Theoretically, making a great game is a balancing act. You put together good mechanics, strong art direction, and a nice story.
Few games earn a perfect score in all categories, but most of the time, any slight stragglers are picked up by its stronger points.
But what if you get the perfect game, then make thecombat mechanics as fun as picking glass shards out of your eyeballs?
Some daring game designers have come together to do just that, resulting ingames that are so good they make you ignore how torturous the combat is. That is what this list is all about.
10STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl
All Hail Radioactive Bullet Sponges
The firstSTALKERgame came out in 2007, and it is a beautiful mess. The dark ambiance, sleazy characters, and survival-oriented gameplay loop continue to spawn little radioactive copies today.
STALKER: Shadow of Chernobylis lucky that it has great game design overall becauseits combat is nothing short of infuriating.
GSC Game World managed to cram a lot of poorcombat mechanicsinto one game, butthe bullet sponges are easily the worst offender.
10 Best Survival Games on Xbox Game Pass
Try some of the best of what the Survival genre has to offer through Xbox Game Pass
As a survival game,Shadow of Chernobylmakes ammunition scarce in the wild, and prohibitively expensive at bases.
However, even the weakest bandit wearing nothing but a trench coat often requires multiple shots to kill.
The issue becomes critical later in the game when you begin fighting the Monolith troops, covered in body armor, and sporting some of the best guns in the game.
STALKERhas an encumbrance system that freezes you in place if you get too heavy, so taking all the ammunition in the world with you is not an option.
Fortunately,the developers realized how abysmal the combat was, and refined it to a pretty good spotwithSTALKER: Clear SkyandSTALKER: Call of Pripyat.
9This War of Mine
Click, Click, Boom
Polish developer 11 bit studios is in the survival game Hall of Fame, but it is for everything besides combat.
This War of Minehas anintricate scavenging systemthat forces you to take risks if you wish to survive until the end of the war, but it emphasizes throughout thatcombat should be a last resort.
The problem here is that, as things typically go in a war zone, critical situations are a dime a dozen, so you need to defend yourself.
Fighting inThis War of Mineis reduced toclicking on the enemy every time you wish to land a punch or shoot your gun, then inevitably being blastedinto smithereens once they fire back.
Clicking is the only way to interact withThis War of Mineat all, so if you miss the attack icon by even a centimeter, your character will waddle over there trying to loot. Given how punishing the enemies are, that almost always ends up with a short trip to a shallow grave.
The enemy AI has no real tactical acumen, running up and down stairs chaotically while occasionally shouting profanities at your character. It is also possible to get locked inside a building with hostiles, even after the door was open when you came in.
To make matters worse, armed enemies will attack you on sight if you ever cross them, but this memory carries over to other members of your household despite there being no identifiable signs that you are together.
8RuneScape
Slap Olympics
RuneScapelets you live a happy life inalmost any professionthe land of Gielinor needs, but very few things look as silly as a player duel.
Seeing two goobers standing in front of each other wearing mismatched armor andtaking turns exchanging smacks to the headbelongs in front of a sleazy pub after closing time, but instead, it is the prime medium of combat in the most iconic MMORPG in the world.
The gameplay loop ofRuneScapePVP combat consists of grinding to get that armor set you swear you need, embarking on a perilous journey to the north, and then being whacked on the head a couple of times by strangers to see who prevails.
10 Best MMORPG Raid Bosses, Ranked
Raids offer veteran MMO players a chance to really test their mettle against fantastically designed Raid Bosses. Here are the best around.
The only real input you have here is right-clicking the enemy, and occasionally spamming the left mouse button to heal. Thrilling, right?
In many ways, what makesRuneScapea beautiful experience is that the journey to getting that armor or weapon of your dreams is thoroughly entertaining and filled with fun people along the way, so by the time you get to use that in combat,you have had a good time and will not mind doing it all over againwhen the slapping tournament ends in defeat.
The Most Hateful RNG
Firaxis Games made a revolutionary tactical game in 2016, where you lead the line against alien tyrants to save Earth.
XCOM 2’s combat is almost perfect, butthe entire thing comes apart because of the RNG.
Randomized elements are nothing particularly new to strategy games, but theXCOMimplementation is equal parts confusing and infuriating.
Virtually every single gameplay video or review ofXCOM 2will have a chapter dedicated to howa soldier missed an alien that is 3 meters away while having a 98.21% chance of hitting.
The RNG would not be such a problem if the game was not so punishing, but as ishaving your entire run undone by goofy numbers is deeply unsatisfying.
6Ghost Recon Wildlands
Bullet Hell in Stealth Coating
Ghost Recond Wildlandswas revolutionary when it came out in 2017.Ubisoft took a risk and made a narco-themedGTAgame, except instead of petty criminals, you play the US Army’s most dangerous and secretive unit, working under a ruthless CIA agent.
