Ask for the shape of the challenge.

Sixty hours of systems the game never explains, hiding behind a weapon whose fourth input you have not found yet.

Wirebugs give every weapon a get-out-of-jail move, which makes this the entry that will actually teach you the series rather than survive you learning it.

Progression is gated behind bosses you are expected to build an arena for, and the game tells you almost none of that. Hardmode is a difficulty setting you trigger permanently, by hand.

Build orders are the curve, and the campaigns teach almost none of what the game actually asks for. The hard AI does not forget its economy while it fights.

A hero shooter that lets you fly and climb walls, so the sightlines are three-dimensional in a way that punishes shooter habits learned on flat maps.

The inputs were made easy so the system could be hard. Roman Cancel is four mechanics behind one button, and every match above the low floors is decided by who used it correctly.

Rise apologises for nothing in its expansion — the endgame Anomaly hunts are the hardest sustained content the series has shipped.

Aim is only half of it — the generation means the run you get may simply not contain the item you needed, and the game will not tell you that either.

Difficulty is a clock rather than a setting: everything you do to get stronger also makes the timer worse. Monsoon runs end in seconds when they end.

Aim matters less than knowing what the other team can do to you, and the roster is large enough that this takes a very long time to learn.