You’re Smart If You Understood These 15 Video Games

15. Antichamber

Antichamber doesn’t play by the rules; in fact, this game throws them out entirely. Hallways loop, doors vanish, and progress only comes when you unlearn everything games (and maybe life) taught you about logic. | © Demruth

14. Papers, Please

What starts as stamping passports quickly turns into a soul-crushing balancing act between survival, speed, and conscience. You’re underpaid, overwhelmed, and overruled, and every decision feels terrifyingly personal. | © Lucas Pope

13. The Witness

Every puzzle in The Witness teaches you something, and if you didn't learn the lesson, you're not moving forward. It’s the kind of game that doesn’t just want you to solve puzzles, it wants you to see differently, and rewards only those who truly pay attention. | © Thekla

12. Dwarf Fortress

Playing Dwarf Fortress is like dropping a watermelon off a rooftop and trying to predict where every seed will land, except the seeds build a tavern, start a brawl, and accidentally flood your fortress. It's not just a game; it's a chain reaction of chaos, logic, and storytelling you couldn’t recreate twice if you tried. | © Bay 12 Games

11. Crusader Kings III

Crusader Kings III is complex strategic game about who you marry, who you betray, and whether your heir is a genius or a drunk. Half strategy, half medieval soap opera, CK3 turns you into a scheming ruler navigating a labyrinth of dynasties, drama, and deeply technical menus. | © Paradox Development Studio

10. XCOM: Enemy Unknown

XCOM: Enemy Unknown looks like a tactical strategy game until you realize the cover system lies, the line of sight is unreliable, and the AI knows things it shouldn't. Beating it means not just mastering tactics, but learning the game's quirks and bending them before they break you. | © 2K Games

9. Return Of The Obra Dinn

At first, Return of the Obra Dinn feels almost impossible: 60 crew members, each with a name, a death, and a story to untangle. But the deeper you go, the more you realise that every clue is already there, waiting for you to connect the dots like some grim, genius-level crossword. | © 3909 LLC

8. Portal 2

Yeah, puzzles in Portal 2 are fun and clever, but the real brilliance is in the biting AI satire and pitch-black humor buried between test chambers. If you caught the existential dread hiding behind GLaDOS’s snark, congrats: you were paying attention. | © Valve

7. Disco Elysium

Disco Elysium leaves you with no combat and no combos, just your brain, your broken soul, and a city falling apart. Dense political theory, internal monologues, and philosophical ramblings meet RPG mechanics, this game is like reading Dostoevsky through a drug haze. | © ZA/UM

6. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty starts with stealth and explosions and then drops players into the web of digital lies, identity, and control. Released in 2001, it somehow predicted the chaos of the internet age better than most tech think-pieces ever have. | © Konami Computer Entertainment Japan

5. Tunic

Tunic looks like a cheerful Zelda-like until you realize the game manual is written in a language you can’t read. Figuring out how anything works becomes a puzzle in itself, and solving it feels like cracking a secret code no one told you existed. | © TUNIC Team

4. FEZ

FEZ is a cute indie puzzle-platformer until you realise you need to decode an entire language and numeral system just to 100% it. What starts simple quickly becomes a layered challenge that only clicks if you're paying very close attention. | © Polytron Corporation

3. Outer Wilds

Everything in Outer Wilds is in motion: planets, gravity, and even time - and somehow, such a strange premise simply works. Beneath its smooth gameplay is a mind-bending physics engine that quietly asks you to rethink how space actually moves. | © Annapurna Interactive

2. Magic: The Gathering Arena

Magic: The Gathering Arena is a unique experience that rewards not just quick thinking, but deep pattern recognition - knowing a deck by turn 3, predicting plays, and understanding timing windows. If you’re paying attention, even your losses can teach you more than most games do in a win. | © DIGITAL GAMES STUDIO

1. Falcon 4.0

If you could fly a jet in Falcon 4.0, you were halfway to piloting this thing in real life. Upon release, this game had a 250-page manual and realistic flight mechanics, the game demanded you understand actual aerodynamics, not just button mashing. | © MicroProse