5 hardest turn-based RPGs of the 2020s

The 2020s have proven to be a thrilling period of time for turn-based role-playing games, offering a rich variety of strategic experiences for tactical enthusiasts. However, a specific subset of developers has pushed back against modern design trends that prioritize power fantasies and forgiving accessibility options.

Surviving these ruthless digital gauntlets demands meticulous preparation, deep mechanical literacy, and a high tolerance for punishing setbacks in order to survive. Whether gamers prefer the updated visuals of a polished 2020s title or a throwback for nostalgia’s sake, there are plenty of games available to cater to both groups.

Wasteland 3 Makes Every Single Move More Important Than the Last

Launching in late 2020, inXile Entertainment's tactical isometric RPG transports players to the frozen post-apocalyptic Colorado. Controlling a team of Arizona Rangers trying to establish a foothold in a hostile region, players are thrust into grid-based tactical battles where cover mechanics, sight lines, and action point allocation govern every encounter.

Wasteland 3 presents an unforgiving difficulty curve where enemy squads utilize high-powered military weaponry and flank maneuvers to eliminate squad members in a single turn. Combat is brutally lethal, operating under an initiative system that favors whichever side initiates contact or wins the initial turn order.

On higher difficulty settings like Supreme Jerk, enemy damage output scales to absurd heights, turning simple cover shooters into high-stakes puzzles where allowing a single enemy unit to act can wipe out half the squad. Players must build their characters, balancing weapon proficiencies with armor penetration metrics, status effects, and utility skills just to keep pace with the escalation of force.

Resource scarcity adds another layer of strategic tension to the campaign. Ammunition for high-tier weaponry is extremely expensive and scarce, forcing players to diversify their arsenal rather than rely on a single dominant gun type. Wasteland 3 punishes sloppy tactical play, making every battle an exercise in risk mitigation.

Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game Avoids Making Players Grind

Developed by Iron Tower Studio and released out of early access in 2023, this sci-fi RPG takes place aboard a decaying ship traveling to Proxima Centauri. Trapped within a brutal, faction-ridden starship where generations of inhabitants have lived and died in transit, players navigate a grim world where combat is rarely a recommended solution.

The developer deliberately built the encounter design around realistic lethality, ensuring that every battle in Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game feels like a struggle for survival. Combat mechanics rely heavily on hit probabilities, armor damage reduction values, and limb-specific targeting systems that punish bad tactical decisions.

Weapons feature recoil patterns, reload costs, and penetration values, which leads to draining ammunition stock if players fire blindly into heavily-armored enemies. Enemies actively use flashbangs, smoke grenades, and aggressive positioning to suppress player characters, frequently causing crippling injuries like fractured ribs or eye damage that persist after combat ends.

What makes the experience exceptionally hard is the complete lack of grinding or filler combat. Every single fight in the game is a hand-crafted encounter with fixed enemy stats and tactical setups, preventing players from overleveling to brute-force a tough battle. Progress requires flawless character optimization, clever use of gadgets like personal energy shields or deployable cover, and knowing when to talk or hack one's way past a conflict.

Battle Brothers Turns Average Humans Into Capable Warriors

While the base version debuted on PC earlier, the early 2020s saw Overhype Studios' ruthless mercenary simulator expand to console platforms with its full suite of challenging DLC expansions intact. Set in a low-fantasy medieval world plagued by war, beasts, and undead hordes, Battle Brothers puts players in charge of a mercenary company where death is permanent and life is cheap.

The low-power setting means recruits are not chosen heroes, but rather peasants, bankrupt nobles, and tailors who can perish from a single blow. Tactical combat takes place on a hex-based grid where terrain elevation, fatigue management, and morale determine the outcome of engagements.

Shield walls, spearwall formations, and armor durability govern front-line survival, while hit chances are affected by ambient lighting, height advantages, and line-of-sight obstructions. Enemies vary wildly in their tactics, ranging from armored Orc warriors who breach defensive lines with raw strength to ancient undead armies that never tire and raise fallen soldiers back into combat.

The overworld campaign management is just as punishing as the tactical battles. Players must balance the company budget, buying food, medical supplies, tools for armor repair, and daily wages for their group. A single disastrous contract can leave the best veterans dead or permanently crippled with missing eyes or broken elbows, forcing players to rebuild their roster from scratch with broke recruits.

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance Punishes Poor Planning

Serving as the definitive edition of Atlus' JRPG franchise, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance refines and expands upon a battle system famous for crushing unprepared players. Set in a ruined version of Tokyo overrun by angels and demons, the game demands total mastery of its Press Turn battle mechanics.

Exploiting an enemy's weakness grants extra action points for the party, but missing an attack, hitting a reflective shield, or having an enemy target the party's weakness passes those exact same action advantages to the foe. The difficulty stems from how ruthlessly the game penalizes a single tactical misstep or poor team composition.

Boss encounters function as strict mechanical check points that actively destroy generic, unoptimized parties through massive area-of-effect spells, stat debuffs, and instant-kill ailments. If the protagonist dies in combat, it results in an immediate game over screen, forcing players to treat every boss turn with extreme caution, using defensive shields, stat manipulation, and taunt mechanics to avoid an untimely death.

Success relies on a continuous, highly analytical process of demon fusion to constantly craft new teammates with specific passive skills and elemental affinities. The sheer mechanical depth, combined with aggressive artificial intelligence that aggressively targets the weakest party members, ensures that every major victory feels earned through careful strategy.

Darkest Dungeon II Makes Stress Management Extremely Vital

Redesigning the dark gothic challenge of its predecessor into a grueling roguelike road trip, Red Hook Studios' 2023 sequel tests player sanity across a crumbling, apocalyptic world. Players command a stagecoach transporting four heroes through apocalyptic landscapes to reach a distant mountain, fighting eldritch horrors and mutated cultists along the way.

Combat utilizes a refined four-position line system where hero and enemy skills are strictly tied to their physical order on the battlefield. The difficulty of Darkest Dungeon II is anchored by its complex token system and the psychological Stress mechanic.

Combat moves apply positive and negative status tokens like blind, dodge, vulnerability, and block that must be continuously calculated and countered during every turn. Meanwhile, high Stress levels cause team members to suffer mental Meltdowns, dropping their health to critical thresholds, damaging their combat stats, and destroying their relationships with fellow party members through toxic bickering.

These relationship dynamics add a volatile layer of difficulty to every run. Heroes who despise each other will actively block each other's abilities, refuse healing spells, or inflict unwanted stress on allies during combat actions. With limited resources to repair the stagecoach, cure diseases, or calm frayed nerves at local Inns, surviving a run demands constant crisis management.