We know that certain games are big, like BG3 or Persona 5. But recently games like FF7 rebirth and Indiana Jones just kept going on and on past “Act 3”. Also Rise of the Golden Idol seemed a little short to me
Are developers getting more efficient with generating content?
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Xenogears. 80-hour game, and that’s without grinding for everything. And, it probably would have been close to twice as long if they’d been funded enough to complete it. As it was released, the second disc began with a 2-hour cutscene with a save point in the middle, which essentially summed up most of the second half of the story. Amazing game. Like playing through an entire mecha manga.
I love persona 5 but always quit after 40 hrs of playing it. It’s so damn long lol
The Last of Us II. I went in expecting the same act structure as the first and was surprised. If you’ve played it then you know what I’m talking about. Despite mainly taking place over just a few days it really feels so drawn out and a relentless struggle, which felt so perfect for the world of the game.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night… At least when you defeat Shaft properly
An ENTIRE NEW CASTLE!?
I’ve avoided this thread for a bit because I assumed there’d be a bunch of dick jokes. I was pleasantly surprised with a bunch of thoughtful and awesome comments. Fucking love the nerdiness of this community.
To answer the question - there’s a number of them, but i think the first one for me was Fable: The Lost Chapters. It added a ton of new content on top of the base game, plus there were a good amount of extra side quests, challenges, puzzles, collectibles, etc, that I got so much beautiful and memorable gameplay from it.
It does feel like games nowadays are made to appeal to the masses and/or pump out a lot of games as quickly as possible in order to generate as much money as possible. Fortunately indie game studios and devs still exist for people that are looking for a little more substance. Shout out to the Indie Stone for Project Zomboid and their continued efforts to add more awesome features to their game!!
I got surprised by DeathStranding.
Did not expect that a game that’s basically about going from A to B through walking could be that lengthy, having great scenery and a weird, vague but good story.
I’m really excited for its sequel, just hoping it will also be available for PC on release.
I wasn’t surprised by the length of the base game, or even by the presence of the post game, but by how much time the game spent ending. You beat the villain, that should be it, right? Lol no, you have to traverse the whole game world without vehicles and no network support. That’s it, right? Lol no, here’s a giant boss monster. That’s it, right? Lol no, here’s a shitload of cutscenes. Then the credits, then cut to black. That’s it, right? Lol no, more cutscenes, then one last delivery… and one last burst of cutscenes, some of which should have come earlier. That’s it, right? Lol almost, you have to watch the credits again, and then one blessedly short cutscene before the postgame, and then you can finally go to the main menu and quit.
I really liked the game, but good lord.
Classic kojima
They already said it’s going to be a PS5 exclusive.
Is that correct? Kojima bought full rights to the IP couple of months ago and released Death Stranding on everything immediately. Seems like it’ll be timed exclusive at most.
They’ve only announced it to be getting released on PS5 in 2025. That’s almost all the information there is about the game rn. I would take it to mean timed-exclusive, but that’s still not releasing on all platforms at once.
It was a PS4 exclusive too but now you can play on PC. Once the sales droop it’ll be cross-platformed.
Honestly, that’s a real bummer. I hope it’s a timed exclusive (so with time it will be on PC too).
Dragon Age: Origins. The base game was easily 80+ hours of interesting story and game play. Each DLC added 20-40 hrs a piece. I used to play it a ton.
I don’t recommend giving money to EA, though. They have properly shit all over the sequels.
You are 100% correct.
I just finished The Veilguard at 68 hours. I loved it, but haven’t played Origins. I bought it, but refunded after I saw how buggy and unsupported it is on new hardware these days. Maybe they’ll have a remaster some day, since everyone seemed to love it.
It probably wouldn’t be too resource intensive to run it on an XP virtual machine. You’ll want a version that runs on its own, though (no game store launcher, drm, etc)
What problems did you have with it? Still runs surprisingly well for me. Haven’t tried Veilguard yet, but plan to as soon as I have some time. Felt that none of the sequels where able to match Origins yet, though.
