Video game challenges and trophies have become an integral part of the gaming landscape over the years. Whether you're hunting for achievements on an Xbox console or pursuing that elusive platinum trophy on a PlayStation, there's something endlessly satisfying about a digital high-five being beamed into your eyeballs from your TV screen when you nail a feat within a game.
And then there are those achievements which can only be described as a Herculean labor. Masochistic in their design, you'd have to be truly dedicated to a game to earn kudos from it for accomplishing something that very few players will even try to attempt. We've rounded up some of the toughest achievements in games below, in case you feel like taking a trip down the memory lane of video game malice.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Mile-High Club
This one is an absolute doozy, as you'll need to not only complete the Mile High Club mission on in under a minute, you'll have to do so on Veteran difficulty. In a level that's best described as a high-altitude meat grinder, you'll need to have incredible speed, reflexes, and marksmanship just to survive the small army of enemies. With a lot of luck, memorization, and an arsenal of flashbangs, it is possible to skydive to safety at the end of this challenging Call of Duty gauntlet.
Read our Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare review.
Dead Rising - 7-Day Survivor
The original Dead Rising is a masterclass in goofy B-movie horror and racing against the clock, and to claim the 7-Day Survivor achievement, you'll need to survive in Infinity Mode for 14 hours straight. Sounds easy, right? The catch here is that your health is constantly depleting, health-restoring food doesn't respawn, and no saving is allowed. Thanks to strategies from the Dead Rising community, this achievement is doable and you won't have to worry about Frank starving to death while surrounded by hordes of flesh-eating mallrats.
Read our Dead Rising review.
Dead Space 2 - Hard to the core
In Dead Space, no one can hear you scream about the devastatingly difficult Hard Core mode in this follow-up to Visceral Games' iconic cosmic adventure. Still as terrifying as ever, you'll need to guide Isaac Clarke through a space station of horror with only a handful of resources, very little ammo, tougher enemies, and only a trio of save points.
Read our Dead Space 2 review.
The Evil Within - You Asked For It
Horrifyingly simple and brutal is the best way to describe this achievement. Not only do you have to survive The Evil Within on AKUMU mode--faster, tougher, and more numerous enemies--but you'll need to have the reflexes of a cat because almost everything on this setting can kill you in a single hit. It's like an inverse One-Punch Man game.
Read our The Evil Within review.
Gears 5 - Seriously 5.0
The Seriously achievement has long been a trademark challenge of the Gears of War series, and Gears 5 wasn't ready to break that tradition. To get this achievement, you'll need nerves and trigger-fingers of steel, as you'll have to complete the campaign on the hardest difficulty mode of Insane, complete the Master Horde and Escape Launch maps on master difficulty, reach level 100 and "re-up" back to level 1 a total of 20 times, and reach the level of General in a Tour of Duty. Seriously. It's a challenge of both difficulty and endurance.
Read our Gears 5 review.
GTA V - Masterminds
With GTA V back in the headlines as it hops on over to Xbox Series X|S and PS5, now's a great time to experience the game's superb online mode and attempt to become a legend in the community. Skill, planning, and a crew you can rely on will help you earn the Masterminds achievement, as you'll need to complete three Criminal Mastermind scenarios in GTA Online with the same team of players on hard difficulty and without losing any lives on setups or finales.
Read our GTA V review.
Half-Life 2: Episode 2 / The Orange Box - Little Rocket Man
This achievement is a paradox because while it might fit the bill of being masochistic, it's also strangely fun. In Half-Life 2: Episode 2, you'll need to find a secret hidden garden gnome and carry it through the entire game, eventually placing it in a rocket and launching it into space. While you could place the little ceramic fellow down so that you could wield a gun in tough situations, this challenge also served as a reminder of the fancy physics in Half-Life 2 because you could easily lose the gnome along the way. Drive too fast while it's in your dune buggy for example, and it would go flying off the back.
It's a silly and oftentimes painful achievement to pursue, but Little Rocket Man is a gloriously creative task that shows off just how great Valve's sequel was at the time.
Read our The Orange Box review.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection - LASO master
Skulls have been a cherished part of each Halo game, offering a wide variety of quirky and downright punishing modifiers to each game's campaign. For the wonderful time capsule that is the Master Chief Collection, you can earn maximum kudos by declaring yourself a LASO master with this achievement. Be prepared for a brutal ride though, as each mainline game's collection of Skulls offers a galaxy of hurt and hilarious deaths along the way.
Read our Halo: The Master Chief Collection review.
Limbo - No point in dying
Completing Limbo, a 3-4 hour game in a single session and only dying five times or less sounds deceptively easy. Anyone who has played the game is well aware of just how often death creeps up on them in that iconic platformer, and even if you are prepared for what lies ahead, surviving those lethal obstacles is easier said than done. Earning this achievement requires a virtually encyclopedic knowledge of the game's world.
