History ThatOneLevel / FirstPersonShooter

* [[https://doomwiki.org/wiki/MAP10:_Refueling_Base_(Doom_II) Refueling Base]] from ''VideoGame/DoomII'' has a huge number of enemies - close to 300 on Ultra-Violence and Nightmare difficulties - and a good chunk of them are former humans, which are easy to kill but have hitscan weapons, which means you'll find yourself taking lots of damage.

* The original ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' had the infamous level "The Library". Lots of tough enemies, you are by yourself (except for 343 Guilty Spark and maybe a co-op buddy), not much ammunition, and the level [[MarathonLevel just keeps on going and going and going and going and going and going]]. And even with 343 Guilty Spark leading the way, it's also very easy to just get plain lost.
** Two Betrayals, because it has the same enemy type that The Library does. Two words: [[DemonicSpiders Rocket]] [[InstakillMook Flood]].

** "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us" in "Metropolis". Two words: Sniper arena.
** The courtyard sequence on "Outskirts" is much worse than the Sniper Alley, as the Jackal Snipers appear much further away and are thus harder to see, in random locations at random checkpoints.

** "Gravemind". This is not only the hardest Legendary level in the game, but the hardest Heroic level as well. [[CheckPointStarvation Lack of checkpoints]], [[DroughtLevelOfDoom lack of ammo for good weapons]], long battles with large numbers of enemies at a time, lack of cover, frequent MeleeATrois events, culminating in the big MultiMookMelee in the Mausoleum. At least it doesn't have the Flood, which "High Charity" adds in.
** Speaking of "High Charity"... [[FlechetteStorm There's a reason Flood don't use sniper rifles]] in ''Halo 3''.
** There seems to be a rule that levels involving Libraries on Halo installations must always be That One Level. "The Sacred Icon" is the tenth campaign level and it sees the Arbiter travel through a claustrophobic set of hallways and tubes, all while being harassed by the Flood, who are using shotguns and assault rifles galore.

** The level "Cortana" should have been subtitled "Master Chief's Happy Funtime Adventures ''In The Ninth Sub-Basement Of Hell''." To put it in layman's terms, imagine the Library level from ''Combat Evolved''. Now add even more Flood. If there's anything worse than Flood rushes plus endless needle death spamming your shields from Flood turrets beyond easy range of your weapons plus the walls being full of Infection Form pods that will pop open at a single stray shot, and thus re-animate all the Flood you've already killed behind you... (and as a bonus, the Flood blend very easily into the [[WombLevel fleshlike-walls]] to catch you by surprise)
** The real reason "Cortana" is hell: [[spoiler: When you are playing the level, both Cortana and Gravemind like to have moments, where [[InterfaceScrew everything slows down as you hear them talk]]. The dialogue just turns the entire level into one giant MindScrew.]]
** Tsavo Highway Legendary, the part after the broken bridge where the two dropships followed by a Wraith attack you. Plus the entire part after walking over the bridge; after having to fight through a few Grunts and a Brute Captain, you're immediately tasked with defending yourself, your Marines, and some additional half-dozen Marines in a bunker against more Grunts and at least 8 [[JetPack Jump Pack]] [[DemonicSpiders Brutes]] led by a [[BossInMookClothing Fuel Rod Gun-toting War Chieftain]]. After THAT comes the Phantom pair and the Wraith. [[SuspiciousVideoGameGenerosity At least they give you a Sniper Rifle and a Machine Gun Turret]]...
* "Kikowani Station" and to a lesser extent "Data Hive" in ''[[VideoGame/Halo3ODST ODST]]''. The former is a mission consisting of half GlassCannon Vehicle action, 25% Overshielded brutes shooting at you and 25% [[OneHitKill getting smashed in the face with a Hammer.]] Data Hive is filled with [[DemonicSpiders Drone Majors]] and a variety of other enemies in close quarters. The final level is also by far the hardest in [[SelfImposedChallenge SLASO]] due to its protracted EscortMission and constant assault by [[GoddamnedBats Ghosts]].

*** EasyLevelTrick: The Covenant will begin maneuvering once you get close enough to the mass driver, regardless of what you do. Just keep yourself alive by using the mass driver for cover until the cruiser is in its final position, and then just hop into the mass driver to finish off that son of a bitch with one shot.
** "Tip of the Spear", HOLY CHRIST. Especially when you go to destroy that second Anti Air Turret; A pair of Hunters guard the door, and by this time it's INCREDIBLY likely that you're running low on ammo, and the only things the nearby grunts have are Needlers and Plasma Pistols. That's right, you're very likely to have to kill Hunters using small arms weapons. God help you if you wasted the plasma launcher from earlier.
*** Another EasyLevelTrick: Instead of enduring a hell of various Covenant infantry both around and near/inside the Tyrant AA gun structure, use the rocket turret (while making sure no [[ArtificialStupidity dumbass trooper/Kat]] takes the driver seat while utilizing the rocket turret) of the Rocket Warthog to instead fire at the turret's rear-end glowing area opposite of its main barrel. This not only saves precious ammo, but also '''always''' destroys the turret, tearing apart Carter's [[BlatantLies info about them being invulnerable on the outside]] to shreds. This can be applied to any other future encounters with active Tyrant AA guns.
** Good God, "Exodus". There are Brutes and Jackals with Needle and Concussion Rifles, as well as at least one Fuel Rod Gun, sitting behind cover in a labyrinthine building. And then there are several ghosts just running around, waiting to kill you. Even if you take the rocket launcher, good luck hitting them.
** "New Alexandria". '''FOUR HUNTERS'''. Four rockets. [[DespairEventHorizon Endless pain]].
* The Broadsword trench run in ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}''. Unless you have great patience, concentration, or the reflexes of God's second cousin, you will either crash and burn, or be shot down several times, especially on higher difficulties.
** Think the part with the Broadsword is tough? That's child's play compared to the '''very annoying''' part that you have to endure when waiting for Cortana to pinpoint the path to the Composer, most prominent when you extract her since it's at '''that moment''' where an '''infinite''' amount of Crawlers spawns '''right''' at the area where the portal is located where you're supposed to go and they continuously spawn after grabbing Cortana. Have fun rushing through countless Suppressor shots and Crawlers clawing at you ad infinitum while somehow making your way to the portal once you pick Cortana back up! This part can be considered a true moment in Halo-based helldom for [[SelfImposedChallenge LASO runners]] due to the sheer amount of frustration the aforementioned part springs on you once you retrieve Cortana after she pinpoints a path to the Composer.

