History Sandbox / MorganWick

** As of the ''Sons of Abraham'' DLC, ''VideoGame/CrusaderKings 2'' has "The One Who Brings Benefit" and "Kingdom of David". The former involves recreating the Persian Empire as a Zoroastrian ruler and the latter involves recreating the kingdom of Israel under a Jewish ruler. Both necessitate starting off as a weak duchy or county surrounded by hostile Muslim and Tengri rulers who outnumber you badly and can use either Holy War or invasion to take most of your provinces in one fell swoop. Oh, and if you take too long, you're directly in the path of every invading eastern horde from the Seljuks onward. Neither achievement is as insanely difficult as the Europa Universalis 4 example listed above, but getting either takes a lot of patience and luck.
** ''[[VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis Europa Universalis 4]]'':
*** "The Three Mountains" requires the player to conquer the entire world as the Ryukyu Islands. Note that conquering the entire world is already very difficult, even if you start the game as one of the stronger nations. Doing it with the tiny Ryukyu Islands is unreasonable by any standards and the whole achievement would just be a joke... but at least one dedicated player achieved it, even posting a step-by-step guide as he did on the forums. The developers apparently were taking notes, as they patched all of the exploits that made achieving the achievement possible soon afterward. That said, there is an EasyLevelTrick for this (well, "easy" in that it still works)[[labelnote:Short version]]The game considers vassal states "conquered" and a Shogun has an easy time controlling vassals. As Ryukyu, ally with Ming China and have them help you execute a surgical strike on Kyoto. [[LuckBasedMission Reload until it works]], declare your ruler Shogun, then have all your Japanese Daimyo vassals follow you to war, swarm a target and make it another vassal. Repeat and snowball.[[/labelnote]].
*** Arguably this might not even be the hardest achievement. Other 'impossibles' include starting as the Aztecs and conquering Europe (very hard due to the huge disparity in technology); starting as Najd (a small Muslim nation), and conquering (almost) the entire world and converting it to Sunni Islam; and winning a battle as Nepal against far-off Prussia with 100,000 casualties on the Prussian side (when Prussia even forming is a matter of luck).
*** Made worse by the fact that, prior to the 1.12 patch, several achievements had inaccurate descriptions of how to earn them. The Najd achievement above(Najd Jihad) used to say "As Najd, conquer Europe, Africa, and Asia and convert them to Sunni Islam." The actual requirement is having 500 Sunni provinces on any continent. Far from easy, but certainly easier.
** ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'':
*** "{{Outside Context|Problem}}" requires you to invade Earth during the middle of a world war. The problem is, there's no guarantee the Sol system will spawn in a given galaxy, and if it does, it's just as likely for your empire to find it as a medieval society, early space-faring culture, or post-apocalyptic wasteland than it is for it to be discovered while it's undergoing a global conflict. Even if you find the right kind of Earth, you have to send in a constructor ship to claim the system before one of your rivals can, then get an invasion force on the ground before the natives decide to end the war in a nuclear exchange that reduces Earth to a Tomb World.
*** "Queening" (capture a [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Prethoryn Queen]]) requires you to be strong enough to defeat the Prethoryn Scourge crisis, but then refrain from finishing it off for over 800 months game-time until a wounded Queen spawns that gives you a project to capture it. Strategy guides to unlock the achievement suggest parking your fleets in the last remaining Scourge system, cranking the game speed up to Very Fast, and getting a sandwich.
*** "Last, Best Hope" requires you to lead the Non-Aligned Powers to victory during the War in Heaven event, which only happens when two Fallen Empires (the second-most powerful forces in the game, after the endgame Crisis factions) fully Awaken and go to war with each other. So not only is there a virtual dice roll to see if both Fallen Empires decide to Awaken one after the other and declare their rivalry, you also have to be sufficiently well-respected by the normal empires in the galaxy for them to ask you to ''lead'' their coalition instead of merely joining it, ''and'' you have to be strong enough to take down two Awakened Empires before they do enough damage to your allies to convince them to surrender.
*** "Stay on Target" requires you to destroy another empire's [[DoomsdayDevice Colossus]] superweapon before it finishes firing on one of your planets. Not starts, ''finishes'' - a Colossus is unarmed and will flee a hostile fleet, so to get this achievement you have to let an enemy fleet invade your territory, wait for the Colossus to finish the month-long charging process and commit to firing its superweapon, and then send in your fleet to defeat the enemy escorts and blow up their Colossus before it completes the destruction of your world. Even then there's nothing guaranteeing the ship might abort the firing sequence when attacked or emergency jump to safety. And this has only gotten harder after a patch drastically reduced the Colossus' firing time.
*** "Inscrutable Power" is one of the rarest achievements, since it requires the player to get the Galatron, which has a 0.5% chance of being inside a [[LootBoxes Reliquary]] sold by the Caravaneer Fleets wandering the galaxy. This alone is bad, but each empire is also limited to only ''six'' Reliquaries per game. Rarer still is "Raiders of the Lost Galatron," which requires another empire to get the thing, then for you to use the "Take Galatron" casus belli to steal it. The best method players have found is to win the Galatron themselves, provoke and lose a war against an AI so it steals the Galatron, and then steal it back.
