Ask for the shape of the challenge.

Every death is your own fault and every run is a fresh cave. The systems interact thoroughly enough that it kills you in ways nobody has written down yet.

Three in-game days on a shrinking map, so the usual answer to a FromSoftware wall — go somewhere else and come back stronger — is the one thing the clock will not sell you.

The combat is the gentlest in the family and the systems are the cruellest — dying moves you to soul form at half health, and the game never says so.

The one that attacks your resources rather than your reflexes — your maximum health falls every time you die, and the ambushes are designed around you not knowing they are there.

The difficulty is mostly geography — knowing which door to take is worth more than any weapon in the game.

A bullet hell with a generous dodge roll and completely ungenerous boss patterns. The unlock grind is doing double duty as the difficulty curve.

A MOBA played from behind the character, so half your abilities have to be aimed and the other half have to be aimed while something is aiming at you.

Enormous and completely indifferent — most of its walls are optional, and it will never tell you which ones.

Enemies act during your recovery frames and refuse to wait their turn. The famous difficulty is the ordinary encounters, not the bosses.

Ki pulse turns stamina from something you spend into something you play in rhythm, and the game asks for it in the first hour without ever insisting you learn it.