Wildlandsstands out because its combat is almost good. You have deeply satisfying tactical gameplay during mundane sections, butit is regularly undone by bullet hell sectionsthat feel straight out of the lowest points ofCall of Duty.
Many (though far from all) of these situations come in side missions, but later in the game, they constitute most of the plot quests.
The situation is made worse byWildlands’lackluster gunplay, so blasting through enemy hordes is not enjoyable.
Still, the villains and protagonists are fleshed out enough to make you forget all about it. The most tragic aspect here is that the sequel,Ghost Recon Breakpoint, made combat so much better, but forgot to add a relevant story to it.
5Medal of Honor
Peak Cinematic Airsoft
The 2010 reboot ofMedal of Honoris one of the most underrated games of its time.
Its single-player campaign isa cinematic love letter to the 2001 war in Afghanistan, while the multiplayer side came fromBattlefield’s very own at DICE.
The game has meticulous attention to detail and strives for accuracy across the board. Looking down the ACOG optic on the character’s rifle, for example, you may see the faint outline of the anti-glare device on the front side.
Missions are deeply immersive and rewarding, achieving that feeling of “I am a special forces badass” without leaning on overplayed stereotypes, unlike mostCall of Dutytitles past the firstModern Warfarepair.
The reason whyMedal of Honoris on this list though, is because, underneath the shine and love, the fighting kind of sucks.
Anyone with experience of airsoft will feel right at home here, withthe punch and weight of guns just absent.
Still, despite the weak gunplay, in a fair world, this would have been lauded as one of the best story-driven shooters ever made.
4Hearts of Iron III
Unexciting Industrial Combat
It is not a stretch to say thatHearts of IronIIIisthe peak of detailed statesmanship in gaming,and nothing will come close to it.
The Paradox hit lets you handle the most minute aspects of a country, butit all feels pointless when wars inevitably kick off,and you are greeted with combat mechanics that make tic-tac-toe look complex.
Fighting wars inHearts of Iron IIIis all about industry. Yes, logistics win wars in real life, but the issue with the game is that they win engagements alone, rather than coming out on top as time passes.
The outcome of every engagement inHearts of Iron IIIis predetermined by who churned out the most units. You have no access to the tactical side, and even simple maneuvers such as a fighting retreat are absent.
The saving grace is that the game is so intricate that you barely have time to fight, since your ministerial cabinet is showing signs of treachery, and the economy is failing.
Death by Sponsorship
There is no mistake:Fortniteis one of the most fun games to play casually, and a lot of that is due to its camp approach to combat.
For years, any given match inFortnitefollows a very specific formula. You and your mates pick up some cool guns, wipe the floor with newbies, have a couple of good fights against near-peer enemies…
…thendie an unceremonious death at the hands of Captain America’s shield, a Kamehameha, or a lightsaber that can stop all bullets by holding a button.
Fortnite’s tight relationship with big pop culture names keeps the game entertaining, but the developers frequently do an abysmal job of balancing special items.
As a result, the latematch outcomes are almost always determined by who got hold of the meta itemof the month first.
2Digimon World: Next Order
Welcome to Menu Hell
TheDigimonseries is a beautiful creature. It combines adorable monsters à laPokémonwith a penchant for dark storytelling that hits home every time.
Digimon World: Next Ordercame out for PlayStation Vita in 2016, and was later ported to PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC.
Next Ordertries to transform the fighting style from other recentDigimongames, butits result is deeply unsatisfying due to clunky game designchoices.
Whereas mostDigimontitles follow aturn-based system,Next Orderopted for a live combat one, but its execution is abysmal.
Almostevery action in combat requires multiple button presses and menu choices, making you feel like you are fighting through the Windows Start Menu.
The difficulty scales disproportionately at the end of the game, which is only made worse by yourDigimonsresetting after a while, making grinding effectively useless.
1Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories
When Easy Is Harder Than Hard
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memorieswas released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004, and while the game was revolutionary for its time, its more famous PlayStation 2 remake struggled.
For reasons only Tetsuya Nomura can explain,Square Enix decided to keep the card-shuffling combat systemfrom the Game Boy Advance, but with movement and enemies that are virtually identical to those on the PlayStation 2 Kingdom Hearts.
The awkwardness ofshuffling a card deck while being chased by hordes of enemiesreaches its zenith with the boss fights.
Re:Chain of Memoriesis all about the fabulously mysterious Organization XIII, so you spend most of your time facing off against its members. These hooded menaces have multilayered health bars, and make the late fights from the originalKingdom Heartsfeel like a piece of cake.
The frustrating part is thatRe:Chain of Memoriesis arguably the best game in theKingdom Heartsseries.The plot seamlessly bridges elements ofKingdom Hearts 1and2while giving plenty of airtime to a fantastic set of antagonists.
The only place where card-shuffling live combat belongs is in a game about Gambit from theX-Men.