*** "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Blorg" at 0.2% is rare primarily due to the sheer tedium and time required. To get this, a player must perform 10 distinct type of espionage missions in a single game. To perform missions, a valuable emissary must be set to building a spy ring and collecting enough intel on the target empire. Each mission can take multiple years, especially if the enemy has high Encryption, after which the spent intel must be built up again. This means a likely multi-decade approach, only worsened by the fact that there are only ''nine'' basic missions. To get the tenth, players must either perform a time-sensitive mission during a Crisis or perform a mission to either uphold or undermine the Galactic Imperium if it's founded.
*** "Sic Semper Tyrannis" stands as the rarest achievement prior to the release of ''Overlord'', with only ''0.1%'' of players having it. To achieve this, players must overthrow the Galactic Emperor in a rebellion. The biggest problem with this is actually getting an AI to become Emperor. This is a three vote, multi-year process which will face stiff opposition in the Galactic Community except during a Crisis. As only an empire can nominate itself for all three votes, this is also subject to the whims of the AI. The easiest option some players have found is to make themselves Emperor, trigger the Machine Uprising, and take control of the rebellion so you can use it to undermine the Emperor.

* From the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts HD [=ReMIX=]'' collections:
** ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI Kingdom Hearts Final Mix]]'' has Unchanging Armor, which requires you to complete the game without changing your equipment (both weapons and accessories) and Undefeated, which requires you to beat the game without using a continue.
*** "Undefeated" is made easier in that while Sora ''can'' get a GameOver, you can press "Load Game" instead of "Continue", and getting a KO in the Gummi Ship and Olympus Coliseum don't block the trophy.
*** The trophy "Searcher" in the same game requires finding all of Ansem's Report pages. It was easier in the original game, but this time, there are several new pages, and those are only earned by defeating several of the hardest {{Superboss}}es. Specifically, [[ContestWinnerCameo Kurt Zisa]], [[EarlyBirdCameo Unknown]], and [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Sephiroth]].
*** The Gummi Ship Collector trophy, which involves getting every Gummi Ship blueprint in the game. For the majority of obtaining the blueprints, this means fulfilling some truly insane mission requirements traveling between worlds with the Gummi Ship, like doing Atlantica's third mission (do not collect items, and get a high score of 260 points or more), in a minigame widely considered a ScrappyMechanic prior to its revamp in ''Kingdom Hearts II''. Mercifully, the ''I.5+II.5'' release on [=PS4=] and Xbox One lowers the requirement from every blueprint to a mere thirty, making it much more manageable.
** ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories]]'' features Card Master Sora, which requires Sora to obtain every card in the game. This isn't challenging as much as it is tedious. To start with, it's literally impossible to get every card on your first playthrough; to even gain access to all the cards to begin with, you'll need to start a new Sora campaign after beating Sora's story and ''Reverse/Rebirth'', watching the ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2'' cutscene CompilationMovie, and then reading all the extras for ''358/2 Days'' afterwards. You'll also have to go and get all the enemy cards as well, which barely drop unless you use the rooms with the tougher heartless, or [[https://youtu.be/lsHpXR8CwGU cheese the RNG]]. On top of this, some of the hidden cards you need to obtain are in the Key to Rewards rooms, so you'll have to fight multiple groups of enemies until one of them drops the Key to Rewards card. Each floor has up to two unique rewards in each of those rooms, but you can only carry one card at a time, meaning you'll have to repeat the process multiple times, not to mention you must start from the beginning and create new rooms every time you warp to a floor. Some attack cards, like Diamond Dust and Ultima Weapon, are also only available from random breakable drops or Moogle shops (typically in the more expensive card packs), which can add even more grinding to the pile.
** There's also the Level Master achievements for getting Sora and Riku to Level 99 in each of their respective campaigns. Getting these achievements is also tedious, as [[AbsurdlyHighLevelCap most players will get to the end of the game at around Level 30-40]], meaning that getting to Level 99 requires tons of grinding rooms repeatedly to get there, especially since you only fight bosses once and there's not a single OptionalBoss in sight. And while Sora can gain powerful sleights like Mega Flare and Trinity Limit to tear through enemies faster, Riku has the same moveset throughout his entire campaign, and you can only go so fast with the Impulse sleights.
** Averted in ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix]]''. The trophies involving the Gummi Missions implies that you'll have to clear all the missions at first glance, but it turns out to be an [[ExactWords exact wording]] of its description, meaning you can just pick the easiest EX mission for each route and get it over and done it. Also, unlike in ''Kingdom Hearts Final Mix HD'', all of the blueprints are obtainable by playing the regular Gummi missions. The last blueprint was still held by [[ThatOneBoss Hunter-X]], however.
** Played straight with the achievements "Lingering Will", which requires beating the incredibly difficult {{Superboss}} of the same name; "To Rule Them All", which requires defeating all of the slightly less difficult Organization XIII Replica Data bosses, which requires getting through a BrutalBonusLevel to even access them; and "Mushroom Master", which requires completing the 13 'Mushroom XIII' minigames, some of which can be [[ThatOneSidequest hair-pullingly difficult]].
* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' has "Master Chef", which requires you to get an "Excellent" rating on all dishes in the cooking minigame. Many of these minigames are very finicky,[[note]]the egg cracking minigame especially, where the line between "Excellent" and failure is ''extremely'' thin[[/note]] and every attempt will consume ingredients regardless of the result. The game also ''autosaves'' when cooking, so no SaveScumming unless you make a manual save before every attempt and reload it every time you fail, which is a process that takes at least a minute or two for every attempt. The worst part is the "special menu", where every dish requires at least one ingredient that can only be obtained from Flantastic Seven minigames, many of which are equally annoying. Run out of ingredients on those dishes? Have fun going back and re-doing the flan minigames for more! However, the inclusion of EZ Codes in ''[[DownloadableContent Re Mind]]'' allows players to automatically get an "Excellent" rating no matter what, with the only drawback being that players still have to get every ingredient to begin with, provided they haven't created a save file with the Premium Menu.

** "What a Long Strange Trip it's Been", a meta achievement for completing all the achievements for the in game Holidays. Most of which involve at least one LuckBasedMission and are only available for a few weeks before being gone till the next year. And with no guarantee that you'll be [[{{Altitis}} playing the same class]] for the whole year, this one slips through a lot of people's fingers over and over again.
** Some of the luck based missions have since been removed as requirements for the events, such as the requirement to get a black dress in Love is in the Air, but "School of Hard Knocks" is not only quite difficult for people who don't [=PvP=] often (the other [=PvP=]-based holiday achievements only require honorable kills, which do not require the achievement seeker to get the killing blow), but also results in battlegrounds being full of people who want the achievement and who don't know how to [=PvP=], thus angering many regular [=PVPers=].
** "Veteran Nanny" is another Holiday achievement. The reason it's here is not because it requires you to do something hard, or RNG-reliant - it's because this achievement requires a minimum of ''two real-life'' '''''YEARS''''' to get.
** Prior to Cataclysm, the "Loremaster" achievements for Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms fell under this. These required completing an arbitrary number of quests on the respective continents but only listed progress. Without quest tracking on individual zones, there was no way to tell which areas had incomplete quests short of running code checks for quest completion or personally checking every possible quest-giver and/or dropper. Without flying mounts, this could literally take hours and you could still miss quests.
** "The Green Hills of Stranglethorn" was generally reviled for the quest requiring you collect pages which were a random drop off any mob randomly. As they each had a specific page number and could drop multiple times, it could take weeks to farm the pages yourself and other players would charge exorbitant amounts for the least common pages.
** Herald of the Titans requires that players defeat [[{{Superboss}} Algalon the Observer]] in Ulduar ''without any gear that is higher level than what is available in the '''10 man''' version of Ulduar''. Not only is this quite difficult on its own, but it's also impossible to outgear, and virtually impossible to find people who are willing to do it. In theory, level 85s could have gone back and done it with the basic crafted gear, but unlike a lot of other achievements, Blizzard preserved this one by making it unobtainable by level 81+ characters.
** Cataclysm also gives us an achievement so insanely difficult to obtain, guilds have been pulling their hair out over it for months: "I Can't Hear You Over the Sound of How Awesome I Am". The criteria? Beat [[{{Superboss}} Sinestra.]] On your first try. [[NoCasualtiesRun With not a single death at any point in the battle.]] If someone has earned this, props are very much deserved. Like the Algalon achievement, it would be much easier to accomplish during the next expansion with level 86+ characters, but unlike "Herald of the Titans", Blizzard blocked this by [[TemporaryOnlineContent removing the achievement]], and making it a Feat of Strength for the people who completed it during Cataclysm.
** "Headed South" is considered one of the most difficult Cataclysm dungeon achievements. You need three stacks of a debuff on you at the time of Siamat's death, but 1) The buff is collected from adds in the first phase and Siamat only takes full damage in the second; even with the trick, you need high DPS, 2) The debuff also increases damage taken, and thus the strain on the healer, and 3) Only the people with three stacks get it; if a group is having trouble with 2), they might have to decide who gets it.
** "We Had It All Along" is at least the hardest of the [=PvP=] achievements, if not the hardest of them all. This achievement requires you to [[DoWellButNotPerfect win an Arathi Basin match by exactly ten points]]. Even if the enemy team was somehow conspiring with you to help you get the achievement, it'd still require you to do some math to figure out exactly how many points to hold for how long. The only reliable strategy for getting this is to play Arathi Basin over and over and over until it eventually happens by sheer dumb luck.
** "Gonna Need A Bigger Bag" requires the player to collect the rare drops off every mob and rare spawn on Timeless Isle. In total it amounts to ''57 items'', many with drop rates estimated around 1%. Most rare mobs spawn in a small timeframe about an hour after being killed, but a handful have highly irregular spawn times that can cover hours or even ''days''. One rare in particular spawns only once or twice a week and one of its items has a 1% drop rate. The final insult of the achievement was that it came on the heels of an expansion rife with fun toy items, meaning many players lacked the space to store these additional items.
** ''Wrath of the Lich King's'' "Frostbitten", earned by finding and killing every rare spawn on Northrend, is a rare instance of an achievement that manages to infuriate both the people doing it ''and'' some people who aren't.
