Nowadays, these games are designed to be stretched out as long as possible. Gamers are demanding metrics like 100-200 hours of content or “I paid 70$. I want 25 cents per hour)”. Like you got a fantastic story but if it’s sprinkled in 100 hours….the peaks are too short in between. Even a great story in a movie can be ruined if it was 15 hours long.
I want a game(ex: rpg) that’s average 30-40 hours where it always feel fresh from the beginning to the end. It never reaches the point where it feels repetitive. By the time it does, the game is almost over and I’m expecting the story to payoff. Hell, my enjoyment factor begins to drop significantly somewhere around 20 hours. By that point, a game that could’ve been a 9/10 for me starts to become a chore and I feel like I’ve seen what it has to offer.
It seems games are no longer being made for people like me.
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You can speed run many of games.
Broaden your horizons, you’ve got several games out there that are that long. Perfect example: Dragon Quest 3 HD-Remake is 40 hours to complete on average. Another great example for a really good rpg: Live-a-Live is roughly 20-24 hours.
Edit: Was unfortunately incorrect about Hundred Line. Fire Emblem Engage would have been a better pick given it is just about 41 hours to complete (main story focus). And as someone already mentioned in this thread: Clair Obscur which is about 27 hours.
I’ll say that devs care more about graphics than creating interesting games. Lots of the game back then don’t have the best graphics, but they have so much replay ability.
Have you played the Deliver Us saga?
-Deliver Us The Moon
-Deliver Us Mars
If you haven’t, lemme know if you do
I don’t know where you look for your games… but there are still plenty of short games around.
Ha, no. I remember when fable came out and I beat it in 6 hours. I was beyond fucking pissed off.
When a game is truly amazing, especially a big open world rpg, I never want it to end. It can be hundreds of hours long for all I care. But most games would do better as focused, smaller, expertly curated experiences. I hate bloat just for the sake of it, most games would really benefit from cutting a lot of stuff.
Like with most gaming hot takes we see on here, the answer is indies. There are games made to cater for your tastes, they just aren’t the biggest ones with the most high-tech graphics.
I have mostly shifted to Roguelikes because of how tough it is to play a full scale game nowadays. In long form RPGs, I kept having the ol “set it down for a bit, come back to it, have no idea what I’m doing and why I care…and then never pick it up again” thing
With Roguelikes ya just start from the beginning every time! And see how well this run goes. It’s always different, some of them I have put hundreds and hundreds of hours into.
And they have an accelerated beginning stage where you go from having no idea what’s goin on, to having that absolute banger run. It feels like getting proficient in a new skill, but in a much shorter time frame.
There’s plenty of short games coming out all the time.
The longer the better. If I love a game, it can’t be long enough.
It depends, some games are short and amazing (Katana Zero), but other games are extremely long and yet I want more. Other games are short and suck, or way too long. How many hours a fame is doesnt indicate anything
For me, the ideal game length is between 10-15 hours for horror, action games, platformers etc.
RPG – 40-50 hours.
Longer than that they become a drag and too much of a time sink. Especially when it reaches the point where I can TELL the length is being artifically padded with fluff. The FF7 Remake was a big one for this. It was a 15 hour game padded to about 40-50 hours by annoying crap…. having to backtrack across the map to push levers to open doors and solving long but boring puzzles, having a goblin thing steal your key in the sewers to send you on another 20 minute detour to get it back etc. It spoiled my interest in the game because I could just tell they were blatantly padding the length.
Most entertaining game i’ve played in the last 5 years or so was Brumble the mountain king. Doesn’t take more than 3 hours but it’s paced perfectly
High on life took my a bit over 24 hours to beat and that’s with running around exploring as much as possible. It’s definitely not for everyone but it’s great and not too long. You might like it
You hit us with the bait and switch hahaha. I agree with ya even though I wouldn’t consider a 30-40 hour game to be short. Some of my favorite games of all time are 10ish hours maybe 15 if you go for 100%ing everything
I agree, and that’s why I take a little bit of time to look into games that are around that number of hours. They definitely still exist, you just gotta look for it. If you like nintendo games, fire emblems are pretty much all between 20 and 30 hours. Paper marios are around 30 to 40 hours. 33 expedition which just released is between 30 and 50 hours depending on how much you want to complete. Souls games besides elden ring are about 30 hours for first playthrough. God of War is about 20 hours, God of War ragnarok is about 30. I mean, Astro Bot won game of the year and it’s only about 10 hours to finish, so it’s not like these games aren’t made/appreciated anymore.
