20 Video Game Hard Modes For True Masochists
5. Unplugged - Stellaris
Stellaris, Paradox Interactive’s sci-fi grand strategy, comes with several difficulty settings, but choosing one is only half of what determines how challenging your campaign is going to be. The second half is choosing your faction’s origin.
When creating your own alien empire, you get to pick their origin, that is, the specific way in which they reached the stars that grants them unique bonuses… or penalties…
Although some origin stories can give powerful buffs, the Unplugged origin is considered to be one of the most difficult and rage-inducing starts you can pick.
In this scenario you play as aliens who have been enslaved by a supercomputer that forcibly linked their brains to itself but has temporarily lost the connection, causing your people to rise up.
The origin is a truly challenging start, as you begin your campaign immediately at war with a significantly stronger foe, and you receive debilitating debuffs from losing your link with the supercomputer.
To give an example of how bad this start is, the AI's forces attack your starting sector right away, even before you can construct a ship, meaning that you can potentially lose the scenario even before you begin.