*** For those looking to earn it, it's a pain in the neck because it requires you to hunt down and kill specific mobs that have respawn timers ranging from hours to ''days'', and only one player can claim the kill for each spawn. In addition to this, however, no less than three of the achievement's required mobs are rare beasts with unique looks that are extremely sought after by hunters looking to tame them, with [[PantheraAwesome Loque'nahak]] in particular possessing both a unique model and being the ''only'' Spirit Beast in the game when it was introduced. Due to this, "Frostbitten" isn't particularly well-liked among hunters in general.
*** The achievement was later adjusted so that ''taming'' Loque'nahak counted. This did not change the fact that his long spawn time, many spawn locations, and popularity mean he is ''still'' near impossible for somebody to obtain without camping.
** "Scourer of the Eternal Sands" is the reward for finding a special camel figurine and completing a small event. There are just a few problems, though. First, the figurine is on a long spawn timer and there's no way to know if it has spawned without checking. Second, the figurine is small and easily missed while checking quickly. Third, it has dozens of spawn points scattered across one of the larger zones in the game and only one will ever be active at once. And fourth, only one in ten figurines that spawn actually trigger the event; otherwise they drop some vendor trash and the spawn timer resets.
** "Rumble Club" in the ''Legion'' iteration of the Brawler's Club is not too difficult except for one event: The Stranglethorn Streak. Players are stripped of their armor and artificially reduced to level 1 and must survive for two minutes while surrounded by mobs that will one-shot and all have different patterns. The mobs are constantly spawning and despawning and there's no guarantee they won't spawn on a player's location and insta-kill them. All of this is made worse by the fact that ''every player in the queue'' is forced into this Rumble and the majority, if not entirety of them, will die and lose any buffs they had. Griefers buy this card to harass others and even people who are legitimately trying for the achievement are accused of griefing.
** "Insane in the Membrane" is a tribute to dedicated players from vanilla who ground up reputations to Exalted for fringe factions that didn't really matter.
*** The Shen'dralar was a small faction in the Dire Maul dungeon whose only quests for reputation required a ridiculous investment of time and resources. Each quest required a rare gem only dropped by level 60 elite mobs; two difficult to acquire crafting materials from level 60 zones; and a libram found in Dire Maul wings at an average of 1 per dungeon. That meant at least ''84 dungeon runs'' if every libram drop went to you. The faction was later removed, as was the requirement.
*** The Darkmoon Faire in its original incarnation only awarded reputation for handing in trash items looted from different types of mobs across the game world. Between the low drop rate and lack of reward for actually completing these quests, most people chose simply to sell these items. The Faire's revamp in later expansions vastly reduced the grind.
*** Players can reach Revered with Ravenholdt by farming low-level mobs in the neighboring zone, but after the cut-off there's only one option: Heavy Junkboxes. These are pickpocketed by rogues from max level humanoid mobs, and five can be turned in to Ravenholdt for a tiny bit of reputation. In total it takes a minimum of ''1,405'' junkboxes to reach Exalted. And for a little extra annoyance, they don't stack in your inventory so they have to be handed in in batches while the player runs to the nearest mailbox to get more.
*** Honored with the Bloodsail Pirates and Exalted with the Steamwheedle Cartel were interconnected goals. The only way to increase reputation with the Bloodsail was by killing members of the Cartel, which would in turn reduce their reputation. The easiest way to accomplish this was to get one reputation to the required level before tanking them to get the other where it was needed. This was a tedious grind both directions, especially as the Cartel mobs were often able to easily kill players.
** "Hero of Shattrath" is similar to the Bloodsail and Cartel mentioned above. A player must first get Exalted with one reputation and then the other - but by the time a player reaches Exalted with one, the other will be at the lowest level of Hated. The only way to restore the other faction to a level where it was possible to do regular quests was by farming a certain animal drop (basilisk eyes or spider venom sacs) in Terokkar Forest. Without reputation buffs, it takes ''1,344'' of the required item to reach Neutral. And if that wasn't enough, the drop rate is roughly 33%, meaning that without buying these from other players you would need to kill in the neighborhood of '''4,000''' of a low-level trash mob. And that's before doing the normal reputation grind from Neutral to Exalted!

* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' has the Nothing Special achievement, where you must not be damaged by any special infected for the ''entire'' campaign from start to finish. Just to clarify what you will be facing against, Hunters can leap off buildings to pounce on you, Smokers can grab and drag you away, Boomers can puke on you to summon hordes of zombies on you, and Tanks can punch you clear across or hurl rocks at you. Tight teamwork and having people constantly watch your back, on top of extreme luck, is the only way you will succeed in getting this achievement.
* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' ups the ante of achievements that are near impossible to get:
** Strength in Numbers requires for you and your friends to team up in a Team VS/Team Scavenge game and beat another team of friends. The problem here is that if the other team quits the game, you won't earn the achievement and rage quitting is commonplace in the game. There's also the issue of nobody playing the game mode.
** Wedding Crasher (earned in The Passing campaign) is also quite difficult to pull off since the achievement requires that A) a Charger to be in play and B) having said Charger grab a survivor and plow through 8 chairs at the wedding scene in the park. Not only the infected team is down one player if the person who is the Charger is trying to earn the achievement (since the Charger has to wait until the survivors arrive at the park), but if the charge angle is just slightly off or if the survivor target isn't lined up properly, you will miss your chance at the achievement since the chairs only appear in one spot and most survivor players actively try to avoid hanging around the chairs, making the achievement near impossible to get legitimately.
