Gaming offers us immersive worlds to explore and challenges to conquer. Yet some multiplayer games take difficulty to the extreme, demanding expert-level skills and relentless practice to master. These games push players to their limits, forcing them to sharpen their reflexes, strategy, and mental endurance over hundreds of hours.
While casual gamers may get frustrated and give up on these titles quickly. In this blog, we will tell you about most hardest multiplayer games. These games represent shining examples of communities that value mastery, persistence, and overcoming monumental challenges.
From hardcore fighting games like Super Smash Bros Melee to real-time strategy juggernauts like Starcraft 2, we explore the genres and gameplay elements that make these games almost impenetrable for new players. Multiple games on the list including Dota 2 and League of Legends are considered digital sports, with professional circuits and huge cash prizes.
We analyze the steep learning curves that competitive players must overcome to stand a chance in high-level play. For those looking for a true trial by fire that will push their skills to the utter limit, these 11 multiplayer games represent the peak of difficulty. They demand expert teamwork, lightning fast reflexes, and strategic mastery just to survive. Few can withstand their rigorous gauntlets, but those who do emerge battle-tested and ready to dominate.
Top 11 Hardest Multiplayer Games
Dota 2
Dota 2 has over 100 unique playable characters called “heroes” that each have 4+ abilities, allowing for immense strategic diversity. The game heavily punishes any small positioning errors, so you always have to be mindful of enemy abilities/items and your surroundings. Mastering even one hero can take hundreds of hours to understand their optimal itemization, ability usage, and power spikes. Additionally, features like creep stacking, creep pulling, and denial require extensive game knowledge.
Eve Online
Eve’s open-world sandbox environment allows for limitless emergent gameplay. Players can pursue careers like mining, trading, pirating, manufacturing, and more to earn in-game currency. Participating in massive fleet battles with thousands of players requires coordination with your alliance members and a deep understanding of tactics. The completely player-driven economy also creates complex dynamics like supply/demand that challenge you to prosper and gain power.
Super Smash Bros Melee
Melee’s high-level techniques like wave-dashing, L-canceling, and directional influence require precise inputs and timing. Mastering character movement alone takes dedicated practice. Additionally, each of the 26 characters has differing weights, recovery, and KO moves that influence matchups and combos. Top players study frame data obsessively to calculate, react, and capitalize on vulnerable openings. stage choice is also critically important when playing at an elite level.
Starcraft 2
Starcraft 2 requires balancing the economy, base production, technology research, and army control simultaneously. Being supply blocked or getting housed can instantly lose games. Scouting the enemy and recognizing build orders is crucial as well. The rock-paper-scissors counter-system of units means strategically transitioning your army composition. Games easily come down to who can better multitask under pressure without making mistakes.
League of Legends
League has over 150 champions with unique mechanics to learn. You have to track cooldowns on abilities, mana costs, power spikes, and itemization. Team compositions also combo differently so you must pick appropriately. In-game concepts like zoning, freezing lanes, vision control, and objective trading are mandatory skills. Given all these systems, League is often compared to chess with its strategic elements.
Rainbow Six Siege
Siege emphasizes strategic demolition and reconstruction of the environment. Knowledge of the maps, camera locations, traps, and common angles is required. Operators and their gadgets entirely change how you approach the game. For example, sound cues become critical against stealthy operators like Caveira. Communication with your team and adapting your tactics is key as the round evolves. Any hesitation will give the enemy an opening.
Super Mario Maker 2
Mario Maker allows for completely unpredictable player-designed levels. Common elements in sadistic designs include hidden blocks that kill you, fields of spike traps requiring frame-perfect inputs, forced damage sections testing endurance limits, and dev blocks that restrict your control. Even Kaizo techniques like item abuse and midair shell jumps are fair game. Beating these nightmarish stages requires zen patience and thinking outside the box.
Ninja Gaiden
Ninja Gaiden demands mastery of its varied combat weapons and mechanics. Enemies attack relentlessly with varying speeds and patterns. Knowing when to block, parry, and dodge – then retaliating during small openings is essential. Bosses have multiple phases with increasing difficulty. Managing your limited healing items carefully is also crucial to survival. Deaths are frequent but overcoming challenges grants an unmatched sense of satisfaction.
Escape from Tarkov
In Tarkov, customizing your loadout and inventory management is a make-or-break factor. The stakes are high as death means permanently losing your gear. Maps feature exits that need keys, hazards like barbed wire, and lootable provisions. Engagements are deadly and positioning is paramount. You only have your wits and reflexes to rely on while under fire. Every match is a tense struggle to survive and escape with precious loot.
Getting Over It
Getting Over It tests your patience and perseverance like a few other games. With just a hammer and cauldron, you climb an absurdly treacherous mountain. Physics makes even small swings of the hammer unwieldy. Falling means restarting from the very bottom. Progress is constantly threatened. Only stoic resolve and zen focus on the task at hand will see you to the summit after countless falls.
Cuphead
Cuphead’s stunning artistic presentation masks controller-crushing levels. Bosses have complex attack routines where memorization is key. Some fill the screen with hard-to-dodge projectiles forcing split-second reactions. Patience and pattern recognition help you gain ground steadily. But any mistake in choreography leads right to an explosive death. You must fight stubbornly to master each screen and triumph.
FAQs About Hardest Multiplayer Games
Which multiplayer game has the steepest learning curve?
Dota 2 is considered to have one of the steepest learning curves of any multiplayer game. With over 100 unique heroes with diverse abilities and complex mechanics like denying, stacking, and losing gold on death, Dota 2 has an extremely high skill floor for new players.
Do any of these difficult games have professional eSports scenes?
Yes, many of these challenging multiplayer games have professional competitive scenes and leagues. Dota 2, League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Starcraft 2, Super Smash Bros Melee, and Rainbow Six Siege all have lucrative professional eSports circuits with cash prizes and top pro players.
What gameplay element makes Super Smash Bros Melee so hard to master?
Super Smash Bros Melee’s demanding execution of advanced techniques like wave-dashing, L-canceling, and directional influence frames require precise inputs and timing. The speed and complexity make it extremely difficult to play at the top level.
Why is Starcraft 2 considered such a fast-paced RTS game?
Starcraft 2 requires insane actions per minute (APM) to manage your base, economy, unit production, technology research, and army control seamlessly. Multi-tasking perfectly under pressure while not getting supply blocked is crucial.
Which difficult multiplayer game relies heavily on player-designed levels?
Super Mario Maker 2 allows players to create and share extremely challenging course designs. Sadistic elements like hidden blocks, spike mazes, and dev blocks are common in player levels, requiring zen patience and skill to overcome.
