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20 Video Games with the Most Complex Gameplay

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Ignacio Weil

Gaming - May 23rd 2026, 11:00 GMT+2

Workers Resources Soviet Republic 2024 — 20. Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic (2024)

A city builder usually asks for roads, housing, and maybe a power plant if it’s feeling spicy; *Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic* asks who mines the gravel, how it gets to the asphalt plant, and whether your bus route has doomed the entire republic before breakfast. Its planned-economy simulation turns logistics, labor, heating, imports, education, and construction into one giant spreadsheet with potholes. Beautiful, exhausting, and mildly accusing, it makes “urban planning” sound like a threat. | © 3Division

Cropped Amazing Cultivation Simulator — 19. Amazing Cultivation Simulator (2020)

On paper, *Amazing Cultivation Simulator* is about building a sect and chasing immortality; in practice, it is a feng shui panic room where temperature, room quality, elemental balance, body parts, spiritual breakthroughs, and chicken-adjacent disasters all demand attention. It borrows the colony-sim chaos of *RimWorld* and filters it through xianxia mythology until even furniture placement feels cosmically judgmental. Achieving enlightenment has rarely involved this much interior design. | © GSQ Games

Cropped Terra Invicta — 18. Terra Invicta (2022)

Aliens invade Earth, and *Terra Invicta* somehow decides the hard part should be committee work, orbital mechanics, ideological factions, espionage, nation management, and designing spacecraft that do not embarrass humanity in public. It is grand strategy stretched across continents, agencies, economies, and the Solar System, where one bad political foothold can echo all the way to Mars. The learning curve does not climb so much as launch. | © Pavonis Interactive

Cropped Noita — 17. Noita (2020)

Most roguelikes kill you with monsters; *Noita* prefers a more democratic approach, allowing acid, fire, electricity, unstable spells, falling rocks, your own wand, and one regrettable liquid interaction to participate. Every pixel is physically simulated, which means the world is less a level and more a hostile chemistry lab with folklore issues. The real complexity is learning that “I wonder what happens if…” is usually the opening line of an obituary. | © Nolla Games

Cropped Factorio — 16. Factorio (2020)

The first conveyor belt in *Factorio* looks innocent, almost cute, which is how it gets you. An hour later, iron plates, green circuits, oil cracking, train signals, defense perimeters, and production ratios have formed a mechanical nervous system you both control and fear. Its complexity comes from pure escalation: every solution becomes a new appetite, and every “temporary” layout becomes an archaeological crime scene. | © Wube Software

Cropped Crusader Kings 3 — 15. Crusader Kings III (2020)

Wars matter in *Crusader Kings III*, sure, but so do marriages, claims, secrets, stress levels, succession laws, congenital traits, religious doctrine, vassal tantrums, and whether your heir is technically qualified or merely breathing nearby. It is strategy as family therapy with armies attached, where a kingdom can survive invasion and then collapse because one cousin got ideas. No other game makes inheritance law feel this personal and this dangerous. | © Paradox Development Studio

Cropped Microsoft Flight Simulator — 14. Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020)

*Microsoft Flight Simulator* can be played like a scenic vacation with wings, but the moment you touch real procedures, weather systems, navigation, aircraft instruments, trim, approach patterns, and air traffic rules, the vacation files a resignation letter. Its complexity is not abstract; it comes from trying to respect the logic of actual aviation while also letting regular humans sit in a digital cockpit. Landing smoothly feels less like winning and more like being briefly accepted by physics. | © Xbox Game Studios

Cropped Kenshi — 13. Kenshi (2018)

*Kenshi* does not hand players a destiny; it hands them a weak body, a hostile desert, unpaid medical bills, and the freedom to make spectacularly bad decisions. Combat training, limb loss, slavery, faction politics, base building, trading, stealth, hunger, and squad management all feed into a sandbox that refuses to flatter anyone. Becoming powerful here feels earned because the game first makes sure you understand the full texture of being nobody. | © Lo-Fi Games

Cropped Oxygen Not Included — 12. Oxygen Not Included (2019)

A colony in *Oxygen Not Included* begins with three cheerful duplicants and ends, if mismanaged, with carbon dioxide in the basement, urine in the clean water, heat death in the kitchen, and one poor worker trapped behind a wall they just built. The game’s systems interlock through gases, liquids, temperature, pressure, power, germs, food, and morale. It is adorable in the way a pressure cooker with eyes is adorable. | © Klei Entertainment

Cropped Opus Magnum — 11. Opus Magnum (2017)

*Opus Magnum* looks elegant enough to trick the brain into confidence: place an arm, rotate a component, make a potion, collect praise. Then the optimization charts appear, and suddenly your proud alchemical engine resembles a washing machine arguing with a clock. Its puzzles are open-ended engineering problems where “finished” only means the first, ugliest version survived inspection. The real game begins when you decide your solution is offensive and rebuild it from shame. | © Zachtronics

Cropped Rimworld — 10. RimWorld (2018)

The genius of *RimWorld* is that its complexity rarely announces itself as complexity; it arrives as a colonist’s mood break, a freezer failure, a botched surgery, a social fight, a raid, or a pet bonded to exactly the wrong person. Food, medicine, ideology, temperature, weapons, relationships, work priorities, and storyteller-driven disasters turn every settlement into a narrative machine. The interface says colony sim; the experience says crisis management with furniture. | © Ludeon Studios