These games still exist, just take some time to look around and you’ll definitely find them. Howlongtobeat.com is relatively accurate imo
They were more fun when they were simple and actually about fun.
Like most gaming opinions posted here, this isn’t so much an “unpopular opinion” as it is a really common bad take regurgitated endlessly online. There are still tons of short games. Go play them. If a game is too long, take a break. Don’t feel the need to 100% every single game. Develop even one other hobby to spend your time on besides gaming.
My favorite games are like 8-15hrs, and there are still plenty of those.
I don’t like long games either. I like games that I can play for a long time. Minecraft, TF2, Battlefield 1, A Little to the Left, and Civ 5 are some of my favorite games because I can do what I want and focus on improving my gameplay
I dunno, I see plenty of shorter games out there lately. Stray is a good example.
I’m paying $70 for a game, it better last 100+ hours
Nah you’re just old or have bad impulse control
Play a game until it isn’t fun. It’s not that hard.
Some of my favourite games are short – it sounds like you’re just playing AAA slop.
Here is a list of cool short games:
Norco
What remains of Edith Finch
The case of the golden idol
Return of the obra dinn
chants of sennaar
the painscreek killings
If I want to watch a 100 hour movie I’ll pay for a 100 hour movie
The last thing I want to do is buy a game and I spend much of the the time watching movies instead of actually playing
I almost exclusively play short video games, they still exist.
Translation:
“I don’t wanna try new shit”
there’s literally plenty of games now that fit your criteria. Peop just love to complain and refuse to try new shit and broaden their horizon
I love long games but yeah, most games today are just bloated
Idk man what job do you have that allows you to drop alot of money on expensive things and not care about how long it lasts
Cos I want that job
The amount of games coming out is ridiculous, try the indie world.
Flaghsip stuff from big companies is massive as the tech is not so restrictive anymore and people love it.
If you prefer older games, just play them, its not like there is shortage of games from the 90’s or 2000’s out there.
Instead of wishing video games were like they were a decade ago I play video games from a decade ago, it works rather well, sometimes I listen to old music at the same time as all music from the past decade is just younglings mumbling over trap beats.
There are many indie games that hit those marks and are only 20-40 bucks not 70. If AAA studios want to demand 70 bucks for a game it better come with an insane amount of content.
I agree. There are still a few good short games out there, like Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, but I’d definitely appreciate more.
There’s plenty of shorter games coming out, at the same time that 1000 hour long Skyrims are releasing for people who only buy one game a year: Although I question why you’re looking for short games in the one genre most known for long titles.
Fuck your opinion. If i pay 70 dollars, i want 70 hours.
https://youtu.be/uwDx7-HTk0s?si=h1ZrBEZGtkXrj4BO
Join us
Idk I’ve been playing Disney dreamlight valley for 700 hours and it hasn’t gotten old. Theres a lotttt to do.
I’m pretty sure old games were long aswell.
20-50 hours is perfect.
Buy indie games.
Who wants to wander for 300 hours in an ocean that’s 1 inch deep
Expedition 33 was the perfect game. The pacing was fantastic and worth every single penny because it wasn’t bloated with artifical side quest crap.
Dishonored was so short it left me yearning for more. There’s validity here.
I agree to a point. I have OCD with completion issues that has caused me not to play games that have constant updates and has no real end to them. They may be enjoyable but some just either don’t end or keep moving the goal line farther and farther. This is why I refuse to play any mobile games anymore. I got stuck in a black hole with a few and was finally frustrated enough to quit them.
Bruh. Wtf is this pick me energy “I guess games arent made for people like me”. What?
You just want a pity party to have a pity party. As people said, there’s plenty of great games in that range. Youre just finding a reason to complain and feel like a victim.
