Beating a difficult game is satisfying. Beating it on your own terms is even better. Once you’ve mastered a game, defeated every boss, or unlocked the best gear, it’s easy to feel the challenge has disappeared. We’ll show you how to make PC games harder and set self-imposed challenges that force you to think differently, adapt your strategies, and rediscover games you already love.
In short: The best way to make a PC game harder is to pair self-imposed challenge runs with customizable difficulty options. While challenges like Iron Man, No HUD, or speed runs test your skills, PLITCH goes even further with unique hardcore cheats. Supporting 5,700+ games and 79,500+ cheats, it lets you increase the difficulty rather than just making games easier.
Last updated: July 2026
Table of Contents
Why Players Create Their Own Challenges
Most games eventually become easier. You learn enemy patterns, discover powerful builds, and identify the most efficient strategies. Before long, even the toughest encounters become routine.
Self-imposed challenges keep games fresh by pushing you beyond your comfort zone. They encourage creative problem-solving, reward mastery, and often make familiar games feel completely new again.
Many popular challenge runs have become community events, inspiring players to compete, stream, and compare their accomplishments.
Classic Challenge Runs You Can Try
Iron Man
The rules are simple: if you die, the run is over. Whether you delete your save or simply start over, every decision suddenly matters. Resources become more valuable, risky shortcuts feel genuinely dangerous, and every victory is far more rewarding.
Perfect for:
- RPGs
- Survival games
- Strategy games
No HUD Challenge
Turn off your minimap, health bars, quest markers, and other interface elements. Without constant on-screen information, you’ll need to rely on memory, environmental clues, and observation. Many players say this dramatically increases immersion and makes exploration much more demanding.
Great for games like:
- The Witcher 3
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Cyberpunk 2077
Speed Runs
Instead of making enemies stronger, race against the clock. Set your own time limit or follow an existing speedrun category. You’ll quickly discover new routes, mechanics, and strategies you hadn’t noticed before. Even casual speedruns can completely change how you approach a game.
Restriction Runs
Sometimes the most interesting challenge is to remove one of your biggest advantages.
Examples include:
- No healing items
- Starting equipment only
- Magic only
- Melee only
- No crafting
- No fast travel
These limitations encourage experimentation and often render familiar encounters surprisingly difficult.
Go Beyond Self-Imposed Rules with PLITCH
Traditional challenge runs rely on rules you have to remember and enforce yourself. PLITCH adds another layer by letting you change how the game behaves. Most people know game trainers for making games easier, but PLITCH is one of the few platforms that also includes Hardcore Cheats, designed specifically for players seeking a greater challenge.
Instead of simply increasing enemy damage through a built-in difficulty setting, you can customize exactly how difficult you want the game to be.
Examples include:
- Lowering your health
- Reducing your armor
- Making enemies faster
- Slowing your own movement
- Combining multiple disadvantages at once
Create Your Own ELDEN RING Challenge with PLITCH
ELDEN RING already has a reputation for being brutally difficult, but experienced Tarnished often look for ways to push themselves even further.
PLITCH lets you create your own custom challenge by combining Hardcore Cheats such as:
- Slow movement speed
- Slower movement speed
- Fast AI
- Faster AI
The real fun begins when you start mixing challenge modifiers with quality-of-life features.
For example, you could:
- Make enemies significantly faster…
- …while ignoring equipment weight so you can experiment with unusual heavy weapon builds.
Or perhaps:
- Reduce your movement speed…
- …while increasing your item drop rate so farming rare weapons becomes less repetitive.
Instead of making the game easier, you’re creating an entirely new way to experience it.
A Brutal DOOM: The Dark Ages Run
Fast-paced shooters also feel surprisingly fresh with custom challenges. In DOOM: The Dark Ages, you can activate Hardcore Cheats, including:
- Low Health
- Low Armor
- Low Shield
On their own, these make every encounter much more dangerous, but you can also pair them with quality-of-life improvements.
For example:
- Play with permanently low health…
- …while giving yourself unlimited ammunition.
Or:
- Keep your armor extremely limited…
- …while increasing your damage to enemies.
Rather than simply choosing “Hard” from a menu, you’re designing your own difficulty. These combinations create challenge runs that simply aren’t possible with a game’s normal settings. It also lets you remove frustrating mechanics without removing the actual challenge.
FAQ – Answering the Most Important Questions
Yes! While many players use PLITCH to skip grinding or reduce difficulty, it also offers Hardcore Cheats for various games. These let you increase the challenge with options such as lower health, slower movement speed, stronger or faster enemies, and other modifiers that create unique self-imposed challenge runs.
Hardcore Cheats are special modifiers that make a game more difficult rather than easier. Depending on the game, they can reduce your health or armor, slow your movement, or make enemies faster and more aggressive. You can even combine several Hardcore Cheats to create custom difficulty settings.
Absolutely. One of PLITCH’s biggest strengths is its flexibility. You can mix Hardcore Cheats with quality-of-life features to create entirely new ways to play. For example, you could make enemies faster while removing equipment weight restrictions, or play with low health while giving yourself unlimited ammunition. The choice is yours.
PLITCH is the leading trainer software for single-player PC games, letting you customize your gaming experience with cheats and mods. In addition to popular features like unlimited health, money, or resources, PLITCH also offers Hardcore Cheats that increase difficulty in supported games. With support for more than 5,700 games and 79,500+ cheats, it gives you complete control over how you want to play.
Yes. PLITCH is made in Germany, GDPR-compliant, and Sectigo-certified. It works by temporarily modifying values in your PC’s RAM rather than altering your game’s files, and it is designed exclusively for single-player games. Because it does not support multiplayer titles, you don’t have to worry about online bans.
Yes. PLITCH offers a genuine freemium model. More than 700 games are fully playable in the free version, and features such as the Windows overlay, mobile companion app, Cheat Slider, and Favorites are available at no extra cost. A Premium membership unlocks the full cheat library and additional customization options.
Final Thoughts
Self-imposed challenges are among the best ways to rediscover your favorite PC games. Whether you’re attempting an Iron Man run, turning off the HUD, racing through a speed run, or inventing your own restrictions, changing the rules can make familiar games feel brand new.
PLITCH takes that idea even further. Instead of relying solely on self-discipline, you can customize the game’s mechanics with Hardcore Cheats and quality-of-life features. With support for 5,700+ PC games and more than 79,500 cheats, it gives you the freedom to build the exact kind of challenge you’re looking for. Your Game. No Limits.
Read more about PLITCH:
- 25 Special PLITCH Cheats and Mods to Transform Your Favorite Games
- PLITCH vs WeMod/Wand: Which PC Cheat Tool Is Better?
- Change the Way You Play with PLITCH!
- Game Trainer 101: Fair, Fun, and Flexible
- PLITCH, Accessibility, and the Power of Cheats
- Brainwave Studies Show That Cheats Make Games More Fun
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