*** The entire set of Strike Force missions would be much more fun if the allied AI wasn't [[TooDumbToLive suicidally stupid]][[note]]Indeed, it's possible for one of your infantrymen to die in the tutorial for the first mission if the dummy drone you're supposed to order all units to attack happens to blow up next to him, because he doesn't have the common sense to ''get away'' from it[[/note]]. It's as if the developers just took the already-terrible Combat Training AI from multiplayer and dropped it into singleplayer without any sort of playtesting. If they're not ignoring enemies and letting themselves get shot to death, then they're ignoring your orders and forcing you to go up against the entire SDC on your own; the final Strike Force mission gets a ''very'' close second for the most difficult thanks to both almost no appreciable cover near the area you need to hold out at for a minute and the rest of your squad refusing to move up with you to at the very least distract the endless tide of hostiles.

** Think the part with the Broadsword is tough? ha ha ha That's easy compared to the '''very annoying''' part that you have to endure when waiting for Cortana to pinpoint the path to the Composer, most prominent when you extract her since it's at '''that moment''' where an '''infinite''' amount of Crawlers spawns '''right''' at the area where the portal is located where you're supposed to go and they continuously spawn after grabbing Cortana. Have fun rushing through countless Suppressor shots and Crawlers clawing at you ad infinitum while somehow making your way to the portal once you pick Cortana back up! This part can be considered a true moment in Halo-based helldom for [[SelfImposedChallenge LASO runners]] due to the sheer amount of frustration the aforementioned part springs on you once you retrieve Cortana after she pinpoints a path to the Composer.

*** Another EasyLevelTrick: Instead of enduring a hell of various Covenant infantry both around and near/inside the Tyrant AA gun structure, use the rocket turret (while making sure no [[ArtificialStupidity dumbass trooper/Kat]] takes the driver seat while utilizing the rocket turret) of the Rocket Warthog to instead fire at the turret's rear-end glowing area opposite of its firing mechanism. This not only saves precious ammo, but also '''always''' destroys the turret, tearing apart Carter's [[BlatantLies info about them being invulnerable on the outside]] to shreds. This can be applied to any other future encounters with active Tyrant AA guns.

*** Another EasyLevelTrick: Instead of enduring a hell of various Covenant infantry both around and near/inside the Tyrant AA gun structure, use the rocket turret (while making sure no [[ArtificialStupidity dumbass trooper/Kat]] takes the driver seat while utilizing the rocket turret) of the Rocket Warthog to instead fire at the turret's rear-end glowing area. This not only saves precious ammo, but also '''always''' destroys the turret, tearing apart Carter's [[BlatantLies info about them being invulnerable on the outside]] to shreds. This can be applied to any other future encounters with active Tyrant AA guns.

*** Another EasyLevelTrick: Instead of enduring a hell of various Covenant infantry both around and near/inside the Tyrant AA gun structure, use the rocket turret (while making sure no [[ArtificialStupidity dumbass trooper/Kat]] takes the driver seat while utilizing the rocket turret) of the Rocket Warthog to instead fire at the turret's rear-end glowing area. This not only saves precious ammo, but also '''always''' destroys the turret, tearing apart Carter's [[BlatantLies info about them being invulnerable on the outside]]. This can be applied to any other future encounters with active Tyrant AA guns.

*** Another EasyLevelTrick: Instead of enduring a hell of various Covenant infantry both around and near/inside the Tyrant AA gun structure, use the rocket turret (while making sure no [[ArtificialStupidity dumbass trooper/Kat]] takes the driver seat while utilizing the rocket turret) to instead fire at the turret's rear-end glowing area. This not only saves precious ammo, but also '''always''' destroys the turret, tearing apart Carter's [[BlatantLies info about them being invulnerable on the outside]]. This can be applied to any other future encounters with active Tyrant AA guns.

*** Another EasyLevelTrick: Instead of enduring a hell of various Covenant infantry both around and near/inside the Tyrant AA gun structure, use the rocket turret (while making sure no [[ArtificialStupidity dumbass marine/Kat]] takes the driver seat while utilizing the rocket turret) to instead fire at the turret's rear-end glowing area. This not only saves precious ammo, but also '''always''' destroys the turret, tearing apart Carter's [[BlatantLies info about them being invulnerable on the outside]]. This can be applied to any other future encounters with active Tyrant AA guns.

