10 Great Video Games Whose Later Levels Are Absolute Torture

7. Dark Souls

The entirety of your journey through Lordran will be challenging but Dark Souls really comes to a head in its later levels. Each offers a slightly differing challenge and it begins in the beautiful Anor Londo; a beautiful city filled with dangers and literal pitfalls everywhere. Getting through this area and progressing to the final areas of the game is an immense challenge in itself.

After conquering the cathedral of Anor Londo you'll be heading off to capture the Lord Souls and the areas you'll be exploring next are some of the toughest around. The Tomb Of Giants for example is an entirely dark level, requiring you to either pick up a Sunlight Maggot helmet or sacrifice your shield/weapon for a torch to navigate the black abyss.

Equally difficult, New Londo Ruins is not only filled with ghost enemies that can only be killed with certain weapons (or by using a Transient Curse) but it's also a pain to navigate, especially with no bonfires to aid you. Of course, you've also got boss encounters like The Four Kings, Seath The Scaleless and the boss responsible for making people give up on the game entirely - dual-encounter Ornstein and Smough - all to deal with during this final section of the game as well.

You can prepare to die all you want, you're powerless to stop yourself here.