That’s what’s impressive about Minesweeper. It’s ultimately a pretty challenging puzzle game that becomes borderline absurd at high-difficulty settings, but I’m just amazed that Microsoft was bold enough to make such a confusing, complicated, and difficult game one of the most recognizable early Windows experiences.
24. Dota 2
This is a bit of a tricky entry, largely because I’m hesitant to highlight PC multiplayer games in this discussion about difficult titles. Obviously, it’s pretty hard to win a match against some of the best competitive multiplayer players in the world.
What separates Dota 2, though, is its incredible learning curve. Yes, top-rank Dota play is incredibly difficult, but the barrier to entry in this game is so thick that it’s amazing most new players even stick around to try to learn it.
23. Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear
If you’re only familiar with the Rainbow Six series because of Siege (which, to be fair, is a challenging game in its own right), then let me just warn you now that you’re probably in for a world of hurt if you ever dare to try to play the first few entries in this long-running franchise.
The only word that properly describes Rogue Spear‘s difficulty is “unforgiving.” You have to be nearly perfect in your planning, aim, map, knowledge, and execution of all of those elements if you’re going to have any chance of completing this game’s most difficult missions. Don’t even get me started on those stealth sections…
22. Return of the Obra Dinn
There are quite a few challenging “logic puzzle” games on the PC, but what separates this truly incredible experience from some of its immediate competition is the way that the game’s time manipulation mechanics require you to cross-reference nearly every piece of information that you acquire with every other piece of information you acquire.
