Though they may have skyrocketed to popularity with their smash-hit looter-shooter Borderlands in 2009, Gearbox has been developing games ever since the late 90s, and throughout that time, they've come out with their fair share of classics. Gearbox games might be well-known for their goofy humor and characters, but when it comes to gameplay, they've also mastered the art of making an addictive core experience that feels both fresh and unique in how it plays, as has been proven by the numerous amazing titles they have under their belt.

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With that being said, this can also come with the game having a heightened difficulty and being pretty challenging to fully beat. Most of the time, this is a purposeful decision by the devs themselves to push players to their limits, but there have also been some cases of games being unintentionally hard for one reason or another.

7 Borderlands 3

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.02

Considering the staggering amount of new abilities and weapons that are granted to players in Borderlands 3 compared to the previous game, it makes sense that it would end up being a little easier than its predecessor, but it's still far from a walk in the park. Admittedly, the difficulty can vary quite a lot according to the type of build that a player goes with, but since it can be difficult to know which skills will be the most effective in the long run, it means that it's far from easy to break the game.

The hardest sections of the game are undoubtedly the first few areas, which throw giant hordes of enemies at the player all at once, which can be tricky to deal with considering how long it can take to upgrade a character and acquire solid weapons. Of course, in classic Borderlands fashion, there are also plenty of Badass enemies and grueling bosses who can take a lot of patience and quick-thinking to take down, but so long as players use everything at their disposal, the game never becomes too overwhelming in its overall difficulty.

6 Brothers In Arms: Earned In Blood

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.04

Anyone who thinks they'll be able to just run and gun their way through Brother in Arms: Earned In Blood's story mode will be in for a pretty brutal experience, since the game pretty much forces the player to be strategic about how they play if they want to survive. To clear out each battlefield, players must be smart about how they move their soldiers around the map, especially because the friendly forces are almost always drastically outnumbered by the opposition.

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Because of how advanced the AI enemies are in Earned In Blood, it also means that they will be constantly re-positioning according to how the player moves around the map to try and get the drop on them. It's all too easy to accidentally let a small group of enemies slip around the back of the map to completely wipe out a squadron of friendly soldiers, but this can luckily be prevented if players are aware of how to utilize their troops to the best of their abilities during an intense battle.

5 Duke Nukem Forever

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.04

Considering the development hell that Duke Nukem Forever went through, it's not surprising that the game ended up being a little rough around the edges, but this has also ended up resulting in some very random difficulty spikes popping up throughout the experience. For example, while most levels aren't too bad so long as players use their environments and myriad of weapons to their advantage, bosses such as the dreaded Alien Queen and Octoking will then appear seemingly out of nowhere, and needless to say, they can be incredibly hard to defeat due to their durability and ferocious attacks.

The turret sections are also absurdly difficult at times because of the sheer number of enemies that can appear on-screen at once, and the fact that it will only take a few hits for Duke to be taken down for good. These sorts of areas feel like they could have benefited from just a little more play testing, but the game is still far from impossible to beat if players make full use of all their weapons and gadgets.

4 Borderlands 2

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.12

Because of how brutal a lot of the enemy types can be in Borderlands 2, it means that players will need to constantly replace their gear and Relics to even stand a chance of making it through each area alive. Additionally, while there are tons of fun and unique weapons in the game, the game heavily encourages players to switch out their guns as much as possible since they can end up becoming pretty ineffective not long after they're picked up.

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All of this does make a lot of sense since it feeds into the core looter-shooter gameplay loop that the series is known for, but because of how fast-paced Borderlands 2 is, it also means that it can be easy to lag behind, even when a character has reached a high level. Some characters are simply much better at surviving than others, especially in those first few hours, so if someone were to pick up Zer0, for example, just because he looks cool, they could end up making the game much harder for themselves as a result.

3 Battleborn

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.15

In stark contrast to the usual single-player experiences that Gearbox is most well known for, the developers decided to try their hand at making a MOBA back in 2016 during the rapid emergence of the genre within the industry thanks to the likes of Overwatch. Unlike its competition, which was often seen as pretty accessible and easy games to jump into, Battleborn feels like it's trying to test the player's patience at times with how needlessly hard it can be.

Rather than giving a fleshed-out tutorial or expanding on some of the game's core mechanics, such as the leveling and shard systems, these are left for the player to figure out on their own, making those first few hours pretty brutal as a result. In an attempt to harken back to the Borderlands series, Battleborn also grants players random gear after each match to equip onto a character, but considering that these can vary pretty drastically in their overall effectiveness, it means that building a character is much harder than it initially sounds.

2 Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.17

The intense challenge presented through Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway's gameplay does an excellent job of conveying just how dangerous and high-stakes every battle of the campaign is for the soldiers, resulting in the game being very immersive as a result. Players are tasked with guiding their squad of troops to victory as they complete specific objectives and take out any enemies along the way, but because debris and cover can be destroyed so easily, and the fact that the enemies are deadly accurate with their shots, it means that completing a mission with everyone still alive can be very difficult.

Being able to fulfill certain objectives will also require the player to be strategic about the types of squad variations they bring into battle since they all excel at different things, such as how the fire teams can suppress the enemy, while assault teams are more suited to flanking maneuvers. Just as the name implies, Hell's Highway is a grueling game in terms of difficulty, but this is also why so many longtime fans of the series have come to admire it so much since it can be beaten with enough determination and grit.

1 Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.37

While there have been a lot of online discussions over the years regarding which is harder between Road To Hill 30 and Hell's Highway, it's mostly agreed that the former is much more unforgiving because of the fewer options given to the player to plan out their attack strategy. For example, Road To Hill 30 only features two types of teams which can either suppress the enemy or flank, but because enemies are always spawning in the most random of places, it means that being able to even use units effectively is very challenging for most of the levels.

That's not all though, as there are even a few levels thrown into the mix where players are tasked with surviving hordes of soldiers and even tanks without any teammates to back them up. Speaking of the tanks, though they are capable of killing units with a single blast, the rocket launchers that are needed to destroy them are always placed in very hard-to-reach areas to make things even more arduous. Road To Hill 30 feels just a little too hard for its own good a lot of the time, and as a result, players will need to have just as much luck as they do skill to make it to the very end.

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