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 September 10th, 2022, by Jack Pursey:One of the most interesting trends that occurred toward the end of the PlayStation 3 generation was the rise in games with a tough difficulty level. Games had, generally speaking, been progressively becoming easier since the days of arcades, to the point where many hardcore gamers were struggling to engage with some AAA releases.
That began to change in the late 2000s and early 2010s, however, as the rise in indie gaming put eyes on tougher challenges, while AAA games like Dark Souls reminded players of how rewarding difficult games could be. The PlayStation 4 generation continued this momentum, providing plenty of excellent, challenging games. To shine a spotlight on some of these releases, we’ve updated this list to include a few more of the hardest PS4 games,and we’ve also added a few key details to each entry.
20 Devil May Cry 5
Playable on: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC Release Date: March 8, 2019 Main Story Completion Time: 11 Hours
After a rather disappointing attempt at rebooting the Devil May Cry series, Capcom went back to the drawing board. Clearly, 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 definitely didn’t disappoint in this regard. The title served as a return to form for the series. Its incredible combat system that took a while to master but felt incredibly satisfying once players managed to pull off complicated combos. Of course, the initial moments with 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
Playable on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC Release Date: January 26, 2018 Main Story Completion Time: 48 Hours
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. What’s more, it was always fun with friends.
18 XCOM 2
Playable on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Mobile, and PC Release Date: February 5, 2016 Main Story Completion Time: 33 Hours
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 definitely be satisfied with one of the hardest video games ever made.
17 Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus
Playable on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC Release Date: October 27, 2017 Main Story Completion Time: 10½ Hours
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.
RELATED: Wolfenstein: The New Order – The Best Perks & How To Unlock Them
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. However, over time, players will hone the skills required to blast through their enemies and complete this brilliant shooter.
16 Alien: Isolation
Playable on: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, and PC Release Date: October 7, 2014 Main Story Completion Time: 18½ Hours
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 instead.
The game was well-liked by critics, earning respectable Metascores between 78 and 83, as well as receiving IGN’s Best VR Game award.
15 Darkest Dungeon
Playable on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Mobile, and PC Release Date: January 19, 2016 Main Story Completion Time: 55½ Hours
A dungeon-crawl RPG released in 2016, indie title Darkest Dungeon was one of the year’s surprise success stories. The game received Metascores between 80 & 85 and was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize.
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.
14 Remnant: From The Ashes
Playable on: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC Release Date: August 20, 2019 Main Story Completion Time: 13 Hours
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.
RELATED: The Best Weapons In Remnant: From The Ashes
Remnant: From The Ashes’, 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
Playable on: PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch, Mobile, and PC Release Date: January 27, 2015 Main Story Completion Time: 11 Hours
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 guide books or helplines for players to seek help from if they became stuck.
12 Cuphead
Playable on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC Release Date: September 29, 2017 Main Story Completion Time: 10½ Hours
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
Playable on: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Mobile, and PC Release Date: April 19, 2013 Main Story Completion Time: 3 Hours
This 2013 Playstation VR title 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)
Playable on: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC Release Date: April 20, 2018 Main Story Completion Time: 20½ Hours
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.
RELATED: God Of War: Video Game Villains Kratos Could Defeat (& Other Villains He Would Lose To)
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 on this mode. Even fewer actually finished it.
9 Sundered
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 stupidly hard.
What really 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 us all, no matter where we are in the level.
8 The Witness
Playable on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Mobile, and PC Release Date: January 26, 2016 Main Story Completion Time: 17 Hours
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
Playable on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Mobile, and PC Release Date: August 7, 2018 Main Story Completion Time: 14 Hours
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 Bloodborne
Playable on: PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 Release Date: March 24, 2015 Main Story Completion Time: 33½ Hours
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 own perseverance and maybe a few weapons. It’s easily one of the hardest PS4 games by a country mile.
RELATED: Ways Bloodborne Is The Best Dark Souls Spinoff (& Other Ways It’s Sekiro)
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.
5 Nioh (1 and 2)
Playable on: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC Release Date: February 7, 2017 (Nioh 1), March 12, 2020 (Nioh 2) Main Story Completion Time: 35½ Hours (Nioh 1), 45 Hours (Nioh 2)
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 a whole cluster 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
Playable on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC Release Date: March 24, 2016 Main Story Completion Time: 32 Hours
The first Dark Souls started its own 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.
RELATED: The Scariest Dark Souls Enemies
But Dark Souls III 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 dude rides in on a dragon, then goes full super-Saiyan over the death of his comrade. Fighting him is like fighting a gothic Zeus, and frankly, it’s just ridiculous.
3 Super Meat Boy
Playable on: PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, Wii U, Nintendo Switch, and PC Release Date: October 20, 2010 Main Story Completion Time: 10 Hours
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 an absence of a lives 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 Elden Ring
Playable on: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S Release Date: February 25, 2022 Main Story Completion Time: 52½ Hours
Whereas the aforementioned Super Meat Boy took people by surprise, Elden Ring’s high quality was predicted by many prior to 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 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.
1 Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Playable on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Google Stadia, and PC Release Date: March 22, 2019 Main Story Completion Time: 29 ½ Hours
It’s a tricky thing to pick the hardest game on any console. After all, everybody’s different, and all of the games on this list are maddeningly hard. But what sets Sekiro apart from From Software’s other games is its sheer dependence on skill.
There are no secret weapons to be acquired nor armor to be discovered. The main unlockables are combos and attacks, and mastery of the combat system is the only way to get to the end. The learning curve is brutal, parrying is required, and players are going to watch Wolf die more than just twice. But, if they improve and learn, they will be able to will themselves to the end. If they do not, it’s okay. It’s the hardest game on the PS4.
MORE: Reasons Why Sekiro Is Better Than Nioh 2 (& Other Reasons Why It Isn’t)
