10 Video Game Enemies That Made You Turn The Console Off
Sifu doesn't hold ANYTHING back.
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00:00 In so many ways, video game difficulty can just feel cheap. By definition of how it's coded,
00:05 a developer starts with enemies and design that would reduce you to a fine paste,
00:08 before working backwards, creating a space for the player to exist, counter-attack,
00:12 figure out what needs to be done and implemented, all while keeping the pressure on.
00:16 It's a ludicrously tough balancing act to get right, and though many of the following are
00:20 championed for pushing you to the absolute brink of losing it, there are those that go too far,
00:25 making you want to take a breather, reassess or give up altogether.
00:29 I'm Scott from RockCulture.com and these are 10 Video Game Enemies That Made You Turn The Console
00:33 Off.
00:34 Number 10, Flying Drone - Returnal
00:36 Talk about the exact moment you noped out and walked away from a game.
00:40 Returnal is one of those titles that walk the very thin line of asking so much of the player,
00:45 literally pushing you to the brink of pure, utter frustration, while giving you enough
00:49 gameplay possibilities to potentially make it through. It's demanding and excruciatingly
00:54 difficult, this 3D take on the bullet hell genre sometimes wiping you out through the
00:59 environment because some enemy attacks can catch you anywhere, the screen often a snowstorm of
01:04 laser death waiting to ruin your current run. The suicide drones in third area Derelict Citadel
01:09 though, they're something else entirely. Barely giving you enough time to comprehend what's up
01:14 ahead, these things charge right at you, dealing a ton of damage or just one-shotting you,
01:19 with the only solution being a perfectly timed dodge, something you'll likely miss the first
01:24 handful of times. At time of writing, only 31% of people have overcome this third area,
01:30 with forum posts across the board citing this exact encounter on the stairs as when they put
01:34 Returnal down for good.
01:36 Number 9, Basileusks - Dark Souls
01:39 There's nothing worse in video games than thinking your actual save is irrevocably broken,
01:44 that you've done something that means no matter what else can happen, there's a world state or
01:48 gameplay affecting issue locked to progression. Enter the Dark Souls Basileusks, coming at you
01:53 with leaps and swipes but worst of all, breathing a wide-reaching mist that turns your character to
01:58 stone on the spot, cursing you as a status effect. What does that mean? Well, your health is now
02:04 halved. You can't turn human to get help from other players, nor can you get any of the benefits
02:08 of being human, like increased healing from your estus flask. The many gotcha moments of Dark Souls
02:14 are well documented now, but discovering these creatures in a gated off sewer area surrounded
02:19 by poisonous slimes dropping from the ceiling was one hell of a "sorry, what?" reaction in 2011.
02:25 Number 8, Shinobi Hunter - Sekiro - Shadows Die Twice
02:28 Another quickie from the masters of "I'mma head out", Sekiro's Shinobi Hunter often ties with the
02:33 Chained Ogre as where a lot of people realise Shadows Die Twice just wasn't for them. Where
02:38 the ogre has legit broken hitboxes grabbing you with its football tackle dive even if you're
02:42 literally standing outside its arms, the Shinobi Hunter is the first enemy to demand you perfect
02:48 the Makiri Counter, an animation where you charge into its thrust attack to parry effectively. The
02:53 real brainbreaker is you're otherwise taught to avoid what's coming when this specific attack
02:57 icon appears on screen, but here it's the opposite, because from software. Sekiro's whole thing is
03:03 letting your muscle memory and reactions build over time to eventually nail this, but so many
03:08 players hated being poked and prodded from afar by this super quick enemy anyway that even wanting
03:13 to figure out the process was too much. Number 7, Lynels - The Legend of Zelda - Breath of the
03:19 Wild Besides silver bokoblins being out of nowhere
03:22 one-shot machine variants of otherwise starter enemies, Breath of the Wild's first "oh, guess
03:26 I'll die then" moment comes with the Lynels. Hulking centaur-like creatures bearing down on
03:31 you with arcing swipes and mobility in equal measure, if you've not mastered the game's slow
03:36 motion attack window that comes from a perfect dodge, you're gonna go down over and over and
03:41 over again. Nintendo really know what they're playing with here too. Chances are the first
03:46 Lynel you'll find will be solo, wandering an open area fairly nonchalantly, letting you walk up and
03:51 discover this private hell all on your own. Later though, you'll end up trapped in circular rooms
03:56 with one, especially if you're seeing everything the final Hyrule Castle space has to offer,
04:00 and that's when you'll either survive or give up entirely.
