A follow up to my other thread  https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/248539/how-important-is-difficulty-to-you-in-games/ about how important difficulty is I want to share and hopefully find games that are so fun they outweigh their extreme difficulty or punishment. 

Examples:

• Nioh 2 - It overcomes it's insanely punishing experience where death is just a step, mistake or lack of attention away. Easily the most punishing soulsborne like.
• Brotato - It's incredibly hard to clear a run in this game and even though I have yet to do so I'm still hooked at 5 hours in. 
• Furi - A boss rush game that is not only difficult but the fights are so long failing comes as a real punch in the gut.
• Monster Hunter End game - these games get ridiculously difficult to solo at end game Master Ranks but always bring the dopamine juice to keep the controller in your hand. 
• Ff14 Endgame Savage Raids - Very precise team focused gameplay that takes everyone to be on top of very intricate mechanics. If you PUG, these can turn into tasks that take days to complete.
• The Witcher 3 Death March difficulty - Allows for all the games mechanics to come into play with a need to engage with the game more deeply to overcome the challenge. 
• Sekiro - The first playthrough at least, takes a lot of patience and will do get in the groove with this game but never fails to loose it's hook right up to NG+7

I'd like to hear more examples if you have any, this is the type of game I want to be playing at the moment. 

The thing is there are also games that are both fun and difficult without being extremely punishing like Super Meat Boy or Celeste (though Chapter 9 goes a bit too far). I generally prefer that kind of difficulty.

But if you're looking for something that's specifically punishing you could always do Hardcore mode in a Diablo game or any 1-hit death mode like Dread Mode in Metroid Dread. That'll certainly get your pulse going.

I done Hardcore in Diablo 4 up to level 97, it was indeed punishing to loose all that time but the time spent with it was easy as hell and it was the games fault for logging me out in a dungeon. 

Super meat boyal are what I'm talking about yet it's more trial an error and the difficulty tends to overlap the fun. There isn't a hook there that is fun enough to overcome the difficulty imo. I may try celestial, I own that,l game, I remember hearing good things. 

Well that was kinda my point with Super Meat Boy, the difficulty isn't frustrating in games like that which I see as an absolute win. And well I can't speak to the current state of D3 or D4, but it definitely used to possible to play a very difficult D3 Hardcore.

There are probably also a ton of Rougelikes that match what you're looking for.

Arcade games. 80s and 90s esp. I mean any good 8-16-Bit game.

Super Ghouls`n Ghosts. I just love the gameplay, music, graphics and creativity of the game.

Same with Battletoads, Mike Tysons Punch-Out!! and Castlevania 3 for the NES.

The first Burnout game. That was game ending for just brushing against another car, instant 'crash'. Still more fun than the later versions where you can just knock every car of the road.

Arcade racers all used to be very punishing, now it's full throttle ram through everything :/

Colin McRae rally was also very hard, so rewarding to finally nail the course after dozens of attempts. Of course back then you only had a handful of tracks, so the games made you work to unlock the next track.

Omg. EXACTLY. Dirt Rally is the perfect example of what I'm talking about. You take the time to learn to be in tune with the Co driver, manage the throttle and brakes, slowly increasing your speed as you get the feel of it and then magic happens and no matter how good you get you always have to be on point, just a hair away from totalling the car and wrecking your ranking. It's so finely tuned, fair and the fun always edges out the insane difficulty of keeping up in the top spot. Pity about Dirt Rally 2, they went too far with the physics engine and extra nonsesnee and made the roads too wide but Dirt 4 with the difficulty turned up and the settings youbget later in the game makes up for it plus the arcadey campaign of Dirt 4 beats out Dirt Rallys by a country mile. 

Man, thank you. I'm gonna do some Rallying in Dirt Rally. 

Ikaruga. Few on this planet have mastered the game. It's not the most difficult in the genre but pretty high up. I love the game regardless. The amazing visuals from SEGA NAOMI/Dreamcast still look incredible. Treasure lived up to its name back then. I often associate them with the Platinum Games of their era but for as much as I love PG. Treasure was better. Ikaruga switching from light and dark sounds simple and it is but the reaction time needed to avoid bullets/obstacles and switch from light to dark needs to be lightning quick. I'm not esp great at the game but I don't care. It's one of those games I want to own on everything.

Nine sols is incredibly fun but so, so hard and it is threading a fine line between that fun keeping one hooked and over coming the difficulty. No way to level up either aside from a skill tree that doesn't really help. This is up there as my second favourite game of the year but IDK if I'll be able to beat it.

Returnal had me hooked and I've been making the odd attempt here and there for anmonth now and still can't defeat the second boss. Crazy how it still manages to be fun even though it is beyond the pale on punishing design and difficulty. I thinknyhey went to far with it, doing another 45 minute rum to just attempt the second boss is getting less and less appealing.