The Hardest Fan Games of All Time, Ranked by Player Votes
Last updated: August 2026
If you want to find the hardest games ever made, do not look at the store charts. Look at what fans built for each other. The kaizo Mario scene, the I Wanna needle games, and the hard Undertale battles exist for one reason: to be brutal. Based on real player votes, Invictus tops this list at 9.29/10, with I Wanna Kill the Kamilia 3 a hair behind at 9.26.
These are user-submitted scores, so they reflect what each voter actually played and finished. A romhack built to end streams and a beloved total-conversion RPG are both fan games, and both are here, which is exactly why the range of scores below is so wide.
What Counts as a Fan Game?
A fan game is a game made by fans rather than the original rights holder, built on an existing series or its tools. The umbrella is enormous. It covers romhacks like the kaizo Mario World scene, engine mods and total conversions like Enderal and Black Mesa, fan-made sequels and battles like the Undertale AU fights, and fangame franchises of their own like the I Wanna series that grew out of I Wanna Be the Guy.
This list ranks all of them by one thing only: player-voted difficulty. That is why the top is a wall of kaizo hacks, needle games, and punishing Undertale fights, all of them designed from the ground up to be as hard as possible. It is also why some of the most celebrated fan projects ever made sit near the bottom. Black Mesa, AM2R, and Counter-Strike are landmarks of the medium, but they were built to be great, not to be cruel. A few of those appear in their own section at the end.
Full Rankings: Top 25 Hardest Fan Games
- 1
Invictus
A kaizo Super Mario World hack that became the genre's benchmark for cruelty. Built by the kaizo scene's best players, it strings together frame-perfect jumps, blind item juggles, and setups so demanding that clearing it was treated as a milestone event. Even elite players measure themselves against it.
- 2
I Wanna Kill the Kamilia 3
The most famous entry in the Kamilia series and one of the highest-rated fangames on the entire site, on one of the largest rating counts in this ranking. A gauntlet of the I Wanna scene's hardest content, its final segments are legendary, and completing it is considered one of the genre's ultimate achievements.
- 3
Pokémon Reborn
A dark, story-heavy Pokémon fangame famous for turning the series' comfortable battles into genuine strategic warfare. Every gym leader fields an optimised team built around field effects that reshape the rules of each fight, and there is no over-levelling your way past them. It is widely cited as the hardest mainline-style Pokémon experience.
- 4
Kaizo Mario World 2
The middle chapter of the original Kaizo Mario trilogy, and by these votes the hardest of the three. It escalates the first game's cruelty with new setups and longer, more punishing levels, and remains a key step in the evolution of the genre.
- 5
Undertale Last Breath
A hugely popular hard Undertale AU built around an escalating, phase-based Sans-style encounter. Its dense, fast attack waves make it one of the most punishing fan battles in the scene, and on 31 votes it has one of the sturdiest scores in the top five.
- 6
Crimson Needle 3
A landmark of the I Wanna needle scene, built entirely around pixel-perfect spike dodging. Its length, its brutal save gaps, and its infamous final gauntlet make it one of the most respected difficulty tests fan games have ever produced.
- 7
Grand Poo World II
The kaizo hack built by and for GrandPooBear, one of the scene's most visible players. It is a marathon of precise, creative, and relentless level design that expects fluency in every advanced Super Mario World technique. The sequel is longer and meaner than the original.
- 8
Grand Poo World
The original Grand Poo World, GrandPooBear's calling-card kaizo hack. Tightly designed, consistently brutal, and a staple of kaizo streams, it set the bar its sequel would go on to raise.
- 9
I Wanna Kill The Kamilia 2
Part of the notorious Kamilia line of I Wanna fangames, effectively a greatest-hits gauntlet of the scene's hardest screens and bosses stitched into a single run. Clearing it is a rite of passage that very few players ever complete.
- 10
Kaizo Mario World
The 2007 romhack that invented kaizo. Built as a private joke to torment a friend, it leaked, spread, and became the blueprint for an entire scene: invisible blocks, frame-perfect jumps, and a design philosophy of gleeful cruelty. Everything above it in the Mario category is its descendant.
