There is certainly a large interest in the games that can net players some easy Gamerscore within the Xbox community, but there are still those who love the challenge of games touted as the impossible. You know the ones, the titles in which we can spend countless hours struggling away, before being forced into submission after failing for the 100th time to a boss that simply refuses to be beaten. Some have even gone on to gain a cult following due to their horrendous difficulties, with the Dark Souls series one that instantly springs to mind. But whilst there may only be a few games that have garnered such high praise for their overbearing difficulties, there are still many that arrive each year that bring the ultimate challenge to even the most hardcore gamers out there. Here are ten of the toughest full Xbox One game completions from 2017.
Do you have what it takes to tackle them?
LEGO Worlds
When it comes to finishing a game, LEGO games are often considered some of the easiest out there. With cheats often unlockable to help progression and gameplay rarely proving a challenge, most LEGO experiences are simply fun and enjoyable. There’s no story as such in LEGO Worlds, so getting the full game completion is as simple as progressing through each world by competing basic challenges and grabbing every achievement. For those who jumped in, looking to hunt down the achievements, there was in one in particular that has probably proven a stumbling block on that path to 1345/1345.
The achievement in question is the Billionaire achievement, which requires players to gather the incredible sum of 1 Billion studs. This isn’t the first time such an achievement has been included in a LEGO game, with most usually containing such a task, but in LEGO Worlds the usual stud multiplier that helps most to a quick collection of such a number is no longer present. With no real way of earning large amounts of studs quickly this is likely to be one achievement that you’ll be working towards for some time.
Is it impossible, no, but when you take into account the fact that it would take you 17 hours of non-stop play if you were earning as much as 1 Million studs per minute – which in LEGO Worlds is highly unlikely – you begin to realise just how long this achievement is likely to take. Something which brings the 0.01% rarity into perspective and gives LEGO Worlds a worthy mention as one of the hardest full game completions of the year.
Forza Motorsport 7
As a big fan of the Forza series and a big fan of achievements, I’m always looking to try and master everything the racing spectacles have to offer. Despite the Forza Horizon series proving to be simply time consuming to gain that full completion however, the Forza Motorsport games have a couple of things thrown in that are likely to challenge even the best of gaming’s racers out there.
For the most part, Forza Motorsport 7 offers fairly simple achievements, and most will be unlocked during your run to the Forza Driver’s Cup, which is the main objective of the game. The things that are likely to keep you from adding Forza Motorsport 7 to your 100% finished list however are in relation to the online portion of the game, as well as one particular difficulty based achievement.
When it comes to online racing in the Forza, a lot of the time your personal skill level has very little to do with the end result of the race. With an online fan base who prefer to shunt their way through the pack as if it was Destruction Derby, it’s only ever the online Ghost Races that see your true skill coming into question. But even if you were to try the Underdog achievement in a Ghost Race, you’d still have to master coming from last place in a full 24 player race before finishing in first. Finishing in first online is a rarity at the best of times, but doing so from the back of the pack? That’s near impossible.
If you somehow manage to do so though then you’ll probably only have a few other challenges to worry about – the Super Human achievement being one of them. For this one you’ll need to take on and win a race against Drivatars set to the Unbeatable difficulty. This may sound doable with enough practice, but it’s worth noting that even a perfect race with no mistakes and every corner taken at high speed isn’t even enough to guarantee a win on this difficulty, meaning for the most part you’ll need to perfect the track and hope for the A.I. to make a mistake… a rare occasion on its own on the Unbeatable difficulty.
Finally, if you can master the racing then not only should you make plans to head to your local track, but you’ll only then have to worry about your creative skills. Another achievement that has caused problems for some over the years is the one that wishes you to prove popular with your tunes and designs. Two further achievements ask you to earn 50,000 credits from the community using your designs and 50,000 from the community using your tunes. With only 100 credits given for a download and a little more for a like and use, you’re going to need a masterpiece creation if you’re going to get either of these. Good luck with that.
Outlast 2
If you’re a fan of horror gaming and love a good scare, then chances are you’ll already have spent a large amount of time running from the shadows and the many crazed religious folk that populate the surrounding lands of Outlast 2. In general, Outlast 2 probably isn’t the hardest horror game out there, at least not on the easier difficulties, but it certainly contains a good challenge.
If you want the ultimate horror challenge however, then we suggest you attempt the Asahel achievement or the Messiah achievement. Both of these sit with well under 1% of the unlocked bracket and bring an incredible challenge to an already fear inducing adventure.
The easiest of the two is probably the Asahel achievement, but this alone is no easy task. To get this one players must finish the entire game from start to finish in under four hours. This will mean very little hiding, a lot of running and an incredible amount of luck to avoid taking damage from the crazed lunatics on your tail. If you master this of course, then you’re probably ready to attempt the Messiah achievement. But be warned, only 0.06% of gamers have currently managed this one and without the game breaking glitch that helped many to the achievement in the original, we can’t see many more adding to the handful that have achieved this feat.