* ''Videogame/Borderlands2'' has the Caustic Caverns. The entire thing is filled with pools of acid that will damage you if you step in it, and the place is absolutely lousy with [[DemonicSpiders Threshers]], [[GoddamnedBats Varkids, and Spiderants]]. It's absolutely massive, making it take forever to get anywhere, and there are very few vending machines, making it very likely you'll run low on ammo. Oh, and there are a ''lot'' of side missions that take place there, so you'll probably have to come back several times over the course of the game. There's a single shortcut going back to the main entrance, but it's initially locked behind a locked gate that forces you to go around the entire map to get at the one switch that opens it up and lets you open it again from the other side... and it's not made obvious that you can open this gate (plenty of other gates in this level are totally inaccessible).

** The level "Cortana" should have been subtitled "Master Chief's Happy Funtime Adventures ''In The Ninth Sub-Basement Of Hell''." To put it in layman's terms, imagine the Library level from ''Combat Evolved''. Now add even more Flood. If there's anything worse than Flood rushes plus endless needle death spamming your shields from Flood turrets beyond easy range of your weapons plus the walls being full of Infection Form pods that will pop open at a single stray shot, and thus re-animate all the Flood you've already killed behind you...

* The final level of ''VideoGame/FarCry'', most notably the penultimate fight in the volcano's rim. Locked into a wide open area with hordes of rocket-spamming mutants, ninja snipers that can shoot you from ''beyond the draw distance''[[labelnote:*]]One of the selling points of the game was that it was one of the first titles to boast epic real time draw distances up a scalable 1000 meters[[/labelnote]], and a lone healthkit, on the far, ''far'' side of the arena. How do you win? By cheating and piling crap on the airlock door, so it won't lock behind you. Even then, you get sniped to death 9 times out of 10. And after that? If the designers didn't prove they hate you yet, as you round a corner, you get insta-killed by hidden guards with rocket launchers.

** A lot of the NintendoHard [[GameMod megawads]] have plenty of very hard levels with high monster counts, but some of those levels stand head and shoulders over the rest.
*** [=MAP24=] of ''Hell Revealed'', Post Mortem, the hardest map in the entire megawad [[WordOfGod as stated by the authors themselves]], not only has 579 enemies at the highest difficulty settings (there are 2 [[DegradedBoss Cyberdemons]] in the exit room alone!), but there is also virtually no cover without improvising. The biggest reason that this level is so brutal is not only its gargantuan enemy population, but in the original vanilla DOS version of ''Doom II'', [[GameBreakingBug trying to save on this level on the highest difficulty settings will crash the game because of too many active monsters being loaded into memory at once]], forcing a NoDeathRun through the entire ordeal. And yes, the authors were fully aware of this, to the point where they recommend playing on an easier difficulty level and/or [[CheeseStrategy using a shortcut]] involving an [[AdvancedMovementTechnique arch-vile jump]] to quickly reach the end.
*** A Post Mortem-style map, Hard Target of the ''Kama Sutra'' megawad. This one has over '''1,700''' monsters in the map along with the aforementioned lack of cover. [[ThisIsGonnaSuck Have fun beating that.]]
*** ''Hell Revealed 2'''s [[SecretLevel MAP32]] has over 1,600 monsters, a lot of them being of the heavyweight variety. Good luck beating this one without [[SaveScumming reloading]].
*** ''Speed of Doom'' has [=MAP28=] and [=MAP30=], having over '''2,800''' monsters and exactly '''2,010''' monsters each, respectively... Those two levels alone make [[MarathonLevel the first Deus Vult]] look easy.
*** ''Plutonia 2'''s Go 4 It. Not nearly as tough as the rest of the levels on this list, but it's certainly a fitting successor to Go 2 It.
*** Pretty much the entire ''Sunder'' wad can fall under this trope, but the worst offender has to be Map 5: "Precarious." Imagine "The Chasm" from ''VideoGame/DoomII'' with absolutely no safety net and hundreds of monsters attacking you trying to knock you off.
*** The top prize though surely has to go to ''Holy Hell'' Map 5, The Waste Tunnels. Just under 20,000 monsters fill this massive map. It's so big a UV Max run took nearly three hours. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZn5yaVuB1Y&nohtml5=False See it here.]] To put this in perspective, maps 1-4 of the WAD are actually that map split up, because at its release in 2006 most computers couldn't run a ''14-year-old game'' with that many monsters.
*** ''Scythe'''s map 28, "Run From It". The level is on a timer, and you have 30 seconds to complete it, then you die. [[http://doomedsda.us/wad789m228.html Check out the world speedrun records on that map - they are all about 30 seconds]], which means that you ''must'' perform a {{speedrun}} at a world champion level to complete this!
*** And then comes the insanity that is "Fire and Ice". The crowning glory of Episode 3, 747 monsters fill this large map which dwarfs every other map in the wad. Even the easy skill levels aren't for the faint of heart-the monster count being reduced to a mere 718
*** ''Hellbound'' has several of these, the worst offenders being map 14, ''Doom District'' (Up until then, the wad is challenging but manageable. This one is an all out urban warfare slaughter with more than 500 monsters, including several Spider Masterminds), map 31, ''Diabolus ex Machina'' (Hope you like facing hordes of Revenants and Cyberdemon, here you'll find those by the buckets), map 16, ''City Bounds'' (Like map 14, but WORSE. the open highway area throws a veritable horde of mid to high tier baddies at you, and you'll probably be limping from the other massive encounters you've faced before that), map 27, ''Crimsom Abyss'' (The very first enemy you fight in the level is a Cyberdemon. That's just a taste of horrors to come), map 29, ''Ascension'' (A marathonian ascent up a demonic mountain, with more than ''ONE THOUSAND'' enemies. Good luck, you're gonna need it) and map30, ''Worlds Collide'' (To put it very mildly, your probabilies of making it to the Icon of Sin are... slim).
*** ''Eviternity'' has level 19, "Dehydration"--the most disliked level of all, for two reasons: it's a surprisingly long, complex and tiresome MarathonLevel (its par time is ''40 minutes'', in a mod where most maps have par times no longer than 5 minutes), and it feels quite unfairly hard in spots.
*** ''Back To Saturn X Episode 1'' has Map 24: "Tough Skin River" (also known as "Within Reach" on the Unity Port add-on). On the way to the Yellow Key you get trapped in a small room with about 100 Imps, but that's not the worst of it. That comes later with the mother of all ambushes in the Red Key room which progresses in waves starting with a horde of Cacodemons flying in over the fence and surrounding you, followed by Imps and Pinkies teleporting in to eat any rockets you might be firing at the Cacodemons, followed by some Mancubi, then a few Revenants and Arch-Viles to resurrect any of the numerous enemies you've killed to this point, and to top it all off you get 2 Cyberdemons to contend with at the end of it all!