- 11
Pokémon Rejuvenation
A sprawling Pokémon fangame in the mould of Reborn, with a huge story, field effects, and gym battles tuned for players who want their Pokémon fights to actually hurt. Its difficulty curve assumes you will lose, plan, and rematch.
- 12
Dusttale
One of the flagship Undertale AU fan games, built around a punishing bullet-hell encounter that pushes the original's hardest fight even further. Its difficulty lives in reading dense attack patterns under relentless pressure.
- 13
Kaizo Mario World 3
The finale of the original Kaizo Mario World trilogy that started the entire genre. It refined the formula of invisible blocks, precise shell jumps, and merciless setups into its hardest form, and it remains a foundational text for anyone studying where kaizo came from.
- 14
Quickie World 2
A polished, expert-level kaizo Super Mario World hack that leans on precise, readable, and unforgiving level design. Its second half assumes complete command of the game's advanced movement.
- 15
Super Dram World
A kaizo hack that became a streaming staple thanks to its blend of tough-but-fair design and moments of pure cruelty. Popular enough to spawn a sequel, it is a rite of passage for aspiring kaizo players.
- 16
I Wanna Be the Guy
The game that launched a thousand fangames. A deliberately unfair tribute to retro difficulty where death comes from everywhere, often without warning, and memorisation is the only way forward. Its influence created an entire genre of fan-made torture platformers, most of which now sit above it on this list. It still has the most votes of anything here.
- 17
Undertale: No More Deals
Another entry in the deep bench of hard Undertale fan battles, built around a multi-phase fight that demands precise movement through overlapping attack waves. The fan-fight scene is one of the most reliable sources of pure difficulty on this whole list.
- 18
Casio Mario World
A kaizo Super Mario World hack known for its inventive, high-difficulty setups and a presentation that belies how hard it is. A favourite among players who chase the genre's tougher entries.
- 19
Undertale: Disbelief
A fan-made 'what if Papyrus fought back' battle that became one of the most popular hard Undertale encounters ever made. It layers phase after phase of escalating bullet patterns, and its later phases are a serious test of dodging endurance.
- 20
Super Dram World 2
The sequel to Super Dram World, longer and more demanding, with setups tuned for players who already cleared the original. More of the tough-but-fair kaizo that made the first a streaming favourite.
- 21
Mega Man Unlimited
A fan-made Mega Man game notorious for difficulty that outstrips most of the official series. Its Robot Master stages and boss fights are dense with hazards and precise platforming, and it earned a reputation as one of the hardest Mega Man experiences, official or fan-made.
- 22
I Wanna Be the Boshy
One of the most widely played I Wanna fangames, a boss-heavy tribute stuffed with pop-culture references and punishing patterns. Being more accessible than the deeper needle games made it many players' brutal introduction to the genre.
- 23
Not Another Needle Game
A polished, expansive needle platformer in the I Wanna tradition, packed with precise spike-dodging challenges and a surprising amount of content. A modern classic of the needle scene.
- 24
Enderal
A total conversion built on Skyrim's engine that replaces the entire game with an original world, story, and progression system. Its difficulty comes not from precision but from an unforgiving RPG design that punishes under-preparation, a very different kind of hard from the kaizo hacks above it.
- 25
Pokémon Insurgence
A Pokémon fangame with a darker story, custom mega evolutions, and a difficulty mode that tunes gym battles into real strategic tests. Another entry in the surprisingly deep bench of Pokémon fangames built to challenge series veterans.
Honorable Mentions
Just missed the top 25
Genuinely hard fan games that landed just below the cut.
- Undertale Red (8.10/10, 20 ratings). A hard Undertale AU fight in the mould of the scene's tougher encounters, built around escalating bullet patterns and phase transitions.
- Castlevania: The Lecarde Chronicles 2 (8.06/10, 18 ratings). An impressively complete fan-made Castlevania that plays like a lost official entry, with tough combat and demanding platforming across a large interconnected map.
