Online Games That Are Easy to Start but Take a Lifetime to Master

Playing a difficult game can sometimes get frustrating, as you need to tread the fine line between it being too easy or overly complex.

Of course, the games that stand the test of time are those which at first appear very easy – hooking people in as a result – but which on further examination are, in fact, incredibly complex and tricky to master, and which cannot be beaten by special online cheat codes.

Those are the games that we discuss in this article, as we go in search of the online games that continue to gain new fans among younger generations of gamers because their intricacies and vagaries never cease to enthrall.

Checkmate is Still So Tough to Obtain

In recent years, the classic board game that is chess has made a resurgence both online and offline, with young and exciting grandmasters like Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, and Hikaru Nakamura all portraying the game differently to the one that was previously only played by old men who looked like professors with overgrown eyebrows.

Learning the basics of chess is a relatively easy affair, with rookies just having to recollect how each piece moves.

Then things begin to get a little trickier, as moves such as castling come into play, as well as a whole host of strategies and tactical approaches.

Whole books have been written about the game and which have only scratched the surface when it comes to the complexities of chess, and the game promises to throw up plenty more surprises in the future.

Online sites such as Chess.com and Lichess.org have helped the game gain further traction online, developing faster-paced versions of the original such as what is known as Blitz Chess.

The King of Card Games

Another game aside from chess that has flourished since its inception online is that of poker, with particularly the Texas Hold’em version of this classic card game becoming a major hit among online gamers.

The beauty of the game is that picking up the basics is relatively simple. Players have to memorize the hand rankings first, and then learn some basic strategies and norms of play, such as knowing how to size bets and the importance of position when competing for a pot. They should also keep in mind that there are four major variations of Texas Hold’em, with their slightly differing rules sometimes frustrating rookie players if they fail to double-check them before they register for a tournament.

Once players are up to speed with the ins and outs of bluffing, raising, and folding, it’s great to take a look at how the pros play, with legends of the game like Lex Veldhuis regularly streaming their poker exploits, as well as their other forays into video games, at gaming sites such as Epic Games, PokerStars, and Chess.com – all of which can be watched on streaming platforms such as Twitch.

Before you know it, you might be multi-tabling games across multiple screens as you crunch probabilities and ranges in your head, while increasing the stakes one step at a time.

Retro Games Never Go Out of Fashion

While card games and board games are all well and good, there are those players of classic games who like to reminisce about the video games of yesteryear.

Some of the best of these are iconic games like Tetris and Pacman. In much the same vein as chess and poker, such games keep things nice and leisurely during their early levels or stages, but things quickly get a lot harder, as Pacman’s enemies bare down on him at ever-increasing speeds and the Tetris blocks rain from the sky.

Despite such games having dated and pixelated graphics, they are still played by millions of people all around the world, who are consistently drawn back to them again and again simply because of how playable they are.

Battle Royale Blasters So Much More Than Crash, Bang, and Wallop

Some of the most popular online games out there today are those which allow groups of friends to either collaborate as part of a team or to compete against each other in multiplayer battles.
What such games like COD and Fortnite manage to do is to combine the action and playability of old classics such as Quake and Doom with vast open-world arenas, where players can actively explore the landscape while hunting down their rivals.

There is no doubt that this has been a winning combination for the developers who have created such games, many of them now being the most played titles on the web.

This trend has only been made stronger by the fact that many of the world’s most renowned gaming streamers tend to prefer such games, regularly live-streaming their gaming stints on platforms such as Twitch as well as uploading plenty of content to Instagram and YouTube.

Puzzlers Keep Generation After Generation Guessing and Playing

If there is one thing in this world that is likely to keep a gamer of any variety occupied for hours on end, then it is a puzzle.

Well-known classics such as the Rubik’s Cube have now spawned online games that challenge players in all sorts of innovative and mind-bending ways. All of this is done while utilizing state-of-the-art graphics as well as beautiful or suspenseful soundtracks.

Some of the ones gaining traction online at the minute are The Almost Gone, which is a fascinating tapestry of interconnecting dioramas, and Path of Giants, which gives a whole new twist to platformers of the past.

Many such games are also now available for iOS and Android, meaning if a player just cannot stop playing until they have completed that level or puzzle, then they can keep going on the bus, train, or wherever they please. Another perfect gaming avenue to explore consists of old-school titles that were released on celebrated consoles like the PlayStation one. Some of the puzzle games developed for these early platforms still pack a powerful punch, forcing your mind to bend, as you look for a proper solution to a complicated problem.