The Hardest Games Ever Made, Ranked by Player Votes
Last updated: April 2026
Based on difficulty ratings submitted by real players on How Difficult Is It?. Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Ninja Gaiden, and Battletoads lead the current rankings. Updated monthly. Every score is genuine, every vote counts.
Full Rankings: Top 25 Hardest Games
- 1
Super Street Fighter II Turbo
The highest-rated game on this entire site, and 6 of our 7 raters gave it a perfect 10. The arcade version's AI operates at reaction speeds that are mechanically impossible for human players to counter consistently: it reads inputs and executes reversal-perfect counters in frames no human can match. On the hardest settings it stops being a skill test and becomes a document of what machine-perfect play looks like.
- 2
Ninja Gaiden
The NES original is a wall of punishing precision. Enemy placement is relentless: birds respawn mid-jump, projectiles come from off-screen, and hit detection favours enemies in every ambiguous case. The final boss sequence forces players through three consecutive boss fights with no recovery; die at any point and the sequence restarts from the beginning. 80% of our 21 raters scored it 9 or 10.
- 3
Battletoads
The Turbo Tunnel is introduced as level 3 and operates at the difficulty level of a final stage, and it's not even close to the hardest part. Each subsequent level introduces a new mechanic (an ice cave climb, a rotating column sequence, an underwater gauntlet) that serves as its own fresh brutality test. The game never plateaus. Every one of our 14 ratings came in at 8 or above.
- 4
God Hand
The game tracks how well you're playing in real time and escalates enemy aggression to match. Die repeatedly and it eases up; play confidently and enemies begin stun-locking you and countering your patterns. The Gorilla bosses (recurring encounters) grow harder with each meeting, specifically punishing players who found a working strategy and tried to reuse it.
- 5
Super Meat Boy
25 ratings with 44% at 10/10. The level design is a series of compressed death traps: most stages complete in under 10 seconds, meaning deaths arrive fast and constantly. The Dark World versions of every level are substantially harder than the originals, and Dr. Fetus's final castle discards everything the earlier levels taught you.
- 6
Super Meat Boy Forever
The auto-runner sequel eliminates directional control entirely, reducing everything to a one-button timing game that accelerates without mercy. 4 of 7 raters gave it a perfect 10. Procedurally generated levels ensure no run can be memorised; every attempt is a fresh test of underlying mechanics rather than a replay of learned choreography.
- 7
Kid Chameleon
103 levels, no save system, no passwords. The Mega Drive platformer expects a multi-hour unbroken session to complete, and the level design makes no allowance for fatigue. Each of the 13 power-up masks plays entirely differently; losing a mask mid-stage strips away the gameplay advantages you've built the run around and leaves you with baseline movement in whatever comes next.
- 8
Ghosts 'n Goblins
Two hits to death: one strips the armour, the second kills Arthur. Reaching the end reveals it was never the ending: the game must be completed a second time on a harder loop to see the real conclusion. Over 86% of our 21 raters scored it 8 or above, making it one of the most consistent rating distributions in the top 25.
- 9
Touhou Kanjuden: Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom
7 of our 9 raters gave it a perfect 10. The Lunatic difficulty routes feature bullet patterns of a density that experienced Touhou players consider exceptional even within the series. The Pointdevice mechanic allows saving at the start of each stage but resets your score entirely, a forced trade between completion and achievement that the game frames as a design feature.
- 10
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
The most-rated game in our top 25, with 50 ratings averaging 8.72. Unlike other FromSoftware titles, there is no build to soften the edges, no co-op to share the burden, no grinding past a wall. Posture damage on bosses regenerates when not under pressure, making aggression the mechanically correct strategy even when every instinct says to back off.
- 11
Contra III: The Alien Wars
The SNES Contra expects two simultaneous weapons to be managed across stages that escalate from hard to overwhelming inside a single level. The overhead Mode 7 sections mid-game play as an entirely different genre: a top-down shooter with enemies attacking from all directions, offering no transition time for players to adjust their approach.
- 12
Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy
There are no checkpoints. A single misstep can undo an hour's progress in under a second. The hammer physics cannot be memorised; each attempt re-teaches the same lesson about overconfidence until that lesson is permanent. 4 of our 6 raters gave it a perfect 10.
- 13
I Wanna Be the Guy
Every screen is designed to exploit the player's reflexes against them: fruit falls upward, spikes reverse, safe-looking platforms kill on contact. The difficulty is not incidental; it is the game's thesis. The entire design vocabulary is built around identifying patterns the player will assume are safe and making them lethal.
- 14
The Evil Within
Notably, none of our 11 raters gave it a perfect 10 (the ceiling was 9), suggesting a game that earns its place here without tipping into the territory occupied by the top ranks. Limited resources, aggressive enemy behaviour, and chapters that escalate without warning. The early STEM asylum sequences set the tempo for sustained attrition that never fully relents.
