10 Toughest RPGs That Are Incredibly Rewarding

5. Bloodborne

If we’re being completely honest, you could probably fill this entire list with FromSoftware games and call it a day. In 2015, the infamous studio flipped the script and unleashed Bloodborne onto the world.

Following the ludicrous success of the Dark Souls franchise, and heavily inspired by Bram Stoker and HP Lovecraft, the player takes on the role of ‘The Hunter’, an anonymous fighter tasked with finding the source of a mysterious contagion and releasing the terrifying gothic city of Yharnam from its grasp. Full of tough as nails, disease ridden enemies and a fair share of Eldritch horror shows as bosses, Bloodborne was rightly hailed as a classic upon release, owing to its rich world building and punishing difficulty.

Whilst this game largely follows the difficulty model of its Souls based predecessors, it reworks the parry and dodge based combat mechanics of the former into a much more aggressive ‘do or die’ approach, with forceful combat and quick counters recovering health and wrong footing the nightmares who would do you harm.

Tough, but fair, getting to grips with this new gaming paradigm reaped fantastic rewards for those wanting to prove their worth.