** The Real Deal requires you completing a campaign on Expert difficulty in Realism mode. To sum it up, you are playing on the highest difficulty where damage from zombies are capable of downing you in just 4 hits, Tanks instantly down you with their attacks, and the Witch will instantly kill you if she strikes. Realism mode disables glows around survivors so you can't see where anyone is at all times, respawning in a closet is no longer possible, and all common infected have increased defense and no longer die in a single shot from sniper rifles. Prepare to die and restart. A lot.
** Good Guy Nick, requiring you to play with somebody playing the game for free on a free weekend. This wasn't a big deal until Christmas 2013, when Valve offered the full game, free, as a special Christmas present. Just try to find somebody who ''doesn't'' own this game, and wait...wait...wait for a free weekend to occur. Which is a crapshoot in and of itself.
** Level a Charge requires you to kill a Charger with a melee weapon while they charge at you. Chargers have enough health to withstand two melee strikes and Charger AI is very finicky on whether or not it will charge at you.
** Meat Tenderizer involves playing as a Charger in VS mode and grabbing and slamming a survivor for a solid 15 seconds without interruption. Most survivor players are alert enough to gun you down if you have one of their own pinned, requiring the zombie team to coordinate their attacks to keep the survivors busy.
** Heartwarmer requires a player in VS mode to leave the safe room and bring back a dead player with a defibrillator. Not only do you need to find a defib to begin with (which also means sacrificing health kits), but you also need to hope that any survivors that die are only a mere few feet away from the safe room. Infected players will gladly jump any survivor bold enough to attempt the achievement.
** The likely crowner of impossible [=PvP=] achievements is Spitfire, which requires you to destroy 20 gas cans as the Spitter. Not only is Scavenge a rarely-played mode in the first place, but like other achievements involving a specific Special Infected, you're at the mercy of the RNG to even try and make progress, especially since [[GlassCannon the Spitter dies to a handful of stray bullets]]. Furthermore, most players learn after the first time or two that Spitters ''can'' destroy gas cans in this mode, and after spotting a target it takes several seconds for the Spitter to fire off her spit and for it to start taking effect, more than long enough for alert survivors to get an endangered gas can out of the way. And no, you cannot simply camp the gas cans' spawn points - only cans that have been picked up and dropped by a survivor can be destroyed.
** Lickety-Split requires a survivor player to cut a Smoker's tongue with a melee weapon before he snares you with it. You only have a fraction of a second to react and swing your weapon at the Smoker's tongue before he grabs you. While the chainsaw makes the achievement less difficult, chainsaws are a rare find, so you're probably only going to get this achievement by either having ninja-like reflexes or sheer dumb luck.
** The Main Attraction requires you to spend the entirety of Dark Carnival's finale on the stage until the rescue helicopter arrives. This applies to ''the whole team'', meaning that it can be voided by: someone accidentally stepping off to avoid fire or Spitter goo, someone getting punched off by a Tank, someone getting ridden off by a Jockey, someone getting dragged off by a Smoker, someone not knowing you're trying to get the achievement... Oh, and the ammo pile in the finale has a chance of being placed off the stage, and most of the supplies in the level are off-stage by default.

''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' games usually have at least one achievement that is an absolute nightmare to earn.
** ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}'' had ones such as "Overkill", which required you to kill 4 players within 4 seconds of each other on a ranked free-for-all game, which only had 6 players in each match. You either got really lucky or depending on the game mode, you would have to camp somewhere and hope 4 people would appear at once that you could kill before they killed each other. Other ones included trying to get a double kill with a spartan laser in the same game mode.
** ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' had "If They Came To Hear Me Beg", which had you trying to survive a fatal drop by assassinating an Elite, which came down to finding an Elite by a high enough cliff, getting lucky to fall directly behind him and then pressing the buttons at just the right time to trigger the assassination. This inspired wave after wave of thread on the Bungie.net forums with people unable to get the achievement despite trying again and again and again. When ''Reach'' was rereleased on the Master Chief Collection, this achievement was removed.
** ''Reach's'' later DLC packages also added several achievements that have to be completed on specific multiplayer maps. Many are sizable feats by themselves like "Don't Touch That!", which requires a team to shut out an enemy team in Capture the flag. These achievements are full of Fake Difficulty, because there are few options to ensure the map you will be playing is one of the DLC maps in the correct game mode. "All Alone" and "Emergency Room" are particularly guilty, as the Infection gametype has no 'DLC-Only Playlist' meaning a player has to blindly stumble into a lobby with people who happen to all own the particular map pack required to earn the achievement legitimately.
** "A Monument to All Your Sins." At least in ''3'', you could get the achievement for beating Legendary campaign in multiplayer, or even in splitscreen using a second controller solely as a respawn mule. This ''Reach'' achievement requires you to beat Legendary ''solo''.