The Messiah achievement requires players to finish the game in its Insane Mode without reloading the camera battery at all. What this means is that not only will you be forced to flee from enemies who can murder you almost instantly, but you’ll have to navigate the majority of the game in near total darkness. This will mean a picture perfect memory of every one of the locations and enemy patterns, but also you’ll need to master it in one entire run as a single death will mean starting all over again thanks to checkpoints being removed.
Did I mention Outlast 2 is a longer game than the original? Enjoy.
Sniper Elite 4
Sniper Elite 4 is quite easily one of the best shooters we’ve seen in some time. Since launch I’ve spent countless hours with Karl Fairburne on his latest epic stealth adventure. Completing the main campaign – whilst being challenging in places – isn’t exactly the hardest thing to do, and if you have a friend by your side for some co-op play then you’ll find things even easier. There are however one or two achievements that will see only the best attain the full 100% for Sniper Elite 4.
To earn every last achievement in Sniper Elite 4, players must master each of the difficulties including the recently added Authentic Plus. Whilst that may not sound so hard, this difficulty is certainly not for the faint-hearted. To make things a little harder, there is even an achievement included that expects you to complete the Authentic Plus campaign run without using a single manual save, meaning you can’t go through saving at every little bit of progress.
What makes Authentic Plus difficulty so hard – if you have to ask – is the fact that it essentially turns a game that already relies on stealth into what is pretty much a pure sniping simulation. In Authentic Plus, you will find no sound masking signals, no minimap and no HUD. You’ll have no knowledge of when you are being spotted as the alert for that disappears, skills and skill trees are unavailable, there is no autosave and enemies will not stop looking for you until they have found you. That’s not to mention enemies can take more damage and you have to master full weapon ballistics and weather effects throughout the whole game.
If you are going to attempt this one, then you’d best be prepared to spend a good several hours on each mission, whilst playing with pure perfection.
Enter The Gungeon
If you hear the terms bullet-hell, dungeon crawler or rogue-like, you can already anticipate the game in question is likely to be a challenge. Enter The Gungeon mixes all of the above into one and brings us one of the hardest completions to date because of it.
Procedural generation and permadeath are present in Enter The Gungeon, and both of these things mean that there’s no chance of utilising muscle memory or strategic planning to get through the game. To complete this one, players must not only finish the game, which is no easy feat in itself, but you will also need to complete certain tasks that rely on unique items appearing multiple times, with these items only appearing by chance throughout the game.
If that’s not enough to put you off though, then maybe the Lead God achievement, which requires you to collect five Master Rounds in one run will be enough to convince you that this is one game that will probably fail to be added to your 100% completed list. To achieve the Lead God achievement, which equates to 60 gamerscore, players will need to come up against five different bosses in one run and master all of them flawlessly. You heard that right… FLAWLESSLY.
Now recall my previous words about this being a bullet-hell, dungeon crawling, rogue-like with procedural generation and permadeath and you’ll understand why so few people have achieved the 100% on this one.
Super Cloudbuilt
So Super Cloudbuilt is probably one of the lesser known games on this list, but that doesn’t mean it’s any easier to complete. Anyone who has jumped into this third-person, speed-running platformer that heavily revolves around physics, will soon tell you that mastering everything it has to offer is a borderline impossibility without having a perfect knowledge of the inner workings of every single level.
To fully complete this one, players must master every level on every mode. Completing different levels unlock the many variations of a level that are available, and to get every achievement you’ll need to gain an S rank on every one of them across every mode.
The modes available include Time Trial, in which you’ll need to perform incredibly fast times, Pacifism mode, which means using no weapons against the enemies, Pathfinder mode, in which you’ll need to use the least amount of boost and finally Fragile mode, in which you can only take one hit.
Each of the levels can be tough to finish, but gaining the S rank will mean perfecting every single course on every mode, and when only a handful of people at most from the leaderboard toppers having actually managed the task, this is one game that proves near impossible to 100% for many gamers.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
When you think of most first-person shooters, the thought of playing them on the hardest difficulty isn’t usually too bad if you’ve got an accurate shot and a quick trigger finger. Wolfenstein II on the other hand is in a league of its own.
Not only is it one of the finest games of 2017, and one of the best shooters we’ve seen in some time, but it’s also one of the hardest shooters to fully complete.
The main reason for this is because of its Mein Leben difficulty. Now before any of you gaming masochists out there come flooding in with high support for over the top difficulties, let it be known that Wolfenstein II’s need to complete the Mein Leben difficulty for the full 100% has hit that many gamers in the feels, that there is currently a petition available online to try and encourage the developers to change the requirements.