Cropped Stellaris — 9. Stellaris (2016)

In *Stellaris*, building a space empire means juggling exploration, colonization, diplomacy, ship design, research, ethics, traditions, population management, federation drama, trade routes, megastructures, and alien neighbors who may or may not be normal about borders. The early game feels like discovery; the mid-game feels like bureaucracy with lasers. Its best trick is making galactic domination sound glamorous, then asking you to read six tooltips before approving one mining station. | © Paradox Development Studio

Cropped Hearts of Iron IV — 8. Hearts of Iron IV (2016)

A World War II strategy game could stop at armies and borders, but *Hearts of Iron IV* adds production lines, logistics, doctrines, supply hubs, naval task forces, air zones, political focuses, division templates, resistance, fuel, and the eternal question of why your tanks are stuck in mud again. It rewards planning at a national scale while punishing anyone who forgets that rifles do not magically teleport to the front. History, here, has a very demanding inventory system. | © Paradox Development Studio

Cataclysm dark days ahead msn — 7. Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead (2013)

Survival games often ask players to find food and avoid zombies; *Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead* asks whether you understand nutrition, vehicle construction, mutations, crafting chains, pain, temperature, morale, encumbrance, firearms, electricity, and the social implications of wearing sixteen backpacks. Its post-apocalyptic world is dense enough to make opening a menu feel like entering a university course with teeth. The reward is freedom so detailed it occasionally becomes suspicious. | © Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead Team

Cropped Kerbal Space Program — 6. Kerbal Space Program (2015)

*Kerbal Space Program* turns rocket science into slapstick without making the science any less real. Thrust, staging, fuel, aerodynamics, center of mass, orbital transfers, docking, re-entry, and landing all matter, which is rude but fair when you are trying to send tiny green astronauts beyond the atmosphere. Every explosion teaches something, even if that lesson is simply that enthusiasm is not a substitute for delta-v. | © Squad

Cropped Victoria 2 — 5. Victoria II (2010)

*Victoria II* is the rare strategy game where winning a war may be less complicated than understanding why your factories are unprofitable and your population has started developing opinions. Its 19th-century simulation tracks industry, trade, politics, literacy, ideology, diplomacy, colonization, migration, and social reform with an almost alarming appetite for numbers. It makes empire-building feel less like conquest fantasy and more like balancing a nation-sized ledger during a thunderstorm. | © Paradox Development Studio

Cropped path of exile — 4. Path of Exile (2013)

The passive skill tree in *Path of Exile* looks less like character progression and more like someone mapped the nervous system of a god. Skills, supports, sockets, flasks, ascendancies, crafting currencies, league mechanics, item modifiers, defenses, damage conversion, and endgame mapping all stack into an action RPG that treats experimentation as both invitation and trap. Building a character is thrilling, but it definitely helps to bring a calculator and emotional support. | © Grinding Gear Games

Cropped Aurora 4x — 3. Aurora 4X (2004)

*Aurora 4X* looks like a database that swallowed a space empire and decided to keep the interface as evidence. Beneath its intimidating surface are ship classes, sensors, missiles, colonies, geology, logistics, orbital bodies, research paths, fleet doctrine, and enough interstellar planning to make most 4X games seem breezy. It is not trying to charm anyone at first glance; it is waiting for the exact player who sees a spreadsheet and thinks, “Finally, stars.” | © Steve Walmsley

Cropped Dwarf Fortress — 2. Dwarf Fortress (2006)

Calling *Dwarf Fortress* a colony sim feels technically true in the same way calling the ocean “some water” is technically true. It simulates personalities, histories, injuries, materials, fluids, geology, moods, animals, nobles, crafts, tantrums, sieges, and civilizations with a depth that can turn one misplaced staircase into generational folklore. The graphics were never the point; the point is that the game is quietly building a mythological disaster engine under your cursor. | © Bay 12 Games

Cropped Eve Online — 1. EVE Online (2003)

*EVE Online* is complex because its mechanics are deep, but also because thousands of other players are allowed to be clever, greedy, patient, organized, petty, heroic, and financially terrifying. Mining, manufacturing, trading, scanning, fleet combat, sovereignty, espionage, corporations, market manipulation, and ship fitting all exist inside a living economy where trust is a resource and betrayal is practically a crafting material. Space is cold; the player base made it colder. | © CCP Games

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Mastering a video game usually means learning its rules; mastering these games means accepting that the rules have rules. From brutally deep strategy systems to combat engines that demand timing, patience, and a suspicious amount of homework, the most complex gameplay in gaming can turn a single mistake into a full-blown lesson. These are the titles that reward obsession, punish button-mashing, and make “just one more try” sound less like a promise and more like a lifestyle.

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Mastering a video game usually means learning its rules; mastering these games means accepting that the rules have rules. From brutally deep strategy systems to combat engines that demand timing, patience, and a suspicious amount of homework, the most complex gameplay in gaming can turn a single mistake into a full-blown lesson. These are the titles that reward obsession, punish button-mashing, and make “just one more try” sound less like a promise and more like a lifestyle.