I agree. I wish we could have GOOD 10hr-15hr games with lots of replaybility for the completionists. Our backlogs are crammed nowadays and those short games are awesome
We should be happy we get any single player story based games anymore with everything moving to massive online multiplayer.
Change my mind but local multiplayer with your friends was far superior to what we have today.
and single player games are vastly superior to all the stupid multiplayer games today.
There are literally thousands of new games that are 5-15 hours long. Go play them then.
Where games have a plot to them, I prefer they be shorter – especially if they’re less directed – because otherwise I lose track of where I am and what I’m supposed to be doing. My favorite was Child of Light, which I loved to bits for both its story and artwork, but also really enjoyed Figment and Hue. But I haven’t managed to finish several other games – such as Carrion and a couple of the Pokemon ones – because I lose track of the story and in-game goals.
For me its not the hours themselves. Its the damn bloated grind for levels, or collect 200 feathers around the map for a new set of clothes… bloating the game with unnecessary sidequests that add nothing to the story/universe..
You described such an easy game to find
Popular opinion.
I mean it depends if it’s dragged out in a poorly done way just to make the game feel longer then yeah it sucks. But I’ve been playing baldurs gate 3 and I’m about 80 hours into my play through and I’m not bored at all, exploring and combat are really fun so it doesn’t get old for me.
I don’t think time of the game necessarily equates to the price tag. But if your game is only 8 hours long and it’s £60 or more, it better be a masterpiece because otherwise I’m going to think it was a bit of a waste, especially with games like hollow knight or stardew which costs way less and even goes on sale most the time and has minimum 40 hours of content to do.
There’s this game called Clair obscur that came out recently, LITERALLY exactly what you’re looking for.
Seek out indie games! I also like shorter games and indie games tend to be that!
I like to have an available list of mixed options. Maybe I want to spend all of my gaming time in one game for a while. Maybe I want to take a break from it for a bit and just have some essentially mindless distraction from the world for a while. Different games serve different needs at any given moment.
There’s no reason why two things can’t be true at once.
Even for a single player story based game, you can easily make 80 hours worth of things to do, even next to a 5-10 hour story.
Side quests, mini-games, creative ways to interact with lore, etc. Switch to a combat based game and now you have a dozen other ways to engage players on that.
Arkham City is a great example of this. You can finish the main story in a day if you’re determined and ignore all side content, but it’s critically acclaimed. The game stretches out play time if you care about it by offering combat trials, the predator trial “puzzles,” collectibles, and side quests.
Realistically, if you sell a game for $70 that is just a linear story lasting 10 hours tops? Yeah, it is a bad deal, and people are right to point it out.
Doom dark ages wasn’t bad for length. I finished it in less than a week playing a few hours a day. It didn’t drag at all.
Expedition 33 is roughly 20 hours which makes it so much fun
You know you can just play shorter games right? There are thousands of games if you are willing to past the mirage of AAA industry. Some of the best games i played lately were only 4-6 hours. And there are dozens of game released every week
There is a constant stream of games made for people like us, you are just not willing to look. Like 5 minutes of “research” is all you need to get started
I used to be like this so i’m not judging. I was completely burned out on big games. Then i finally broke through and discovered and entire new world of gaming. Nowadays my ideal game for an RPG or similar narrative based is around 20-30 hours. BG 3 was 100 hours and it was great as well
When i play a big game, like 20+ hours i always have 1-2 shorter ones to cool off and reset my taste buds
Feel free to browse around my Backloggd, under Games tab. Both Played and Backlog sections should have ~250 games each, most of the short and/or indie. Can’t guarantee they are good tho, some were duds
https://bckl.gg/drf8
Honestly yes even some of my all time favorites id cut 30% and they’d still be my favorite
Sounds like you’re trapped in the AAA highest budgeted marketing game loop. Also if only in it for the story you can switch to visual novels or books.
Please define nowdays because a lot of old games were not short because gamers demanded less but because of technical limitations with nes cardridges for example only barely having 1 megabyte. Good luck making a game with 100 hrs of content on that
Some AAA open world releases are like that. Spend more time scrolling Steam, my dude.
I swear these things cycle. I remember being in my twenties and lamenting that games weren’t as long as they used to be.
