Top 20 HARDEST Video Game Puzzles Ever

We all love good brain teases in our video games, but these puzzles were way too hard! For this list, we’ll be looking at obtuse, challenging, and occasionally illogical puzzles in video games. Our countdown includes The Black Monolith from "Fez" (2012), Chamber 18 from "Portal" (2007), Hatching the Owl from “Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake” (1990), Myahm Agana Apparatus from “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” (2017), and more! Which of these puzzles did you find the toughest? Let us know in the comments below!

#20: Lt. Surge’s Power Switches

“Pokémon Red and Blue” (1998)

Gotta press em’ all! In the first entry of Nintendo’s earth-shatteringly popular franchise, your job is to become the very best (like no one ever was). Standing in your way are eight tough gym leaders, including the electricity based Lt. Surge. While Surge is no pushover, getting to him is a pain, as you have to press two buttons that are randomly located in one of the many trash cans around the room. If you get one wrong, the switches will relocate, turning the puzzle into tedious trial and error. Too bad you can’t get Pikachu to short out the gym’s power.

#19: Naga Sadow’s Tomb

“Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” (2003)

It’d take someone as wise as Yoda to get this one on the first try. While exploring the tomb of ancient Sith Lord Naga Sadow, the player character and their party face many dangers, like terrifying and violent beasts, and dastardly traps. But the tomb’s most diabolical secret is a ring puzzle. To open the tomb, you need to transfer four rings of power from one pillar to another, but only the rings highest on their respective pillars can be moved, and you can’t move one ring above a ring in a higher position. While the rules are simple, the solution requires the forethought and patience of a Jedi.

#18: Rotating Road Sign

“Grim Fandango” (1998)

It’s really easy to get lost in these woods. The cult-classic adventure game, directed by Tim Schafer, contains plenty of his trademark humor. Unfortunately, it also contains his penchant for nonsensical solutions to what should be simple problems. Early on, protagonist Manny finds himself lost in the Petrified Forest. He’s carrying a road sign, and every time he puts it down it points in a new direction. Obviously, it’s pointing which direction you need to go, right? Nope. It’s actually pointing to where you need to place the sign itself, which then activates a secret passage. You’ll likely be as dead as Manny before you figure that out.

#17: Myahm Agana Apparatus

“The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” (2017)

There’s no fate more terrible than having to solve a puzzle with janky motion controls. In one of the countless shrines in Nintendo’s massive open world adventure, Link is forced to take a break from exploring, fighting and horseback riding to solve what should be a fast and simple puzzle involving navigating a ball through a maze. But the forced motion controls turn the would-be exercise in precision into an exercise in frustration, as the slightest false move will send the ball into a bottomless pit. Luckily, there is an easier solution. All you have to do is think outside the box. Or in this case, outside the maze.

#16: Hypnotize the Monkey

“Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge” (1991)

He may fight like a dairy farmer, but he solves puzzles like a pro. In the sequel to the original LucasArts cult-classic, affable pirate Guybrush Threepwood comes across a waterfall that can be turned off with a pump. To work the pump, Guybrush needs a wrench. Nothing a quick trip to the local hardware store can’t solve, right? Except instead, Guybrush needs to find a piano-playing monkey, stick a banana on the monkey’s time-keeping metronome, and then steal the hypnotized monkey and use the poor simian as a wrench. Get it? It’s a monkey wrench. Did we mention Tim Schafer also worked on this game?

#15: Chapter 10

“Hotel Dusk: Room 215” (2007)

For a salesman, former detective Kyle Hyde sure gets into a lot of trouble. In this noir-themed visual novel, the game’s last chapter also fittingly involves one of its toughest and most nerve wracking puzzles. Trapped in an airtight room and quickly running out of air, Kyle must boot up an old computer. Armed only with his wits, a pencil, a nail file, and the Nintendo DS’s extra features, Kyle uses the pencil’s graphite to give the PC the charge it needs to turn on. Add the life or death time limit, and this is one mystery that’s tough to forget, no matter how many times you get hit in the head.

#14: Hatching the Owl

“Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake” (1990)

A Hideo Kojima puzzle as confusing as his narratives… great. Before Snake went 3D with “Metal Gear Solid”, he was giving guards the slip in two dimensions in the second installment of the Metal Gear series. But when a top-secret facility is guarded by an impenetrable laser fence, there’s only one way to sneak in: find a random egg, walk up to the facility’s gate, wait for the egg to hatch into an owl, and release the owl, which will then hoot, convincing one of the guards that it’s night time, and thus time to turn off the laser grid. Get it? Got it? Good.

#13: Selenitic Age

“Myst” (1993)

To get through this level, you’ll have to keep both your mind and your ears open. In this expansive point and click adventure game, it’s very easy to get lost, but the most notoriously difficult area is the maze-like island known as the Selenitic Age. The labyrinthine world is filled with dead-ends and wrong turns, making a pen and pencil a must to keep track of where you are. But while map-making is par for the course with Myst, the twist in the Selenitic Age is how you navigate: mainly, by listening to different sounds around the island. So walk softly, and carry a solid pair of headphones.

#12: Sealing off the Smell

“Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box” (2009)

We wonder if Professor Layton’s homework is as hard as the brain-twisters he solves for a living. Case in point: A grocery store owner named Garland asks the good Professor to help him seal up a container of garlic to cut off the stinky smell. But while the container has three openings at the top, the Professor only has two corks to plug them with. While it may seem like you need to find the right combination of where to place the two corks on the container, the actual answer is almost maddeningly simple: you’re supposed to use the two corks to plug Garland’s nostrils. When in doubt, follow your nose.