04:04 Number 6, The Honey Badger - Far Cry 4 - Red Dead Redemption Whether it's Red Dead Redemption's
04:08 Panthers or Far Cry's own random eagle attacks, some open world games with realistic aping food
04:13 chains like to throw a predator your way every now and then. The Honey Badgers in Far Cry 4,
04:18 though, took the cake. Ludicrously feral, hyper-aggressive creatures designed to almost
04:22 be wrestling kayfabe versions of their real world selves, they'll get all up in your face no matter
04:27 if you're in combat or just strolling around the environment. Brilliantly, even NPCs and enemies
04:32 will turn their attention to these badgers, firing wildly or collectively freaking out that a Honey
04:37 Badger is carving its way across camp. These miniature woodchippers will put an end to
04:41 whatever you had planned, but in a nod to how crazy OP they feel, follow-up Far Cry Primal did
04:46 let you tame them and wreak havoc yourself. Number 5, Armoured Cantuses - Gears of War 2
04:51 Onwards Gears' horde mode runs were such a capital T time for 2000s gaming. Introduced in Gears of
04:57 War 2, the idea of tackling 50 waves of enemies with a set group of friends is something I'd
05:02 literally recommend to anyone. Also brought in across Gears 2 were the Cantuses, dodge-heavy
05:07 twin-machine pistol-toting a-holes that were just annoying to pin down. Screaming at you while their
05:12 armoured variants soaked up a ton of damage, they'd even bring back other downed enemies to
05:17 keep the pressure on, if you weren't positioned well enough to flank and stop them. As Horde is
05:21 all about teamwork, the Cantuses feel specifically designed to exploit chinks in your group armour.
05:26 As they can soak up a ludicrous amount of damage, even standing inside a Hammer of Dawn's Beam for
05:31 what feels like forever, any lone player trying to take one on would get wiped immediately. This
05:36 often led to a clown car of revives and downs that ended your glorious run to victory right there.
05:41 Number 4, The Creeper - Minecraft You have to hand it to Mojang,
05:45 making a game about building whatever shared utopian paradise you like, but also including
05:50 an enemy that even through a wall without you knowing, could blast apart a solid afternoon's
05:54 worth of survival and construction. Literally, these things exist to slink up to you in total
05:59 silence. Stand there until you whirl around to see their soulless faces, then blow up on the spot,
06:04 obliterating everything, often including yourself, in one swift move. Over the years,
06:09 dedicated Minecraft builders simply won't engage with the modes of the game that feature these
06:13 things, but for any of us feeling Minecraft out that very first time, they're a total menace.
06:18 Number 3, Jackal Snipers - Halo 2 on Legendary Part of me just wanted to include every annoying
06:24 hitscan ranged enemy here, as from Uncharted to Spider-Man, all those Anor Londo archers in Dark
06:29 Souls, there's nothing more fun killing than being wiped out from across the map.
06:33 Let's drill down on Halo's Jackal Snipers though. Not much of a bother on lower difficulties unless
06:38 you play your card spectacularly wrong, on Hard or especially Legendary, Jackal Snipers became a meme,
06:44 a shared infuriation from hardcore players as their AI would always get the better of you no
06:49 matter what. It's precisely because they can be knocked out with a swift melee that those end of
06:54 fight killshots are so annoying. Chief's shields are already screaming for a recharge, you know
06:59 what's about to hit you, but you can't close the distance or evade fast enough to avoid doing the
07:04 whole thing over again. Throw in the occasional flood enemy with a rocket launcher and you're
07:08 not making it through original Halo 2's toughest difficulty.
07:11 Number 2, Sean - Sifu The enemy that caused level completion
07:15 percentages to half from Sifu's first level to its second, Sean had to be actively patched by
07:20 developer Slowclap in the game's release week, simply because he was stopping the majority of
07:25 consumers seeing what the hell they'd just bought. Obviously super tough early bosses have their
07:29 place, hello Ninja Gaiden, but the issue with Sean was that you barely knew what you were doing
07:34 wrong. Closing distance and coming at you with a range of swipe attacks that need to be actively
07:38 sway dodged on the spot rather than tap blocked or parried as Sifu had been prioritising, scores
07:43 of players would fight through the whole level, get destroyed by a boss using a technique they
07:48 could barely comprehend, and would give up entirely. Honestly, mastering Sifu has been
07:53 the most enjoyable and rewarding experience of my gaming year so far in 2022. Getting its sway
07:58 animations down almost breaks the game with how many enemies and bosses you can then exploit,
08:03 but boy if Sean isn't a massive walking roadblock unless you really put the time in.
08:08 And number 1, the Marauder - Doom Eternal Single-handedly designed to be one of those
08:13 enemies we talk about for the rest of time, an awful encounter that actually binds us together
08:17 through sheer shared hatred, the Marauder might be the single reason only 36% of people on
08:23 PlayStation have even finished Doom Eternal on any difficulty. Why? Because he requires a
08:28 completely different tack to any other enemy in the game. Where everything else can largely be
08:32 taken down through a glorious mix of tanking hits through armour, chainsaw health pickups,
08:36 and a lot of gunfire, the Marauder can only be hit at all if you maintain a specific distance.
08:42 Too far and he'll throw energy bolts your way while unleashing a dog that's too close and the
08:46 shield goes up while it attacks with a devastating axe. The only way to do anything is maintain an
08:51 invisible amount of distance you have to feel out amongst the chaos, triggering a lightning-fast
08:56 attack that can finally be interrupted, giving you a millisecond of opportunity to get some hits in.
09:01 Doom Eternal's reputation feels notably mixed, even years after release. I hazard to guess
09:06 it's because of encounters like this. And those are just 10 video game enemies that
09:11 made you turn the console off. Let me know your favourites down in the comments below,
09:14 and please subscribe to the War Culture Gaming Podcast.
09:17 For now, I've been Scott from warculture.com, and I'll catch you soon.