10 Video Game Hard Modes Hidden Behind Unique Challenges

Playing in hard mode is already a challenge in and of itself, however some games, including

of course the ones I'm about to tell you about, decide to make you unlock it anyway

behind a whole set of other challenges. The fruits of hard labour have never tasted so bitter as they do with the following secret

hard modes as your reward for taking on the challenge of unlocking them is to be able

to suffer even more. I'm Jess from WhatCulture and here are 10 video game hard modes hidden behind unique challenges

10. Wes, don't starve. The survival game Don't Starve offers players up with a suite of different characters who all have their own abilities and special quirks

Most of these characters are locked by gaming experience points, but some of them are locked behind special challenges

so you need to complete those in the game if you want to access them. To make things more interesting, one of these special characters is designed specifically to make survival more difficult

Wes is a secret mine character, and if you want to play as him, you'll need to rescue him during Maxwell's challenge maps

He's considered a hard-mode character by Don't Stop's community, as he has the lowest stats of all the characters in the game

and being a mime, he's unable to speak, forcing you to identify objects and Wes's needs all by yourself

The character's designed with veteran players in mind, providing them with a considerable challenge when they want to survive

without any extra gimmicks and with barely enough health and sanity to feel comfortable

Which is probably why the game asks you to complete a set of challenges before you can play as him

Number 9. Frisk Undertale Undertale is full to the brim with secrets and easter eggs

Its special hard mode is, in fact, an interesting combination of the two

The mode is a secret that can only be unlocked in the intro sequence of the game

When Flowey asks for your name, you can input Frisk, and if you do so, you'll be thrown into a special, super tricky version of the game that, quote

will make your life a living hell. And yeah, it really does that

The mode only works until the end of Ruins, but it still makes the enemies there significantly stronger

and alters some minor things in the later parts of the game, like erasing the labels on switches

and disabling the effects of certain items. The fun thing about Undertale's hard mode

is that despite it not requiring the player to finish the game, you technically still need to do it

to learn the protagonist's true identity and have the idea to use it as their name

It's an interesting reward for players who are attentive enough to learn this secret in the first place

and then decide to apply it in a creative way. Number 8. Mad Chainsaw Resident Evil 4 Demo

Resident Evil 4 Remake's demo version is a rare example of free preview content

that's worth playing even if you've had the chance to play the full release

The reason for this is the secret hard mode that Capcom hid inside the demo version

Named Mad Chainsaw Mode the difficulty setting makes all the enemies on the map map significantly more difficult and replaces some of them with brand new supercharged variants that make survival a nightmarishly impossible task

On top of that, the enemy placement is randomized, so you can't rely on your previous knowledge of the game

Mad Chainsaw Mode cannot be unlocked normally. You either have to be lucky and have it randomly trigger on one of your playthroughs, or use a cheat code

The mode is an interesting addition to the demo, as it turns it into something of an odd arcade game

You don't play it to see what the remake has to offer, you play it to see how long you can survive this nightmarish rendition of the game

A game which is already its own nightmarish rendition, so there you go

Number 7. Charismatic Autobiography, Yakuza 0 The Yakuza series is known for two things

ridiculous over-the-top comedy and ridiculous over-the-top combat. These two things are combined in its secret hard mode item from Yakuza 0

called the Charismatic Autobiography. The Charismatic Autobiography is a special item that you obtain in Kiryu's sixth substory

The item's description says that it causes enemies to swarm you in battle

but that's really the tip of the iceberg. In reality, the Charismatic Autobiography causes all of the NPCs in the game to attack you on sight

The NPCs are also a little stronger, making the game feel more like a horror survival title than your typical Yakuza game

No matter where you go and what you do, as long as you have the charismatic autobiography equipped

you can expect an endless parade of battles with random strangers that'll test your skills and your patience

The item is supposed to pose a massive challenge, and it's trickier than any of the other hard modes that the game has to offer

Because, you know, the true hard mode is the enemies we made along the way. number six Richter Castlevania Symphony of the Night Castlevania Symphony of the Night differs

from the other entries in the series in that it doesn't put you in control of a monster hunting

Belmont family member instead your main character is Dracula's son Alucard who clearly wasn't too

creative when making up a nickname for himself all of this said if you do want to play as a Belmont

there's actually a hidden cheat code that enables you to do so all you need to do is type Richter in

the name entry screen and Alucard will be transformed into Richter Belmont who has his

own unique moveset and is considered a much harder character to play as. You see unlike Alucard Richter

doesn't have access to vampiric abilities or upgradable items. This makes both combat and

exploration more difficult which combined with the fact that Richter is also easier to kill

creates a far less forgiving experience. It takes time to learn how to use Richter's limited abilities

but once you do, there is something strangely satisfying about defeating the final boss

