10 Most Brutally Hard First-Person Shooter Levels In Video Game History

5. Doom - E4M2 (Perfect Hatred)

The Doom games can be pretty hard, especially on the higher difficulty settings, but there is one level in Thy Flesh Consumed, the bonus add on episode to the original Doom, that takes the cake. E4M2, aptly titled Perfect Hatred, condenses everything you love (and hate) about the Doom experience into one elegantly simple and brutal level.

The level design is open but small, forcing you to face off against a large number of demons right at the start. You don’t have much cover, ammo is scarce, and the tight close quarters makes evading the fireballs of Imps and Cacodemons a challenge. There is also some platforming, making it even harder to avoid damage from the ever streaming masses of demons, and even easier to fall into the lava below.

It’s genuinely hard to believe that anyone can beat this on the Ultra-Violence or Nightmare difficulty. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by all the carnage because there’s so little room to run. E4M2 makes you fight for you life at an intensity unlike any of the other levels of Doom, and that’s what makes it so savagely effective.