10 Toughest RPGs That Are Incredibly Rewarding

1. Darkest Dungeon

The party based dungeon crawler is a game which has fallen out of favour in recent decades, largely replaced by the single player open worlds of Assassin’s Creed or Horizon: Zero Dawn. As with any niche gaming interest though, there’s always an indie developer ready to jump into the fold. This studio would be Red Hook and, with Darkest Dungeon, they were not playing around.

After inheriting an ancestor’s manor, the player must recruit a band of adventurers to explore the catacombs underneath, full of horrors accidentally released by the previous owner which threaten the safety of the entire world. The roster of heroes must explore a procedurally generate dungeon whilst fighting off these threats in turn based combat, using all their skills and equipment against some truly challenging horrors.

What sets the game apart from its more conventional turn based brethren is the ‘Affliction’ system, where long term isolation from light and resources increases characters’ stress levels, inhibiting their performance in battle and striking them down with negative statuses. Add to this a dreaded ‘perma-death’ feature, and the game becomes a relentless balancing act of management, with a genuine emotional bond to the characters that only the most skilled of heroes can overcome.