- 15
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest
DKC2 conceals its difficulty behind warm art direction and then reveals it in Bramble stages and K. Rool Dojo sequences that require frame-accurate jumps over instant-kill surfaces. The bonus rooms add a separate precision gauntlet. The game's difficulty escalates asymmetrically: accessible for two-thirds of the runtime, then uncompromising for the final third.
- 16
Cuphead
50 ratings (tied with Sekiro for the largest sample on this list), averaging 8.32. The 1930s animation style makes tells harder to read, projectiles harder to distinguish from backgrounds, and patterns harder to parse on first exposure. Every boss requires a full catalogue of pattern study before anything becomes reproducible.
- 17
Ghouls 'n Ghosts
The arcade sequel adds a shield mechanic that, in the wrong hands, leaves Arthur holding a torch as enemies close in. The Golden Armor (required to damage the final boss) must be re-acquired each loop, meaning any mistake on the approach to the second ending leaves you fighting an endgame boss with demonstrably inadequate weapons.
- 18
Darkest Dungeon
8 of 12 raters gave it exactly an 8, a narrow statistical consensus on where this game sits. Attrition is the primary mechanism: heroes accumulate permanent stress and phobias across runs, the game provides no clean reset, and the Darkest Dungeon dungeon itself raises the stakes high enough that most first-run parties collapse before reaching what they came for.
- 19
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
No one rated Zelda II a 10; the ceiling was 9, matching The Evil Within's distribution. The 1987 sequel's side-scrolling combat is aggressive in ways the original never prepared players for: enemy knockback can throw Link into pits, and the game-over screen returns him to the beginning of the world. Shadow Link mirrors the player's attack patterns back at them, punishing the habits the first game rewarded.
- 20
Bloodborne
The optional Chalice Dungeons descend into content substantially harder than anything in Yharnam above; most players never see them. The main game's pacing punishes passive play: shields are vestigial, standing still is how you die, and the regain mechanic rewards trading hits in ways that become increasingly risky as enemies hit harder. 13 of 31 raters gave it a 9, the modal score.
- 21
Spelunky 2
Every death teaches something: a trap configuration you hadn't mapped, a ghost timer you ignored, a merchant relationship you spent carelessly. The game's layered secret structure extends hundreds of runs deep, but reaching those secrets requires surviving a procedurally generated gauntlet that deals punishing damage for almost every category of mistake.
- 22
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest
The most demanding main-line Fire Emblem in years. Conquest eliminates experience grinding: every map must be solved with the units and levels you have, with no recourse if preparation was poor. Chapters 10, 17, and 25 are recurring community discussion topics for enemy density and map geometry that converges on anti-player design.
- 23
Stardash
A 2021 PICO-8 precision platformer that earns its place here not through length but through exactness. Every stage is a compact gauntlet with little tolerance for imprecision. 3 of 6 raters gave it a perfect 10, the same hit rate as Battletoads from a smaller sample, suggesting it delivers on its difficulty claims.
- 24
La-Mulana
Progress requires decoding ancient tablet inscriptions that hint obliquely at solutions you cannot brute-force. Instant-kill traps are the immediate cost of not paying attention. No one rated it higher than 9, but every rater agreed it belongs here; the consistent 7–9 distribution reflects a game that is relentlessly demanding without becoming incoherent.
- 25
Dark Souls II
The third-largest sample in the list, averaging 8.09. The ADP stat (governing i-frames on rolls) is opaque to new players and invisible until it has already cost them dozens of deaths. The Scholar of the First Sin enemy placements are regularly cited as the most adversarial level design in the series, stacking ambushes in positions that punish every shortcut the game's own mechanics taught you to use.
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, submitted by people who have actually played it. This list 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?
- Minimum ratings: At least 5 player ratings required to appear
- Sort method: Average difficulty score, highest first. Rating count breaks ties.
- Exclusions: Disqualified or flagged ratings are removed
- Update frequency: Monthly snapshot
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the hardest game according to player ratings?
As of April 2026, Super Street Fighter II Turbo is ranked #1 with a difficulty score of 9.71/10 based on 7 player ratings on How Difficult Is It?.
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.
Is Elden Ring on this list?
Not as of April 2026. Elden Ring's average difficulty score on How Difficult Is It? does not currently meet the threshold to crack the top 25; its open-world design lets players approach content at their own pace, which lowers the average perceived difficulty compared to older or more linear hard games.
Why do retro games rank so high?
Arcade and NES-era games like Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Ninja Gaiden, and Battletoads were designed for maximum difficulty with no accessibility accommodations: no save states, no difficulty settings, no in-game hints. They also attract players who specifically seek out hard games, which skews ratings upward. Modern hard games like Sekiro and Cuphead rank high for the opposite reason: their reputation for difficulty draws players who already know what they're in for.
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.
