It’s no secret that I believe that games were more “hardcore” in the past. Not all of them were, a lot of them were just poorly made. But many (like Half-Life) had a brave, undeniable faith in the player. These older games were filled with challenges that were uncompromising and downright hard, but we were trusted to conquer them and te victories we did get were all the sweeter if we stuck with it!

The predominant modern single player game is catering to a different audience: the players wants to be walked through spectacular set pieces strung together by convenient and frequent save points. But take heart! There are still games for those that like their single player games ruthless. Here are my top five suggestions for modern single player titles that keep the hardcore player-centric philosophy alive.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown (360, PS3, PC)

XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis, 2012) puts you in control of a global organization attempting to repel a not-too-subtle worldwide alien invasion. XCOM is the spiritual successor to the 1994 cult classic X-COM: UFO Defense, a game where you marshal soldiers made of papier mache against aliens with superior weaponry in an attempt to control global panic. The new release successfully recaptures the brutal magic of the original.

What makes it so hard:

XCOM attacks the player on two fronts: it’s both a resource-management strategy game and a tactical turn-based skirmish game. You’ll make tough choices to manage the world’s rising panic, once everyone loses their shit it’s game over. During tactical combat you’ll orchestrate four to six soldiers wielding reverse-engineered alien technology against murderous aliens. Both fronts are unapologetically difficult. Choosing between building satellites to keep panic down or equipping your soldiers with better armor can be a paralyzing and potentially game ending decision. Your soldiers are also surprisingly flimsy, a single poor tactical choice will get one or more people killed.

Failing on one front puts you at a disadvantage in the other. XCOM games, more often than not, enter a doomed spiral ending with an alien victory.

Why it’s worth it:

When you’re sweating each and every decision, you truly celebrate when the choice you made was the right one. While this iteration of XCOM takes a number of liberties with common sense to make the game more accessible than its predecessor (my global organization one has one team of specialists to deploy?) it still delivers the same thrilling heart palpitations and fist-pumping victories clutched from certain doom.

Dark Souls (360, PS3, PC)

I just got my hands on the shoddy PC port of Dark Souls (From Software, Namco, 2011), the spiritual successor to Demon’s Souls. Both games are third-person action RPGs notorious for their lack of mercy. While the game isn’t particularly polished and its story is just a nonsensical excuse to keep adventuring, Dark Souls has nevertheless earned the title of “instant classic” thanks to how damn hard it is.

What makes it so hard:

Dark Souls seems to be ripped directly from the dark, prehistoric past of gaming. The past where you had three continues to beat an entire game and it took one hit for you to die, two if the game was generous. Dark Souls is built for maximum pain: the save points are few and far between, instant death traps and attacks abound, and when you die or restore your health at a save point all of the monsters respawn.

RPG elements are present but they won’t save you: leveling up and getting better gear certainly have an impact on your survivability, but not that much of an impact. The bottom line is always the player’s skill. The game forces you, the player, to get good enough to make it all the way from save point to save point without dying. And you will die. Over and over.

Why it’s worth it:

One word: comeuppance. You can go from zero to hero in this game and the difficulty only magnifies the satisfaction.

Dark Souls affords you absolute freedom to pick whatever method they want to overcome its challenges. Eventually, you can become a fast sword-swinging death machine, an unstoppable instant-kill immune tank, or a wizard that has six silver bullets that allow you to instant-kill whatever you want. You have the freedom to gain said magnified satisfaction it in the way you find the most fun.

Faster than Light (PC)

I’m going to cop out and refer to my previous post about FTL. It’s a spaceship management roguelike!

What makes it so hard:

The game’s straight forward presentation and deceptively simple choices mask a game that wants to ruin your day. There are many ways to fail and you’re responsible for coming up with a contingency plan for each one. Every time you enter a new sector, you can be sure your mind will think about what you will do in the event of mantis invaders, or fires, or electrical storms, or engi drones, or ships with nothing but rocket launchers, or breached hulls, or slug monsters, or space viruses, or derelict freighters full of aliens lying in wait. You know, et cetera.

Why it’s worth it:

FTL offers something special: the ability to enjoy that hardcore, player-centric gameplay in small, fun bites. Games like XCOM or Dark Souls get better over the long haul with prolonged stretches of stress punctuated with moments of intense relief. FTL smushes that ebb and flow into a small chunk of time while keeping the difficulty in tact.

Spelunky (360, PC)

Spelunky (2009, 2012) is a delightful title from Derek Yu. (One of those rare heartwarming stories of an awesome indie game that’s enjoyed the success and publicity that it deserves.) Spelunky is a randomly generated 2d platforming roguelike that casts you as an Indiana-Jones-esque treasure hunter. Your goal is simple: get as much money as possible out of the most dangerous complex of caves in the whole fucking world. Like all roguelikes, when you die you start over at the top.

What makes it so hard:

Most roguelikes require careful planning, risk management, and an encyclopedic knowledge of the game’s mechanics. Spelunky takes the same do-or-die-and-try-again approach but instead requires a preternaturally steady jumping hand, perfect awareness of your surroundings, and creative application of the resources you have available. Absolutely every randomly generated square of the map is filled with hazardous traps and monsters. A game of Spelunky can go from “great” to “over” in just a few seconds.

Why it’s worth it:

While the game lacks the depth of the others on this list, it requires the player to master their jumping and exploring skills to the same hard core degree. It’s also worth mentioning that the game’s large palette of randomly assembled elements keep the game fresh. Playing six unsuccessful rounds of Spelunky in thirty minutes doesn’t get old.

Seriously, it’s a roguelike Mario 3. What more can I say?

Etrian Odyssey Series (DS, 3DS)

Much like Dark Souls, the quirky Etrian Odyssey series (Atlus, 2007-2012) is cut from ancient gaming cloth. Don’t let the cute graphics fool you, this eclectic collection of DS games is the true successor of infamously cruel first-person RPG classics like Might and Magic and Wizardry. The player is charged with getting a party of heroes through a linear mega-dungeon in 1st person and, I kid you not, mapping out each level on virtual grid paper using the DS touch screen. Hard. Core.

What makes it so hard:

With the exception of the third installment, each Etrian Odyssey game features a single mega-dungeon. The dungeon does not provide for the player. The dungeon does not care that the player is attempting to get through it. The dungeon is a save-point-less meat grinder filled with random encounters that can destroy an entire party. Each square mapped out on the touch screen is hard won through a careful balance of resource and risk management. Add puzzles, hidden doors, and squares that turn/teleport the party and you have a game that wants to eat the player alive.

Why it’s worth it:

Out of all of the titles on this list, Etrian executes the “ever-increasing hurdles” race the best. Each new boss it too strong, every new level is filled with monsters that you barely survive a single encounter with, each new map is an impossible tangle of secret doors and puzzles. But each hurdle can be overcome through diligence and a smartly assembled party of heroes. Etrian Odyssey’s grind is undoubtedly old-school and very, very rewarding.

What Did I Miss?

I’ll admit, I’ve spent more time with D&D books than I have video games these last few years. What are some obvious games that I’ve missed that keep the flame of the hardcore single player experience alive?