** "One Final Firefight" in ''Reach'' requires you to earn 150,000 points on Lone Wolf. Even if you play on Easy with all skulls on to maximize point earning, 150k points demands hours of grinding with no saves, respawns, or checkpoints, with even Elite Generals giving only a measly 260-ish points each.
** Then there are the Bungie Vidmaster Challenges which rewarded the much desired Recon armour to anyone able to beat them all. Some were easy, like finding skulls on DLC maps, getting 50exp in a playlist, getting 7 exp on the 7th of the month. Then you had one for doing a level on legendary without firing a shot or throwing a grenade. Two of the harder ones were clearing the last levels on ''Halo 3'' and ''VideoGame/Halo3ODST'' on legendary, with Iron on and in Ghosts or Mongooses although with good players this can be done in 30 minutes. The absolute bane of anyone getting to Recon was the "Endure" Vidmaster, which required you to survive 4 waves of enemies in ''ODST'' Firefight on Heroic in 4 player co-op. You were under threat from the enemies, the ever increasing difficulty, incompetent players or someone lagging out and ending the game. It takes two hours to do as well, so make sure nothing interrupts you. Even better is the fact that the game semi-regularly sends out waves of [[DemonicSpiders Fire grenade invisi-Brutes]]. Plus shielded drones not only outdo them in the sheer danger factor (those alone excluded the whole enemy class from ''Reach''), but the game has a hard time rendering fire and relaying it across the connection; you can imagine the lag when there's a dozen of the pricks amok. It was voted the hardest Vidmaster to get as a result.
** The par time achievements in ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved: Anniversary'' on ''The Master Chief Collection'' can be somewhat frustrating. "Truth and Reconciliation", a fairly long level, must be beaten in 20 minutes. "Assault on the Control Room", one of the series' longest levels? ''15 minutes''. Unless level exploits are used to skip entire sections, it's nigh impossible.
** ''The Master Chief Collection'' for the Xbox One introduces perhaps the pinnacle of impossible ''Halo'' achievements: LASO Master for 50 gamerscore, earned by beating the LASO playlists for ''Halo [[VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved CE]]'', ''[[VideoGame/Halo2 2]]'', ''[[VideoGame/Halo3 3]]'', and ''[[VideoGame/Halo4 4]]''. For those who do not know what LASO is, it stands for "Legendary All Skulls On". Legendary difficulty on its own is already a challenge (with ''Halo 2'' and ''4'' universally regarded as among the most difficult on Legendary, with ''Halo CE'' up there too), but throw in skulls that restart the ENTIRE level if you die on solo, prevent shields from recharging unless enemies are melee'd, double grenades thrown by enemies, buff enemy health and rank considerably, halve ammo in picked up weapons and so forth, and what ensues is an exercise in frustration. To get an idea of how difficult this achievement is to get, ''The Master Chief Collection'' was out for over a month as of December 2014. On True Achievements.com, out of 55,000 tracked gamers, only ''12'' had gotten the achievement, while other achievements in the collection already had scores of 12,000-50,000 gamers.
** Finding all the Skulls in any game can be a GuideDangIt, with them frequently being hidden in out-of-reach locations that may require a tricky [[RocketJump Rocket or Grenade Jump]] (e.g. the Bandana skull in ''Halo Anniversary''), or having impossibly complicated methods of unlocking (e.g. the IWHBYD skull in ''Halo 3'').
** "He's Unstoppable!" NoDamageRun of a level on Heroic or Legendary, which means no reloading from checkpoints either.

* Beat Veteran on ANY ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' game. You're just slightly more hardy than a OneHitPointWonder, and thus need to seek cover regularly. The enemy knows this and will herd you away from cover with liberal use of grenades, which can kill you if you're within their blast radius. And your invincible allies? Your squad leader may be [[MemeticBadass "Alpha Male of the Human Race"]], but he has no clue how to work the sights on his gun.
** ''World At War'' is the worst. One level pits you against an omnipotent Nazi sniper with a quick trigger finger, god-like accuracy, and bullets that are apparently made of super-radiation that can kill you if they so much as touch any part of you. Oh, and he takes 3 bullets to kill (no, lodging a single round in his brain stem will not kill him. It's 3 shots, PERIOD).
** Another hair-tearing achievement in ''World at War'', from the very same level, is Gunslinger, which requires you to kill a Nazi general with a pistol shot. Mind you, this shot is intended for a ''sniper rifle,'' since you're on a rooftop a couple hundred meters away from him and pistol ironsights are minuscule. To put the cherry on top, he ducks under the automobile he rides in on the second you fire a shot, so you essentially ''have'' to do this on your first try, and it's not entirely obvious where the ''sole guaranteed pistol in the level'' is (hint: it's not at the spot you snipe the general from). Be prepared for a LOT of checkpoint reverting. However, there ''is'' a glitch that allows you to get up close to the general, thus making the achievement absurdly easy to get if you can exploit this. If you want to see how it works watch [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kP_TQgRKLs this video]].
** Another achievement required you to kill three enemies with one shot. There's a ''single'' part of the game where this is quite easy to do, but unless you're actually trying to get the achievement it probably wouldn't occur to you to try.
