10 Most Unforgiving Checkpoints In Gaming History

Over the last few decades, gaming's most prominent genres have been whittled down to a science. There are certain things you're expected to do when developing a title - things that are considered the bare minimum. For FPS games, it’s frequent autosave placement.

When Resistance: Fall of Man launched, it was met with decently high praise, but it might be time to argue that it hasn’t aged well. Still, it’s hardly Insomniac Games’ fault that Call of Duty 4 was just around the corner, which would play a huge hand in standardising FPS controls and practices.

However, there were issues at the time which are even starker in the harsh light of current times… the checkpoint system feels positively unfinished.

Each of Resistance’s 11 missions only have a couple of worthwhile checkpoints each, turning the 12-hour campaign into one fraught with stress. It’s so easy to find yourself playing massive sections again and again because you made a mistake or were overwhelmed by enemies, which is very likely due to the game dumping an entire military convoy's worth of baddies on you ad nauseum.

There are sometimes multiple autosaves in a row when nothing is occurring, and other times, you’ll fight for 40 minutes without one popping. Halo’s checkpoints were bad and confusing, but five years later, Resistance: Fall of Man wasn’t faring any better.