- Quickie World (8.00/10, 17 ratings). The first Quickie World, an expert kaizo Super Mario World hack whose tough, readable design set up the even harder sequel that made the main list.
- Mega Man: Rock N Roll (7.94/10, 18 ratings). A polished Mega Man fangame with a huge roster of stages and bosses, tuned harder than most official entries and beloved by series fans.
- Pokémon Ópalo (7.85/10, 13 ratings). A Spanish-language Pokémon fangame with a large world and battles tuned to test players who already know the series inside out.
Landmark fan games, if not the hardest
Some of the most important fan projects ever made rank low on difficulty because they were built to be polished, not punishing. They earn a place here anyway.
- AM2R: Return of Samus (7.00/10, 25 ratings). Another Metroid 2 Remake is one of the most acclaimed fan projects ever made, a from-scratch remake of Metroid II so polished that Nintendo took notice. Its difficulty is that of a well-made Metroid game rather than a brutal one, which is exactly the point.
- Black Mesa (5.96/10, 26 ratings). The fan remake of the original Half-Life, so good it became a commercial release with Valve's blessing. A landmark of what fan games can achieve, and a normal-difficulty shooter rather than a punishing one.
- Counter-Strike (5.96/10, 28 ratings). The Half-Life mod that became one of the most influential competitive games in history. It is here as a fan project first, even though its difficulty comes from the opponents you face rather than the game itself.
- Sonic Robo Blast 2 (5.00/10, 25 ratings). A long-running fan-made 3D Sonic game built on a modified Doom engine, with an active community and decades of development. A monument of fan dedication more than a difficulty test.
- The Forgotten City (3.91/10, 22 ratings). It began as a Skyrim mod and became a standalone, award-winning narrative game about a time loop in a Roman city. A showcase for fan-made storytelling, and by design one of the least difficult games here.
How This List Is Built
Every game on this list was rated by real players on How Difficult Is It?. The ranking is based on each game's average difficulty score, with a minimum of 5 ratings required to qualify. This is a monthly snapshot; for live rankings that update every hour, see the rankings page.
- Source: Player-submitted difficulty ratings on How Difficult Is It?
- Genre scope: Fan games, romhacks, and mods that appear in the site's catalogue, ranked purely by difficulty
- What the score means: Difficulty of clearing the game as each rater experienced it
- Minimum ratings: At least 5 player ratings required to appear
- Sort method: Average difficulty score, highest first. Rating count breaks ties.
- Update frequency: Monthly snapshot
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the hardest fan game according to player ratings?
As of August 2026, Invictus ranks #1 with a difficulty score of 9.29/10 based on player ratings on How Difficult Is It?. I Wanna Kill the Kamilia 3 (9.26) and Pokémon Reborn (9.24) follow just behind. The top of the list is dominated by kaizo Mario hacks and I Wanna needle games.
What counts as a fan game?
A fan game is a game made by fans rather than the original rights holder, built on an existing series or its tools. That covers romhacks like the kaizo Mario scene, engine mods and total conversions like Enderal and Black Mesa, and fan-made sequels or battles like the Undertale AU fights. This list ranks them purely by player-voted difficulty, which is why the deliberately brutal kaizo and I Wanna games dominate the top while acclaimed remakes sit lower.
How is this ranking calculated?
Games are ranked by their average difficulty score submitted by players on How Difficult Is It?. Only games with at least 5 ratings are included. Disqualified or spam ratings are excluded. Games with equal average scores are sorted by number of ratings. The list covers fan games, romhacks, and mods that exist in the site's catalogue.
Are remakes like Black Mesa and AM2R fan games?
Yes. Black Mesa (a remake of Half-Life) and AM2R (a remake of Metroid II) are landmark fan projects, built by fans using the originals as a base. They rank low here because they are made to be polished, normal-difficulty experiences rather than punishing ones. Difficulty and quality are separate things, and these are among the best fan games ever made regardless of where they land on this list.
Can I add my own difficulty rating?
Yes. Create a free account on How Difficult Is It? and rate any game you have played. Your rating is included in the community average and updates the live rankings within the hour.