Read our Limbo review.
Max Payne 3 - The shadows rushed me
It's time to feel the Payne in this challenge, as not only do you have to play the game until the difficulty mode of New York Minute is unlocked, you'll need to once again finish it on that mode. That means no saving or dying throughout the entire campaign, and if that's not hard enough for you, you'll need to do so with a strict time limit pushing you to be more reckless than ever before.
Read our Max Payne 3 review.
Mega Man 10 - Mr. Perfect
Capcom's iconic Blue Bomber is an enduring part of the company's legacy, but for this achievement, he also needs to evolve into an untouched exterminator of rogue robots. Mr. Perfect sounds simple on paper, as you'll need to complete the Mega Man 10 campaign without taking a single hit. It's easier said than done thanks to the army of killer machines, deadly level design, and brutal bots in each stage, so be prepared to die a lot if you attempt to become an untouchable Mega Man master.
Read our Mega Man 10 review.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots - Legendary Hero
Hideo Kojima has a cruel sense of humor, as Solid Snake's final chronological outing in the Metal Gear Solid series is an exercise in sadism. To earn the trophy for Legendary Hero, you'll need to first get all of the other trophies in the game and complete the campaign on its hardest difficulty setting. Oh, and you'll have to avoid killing a single person, abstain entirely from health packs, and not get detected by any enemies. In under five hours. Good luck getting that Platinum trophy, soldier.
Read our Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots review.
Mortal Kombat - My Kung-fu is stronger
You're going to need to really really like Mortal Kombat's 2011 edition to earn this reward. Play as every character in the game for 24 hours in total, win 100 fights, pull off 100 fatalities, perform 150 X-Ray hits, spill 10,000 liters of blood, and you'll be recognized as the undisputed master of Mortal Kombat.
Read our Mortal Kombat review.
Outlast 2 - Messiah
No checkpoints, no saves, the highest difficulty in a brutal survival-horror game, and the challenge of surviving on a single flashlight battery while deadly forces stalk you from the shadows. Is the Messiah achievement possible? Absolutely, although your heart might give in halfway through it thanks to the sheer stress of the terror that you'll have to endure.
Read our Outlast 2 review.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps - Immortal
Complete the game without dying. That's it, that's the challenge. And if you've played this superb Metroidvania platformer, you know that the task is nigh-impossible to accomplish unless you start cheesing the use of back-up saves on Easy mode. It's something that can be accomplished in a single four-hour run if you know what you're doing, but you'll feel like you've aged a few decades thanks to the stress of this sequel's beautifully lethal level design.
Read our Ori and the Will of the Wisps review.
Overwatch - The Floor is Lava
Overwatch has an achievement that few people have acquired, due to the setup that it requires. The Floor is Lava is earned when you take down three enemies in a single life while playing as Lucio and using a wall-ride, an objective that needs cosmic levels of fate and skill to be on your side. In a game with tightly-contested kill-death ratios and constant rebalancing of its characters, you'll have to hope that you get matched up against a team of confused possums on the other side to pull this one off.
Read our Overwatch review.
Rock Band 2 - Bladder of Steel
You'll need the endurance of a Le Mans driver or a catheter to add Rock Band 2's toughest achievement to your list, as Bladder of Steel requires you to complete all 84 songs in Endless Setlist 2 without failing a single one of them or pausing once. That should take you roughly over 6 hours to accomplish, but at least you'll be doing the pee-pee dance to some good music.
Read our Rock Band 2 review.
Sniper Elite 4 - Better than the best
Sniper Elite games have always been strangely cathartic exercises in messily rearranging the faces of Nazi soldiers, but the game's highest honor requires unerring aim and precision. It's a straightforward task, that requires you to beat the game on Authentic Plus difficulty and without manually saving. As a reminder of how difficult that mode is, Authentic Plus features reduced supplies and enemies who are relentless in their pursuit of you if they hear so much as a grenade pin drop.
Read our Sniper Elite 4 review.
The Stanley Parable - Go outside
I hope you're patient, because The Stanley Parable's cheekiest achievement requires turning the game on and then turning it off…for the next five years. After half a decade has passed, come back inside to start the game all over again and you'll be greeted with a fresh trophy for your this zero-effort challenge.
Read our The Stanley Parable review.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus - Mein Leben
Wolfenstein II's most colossal achievement requires you to make it through the entire campaign unscathed, which is quite the feat considering how relentless the Nazi AI soldiers are with the difficulty cranked to the max. With a single live to use as you tear through Uber-Soldaten and no save-points around, earning this accomplishment will make you feel like the real Terror Billy that Nazis have learned to fear over the years.
Read our Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus review.
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