Everyone knows that video games are bushels of fun to play, and what makes a video game fun can be different from one gamer to the next. For a certain breed of gamer, the fun of playing a video game is overcoming the challenges it presents for you.

Besting every challenge the game designers thought to include, with the difficulty pushed to its max setting, is one thing. But what if you wanted to take things further? If you've ever felt like a game you loved to play just wasn't pushing you enough, then these mods are just what you're looking for to crank the difficulty up to 11.

Make sure you look at the pages and requirements for these mods thoroughly. Some of them will work better with other mods installed, so just be thorough, and you should have no issues.

7 Resident Evil 2 (2019): V-Act Nightmare and X-Treme Nightmare

Because a zombie outbreak isn't stressful enough.

Resident Evil 2 (2019) definitely isn't a difficult game, at least on its normal difficulty. Even when you bump things up to hard, an experienced player will be more than capable of making their way through Leon or Claire's story without much stress. But what if every enemy was a walking, indestructible fridge? Or what if every enemy was crazy fast and dealt insane amounts of damage with one hit, even at range?

That's what you'd get from the X-Treme Nightmare mod and the V-Act Nightmare mod, respectively, both by modder IMaVeRicK on Nexus Mods. The X-Treme Nightmare mod lets you turn every enemy into Mr. X, while the V-Act Nightmare mod lets you turn every enemy into Lickers, which are the most annoying enemies to deal with in the game. At least those can be killed, unlike Mr. X.

As I previously described, he's a walking, indestructible fridge. So, have fun trying to play Resident Evil 2 with a hundred of those walking around. Also, I know having two mods here makes eight, and not seven, but since both are enemy swaps, the vibes for both are pretty much the same.

6 Elden Ring: Prepare to Die (Hard Mode)

Can you beat Radahn on hard mode though?

We all know that pretty much every game FromSoftware makes will be very difficult. Elden Ring was no exception, and in its own way, it stepped the bar up from previous FromSoftware titles. Then, the bar was stepped up even further with the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC expansion last year. But if all that wasn't tough enough for you, you might need to download the Prepare to Die (Hard Mode) mod from Silentverge02.

Unlike the Resident Evil 2 mod above, this mod doesn't just swap out the easiest enemies in the game for the toughest ones. It cranks the difficulty up for every enemy in the game. Adding new attack animations, increased enemy stats, and enhanced enemy AI. Nearly every aspect of Elden Ring is touched and re-tuned in this mod to make for an overall more difficult experience at every turn. There are even limits to where you can warp to if you want to apply those.

You'll need to use every bit of Elden Ring knowledge you have to beat the game with this mod installed, but just think of how gripped your grandchildren will be when you tell them about fighting and defeating Starscourge Radahn with this mod installed.

5 Minecraft: Fear Nightfall - Remains of Chaos

There's more than Creepers out there in them blocks.

Minecraft isn't, by its own nature, a difficult game, but there are elements of it that players can find difficult. For example, new players can easily be thrown by the switch to nighttime when playing in the game's survival mode. But they always get the reprise of dawn to sort themselves out after any late-night scares. Well, the Fear Nightfall - Remains of Chaos mod from LunaPixelStudios will quickly teach you just how bad a night can get in Minecraft.

Including custom content from LunaPixelStudios, such as an entire campaign to play through, this extremely immersive mod will really kick your Minecraft experience up a few notches. Just be warned, you're taking your own life into your own hands if you play it in the middle of the night.

4 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Frostfall

Even the Dragonborn gets cold.

In a reductive sense, playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with the Frostfall mod on basically just makes the Dragonborn weaker than Disney's Elsa. In a less reductive sense, the Frostfall mod adds realistic survival elements to playing Skyrim, making the experience more immersive. And, of course, all the more challenging.

You'll really need to watch how cold you get and be far more careful with how you travel across Tamriel. If not, you'll die of hypothermia, starvation, or, more likely, a combination of the two. This mod doesn't crank up the difficulty in the same way that the Elden Ring or Resident Evil 2 mods above do, but it dramatically changes how you have to play the game. The overall result is a more engaging and much more challenging gameplay experience.

3 Returnal: Hard Mode, Brutal Mode

It does what it says on the tin.

If you've stepped into the space boots of Selene and onto the planet Atropos in Housemarque's third-person action rougelite, Returnal, then you know how difficult it is to get past that first stage. But if you've washed each of the six biomes that Returnal has to offer and thought it could've been more difficult, then why not install this mod and see how you like it?

The Hard Mode and Brutal Mode mod by Pionist does what it says on the tin. It adds two extra difficulty modes, one Hard and the other Brutal, which adjust your starting health, max integrity gain, and proficiency gain and lower the maximum proficiency levels you can achieve. Essentially, it makes you weaker and lowers the upgrade ceiling you can achieve as you run through each biome. Oh, and they both increase the prices of the random items you can grab in the shop just for an extra bit of lemon juice in the wound.

There are also variants of Hard and Brutal mode, where you can only attach one trait to your weapons, forcing you to lock in even further.

I should note that this mod also includes an Easy Mode, but that's not what we're here for. Besides, just don't take any damage during your runs, and it'll be like playing on Easy mode, anyway.

2 Stardew Valley: JP's Hardew Valley

Slow things down even more.

You might have already escaped to Stardew Valley for a bit of the slow-going life. But what if that slow-going farm life was also just too easy for you to succeed? You wouldn't be the first veteran player to find that they just aren't as pulled in by the game's mechanics on their third, fourth, or seventh playthrough. Insert JP's Hardew Valley mod.

This mod cranks up the difficulty by slowing down your progression so much that ramping up your farm will feel more like waiting for real-life crops to grow. It's entirely up to you which parts of the mod you turn on, as there are plenty of gameplay sliders and options you can check to turn up the difficulty even further. Everything from taxes to adjusting how much of a resource is needed for crafting, slowing your crop growth, and reducing your income on your crops and livestock.

There are also modifiers for dungeon crawling, such as reducing the resources dropped when you defeat enemies and increasing their damage and health. Even the relationships you make with the other townsfolk can be adjusted, making everything take longer. Basically, JP's Hardew Valley lets you slow everything in the game down so much that Stardew Valley becomes a real test of endurance.

1 Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice: Long May the Shadows Reflect

Crank that dial all the way.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a very different game compared to the rest of FromSoftware's recent portfolio. It's much more linear; you don't get to create your own character, and the combat is hyper-focused on a singular goal. Which, of course, is to become the parrying master. It is by no means an easy game, but the stealth gameplay plays a huge factor in how you can mitigate encounters, and the rhythmic nature of the combat can make it easier for players to find their flow, so to speak.

That's where the Long May the Shadows Reflect mod comes in from assassin0800. This mod adds in custom bosses, tweaks enemy AI and attack animations, and increases the health of pretty much every enemy you face while decreasing the damage you can deal. It also changes the "Terror" status effect into something called "Curse," a status effect that stays with you even after you die.

Enemies are also re-positioned throughout the game, more enemies are added for encounters, and everything is all the more ferocious in combat. This mod is not for the faint of heart, even if you've played through Sekiro multiple times.

Pushing your skills to the limit can be fun and interesting.

The mods here don't all come from games that start off as challenging, but they each test your skills in their respective games in ways that push you to play them in new and interesting ways. Unlike how a graphics mod might make your favorite game feel fresh, these mods will make you feel like you're diving into some of these already challenging games for the first time.