* 'Fall of Berlin' in ''VideoGame/Battlefield2142''. Sure, as an online-only game the problem is only as severe as your opposition, but this level is just ''badly designed.'' PAC start bottled up a one end of the map and have to either capture an extremely exposed control point or sneak a squad through extremely linear and open streets in order to get behind EU lines and break the ticket drain. And if the EU bring their battlewalker and APC up to the Frontline flag and PAC can't destroy it (very difficult if the drivers know what they're doing) PAC might as well give up immediately. The entire battle will be spent with them being killed without breaking out of their own spawn area.

* ''VideoGame/BattlefieldBadCompany 2'' has the hut defense section of the level "No One Gets Left Behind", simply thanks to the game's decision on what to arm you with. [[NoGearLevel You lose your weapons in the opening cutscene]] and so have to make do with whatever the game gives you. And, the game decides, for combat at a range that the ACOG-equipped assault rifles do just fine at, you need [[{{BFG}} a .50-caliber bolt-action sniper rifle]]. Said weapon, the Barrett M95, has an incredibly slow animation for working the bolt and to reload to balance out its power - nearly two seconds ''minimum'' between shots, more when factoring in the need to actually aim and even more when enemy shots throw your aim off - thus giving the enemies plenty of time to find cover and fill you full of lead. Remember too that the main gimmick of the ''Battlefield'' series from ''Bad Company'' onwards has been the ability to destroy walls and buildings and the like - meaning if you take too long, you will soon not have any cover and you will die.

*** Earlier, the levels Bandits and Dry are annoying. The combat in this game is not optimized for fighting against other humans. On lower difficulty levels where Rambo-ing, this is more annoying than anything, but on Hardcore or any of the Ranger difficulties, it makes ''Call of Duty'''s [[HarderThanHard Veteran]] difficulty feel fair. This is because unless you do things very specifically beforehand[[note]]getting a Tihar air rifle and a handful of cheap bearings[[/note]] you have only cruddy weapons, starting equipment, and little ammo, forcing stealth.

** Where do you begin with the defense of the Ferris Wheel at the end of "One Shot, One Kill"? To set it out for those who haven't played this level; You and your injured superior have to fight off at least a hundred respawning enemies all armed with fully automatic rifles for 6 minutes while waiting for a helicopter to arrive. You have 5 to 10 Claymore mines and a few C4 packs to defend your ally with, and if he dies, game over. Luckily, most of the enemies go after you, instead of him. If you stay behind the Ferris wheel, which makes very good cover, attack dogs spawn in packs, which instant kill you unless you press a button in a 0.1 second window of opportunity. If you stay almost anywhere else, you get a rain of grenades. It gets even worse if you're [[HundredPercentCompletion trying to collect the intel for that part]]. The last intel of the level is ''[[InsurmountableWaistHeightFence behind a door that you can't open]]'', so you have to [[ViolationOfCommonSense run out into the mass of enemies]] to manipulate their spawn points and force one to spawn behind that door and open it for you, so you can then try to rush ''further'' into the mob of enemies and grab it before they all kill you (the only upside being that if you do get to it and grab it, it's still yours even if you die before getting another checkpoint). That said, if you're ''not'' going for the intel there's an EasyLevelTrick if you go prone and hide in the little kiosk booth, keeping as far inside the stand as possible, and simply shooting whoever crosses your line of sight. The grenade indicator will go off constantly as always, but [[ArtisticLicensePhysics you will be protected from most of the grenades by the sheet metal.]] When it's time to go, spring out and grab [=MacMillan=] - you're almost invulnerable while carrying him in this mission, so take advantage of that and just sprint to the helo right away, and you're done.
** While not exactly that one level for the most part the level Hunted in ''Modern Warfare'' makes up for the rest of the level in one 'short' part involving a helicopter. During this one part you have to take out a bunch of people and then get into a barn to be able to advance, which overall really isn't all that hard, even on Veteran. But what makes it hard is they give the helicopter a door gunner. To put it lightly, the helicopter is a [[GameBreaker bitch]]. On Veteran it will kill you in about a second if you are not constantly in cover. Now if this still sounds easy, [[FromBadToWorse think again]], since the helicopter will move to make sure that you never have very good cover. Even killing the door gunner buys you only a few seconds, as they always have someone to replace him. And then there is the part where you have to leave cover to get to the barn, which you can't just charge into because there's at least three guys inside ready to kill you as soon as you run in. So you have to patiently sit outside the barn while the helicopter kills you and you do the whole thing all over again. [[LuckBasedMission It comes down to whether the helicopter decides to be stupid and move behind the barn]].

