20 Video Games That Punish You For Being Too Skilled

Usually the better you are at a game, the better you will do. Most titles are designed to reward players for improving their skills and overcoming new challenges, but with this said, there are some games that do the opposite.

Instead of pampering their best players, some video games would rather punish them. The better your skill and the more amazing deeds you accomplish, the more the game feels inclined to put you in your place.

In these games, beating a challenging boss will give you a horrible debuff, fighting efficiently will make fights harder, and you might even be killed or banned from certain activities if you prove to be too good at them.

Doing your best isn't actually the optimal way to play these titles. They want you to struggle more when you're better, so unless you welcome their punishing challenge, you might want to not show off the full scope of your skills.

Don't be surprised if you struggle in the following games more than beginner players. Getting good at them will ironically make them harder to play.

Typing of the Dead is a bizarre horror game in which you fight a horde of ravenous zombies by typing words on your keyboard, as if you were trapped in some really messed-up version of the Spelling Bee.

The game’s silly premise and its cheesy sense of humor might make you believe that the gameplay is a walk in the park, but in reality, the game’s difficulty can spike quite drastically.

Especially for those who think typing words really fast is the easiest challenge in the world.

Although the game doesn’t really tell you this, Typing of the Dead has a secret dynamic difficulty scaling. When you type words really fast and don’t make any mistakes, the game will give you longer and more complex words until you’re stuck typing in entire sentences within a short amount of time.

The difficulty changes are absolutely brutal, which is why it’s better to deliberately make mistakes to avoid having to type the equivalent of Shakespearean dialogue every time they have to kill a zombie.

It makes sense that zombies would target smarter players more aggressively, though. Their brains would be like A5 Wagyu to them!