Look at some indie developers on Steam. Tons of games still being made like this. I know because I have a huge backlog of these games.
“nowadays”? Games back in the day were intentionally made either extremely difficult and/or with extremely obscure puzzles just so they could stretch out the time people spent with the game. One of the worst examples of this is probably La-Mulana. But even the original Legend of Zelda for example has random bushes and walls to bomb without any tells at all that you should.
Sea of stars
They also used to be able to be rented for $5 a week and returned. It’s paying $70 for a game, to then beat it in a weekend plus, it makes people less likely to buy the game and wait for it to go on sale later.
My personal take is video games were more fun when they weren’t so complicated and skill based. People could pick up a controller and not feel completely overwhelmed with super precise timing and movement skills.
Uhhhh, I’m pretty sure a lot of the new game don’t really need 100 hrs to finish? What games are you talking about specifically anyway?
No thank you.
If I’m forking over $70 for a game, I want 70+ hours of content.
BG3 was well worth the money. I’ve got thousands of hours in that game and still haven’t touched all of the options.
Hogwarts Legacy is a prime example of not having the level of content equal to the cost of the game.
Life’s a game yk
YES I AGREE OH GOSH I STUDY AND WORK WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE SO BLOATED NOWDAYS
I remember playing Halo Reach, Assassin creed, Titanfall 2 and Bioshock: important titles but shorter and more packed with stuff than their modern counterpart
There are plenty of modern games that are short and sweet? I don’t understand.
I think this has more to do with the genre of games that are published now vs 15 years ago. Lots of AAA games coming out right now feel like their either open world, souls like, RPG, or tactical strategy games. Those genres have always been long slugs. Platformers and level based shooters, racing games and basic action games seem less common, and happen to be the shortest games genres i can think of.
The last two Zelda games were both open world, following elden ring tons of new souls like have come out, most people don’t play single player shooter games anymore because of the prevelance of games like fortnight pubg and the other games in that category. Ever cod focuses more on multiplayer.
You know I was gonna argue against this, but then I remembered that Nicktoons Battle for Volcano Island is a thing. And god for how short it was, man did I love that game.
Heard they dropped a sequel called the same thing but with “remastered” at the end, havent checked it out but they supposedly added newer nicktoons character like korra
Yeah I’ve noticed they don’t have the variety in gameplay to justify how long they are. Assassins creed: Valhalla is the prime example of this imo. I was so bored of the game but there was still so much to do
What games are you talking about? Most of the 100 hour games can be explored almost fully in like 50 hours. Youre just wasting time with obvious bonus content.
They’re now designed to keep you on for as long as possible so that you buy micro transactions
Are there even thaf many games who has a story that takes more than 100 hours to complete, or even just more than 40? The only ones I can think of off the top of my head that I play are franchises like monster hunter and final fantasy, but most games I play and know of are certainly less than 40 hours long unless you really, really take your time and do everything possible in the game before finally beating it.
Play bullet chess. Highs and lows every minute, infinite replayability, 2 min long games.
Solved
Some of the most popular games don’t even have story modes at all lol it don’t get much shorter than that.
I agree. I just had a discussion with someone proudly claiming he goes by the “i expected 1 hour per $1 spent” and the toxicity of this mindset was lost on them
The quality of a game isn’t always determined by how long or short it is.
Zelda Ocarina of time is a very long and old game but it’s been said by many that it’s a good game.
I see a lot of comments being against you but I think it is just your wording cause I agree.
The most recent example of this would be Borderlands 3, I LOVE the borderlands series, have since the first one but there were a lot of missions in 3 that would just pad out the length of the story and it was getting annoying instead of being a “Oh cool I get to experience more!”.
A long game can still be really enjoyable to me, but only when it feels genuine and not like extra padding JUST to make it longer.
What do you mean “used to be”?
Plenty of recent games are within that timeframe.
Another out of touch “nowadays” post here.
Nobody who games calculates hours in this fashion, not do they do the math like “$70 should equal (whatever)”. You play games as long as you want or as little as you want, regardless of cost. I’ve poured hundreds of hours into free games, cheap games, and “expensive” games. It’s *never* been about return on investment in my 35+ years of constant, near-daily gaming.