** Arguably one of the worst is 'The Sum of All Zeros', which requires you to shoot down 50 Zero fighters on the mission 'Black Cats'. You are expected to do this in the middle of a chaotic sea-to-air battle while simultaneously rescuing sailors. Worse still, many of the Zeros are kamikaze attackers, meaning that you have a ''very'' limited timeframe to shoot them down before they plow into friendly ships. Have fun!
** ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' has "Your Show Sucks", attained by shooting all of televisions showing Al-Asad's speech in the level Charlie Don't Surf. Seems simple? Guess what, the last leg of the mission has you raiding a ''broadcast station'', and there are a total of '''''144 televisions in the entire level.''''' Even worse, the destroyed televisions '''reset''' if you die before you hit checkpoints. Paranoia abounds.
** [[PlayableEpilogue Mile High Club]], also in ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', makes the rest of the Veteran campaign look like a cakewalk. You have to navigate an airplane with no space to move or take cover, kill hordes of terrorists without grenades, and you only have one minute to clear the entire level. If you somehow make it to the end, you ''must'' get a headshot on the terrorist with the hostage, because [[NonStandardGameOver "Only veterans get headshots."]] If you perfectly completed the rest of the level, you'll only have five seconds to make the shot anyway. Entire ''guides'' have been written on this one achievement.
** ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyAdvancedWarfare Advanced Warfare]]'' has Wheelman, which involves clearing the Hover Bike sequence at the end of Aftermath... without hitting any obstacles or taking damage. The track is about a minute long and has three checkpoints, but it's very easy to screw up and it isn't even very clear if you HAVE screwed up. And if you fail, you'll have to redo the whole mission over again.
** ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsIII Black Ops 3]]'' has "[[LampshadeHanging No One Will Believe You]]," which requires you to beat the campaign on Realistic difficulty. So named because on this difficulty, '''a''' '''''single shot''''' '''from any weapon will kill you.'''.

* "Saint" in ''VideoGame/DeadRising'' requires you to save fifty survivors. There are about fifty-three in the game. Even if you get an ending where Frank and Isabella are counted as survivors, your window of acceptable loss is ''really'' thin. This is made slightly easier by giving [[ArtificialStupidity the otherwise heavily incompetent AI]] [[ViolationOfCommonSense shotguns to defend themselves with]], as they manage to actually fight back against the zombies with them.
** Nearly as difficult as "Saint" is "7 Day Survivor", where the game requires you survive for seven game days in Infinity mode.
*** This is incredibly difficult because: one game day is 2 real-time hours. Your health drains every 1 minute and forty seconds. There are limited health items, no saving (not even with SaveGameLimits), no continues, 14 real hours all in one shot. To make matters worse, since you can't save this meant running your Xbox 360 that entire time. In the early days of the 360, this ran a very real chance of giving you the Red Ring of Death (i.e. the Xbox 360 fries itself and no longer works). This game was released just near the end of the original one-year warranty for launch day consoles. Have fun.
*** The Xbox One/Playstation 4 versions make it a little easier, since the machine's software allows you to pick up from the exact same spot you left your game at if you don't start another game or app. However, this means that until you get the achievement, you literally can't do anything else with your device. Though on the bright side, it turns it from an endurance test into a waiting game that occasionally requires inputs.
** Finishing the unholy trilogy, there's Transmissionary, which requires that you hear all of Otis' transmissions. On paper, this sounds like something that you'd naturally get when you undergo Saint, right? Well, you can, but it has a few caveats. One is that it requires that you progress past the normal stopping point for Saint, which is doable, so it's not the end of the world. But the reason it's here is because it requires ignoring cases until the last possible hour, something most people wouldn't ever get without a guide; this is because Otis calls the player to remind them of a mission's deadline, and each of those ''count towards the total''.
** There's also "Outdoorsman", which requires you to spend 24 consecutive in-game hours outside. It's not difficult at all, but it forces you to stay in Leisure Park (the only outdoor location in the game) for two real-time hours. There's no healing, and going anywhere else resets the timer, forcing you to do it again from the start. The only thing that makes it boring as opposed to difficult is that there's a roof that you can easily jump on and wait out the time.
** ''Off The Record'' has the "Alpha Vs Omega" achievement. To get it you have to have Denyce, the very first survivor you encounter, attack and damage Sgt Boykin, one of the last Psychopaths in the game. It basically turns the entire playthrough into one long god-awful EscortMission that forces you to reload every time she dies. This can lead to HOURS of lost storyline progress because you weren't able to get to a bathroom or wasted your last healing item on her. Of course, this being ''Dead Rising'', even if you do manage this incredibly frustrating feat all you get is a measly 20 point achievement. Hope the agony of putting up with her for all that time was worth it, though you can at least watch Boykin rip her apart once the achievement pops up.
*** However, in spite of that, it sounds like a fairy easy (if lengthy) achievement if you just hole up somewhere safe and wait, right? Well, you need to complete the ''entire plot to fight this Psychopath''. This means you need to enter the safehouse (but also keep Denyce far enough away to avoid bringing her in with you automatically) regularly, and you need to escort her through the cases that the game gives you. And, since you're advancing the story, more dangerous enemies will begin appearing, and appear more often.