#11: The Challenge

“The Witness” (2016)

“Challenge” is a bit of an understatement. In the beautiful and riddle-filled world of “The Witness”, the optional and secret Challenge features some of the toughest and most brain-melting puzzles of all. After discovering the secret area known as the Caves, the player must solve several line-drawing puzzles, using every previously introduced mechanic in the game to find the solutions. And while walkthroughs might help with the puzzles in the main game, they’re next to useless here, because every puzzle in the Challenge has randomly generated elements, meaning no amount of internet knowledge will save you… But when you solve it, you get an achievement. So, there’s that…

#10: The Cigar Wrapper

"Ripley's Believe It or Not!: The Riddle of Master Lu" (1995)

This game, based on the famous Ripley's books and attractions, sees you as Ripley himself as he travels the world. In this specific puzzle, a guard to a temple asks you for a ring in order to gain entrance. After looking around forever and not finding one, you have to figure out that you have to take the cigar from your inventory and pop off the cigar band, and then use THAT as a ring. It's both challenging and frustrating due to the fact that the game never hints at the possibility that you could just…fake it.

#9: Shakespeare's Stanzas

"Silent Hill 3" (2003)

The Silent Hill series are a bunch of terrifying games. But this puzzle in the 3rd swapped our fear for frustration, just like the piano puzzle from the original. The player must organize Shakespeare books in order to be given a clue. On the hardest difficulty, the clues are written in Shakespearian English and reference the plays, and the player has to figure out which play the clue is referring to. Not only that, but specific clues reference the need to change numbers from the completed order. It's a confusing mess.

#8: Goat Puzzle

"Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars" (1996)

As an American tourist unraveling a conspiracy in Paris, you come across a goat blocking the entrance to a castle. Attempts to walk past him only end in head butting. The solution is simple: allow him to butt you, ... no really, then get up quicker than usual, run to a piece of farm machinery, and have him attempt to butt you again, only to get tangled in the machinery, allowing you to pass. Technically it’s easy, but it's also not very intuitive because you’re left to assume that having him hit you is a failure.

#7: The Babel Fish Puzzle

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (1984)

We're going way back for this one. Based on the book series of the same name, this text adventure game has you traveling the universe, and getting stuck on a very serious puzzle. Usually, the fish dispenses but slips away under a drain. No worries! All you need to do is put a towel over the drain, (We hope you remembered to bring one). Then steal a character's satchel to put in front of the panel. After that, you put some junk mail on the satchel and press the dispenser. This was so notoriously hard, Infocom sold t-shirts that read, "I got the Babel Fish!"

#6: Chamber 18

"Portal" (2007)

"Portal", a game about solving puzzles using a gun that creates two portals to travel through, is rife with challenging puzzles, but Chamber 18 is the worst. It's an overall challenging chamber, full of sections not fit to shoot, turrets you have to dispose of, ledge jumping, and platform riding. Basically, everything which goes into puzzle games has gone into this chamber. What makes it even worse are the timed switch sections that keep you on your toes.

#5: The Water Sample

"Resident Evil 3: Nemesis" (1999)

The third title in the classic game series finds Jill Valentine wandering through Raccoon City attempting to avoid the Nemesis, but her greatest challenge might be this brain teaser. The puzzle is like a reverse Tetris, in which the player has to rearrange the colored cubes in order to complete a specific combination of wave ranges. It’s difficult due to the constant back and forth between wave ranges and the fact that the result is different for each play through. The annoying beeping sound throughout the puzzle doesn’t help, either.

#4: The Rubber Ducky Puzzle

"The Longest Journey" (2000)

In this puzzle in the cult classic point and click adventure, you need to recover a dropped key from a subway rail. So what do you do? Scatter crumbs from an apartment window so a seagull will peck a rubber duck in the canal below, causing it to flow down the river. Then locate the duck, tie a line to a clamp, put it through the keyhole, re-inflate the duck, then position it like a fishing line over the key so the duck deflates and traps the key. Quite insane when you think about it.

#3: The Black Monolith

"Fez" (2012)

This platforming/puzzle game brought about a community of players that has rarely been seen in any other video game. First, you have to stand in a specific area of a level and input a set of buttons to make the monolith appear. Then the player has to input another specific set of buttons again in order to complete the puzzle. The buttons are so obscure and complex that many players simply believed it unsolvable, and it was only figured out with a massive coordinated effort from the community.

#2: The Mustache

"Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned" (1999)

This game, about an infant kidnapped from a Scottish family of nobles, has one of the most frustrating and nonsensical puzzles in all of gaming. In order to take a reserved motorcycle, the player has to impersonate the man with the reservation by resembling the picture in his passport. This leads to finding clothes, but the infamous part is where you have to put tape on a hole in a door, spray a cat, have it run into the tape, and then steal the hair off said tape to make a fake mustache. Why you couldn’t just draw one on your face with a sharpie is beyond me.

#1: Name That Gnome

"King's Quest" (1984)

The Knight Grahame is stopped by a gnome and forced to guess his name. Some people figured the gnome was Rumpelstiltskin, but a clue urges players to "think backwards" so naturally the spelling it backwards means his name should be whatever the hell that is backwards, right? Well actually no. The alphabet has to be reversed not the letters, meaning A is Z, B is Y, etc., making his name a horrible vomitus concoction of letters. Mind you, in the 2001 remake you can actually use Rumplestiltskin backwards to guess his name, probably because no one else could figure out or guess that you had to reverse the alphabet.