** While "All Ghillied Up" is overall an awesome mission, there's one part that's hell. It's the part where you go prone in an open field while a convoy passes right next to you. There's one soldier in the convoy that almost acts as if he is programmed specifically to head right for you and discover you. If you lay down behind [=MacMillan=] in any position other than basically hugging his left thigh, the soldier drifts to your left, discovers you, and you die instantly in a hail of bullets.

** "Blood and Iron". Unlike every other [[TankGoodness tank mission]] in the series, which were incredibly awesome, this one just manages to be endlessly infuriating. Infinitely-respawning enemy soldiers launching Panzerfausts nonstop. And unlike the usual for this series, they're ''really'' infinitely-respawning - even when you destroy the radio tower they're trying to defend '''they still keep coming''', constantly shooting you with Panzerfausts, preventing you from focusing on anything else, preventing you from regenerating your health, preventing you from '''completing the goddamn mission.'''

** And if you think "Loose Ends" is bad, ''immediately after'' you get "The Enemy of My Enemy." Recap: Soap [[spoiler:and Price]] are sent to Afghanistan to look for Makarov. Shadow Company attacks. You're told to let Makarov's men and Shadow Company fight it out as much as possible, but they're all ''way'' too eager to drop the ongoing battle with the guys sent to kill them [[GangUpOnTheHuman and start shooting at the unaffiliated Brit in the ghillie suit (read: you)]]. Even if you hang back and let them all kill each other before mopping up the survivors, this takes at least twenty to thirty minutes because the AI is simply not designed for fighting one another. You do get silenced weapons if you want to contribute to thinning the herd without being noticed, but [[TheAllSeeingAI you know how that goes]].
** None of which touch the Spec Ops level "High Explosive." To wit: You, either alone or with a human teammate, fight in the same favelas complained about above against ''ten'' [[BossInMookClothing Juggernauts]]. They absolutely earn their name, as [[LightningBruiser they carry M240 machine guns, wear full bomb-disposal body armor, and run only slightly slower than you]]. You are only give explosive weapons to kill them, which is extremely annoying because, as noted, you are in an all-close quarters level, meaning you are likely to either kill yourself in the explosion (RPG-7) or waste ammo without dealing damage due to minimum arming distance (Thumper). Then, as you get going, they start coming at you two and eventually three at a time.
** Another pain-in-the-ass spec-ops level is "Homeland Security." Beating it is quite an accomplishment even on Regular, basically you have to defend a small town from FIVE waves of enemies. It's not so bad at first as you have plenty of claymores and auto-firing turrets to help you out, but those will get used up pretty quickly on every wave after the first. Also, starting from the '''second wave''', you have to deal with a ''motherfucking Predator drone'' that '''''cannot be shot down''''' and will constantly be bombing the crap out of you every single time you set foot outside a building. And if that wasn't bad enough, later waves also have [=BTRs=] and helicopters you have to deal with. You can't just camp out at one location as you'll have to get more [=RPGs=] from other buildings to take out the choppers and [=BTRs=], it becomes REAL easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemies and the drone since it's random which building the enemies will spawn from, which makes it nigh impossible to consistently defend one location. So you'll more then end up running between buildings while dodging gunfire from enemy soldiers, choppers, [=BTR's=] and those damn Predator missiles. It's a LONG exercise in pain and frustration, especially if you run out of [=RPGs=] on on the last wave and have NO way to take down that last BTR. Don't even ''think'' about trying to beat it on Veteran unless you're a real masochist. The helicopters can be taken down with LMG's and small arms, so save your heavier ordnance for the BTR's. Stay in the corner of the diner, prone at the end of the long line of booths.
*** Although dealing with the vehicles becomes stupidly easy and oddly hilarious when you get noticed by the Predator and it spams missiles all over the area, usually taking out half a dozen soldiers and a vehicle with each burst.

* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'' gives us Rebirth. The first part of Hudson's portion (where you ride in the BTR) isn't that bad, but when the BTR is knocked out and the [[spoiler:Nova 6 gas hits,]] be prepared to die. ''A lot.'' Your suit can only take so much damage, it doesn't repair after a while unlike regular bullet damage, and if your suit breaks, you die instantly. To top it off, the fog of [[spoiler:Nova 6 gas]] obstructs about 90 percent of your view, so you constantly have to rely on using your Infrared Scope to shoot enemies, and by the time you've spotted them they already will have put about twenty-nine holes in your face. Trying to beat this part of the level alone can be straight-up insane, but if you're going for the [[CosmeticAward Achievement for making it through this part of the level without dying,]] it will most likely make you want to tear your hair out. And did we mention that after Hudson clears the gas, there was an undiscovered crash bug that would ''even give your Xbox a Blue Screen of Death?'' Or that there was a bug where the limited health from the hazmat-suit portion would apply across the ''entire'' mission, even Mason's half?
** The BTR section isn't too bad on Recruit, Regular, or even on Hardened. On Veteran it's a nightmare. The enemies can kill you before you can even line up a shot (since your gun turret turns slower than hell and you have to compensate for the BTR's movement) and your only weapons are a machine gun that overheats pretty fast and a grenade launcher that requires you to arc your shots (exactly where you have to aim is hard to figure out when you can't survive long enough to see where your shots are landing). The last stretch pits you against enemies in all directions (most of whom have machine guns, which are already bad. But a few have rocket launchers) meaning that, most times, you'll get torn up before you can even fight back. You know a level's bad when most help threads about it on Website/GameFAQs advise you to "hope luck is on your side this time".
** The mission Excutive Order is this. The 1st part of the level goes by ok, but then you get to a part where you have to go into some tunnels. Tunnels with bad guys that spawn forever, [[CheckPointStarvation almost no checkpoints]], and you die in about a second. Have fun.

** The mission ''SOG'' also gets an honorable mention for throwing the NVA at you. [[ZergRush The entire NVA]]. It's relatively easy until you reach the downhill segment, whereupon an endless wave of NVA will shoot at you from about seven different positions (including the armory on your right) and won't stop respawning until you reach the checkpoint at the base of the hill. In order to do that, you have to use two barrels of kerosene with claymores taped to them to cut off their advance. [[GuideDangIt The game doesn't give any obvious hints to use the barrels]] except a subtle and barely-audible audio cue from Woods. The subsequent uphill fight through a burned forest is almost a breather.
** And shortly after ''SOG'' comes ''Numbers'', where you're chased by Spetsnaz over the roofs of Kowloon, getting shot at from literally every direction you can possibly be shot at from at any given time. About the only good part of the mission is its music, and even that could wear thin when you have to play the same segment 15 times in a row.
*** ''Numbers'' gets even worse if you're trying to get the achievement for only using dual-wield guns. Sure there are plenty of them available, but they are inaccurate and there are several segments that pit you up against enemies who are well out of the effective range of your handguns/machine pistols.

** Mason taking the controls of an F/A-38 in "Cordis Die" is ok for a bit, the plane in VTOL mode handles just like the drones you've piloted several times in the campaign and the helos in the original's Multiplayer. Then the game has the audacity to put you into flight mode, '''''completely change the control scheme in the middle of a level without explaining a thing''''', and task you with shooting down the drones attacking the convoy. This of course requires you to fly down the streets of downtown Los Angeles without hitting a skyscraper and if you try to fly over them, you run the real risk of flying right off the map and failing the mission before you can recover. And, if you're trying to complete challenges to unlock the excellent [[UniversalAmmunition Ammo Pickup]] campaign perk, it can be a real heartbreaker when you're one challenge away, remember that there's a challenge for killing multiple enemies with one Skybuster missile, and the game responds by denying you access to them because you didn't meet one of the [[GuideDangIt never-explained-anywhere requirements to activate them]].

*** The entire set of Strike Force missions would be much more fun if the allied AI wasn't [[TooDumbToLive suicidally stupid]][[note]]Indeed, it's possible for one of your infantryman to die in the tutorial for the first mission if the dummy drone you're supposed to order all units to attack happens to blow up next to him[[/note]]. It's as if the developers just took the already-terrible Combat Training AI from multiplayer and dropped it into singleplayer without any sort of playtesting. If they're not ignoring enemies and letting themselves get shot to death, then they're ignoring your orders and forcing you to go up against the entire SDC on your own; the final Strike Force mission gets a ''very'' close second for the most difficult thanks to both almost no appreciable cover near the area you need to hold out at for a minute and the rest of your squad refusing to move up with you to at the very least distract the endless tide of hostiles.

* The mission "Brave New World" in ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyGhosts Ghosts]]'' has a point where you must use a laser-guided missile to shoot down a chopper. Unfortunately this isn't "set-and-forget" like a Stinger. Rather you must track the chopper until the rocket knows where to go, meaning you have to expose yourself and run around, trying to avoid getting blown up by the chopper's Vulcan cannons, all while carefully pointing at it with a laser (and it takes more than two shots to down, meaning you need to reload the rockets at least once to finally get rid of it, and those things don't reload quick). Even hanging out behind the armored vehicle near the steel doors doesn't provide nearly as much cover as you would really require to pull this off. Your squadmates aren't that helpful in shooting the foot soldiers on the bridge while you're busy with the chopper either.
* "Bio-Lab" in ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyAdvancedWarfare Advanced Warfare]]'' is easy enough...until you're forced into a tank at the very end. Not only does it lack regenerating health and come with wonky controls (the tank's various weapons are all mapped to the same buttons, forcing you to cycle between the different weapon sets by pressing other buttons depending on the threat), enemy tanks, choppers, and infantry are scripted to spawn in front of you at certain points no matter what, even if you've taken pains to destroy everything in your field of vision before advancing.