The world of games is huge. There are endless choices for any “style”/duration you’re looking for. You’re blind and just wanna complain about it.
Games are 30-50 hours to go story only. 1-200 hours is the completionist time.
If I’m wrong please provide examples.
You should probably be embarrassed about loudly letting everyone know that you completely lack the ability to find games that interest you.
Hundreds of games are released every single day, go look for them.
Sounds like expedition 33 is exactly what you want
Try it, it’s amazing
Fair point.
I tend to enjoy games a lot more when things are still new and fresh.
It’s a lot easier to make a good short game than a consistently good long game.
You need major events constantly happening to keep people interested otherwise the game loop will get boring.
Short shooter games for me. Unreal Tournament was the best. Don’t care about a long ass story. If I want to watch a movie, I watch a movie.
Oh look I want games to last, I don’t have a lot of money to buy them, but I also don’t want games that are filled with tedious filler bs.
I have never had an exceeding abundance to spend on games and spending full price for a game I can finish in less than a day has never been appealing when I have to spend the Australia tax.
That being said a huge portion of game budgets are expended on having top shelf graphics (which my PC cannot render) and marketing budgets (which i suppose you need but I think if you invested more in making a good game you could spend less on convincing people to buy it)
I think if AAA studio decided that maybe PS3 level graphics were perfectly fine they could still spend the horrendous amounts of money they do but allocate more of that budget to designing a solid lengthy experience that doesn’t suck in the middle because of unnecessary padding
“Prove your point”
proves point
“Too many words, can’t read”
Tbh, I do agree I do not think I am smart, as demonstrated by engaging with the wilfully ignorant upon request. Oh well.
I hear you, but I looooove an RPG I can really sink my teeth into with a world I can live in. Give me a long game with a big map and a ton of side quests and tangent storylines. Give me alternative ways to play and endings and results so that I can spend ANOTHER 100 hours doing it a little bit different! I’m someone who likes to just get deeply into one game for a long time, and then pick up another really good, deep, fleshed out RPG when I FINALLY burn out but that genuinely takes ages if there’s quality world building
rofl fucking terrible take – this isn’t even an unpopular opinion, it’s just a self inflicted bad opinion
Nah I always felt games were too short.
Nah you’re so right though. Majority of people say “Oh I’m pAyinG a Hundred dollarS I waNt 100 HouRs!!!” And then we get all this low quality garbage open world shit with 2000 quests that are all the same and they have crafting bullshit to waste your time. People clearly prefer more shit content over more quality and the AAA industry is going all in on it, which means this is a proper unpopular opinion by the numbers.
Nothing has changed, you just suck at finding games.
Have you played the witcher 3? Long ass game with a lot of story, yet it never slows down or has bad story beats.
I don’t mind short games, but I sure as fuck mind short games going for $/€80. That’s worse value than a movie ticket.
most games are still very short so I don’t know what your talking about
Wow this is an unpopular opinion lol. I prefer my games to last, if I’m spending 60$ on a game it better not last 10 hours. I measure my value by hours played though. So if I get 60 hours out of a game after paying $60 then I’m satisfied.
Might help a few clarify you are talking about video games
Well no, we need cheaper and shorter games. That way the company can put less work into in and we get what we paid for
I’m old fashioned and don’t want to play the grab bag and microtransactions keep it simple 🙂
The thing is though, while what you say is generally true, there are some amazing very long games.
Zelda’s n64 games are the perfect example here imo. That said, I don’t think this is too unpopular
the last of us, dead space, resident evil, god of war, alan wake, astro bot
Yes, pacing is hard to accomplish in a game. Particularly in an RPG, a genre that is often open world, and pretty much always with side content. There are so many games out there. Just don’t play the ones that aren’t for you.
W40K: Boltgun has entered the chat
Game developers used to respect your time.
I don’t know.. there are plenty of short games around and even “back then” I personally gravitated towards long games, so eventually ended up playing MMOs.
Also most AAA games are 10 hours max. Side content is optional. Like even in Assassin’s Creed ( I haven’t played the latest one though), you don’t have to get to 100% completion. Rush through the main story and it doesn’t take long at all. If you’re going for 100% and all achievements then sure, it can be long.