8 Impossible Video Game Hard Modes You Must AVOID

How can you talk about difficulty modes and NOT include the horror show that is the XCOM Franchise? From their very beginning, the devs made their intentions known, this being that they clearly hate humanity so much that they wish to eradicate it and all the hope of mankind itself from existence.

Every move would see your squad get cut down by aliens with superior weaponry, and while the series did tone down a lot for the eventual reboot of the franchise, it wasn't long before it was back to its old tricks.

For example, the game comes bundled with an "iron man" mode, which disables the ability to reload saves should things not go your way. Here you have to live with each and every agonizing defeat, which on the higher difficulties are commonplace.

Yet this is but a walk in the park compared to the outrageous "Second Wave" Mutations, which were added into the game to provide even more of a challenge.

Depending on what difficulty you were playing on you could enable such charming features as Elerium, a precious resource in the game, degrading over time, or losing all equipment that was attached to a soldier should they fall in battle.

Even seemingly small features such as decreasing the rate of recruits being able to use Psionic powers have a huge impact on the game, and fans have often wondered whether turning on certain combos of these Second Wave options would make the game literally impossible.

However, to a true XCOM fan, there is no such thing as impossible, just another day at the office. Dark Souls can lick our boots.