Dracula with only a whip and your own skills Number 5 Super Sabers Star Wars Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith Super Sabers is a secret cheat code from the 2005 Revenge of the Sith game

that plays a bit of a trick on the player. From the sound of it, you'd think the cheat would give your characters

special lightsabers that would make fighting easier. In reality, the cheat activates a special hard mode

that doesn't give you a lightsaber. It gives all of your enemies lightsabers

and they're huge and super hard to dodge. Yes, as a cruel joke at the player's expense

Super Sabers equips your enemies with lightsabers that take up pretty much the entirety of the screen

Just the visual itself is pretty ridiculous, but if that wasn't enough

the elongated lightsabers actually come with a larger hitbox, turning every fight into a life-or-death game of jump rope

It takes great dexterity and reflexes to have even the slightest chance of beating any of the force-wielding bosses

You might think you're clever for figuring out the cheat code, but as soon as you see the results of it

you're going to be absolutely humbled, as this is way harder than anything else the game has to offer

Number four, State of Emergency, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. In the final act of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas

the entire city of Los Santos becomes a burning mess of riots and police raids

that make even crossing a single street a near-death experience. The shift is meant to signify the finality of CJ's fight against his enemies and provide an extra challenge in the last few missions of the game

Now imagine how terrible it would be if you had to play the entire game in this state

Well, as it turns out, this is actually possible with a special mode that you can activate using the State of Emergency cheat code

This mode enables the epilogue riots to happen permanently, turning every civilian hostile and making police and military attacks frequent

Playing the game turns into a brand new challenge at this point as you try to complete missions while simultaneously dodging incoming attacks

from angry pedestrians and officers. It's a fun secret that adds some spice to your gameplay

if for some reason you felt your criminal undertakings in Los Santos

were not difficult or chaotic enough. And if you want to make this mode even harder

you can use another cheat code to give all pedestrians rocket launches

I don't know why you'd do that, but you can. Number 3. 1999 Mode, Bioshock Infinite

The Konami Code is one of the earliest cheat codes in gaming and a huge part of its history

After it was introduced in Contrap, the cheat became so famous that many other games decided to use the same exact sequence for their own exploits

Bioshock Infinite is one of these titles, as you probably guessed from all the entries so far, and it unlocks a spirit-crushing hard mode

If you know the Konami code and are curious enough to use it in the game menu Bioshock Infinite rewards you with a special difficulty setting called 1999 mode Choosing it will immediately warn you that it will not make the game feel like Bioshock and it really easy to see why Not only does the mode make

enemies overpowered, it also affects your respawns. You get a lower number of them

and if you do die, you have to pay money to come back, adding a whole new wrinkle to the

Bioshock experience. 1999 mode can also be unlocked by finishing the game, but you gotta

admit it feels better to unlock it using your knowledge of the decades old Konami code tradition

2. Dante Must Die – Devil May Cry 5 The funny thing about Devil May Cry 5 is that the hardest boss in the game is the one you fight in

the beginning. The game's main antagonist and final boss, Yurizen, makes an appearance in the

intro sequence to wipe the floor with you while you're still severely under-equipped and have no

grasp on the game's mechanics. Your defeat in the fight is what sets off the course of the rest of

the game. However, the fight isn't scripted. You can kill Eurozen if you manage to, and there are

some interesting endgame states if you can pull it off. When you defeat the intro Eurozen for the

first time, you unlock a secret ending that goes straight to the credits and a special hard mode

called Son of Sparta. However, this is only where the fun begins. You see, if you manage to defeat

the undefeatable again on the new difficulty, the feat will reward you with an even harder game

mode called Dante Must Die, which grants every enemy access to Dante's Devil Trigger. The

difficulties can technically also be obtained by just finishing the game, but trying to unlock it

this way does feel a lot more impressive. Number 1. Lars Bone Divine Divinity. Divine Divinity

Larian Studios' 2002 action RPG, is a game that hides its special hard mode setting behind a

challenge of a completely different kind, the player's actual computer skills. If you want to

try out the greatest challenge that the game has to offer, I hope you paid attention in IT class

because the way to access this isn't actually within the game. You gotta go dig into the game's

files and alter them. Don't worry, the process is actually fairly simple when you know what to do

All it takes is going into the data folder of the game and then creating a new file called

bone.000. Once the file is created, a new difficulty mode called Lars Bone should show

up in the options, which will cause the game to spawn endless hordes of extra powerful enemies

The difficulty is ridiculously hard, but the true challenge lies in the peculiar way of finding it

You wouldn't be able to tell the difficulty even exists without hacking the game and discovering

the missing file. Now, whether that means Lars Bone was meant to be played only by the most

hardcore Divine Divinity fans or none at all is a matter for a whole other discussion

However, seeing how impossibly hard and broken the setting is, it's possible the answer is the latter, but let me know what you reckon in the comments