5 Hardest Platformers Ever Made, Ranked by Difficulty
Polygon presents a ranked list of the five most difficult platformer games ever made, diving into titles that push the genre’s core mechanics to extreme and punishing levels. While platformers have long been celebrated as gaming’s comfort food—known for their accessible fun, colorful aesthetics, and beautifully simple gameplay since classics like Super Mario Bros.—a select few games in the genre amplify these familiar elements to brutal degrees.
Rather than removing the core jumping and obstacle-avoidance gameplay that fans enjoy, these hardest platformers layer in countless hazards, hostile enemies, and challenging level designs that make completing them seem virtually impossible even for experienced players. The ranking explores how certain developers have intentionally crafted games designed to test the limits of player skill and patience, transforming the genre’s typically inviting escapism into grueling endurance tests.
These platformers represent the opposite end of the spectrum from the genre’s mainstream appeal, offering hardcore players a genuinely punishing experience that demands mastery of precise controls and memorization of intricate level layouts. The article examines what makes these titles so exceptionally difficult and why some gamers are drawn to these punishing challenges despite their seemingly unfair difficulty spikes.