*** One particular plot necessary fight, the fight against TK's Helicopter, takes place on a rooftop with a loading screen. After the fight, Frank (and anyone with him) is teleported directly to the Safe House. Not only can Denyse not come up to the fight, meaning the fight is now on a strict time limit before she automatically dies off-screen, but as soon as the cutscene in the Safe House is over, Frank has to race back to the Hotel before she dies. And since the game autosaves after every case is completed, if Denyse doesn't have enough health after the fight and you can't make it in time, you'll have to start all over.

* ''[[Film/AForAssassin A... for Assassin]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/ABlackVeilForLisa A Black Veil for Lisa]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/ABladeInTheDark A Blade in the Dark]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/TheBloodstainedButterfly'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/TheBloodstainedShadow'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/BlueEyesOfTheBrokenDoll Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll]]''/''[[Film/HouseOfPsychoticWomen House of Psychotic Women]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/TheCaseOfTheScorpionsTail The Case of the Scorpion's Tail]]''
* ''[[Film/ClapYoureDead Clap, You're Dead]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/CrazyDesiresOfAMurderer Crazy Desires of a Murderer]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/CreepingDeath''/''[[Film/KillThePokerPlayer Kill the Poker Player]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/TheCrimesOfTheBlackCat The Crimes of the Black Cat]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/DeadlyInheritance'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/DeathCarriesACane Death Carries a Cane]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/DeathSmilesOnAMurderer Death Smiles on a Murderer]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/DeathStepsInTheDark Death Steps in the Dark]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/ADragonflyForEachCorpse A Dragonfly for Each Corpse]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/TheEmbalmer'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/{{Eyeball}}'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/EyeInTheLabyrinth Eye in the Labyrinth]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/TheFifthCord'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/TheFishWithTheEyesOfGold The Fish with the Eyes of Gold]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/FiveWomenForTheKiller Five Women for the Killer]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/TheFrenchSexMurders'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/TheIguanaWithTheTongueOfFire The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[TheKillerIsOneOfThirteen The Killer is One of 13]]''/[[Film/TheKillerIsOneOfThirteen The Killer is One of Thirteen]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/KillerWithoutAFace Killer Without a Face]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/TheKillerWoreGloves'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/KnifeOfIce Knife of Ice]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/TheMurderClinic'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/MurderInBlueLight Murder in Blue Light]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/MurderRock''/''[[Film/MurderRockDancingDeath Murder Rock: Dancing Death]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/MyDearKiller'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/NakedGirlMurderedInThePark Naked Girl Murdered in the Park]]''/''[[Film/NakedGirlKilledInThePark Naked Girl Killed in the Park]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/NakedYouDie''/''[[Film/TheYoungTheEvilAndTheSavage The Young, The Evil, and The Savage]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/TheNightEvelynCameOutOfTheGrave The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave]]''
* ''Film/NightKiller'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/NothingUnderneath'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/ObsessionATasteForFear Obsession: A Taste for Fear]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/PlotOfFear Plot of Fear]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/TheRedQueenKillsSevenTimes'' - @/DemonDuckOfDoom
* ''[[Film/RedRingsOfFear Red Rings of Fear]]''/''[[Film/RingsOfFear Rings of Fear]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/SevenBloodStainedOrchids Seven Blood-Stained Orchids]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/SevenDeathsInTheCatsEye Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/TheSisterOfUrsula The Sister of Ursula]]''
* ''Film/SlaughterHotel'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/Sleepless2001 Sleepless]]'' (2001) - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/TheStrangeViceOfMrsWardh The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh]]''/''Film/BladeOfTheRipper''
* ''[[Film/StripNudeForYourKiller Strip Nude for Your Killer]]'' - @/DemonDuckOfDoom
* ''[[Film/TheSuspiciousDeathOfAMinor The Suspicious Death of a Minor]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/Trauma1978 Trauma]]'' (1978) - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/TheWeekendMurders''
* ''[[Film/WhatHaveTheyDoneToYourDaughters What Have They Done to Your Daughters]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/WhoKilledTheProsecutorAndWhy Who Killed the Prosecutor and Why?]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/WhoSawHerDie Who Saw Her Die?]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/YoullDieAtMidnight You'll Die at Midnight]]''/''Film/MidnightKiller'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/YourViceIsALockedRoomAndOnlyIHaveTheKey Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key]]''
[[AC: Homages]]
* ''[[Film/FiveDeadOnTheCrimsonCanvas 5 Dead on the Crimson Canvas]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/{{Assault}}''/''[[Film/InTheDevilsGarden In the Devil's Garden]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/CalendarGirlMurders'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/TheClairvoyant''/''Film/TheKillingHour'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/TheComeback''/''Film/{{Encore}}'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/CorpseMania'' - a Hong Kong take on the genre from Creator/ShawBrothers - @/RobertTYL
* ''Film/TheEditor'' - an AffectionateParody of the genre by the Creator/Astron6 collective
* ''Film/EvilJudgment'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/FatalPulse'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/{{Francesca}}'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/HollaIfIKillYou'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/ThePsychopath'' - @/Combogym77
* ''Film/TheRainKiller'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/ThreeTearsOnBloodstainedFlesh Three Tears on Bloodstained Flesh]]'' - @/Combogym77
* ''[[Film/TooScaredToScream Too Scared to Scream]]'' - @/Combogym77