* Seawall Battery from Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory was a level in which the Allied team must stage an uphill assault along two possible fronts, infiltrate the Axis bunker, and plant dynamite at the final objective in order to win the map. The problem? One front was a virtual murder hole in which the Axis team could toss airstrikes down onto the beach and murder the entire Allied team, while one forward and exposed MG nest could blanket half the beach, while a lower altitude, and partially occluded nest provided cover from blind spot grenades. The other front featured a back door as an only entrance that could only be accessed should the Allied covert operative posses a uniform that would allow him to open the door. The problem? The passage to the back door featured an up hill climb into a funnel-like valley that was probably the worst choke point in the entire game, beneath which, land mines could be planted. If the Allied team managed to prevent Axis from constructing their forward spawn post (which professional teams would ignore in fear of providing the Allied team with a uniform for the back door) they were faced with an MG nest, and the pleasant opportunity to camp the back door in hopes of access to the final objective. Should an engineer sneak in alone or with the help of a covert ops, the player still had to manage to make it to the bomb site, plant the bomb, and defend it for 30 seconds while much of the enemy team hunted them down and disarmed it. A broken level, but one of the most rewarding to play on offense.

* ''VideoGame/DukeNukemForever'''s penultimate level, Blowin' the Dam. It's entirely underwater, so you have to swim from bubble stream to bubble stream. There's several Octobrains, which often appear between streams, forcing you to either kill them extremely quickly or just try to bulldoze past them and kill them later. To top it all off, it ends with the Energy Leech, the Duke Nukem version of ''Metroid Prime'''s Boost Guardian: a boss that sounds easy, but is so infuriatingly cheap that you'll want to eat the disc.

* 'Fall of Berlin' in ''VideoGame/Battlefield2142''. Sure, as an online-only game the problem is only as severe as your opposition, but this level is just ''badly designed.'' PAC start bottled up a one end of the map and have to either capture an extremely exposed control point or sneak a squad through extremely linear and open streets in order to get behind EU lines and break the ticket drain. And if the EU bring their battlewalker and APC up to the Frontline flag and PAC can't destroy it (very difficult if the drivers know what they're doing) PAC might as well give up immediately. The entire battle will be spent with them being killed without breaing out of their own spawn area.

** The sniping level can also be a nightmare. You have to hold off waves of [=ICP=]s as they try to ZergRush a docked Ma3a. The sniper rifle takes up huge amounts of a ''very'' limited ammo pool with very little opportunity to refuel. enemies come in from multiple entrances, and if just ''one'' {{Mook}} reaches her, it's game over. You might actually be better off ''not'' using the sniper rifle at all, switching to [[MoreDakka Sequencer Disc]] and just going [[{{Film/TronLegacy}} Rinzler]] on their asses.
** The BarBrawl is pretty awful as well; ''no'' opportunities to refuel. Thorne spawns an army of {{Mook}}s, throwing Ball grenades for plenty of splash damage and corrupting your weapons so they ''don't work properly'', you have to keep interrupting Thorne as he channels a massive damage spell, ''and'' make sure to keep Ma3a protected.

* The original ''VideoGame/{{SWAT 3}}'' campaign has one of these. It's a SewerLevel, of course. Basically, the situation is that domestic terrorists have hidden a series of bombs in the Los Angeles sewer system. Your job is to go in there with the rest of your five-man SWAT team and flush them out while disarming the bombs. It's incredibly frustrating for a number of reasons. First of all, the vast majority of your tools and weaponry are designed around close-quarters, room-to-room combat in an urban environment, whereas the sewer has no doors to breach or much cover at all to speak of. Thus, your grenades, entry tools and shotguns become next to useless right off the bat. Passageways are either claustrophobic and tight-knit, making them great choke points for the terrorists to ambush you in, or long and open, where the AI's well-demonstrated ImprobableAimingSkills take over and you get shot immediately from comically long ranges. It doesn't help that either way, the enemy can pop out from behind walls with a lean and shoot you damn near instantaneously, whereas you need to spend your time reacting to threats and gauging the environment. Not only that, but the sewer is a tightly layered affair, with different tiers crossing over each other in odd places. It's VERY easy to get lost, even if you've played the level several times over. And you will, because there are seven bombs to find, and the mission is on a forty-five minute timer. That might sound generous, but although the bombs are helpful enough to beep as you get closer to them, they're still difficult to find in the murky graphics. Even if you know where most of them are, there's still a pretty low chance that you're going to actually make it to all of them in one go, for all of the above reasons.
** Its sequel, ''VideoGame/{{SWAT 4}}'', kept up the tradition with it's own ThatOneLevel: Mission 12, Old Granite Hotel. [[WebVideo/{{TheSpoonyExperiment}} Spoony]] had to bring his Let's Play to a halt in order to explain in detail just why it's so ridiculous. In short, domestic terrorists (again) have seized the top floors of a hotel that is currently being renovated. This time, the bastards have only planted 3 bombs. Four, if you count one that you stumble across without effort. However, the other three bombs are in random places on the very top floor, and you have a MUCH tighter time limit (ten minutes) to find them. Once again, this might sound like a lot of time, but the mechanics of the game are working against you. There are a large amount of terrorists roaming the top floor, and they still have Improbable Aiming Skills. New to this game is locational damage, meaning that if you get shot once in a place that's not the torso, you've pretty much failed the mission. A leg shot means you can't move fast enough to disarm the bombs, an arm shot will make you wildly inaccurate, and head shots are of course instant death. You can send in your squadmates ahead of you, but not only do they take a great deal of time to breach a single door by themselves, they're likely to die without your support. But if you concentrate on helping them clear rooms, there's a good chance you won't find all the bombs in time! All this, plus there's an entire other floor to clear. On both floors, the terrorists are all hiding in ambush points with their guns pointed straight at your inevitable entryway, which brings us to the most noticeable issue with this level: The scoring system. While SWAT 3 also had awarded you points for taking in suspects alive and took points away for using deadly force unlawfully, in SWAT 4, you have to get a certain number of points to actually move past a level. This means that you can successfully disarm all the bombs, eliminate the enemy threat, and get sent back to the beginning of the mission because you shot someone with an assault rifle without giving away your position by shouting "Stop, police!" beforehand.

