The last few years have been great for turn-based strategy games, with lots of interesting choices for players who enjoy careful planning. But some game creators are intentionally avoiding current trends that focus on making games easy or letting players feel overwhelmingly powerful.
Getting through challenging video games requires careful planning, understanding how they work, and being able to bounce back from failure. Whether players enjoy modern graphics or prefer the look of older classics, there’s a game out there for everyone.
Wasteland 3 Makes Every Single Move More Important Than the Last
Released in late 2020, Wasteland 3 from inXile Entertainment takes players to a frozen, post-apocalyptic Colorado. You control a team of Arizona Rangers attempting to survive and build a base in this dangerous land. Gameplay focuses on tactical, turn-based combat where using cover, line of sight, and managing action points are key to winning each fight.
Wasteland 3 is a challenging game where enemies have powerful weapons and often try to surround you, potentially wiping out your team in one round of combat. Battles are very dangerous, and whoever goes first – or wins the roll to go first – has a significant advantage.
When you play on harder difficulties, like Supreme Jerk, enemies deal massive damage. This turns typical shooting gameplay into challenging situations where letting even one enemy attack can quickly eliminate half your team. To survive, players need to carefully develop their characters, focusing on things like weapon skills, the ability to break through enemy armor, status effects, and helpful support abilities – all just to keep up with the increasing enemy strength.
Limited resources create extra challenges in the game. High-powered ammunition is rare and costly, so players need to use a variety of weapons instead of focusing on just one. This means every fight requires careful planning and minimizing risks.
Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game Avoids Making Players Grind
Created by Iron Tower Studio and fully launched in 2023, the game is set on a crumbling spaceship heading towards Proxima Centauri. Players find themselves stuck inside this harsh vessel, which has been home to generations traveling through space. It’s a bleak world where fighting should usually be avoided.
The game developer made battles in Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game very dangerous on purpose. Every fight should feel like a real struggle to live. Combat focuses on how likely hits are, how well armor protects you, and aiming at specific body parts – meaning poor strategy can have serious consequences.
Guns have unique recoil, reload times, and the ability to pierce armor. Shooting at enemies with strong defenses without aiming carefully will quickly use up your ammo. Enemies will try to overwhelm you with tactics like flashbangs, smoke grenades, and attacking from advantageous positions. They can also inflict serious injuries – broken ribs or eye damage, for example – that continue to affect you even after a fight is over.
What truly sets this game apart – and makes it challenging – is that there’s no repetitive combat or meaningless battles. Each fight is carefully designed, with specific enemy strengths and arrangements, demanding skill rather than just power. To succeed, you need to perfectly build your character, use tools like energy shields and cover strategically, and know when to solve problems with conversation or hacking instead of fighting.
Battle Brothers Turns Average Humans Into Capable Warriors
Originally released on PC, Battle Brothers, the challenging mercenary simulator from Overhype Studios, became available on consoles in the early 2020s with all its features still present. The game takes place in a war-torn medieval world filled with monsters and undead, and tasks players with leading a company of mercenaries where characters can die permanently and survival is difficult.
In low-power mode, you don’t play as powerful heroes – instead, you control ordinary people like farmers, impoverished nobles, or craftspeople who are easily defeated. Battles happen on a map divided into hexagons, and winning depends on smart tactics, considering the landscape, keeping your troops from getting tired, and maintaining their fighting spirit.
Staying alive on the front lines depends on strong shields, well-formed spear walls, and how tough your armor is. Your chances of hitting enemies are influenced by things like how bright it is, whether you have the high ground, and if anything is blocking your view. Enemies use different strategies – some, like Orc warriors with heavy armor, try to break through your defenses with brute force, while others, such as ancient undead armies, fight endlessly and can even resurrect their fallen allies.
As a fan, I can tell you that managing your group outside of battles is just as tough as the fights themselves! You’re constantly worried about things like food, medicine, and keeping everyone’s gear in good shape – and paying them, of course. One bad job can really hurt you – even the most experienced characters can end up dead or seriously injured, forcing you to start over with a bunch of new, untrained recruits. It’s brutal, but honestly, that’s part of what I love about it!
Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance Punishes Poor Planning
Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance builds on the famously challenging battle system of previous games, making it even more refined and expansive. The game takes place in a Tokyo devastated by angels and demons, and success requires players to fully understand and utilize its unique Press Turn combat.
Successfully targeting an enemy’s vulnerability gives your team extra turns, but failing to attack, hitting a shield that deflects attacks, or letting an enemy exploit your weaknesses will instead give those benefits to them. The game is challenging because it severely punishes even small mistakes in strategy or how you build your team.
Boss battles are designed to quickly defeat unprepared teams. They use powerful attacks that hit multiple players at once, weaken your characters, and can even instantly defeat them. Because dying in a boss fight means game over, players need to be very careful and use strategies like strong defenses, boosting stats, and drawing enemy attacks to stay alive.
Winning in this game depends on repeatedly combining creatures – a detailed process where you create new allies with unique abilities and elemental strengths. The complex gameplay, along with challenging enemy AI, makes each significant win feel truly rewarding and well-planned.
Darkest Dungeon II Makes Stress Management Extremely Vital
This game transforms the dark, challenging atmosphere of the original into a tough roguelike adventure. Players take on the role of a stagecoach driver, guiding four heroes across a broken, post-apocalyptic world toward a faraway mountain. They’ll face terrifying monsters and fanatical cultists on their journey.
Battles in Darkest Dungeon II happen on a four-row field where a character’s position directly impacts which skills they can use, for both your heroes and enemies. The game is challenging because of its complicated token system and the way it simulates mental stress.
During battles, attacks can inflict conditions like blindness, increased evasion, weakness, or defense, which are constantly updated each turn. Separately, when characters become highly stressed, they can have mental breakdowns, causing them to take severe damage, lose combat effectiveness, and damage their relationships with teammates through arguments.
The relationships between characters make each playthrough unique. Heroes who dislike each other might sabotage each other’s skills, deny healing, or generally make things harder during battles. Because you’ll have limited supplies to fix the stagecoach, treat illnesses, and manage everyone’s stress while staying at inns, simply surviving requires careful planning and quick thinking.
2026-07-22 06:47