Well, it crashed on launch, for one. I saw there’s a ‘4GB’ fix, but that doesn’t let me launch from steam, and I wanted to stream to the steam deck, where I do almost all my gaming these days.
I really loved Veilguard, but I’ve definitely seen people who played Origins complain about it. I thought the characters, story, and combat were fantastic though.
Well, people love to complain. I didn’t feel Inquisition was as good as Origins, but I still had fun with it, and I assume the same is gonna be true for Veilguard.
Anyways, that’s curios. I think the Dragon Age Games are some of the few I own on Origin. I’d be kinda surprised if EA made the effort to patch the games on their own client, though.
Might try running it tomorrow, out of curiosity.
I just started Inquisition. I’m looking forward to learning more about the characters that appear in the Veilguard.
Elden Ring. Even after finishing the final boss there was so many areas I’ve not been to. And all those areas are unique - some with unique enemy types. It’s the game that dares to hide a secret area behind a secret area.
from the people who brought us illusory double walls of the Great Hollow and Ash Lake, go figure
It Takes Two. I thought the game would be over about four times, but then it kept adding even more mechanics and got HARD. I thought it would be super casual, did not expect that much length and depth to it (ignoring the cheesy story 😅)
This. There’s just so much game in that game.
It was a really fun game. It took months to finish it, in small chunks, trying to fit in time here and there with my kid. I’m glad we finished though.
Hollow Knight.
Surely this is the end of the map… Ok but now Suuuuuurely this is the end of the map… OK NOW SUUUURELY…
I love it when a game is about exploring and half of the content is optional.
That Pathfinder Kingmaker was long as hell. Not sure i want to start the sequel until I’m good and ready for another pleasant slog.
Pleasant slog should be the tagline on every owlcat game.
Love them but they definitely love a long game and a fuck you puzzle here and there.
I just finished it recently as well and also need an break until I start WotR.
I still think owlcat is nuts for adapting not one, but two full APs to video game form. Those are each six books worth of TTRPG adventure and those can take years to complete
The Talos Principle. After a short bit in the game, you go to a hub area that goes to other areas like the one you just came from. Eventually, you find out that there is another hub area above this which leads to other hub areas. I didn’t remember if there is another layer on top of that, but either way, once I hit that second hub layer, I remember realizing that the entire game was multiple times larger than I had thought, and I had no way to know if it would expand again when I made it to the next area.
The Talos Principle was such a great game! I think I’ll play it again before buying part 2
My wife and I each 100%'d Talos 2 and it was abundantly amazing. It had been years since either of us completed 1 but the way the story is structured you hear about the events of the first game in detail pretty regularly. I’m trying to be vague for spoilers. And of course I’m not trying to talk out of replaying 1, but just know you don’t have to, understand 2, and in my opinion it might be a touch tedious to do them back to back.
Both fantastic games tho that started a lot of good conversations between us.
There’s a remaster coming out early next year! I’m planning on doing the same when that comes out
Hollow Knight. Every time you think you’re nearing the end, there’s still a lot more. The true ending and optional DLCs add so much.
The final two dlc battles more than doubled my overall playtime. Absolutely brutal bosses.
I loved nightmare grimm, but didn’t bother with the Godmaster stuff tbh. The boss rush was way too much for me.
Nier Automata actually kinda pissed me off the first time I played it. Thought I was finished with the game and was confused by the ending, turns out that was just ending A. Gotta play again for B, and then C, and can’t forget D and E for the full picture.
Had to take a break from the game but I went back for the rest of the endings and they’re worth it. Also they cut out a lot of the side quests and grinding after ending A. Getting that first ending is actually like 50% or 60% finished. But yeah, at first I was getting flashbacks to the PS2 games that tell you the true ending can only be seen by playing again on the newly unlocked ‘Very Hard’ difficulty
Ending B was absolutely just padding.
There’s maybe a few segments where it’s interesting to see 9S’s perspective, but so many other scenes that weren’t bot-specific.
Yakuza games a completionists dream/nightmare