* ''Videogame/Borderlands2'' has the Caustic Caverns. The entire thing is filled with pools of acid that will damage you if you step in it, and the place is absolutely lousy with [[DemonicSpiders Threshers]], [[GoddamnedBats Varkids, and Spiderants]]. It's absolutely massive, making it take forever to get anywhere, and there are very few vending machines, making it very likely you'll run low on ammo. Oh, and there are a ''lot'' of side missions that take place there, so you'll probably have to come back several times over the course of the game.

* Videogame/OperationFlashpoint:

** Any cavern can become a problem if random level generation isn't kind to you. Be it compressed dirt being hidden (thus ensuring you get lost because you can't find your way to the next room), badly-distributed mission objectives that make them hard to find and impossible to defend or reclaim, any vertical/horizontal distribution that's worst for your particular mobility tool and anything that gets in the way of getting to the Drop Pod at the end, among others, all can turn even the easy biomes into hell.
** S ince enemy spawns aren't especially static, even good level distributions can be made awful by bad spawning, like [[AirborneMook Mactera]] swarms in general, a [[DamageSpongeBoss Dreadnought]] arriving at the worst time possible, [[DeathFromAbove Cave Leeches]] being hidden by terrain or getting spammed with [[ActionBomb Bulk Detonators]] while you're trying to HoldTheLine in a Salvage mission.

* VideoGame/DukeNukemForever's penultimate level, Blowin' the Dam. It's entirely underwater, so you have to swim from bubble stream to bubble stream. There's several Octobrains, which often appear between streams, forcing you to either kill them extremely quickly or just try to bulldoze past them and kill them later. To top it all off, it ends with the Energy Leech, the Duke Nukem version of ''Metroid Prime'''s Boost Guardian: a boss that sounds easy, but is so infuriatingly cheap that you'll want to eat the disc.

* ''VideoGame/PAYDAYTheHeist'' has, for Easy Difficulty, Heat Street, which will more likely than not result in somebody getting downed a few times the first few times it's done on easy. Most people will then figure out where the best cover is and then it loses it's edge on Normal. Green Bridge, the last mission available on Normal, is Heat Street but much more difficult, requiring you to make a mad dash to one location THROUGH AN ENDLESS ASSAULT to survive. Even on Normal, people can get screwed over by the [[LuckBasedMission Luck-Based]] plane pickup section (If you get it on the first balloon, you are in for a lot of problems.) Both of the two Hard/Overkill missions have already been beaten on Overkill, complete with video proof.

* The original ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'''s car ride level. An UnexpectedShmupLevel where you can only duck in and out of the car, with no way to dodge enemy fire, so your survival is [[LuckBasedMission dependent on the accuracy of your enemies]], especially on Veteran, where they kill in as little as one hit. ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare 1'' and ''3'' had similar levels in the form of "Game Over" and "Bag n' Drag", respectively, though the former at least gives you the option to actually hide and regenerate your health, as well as not restricting your point of aim to such an extent that you cannot shoot more than half of the enemies hitting you like "Bag n' Drag".

*** ''Hellbound'' has several of these, the worst offenders being map 14, ''Doom District'' (Up until then, the wad it's challenging but manageable. This one is an all out urban warfare slaughter with more than 500 monsters, including several Spider Masterminds), map 31, ''Diabolus ex Machina'' (Hope you like facing hordes of Revenants and Cyberdemon, here you'll find those by the buckets), map 16, ''City Bounds'' (Like map 14, but WORSE. the open highway area throws a veritable horde of mid to high tier baddies at you, and you'll probably be limping from the other massive encounters you've faced before that), map 27, ''Crimsom Abyss'' (The very first enemy you fight in the level is a Cyberdemon. That's just a taste of horrors to come), map 29, ''Ascension'' (A marathonian ascent up a demonic mountain, with more than ''ONE THOUSAND'' enemies. Good luck, you're gonna need it) and map30, ''Worlds Collide'' (To put it very mildly, your probabilies of making it to the Icon of Sin are... slim).

** From ''Vegas 2'', the Nevada Desert level. Even with your teammates being [[ArtificialStupidity incredibly retarded]], at least they were good at attracting bullets otherwise meant for you. Here, you have none of that - your only support is an NSA agent who isn't even physically with you and is [[AnnoyingVideoGameHelper entirely useless]]. Your ability to call in thermal scans to see where enemies are is also inexplicably gone. You cannot stealthily pick them off - kill one and everybody's instantly alert to your presence. And then to top it all off, near the end you're ambushed in a small room where there are no less than five ways for the enemy to flank you from and windows all over every outer wall for other enemies to shoot through. All of the available cover in that area protects you from only one possible route at best, and actively exposes you to the other four at worst.