In the Mein Leben difficulty, players must complete the entirety of the game in one sitting. There are no checkpoints or manual saves available and the gameplay is based on the ridiculously hard ‘I am death incarnate’ difficulty. To unlock this, you must first complete the game, which on easier difficulties isn’t all too taxing, but it is worth noting that Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is by far one of the hardest games in the series.
Besides having to master every section of the game on what is essentially a pure crazy difficulty, Wolfenstein II’s Mein Leben challenge also lowers your health and will see you die by no more than two to three bullets max, and that’s provided you have armour equipped.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus may be one of the year’s best games, but with only 0.01% of players holding that coveted achievement, you can be sure it’s also one of the hardest.
I AM BREAD
By now if you’re a keen fan of unique games then there is a high chance you’ve played I AM BREAD. If you have then you’ll instantly know why it’s being included on this list.
In I AM BREAD, players take on the role of…well… a slice of bread. Bear with me. The goal is fairly simple on paper. Move the bread over to the toaster and turn it into an unburnt and delicious slice of toast. For anyone who has played games such as Octodad or Surgeon Simulator however, the controls in I AM BREAD are equally difficult. Each corner of the bread has its own button to move, and even basic tasks such as moving forward can see you falling on the floor in an inedible mess in no time. I AM BREAD is exactly what you should expect to find if you were to mix modern day Lara Croft with a loaf of Hovis and send her on an expedition to find a lost artefact… the toaster in this case.
If the controls being so fiddly aren’t enough of a nightmare, then the fact you have to complete every single level achieving an A++ rating for many of the achievements will certainly will be. A++ is the incredibly hard to earn rating that you get for essentially speedrunning a level with perfection. Achieving a single A++ is seen as a shining achievement in this game, so the fact you have to do every single level with such a rating is the type of thing that’s made for only the most hardcore of gamers.
If this game doesn’t make you lac-TOAST intolerant, then I don’t know what will. Let’s move on shall we?
Cuphead
After years of waiting, 2017 finally saw the release of the highly anticipated Cuphead, and after being touted as an incredibly difficult platformer of the old school variety, it’s fair to say the finished product duly delivered. Cuphead is an incredible game, there’s no doubt about it, but if you’ve been hoping to add the cartoon inspired masterpiece to your list of gaming completions then you’d best prepare for one of the hardest challenges to ever arrive on Xbox One.
There are indeed a number of platforming levels to be found within Cuphead, but the overall challenge really comes down to the many boss fights that are found throughout the game. Each will provide a 1 on 1 battle – unless of course you’re attempting a co-op run – and pits you against enemies whose patterns of attack increase in speed, difficulty and style as you progress further through the fight.
Whilst there is no permadeath in this game – thank god! – it doesn’t mean the overall experience is any easier. Losing a boss fight means having to start over again, but with bosses changing up their patterns it’s not as simple as pure practice makes perfect; you’ll need a serious amount of skill to beat the game.
If you manage to do that however, the real challenge will then be unlocked. Expert Mode.
In Expert Mode, bosses have even more health than normal, they mix their patterns more frequently, they are a lot faster and they fire a lot more bullets in your direction. Given the 0.42% unlock at present, you’d be forgiven for thinking this one maybe isn’t quite as tough as everyone makes out, so let’s put things into perspective. Cuphead is currently sitting at over two million sales and of those two million, only 0.42% at present have actually managed to complete the notoriously challenging Expert Mode. That’s around 8,400 people who have actually performed godlike skills to unlock it. As for the other 1,991,600 players… well… good luck.
Cities: Skylines
So, the hardest game completion of the year comes down to the most popular city builder available. City building games have always been known as challenging experiences; from Sim City to Tropico there aren’t many city building titles that spring to mind that offer a simple gameplay experience.
Cities: Skylines however is quite easily the hardest of them all. Now, before even looking at the reasons you’re unlikely to master the 100% in this one, it’s worth noting that even making a stable city with any remote success is extremely challenging, mostly thanks to the many things that can go wrong and all the requirements you need to accomplish in order to get things right. If you’ve managed to at least get a decent foundation going though, then here are the reasons why it’s probably the best you can hope to achieve.
To net all 1000GS in this one, players will need to create multiple cities and achieve a multitude of different goals in each. For example, in some cities players will need an incredibly high population whilst retaining a really high tax rate, whilst others will need you to have a large number of abandoned buildings or a really high crime rate.
Of course with plenty of practice and many, many hours put, in these might be possible, but then you have other achievements that really task you with the impossible such as keeping your population above 95% happiness for two entire years. Another task that will prove a stumbling block requires players to unlock every monument within the game, with each one potentially taking 10-15 hours each to unlock and an extremely specific play style required if you are to unlock them at all. What’s worse, you can’t really follow a guide either as everyone’s cities are entirely different.
So, there we have it, 10 of the hardest full game completions on Xbox One in 2017. Have you taken on any of these hardcore titles and lived to tell the tale? Is there another game that should be on this list? Let us know in the comments below or via our usual social channels.
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