging Moments

Whereas the aforementioned Super Meat Boy took people by surprise, Elden Ring‘s high quality was predicted by many before its release. FromSoftware, the game’s development studio, has an incredible track record with its so-called Soulsborne series, thanks to games like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. However, even some of the most optimistic fans didn’t predict that the game would score a whopping 96 on Metacritic or reach the level of commercial success that it has.

Elden Ring differentiates itself from the previous Soulsborne games with its open world. Many fans were skeptical of the implementation of an open world, as the meticulous level design was one of the strongest aspects of the previous Soulsbrone game, particularly the original Dark Souls and Sekiro. FromSoftware certainly delivered, though, with one of the most impressive open-worlds in gaming history that amazes players with its size and scope, despite being so densely packed with enemies, NPCs, and bosses.

Unsurprisingly, Elden Ring continued the Soulsborne trend of featuring punishing levels of difficulty. The game essentially forces players to explore as much of it as possible and defeat countless optional bosses, as they will need to get their character’s level as high as possible to stand any chance against some of the late-game bosses.

5 Nioh & Nioh 2

The First Game Is Unforgivably Hard; The Second Game Has Better Balance But Is Still A Challenge

Yes, it’s cheating to combine two games into one entry. And yes, some would argue that the first Nioh is more difficult than Nioh 2. However, Team Ninja’s samurai “soul-likes” are not independent experiences. Their light and goofy stories are meaningfully connected, and their ridiculously deep combat is equally infuriating.

All enemies can kill, and one must adapt their play-style by the second if they want to survive. There are whole clusters of complicated stances and combat systems that need to be learned, and failure to do so will result in non-stop decimation. The Niohs are out for blood, plain and simple.

4 Dark Souls 3

A Fitting End To A Legendary FromSoftware Trilogy With Numerous Challenging Moments

The first Dark Souls started its era. The atmospheric world-building, unforgiving difficulty, and complete lack of direction redefined the action role-playing genre. And honestly, it’s hard to decide which one is the hardest. They are all nightmarish.

But Dark Souls 3 takes the cake simply because of the Nameless King. He’s got to be the most treacherous boss in perhaps all of video games. The man rides in on a dragon and then goes full super-Saiyan over the death of his comrade. Fighting him is like fighting a gothic Zeus.

3 Super Meat Boy

A Challenging Platformer Where The Cute Playable Character Can Be Slaughtered In Brutal Ways Continuously

It’s a tale as old as time: a sentient hunk of meat falls in love with a female bandage just to have her snatched away by an evil fetus. It’s also one of the most ridiculously challenging platformers of this generation. Players are going to die an untold amount of times. That’s just a fact. But it’s worth it because, by golly, this meat is in love.

Few expected it at the time, but Super Meat Boy would soon be recognized as one of the most important platforming releases in the genre’s modern history. Not only did the game show the value of quick restarts and the absence of a life system, but the game was also fundamental in the rise of indie gaming, a type of game that would become the new home of platforming.

2 Bloodborne

A Gothic, Lovecraftian Soulsborne Game That’s Incredibly Fast-Paced And Challenging

FromSoftware games are notorious for causing hatred and despair. Bloodborne carries on this tradition with panache, pitting players against a brutal host of enemies armed with nothing but their perseverance and maybe a few weapons. It’s easily one of the hardest PS4 games by a country mile.

Bosses are horrifying. The world resembles a giant crypt. Big creepy crawlies have a taste for hunter flesh, and any foe can bring instant death if the player loses focus. The combat rewards offense and timing, and switching between weapons becomes a critical skill. Bloodborne is hard, and the merciless deaths may induce fits of weeping. But that’s just how it goes in the Soulsborne family.