"Git gud," the iconic phrase that was born in the darkest depths of the most hardcore of gaming warlords and their lair: the Dark Souls community. Since then, it has been thrown around as a meme and phrase in other games, from competitive PVP titles to other, grueling single-player experiences, to express the idea that the game isn't too hard; it's the player who isn't good enough.
There are definitely games that enforce this idea by delivering unapologetically tough experiences. You either learn, adapt, and eventually overcome the hurdles they present, or you uninstall the game and go off to play something more your speed. For gamers who aren't afraid of being challenged and pushed to the limits, here are the open-world RPGs that force you to become tougher and better players instead of babying you.
Project Zomboid
The Game Is Over As Soon As You Get Sloppy
Project Zomboid's RPG features are probably the lightest you'll see on this list, but given the skill progression system and specialized occupation you can choose in the beginning, I'd argue it still fits. As the last survivor in Knox Country, a massive open-world environment overrun with zombies, your job is to just survive for as long as possible, securing yourself a base, a source of food, water, fuel, and meds. Playing on the Apocalypse difficulty is considered the default experience of Project Zomboid, and that means resources are generally very sparse, and you'll have to fight through hordes of cunning zombies that are plentiful in the world.
Every decision you make has to be calculated carefully, and without an escape plan, you can easily be overrun or jumped. If you're bitten, it's basically game over, and you'll be sent to the death screen once the virus works its way through your system. It's a game where you'll likely fail over and over again, even after playing it for a while, because there's simply so much to consider and you're never fully relaxed. However, just like your character who learns skills to stay alive, you as a player will learn how the post-apocalyptic world works—eventually.
Pathologic 2
Get Used To Cortisol Spikes
What's the most stressful feature you can think of in a game? I know an easy one: a time limit. Nobody loves deadlines, and Pathologic 2 harnesses that to its maximum potential by making you survive a raging plague in the matter of twelve in-game days. With each day, time ticks away. Your decisions directly impact the people of the world: who survives and who doesn't.
But you also need to survive, and you may need to hurt or betray people around you in order to guarantee that. The game hammers this one truth into your head: there are no good choices, there is no hope. It's this brooding atmosphere and the desperate race against time with nail-biting survival elements that will force you to adapt and overcome, or fail.
Gothic 1 & 2
This Fantasy World Has No Chill
Another game that doesn't scale to the player's level is Gothic 2, and its predecessor, Gothic. Not only is the combat a whole ordeal, as you start off playing as an absolute nobody with terrible equipment and damage, but it's also clunky due to the game's age. Some of the enemies have the ability to kill you in the blink of an eye if you're not prepared.
It'll be interesting to see how much that changes with the Gothic Remake set to come out soon. Action aside, the Gothic games also subscribe to an old-school game design idea where there are no quest markers, and you're trusted to figure things out on your own from the get-go, and backtrack from memory. All in all, it's a stressful experience that you're just going to have to get used to, but so worth it if you're an RPG fanatic.
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
Come Back When You're Stronger
Dragon's Dogma 2 aside, the first game delivered a bit of a learning curve. The world throws a few curveballs your way in the form of enemies that are at a set difficulty, and it's not hard for newcomers to explore the game's open-world environment and run into an area that they're absolutely not prepared for. But even outside of late-game areas, some of the earlier encounters are infamously hard (ahem, those pesky bandits), and you'll have to manage your stamina carefully when facing off against larger monsters.
It's a grindy game, so there's going to be times when you'll simply have to accept that you need more training and have to come back later. There's no forcing your way through. Outside of mastering the combat and using your pawns to their highest potential, buildcrafting and upgrading your weapons is a knowledge-based learning curve of its own, though it still remains second in difficulty to several Souls games—if that's any consolation!
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 1 & 2
The Realistic Combat Is Intimidating For Many
If you aren't actively playing the Kingdom Come: Deliverance games, then most likely the one thing you know about them is that the combat is a steep learning curve. While both games have a tutorial sequence that introduces you to some of the core moves, like the perfect block, feinting, dodging, and more, it's all about getting used to a very detailed sword combat system.
It takes time, and that's something that will understandably be stressful for some players who might be more used to a simpler system. There aren't any cheat codes for mastering the combat as Henry, though leveling up your skills and gear will make some things just a bit easier. If you're after challenge and like the real feeling of progression, these games will deliver exactly that and more for you, while testing your patience.
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This article originally appeared on GameRant and is republished here with permission.
