Readers discuss whether modern video games, particularly open world titles, have become too bloated and difficult to find time for.
The subject for this week’s Hot Topic was suggested by reader Goulash, who asked whether video games are getting too long and if you have trouble fitting them into your life. This year has already seen multiple high quality games that can take 100+ hours to beat but is that asking too much of people?
Most were torn on the subject as while they, in general, enjoyed the freedom and variety a giant game offers they struggled to find the time to take advantage of it, with a single title taking months to complete.
Too much of a good thing
Difficult question to answer, don’t want to complain about getting too much of a good thing (classic gamer behaviour) but at the same time some games have so much unnecessary content you can sort of call it a pacing issue.
I’m playing The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom at the moment and obviously it’s great but some of the caves, depths, and sky island areas just seem a bit superfluous. I was going through one of caves the other night and I thought to myself, ‘I’m really bored.’ It just went on forever.
When the premier franchise in all of gaming is trotting out too much filler content then you’ve probably got a problem to one extent or another, but I suppose it’s better than the other way round, i.e. not having enough content.
Charlie
Palate cleanser
I don’t know that open world games are too prevalent per se but, due to the constraints of real life on my time, I do tend to play games at either end of the spectrum: huge expansive stories that take me forever or short pick-up-and-play bursts of fun.
My problem is that I struggle to juggle multiple games, so a lot of my gaming time is taken up by the huge ones – I’m currently nearing the end of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild and am struggling to get into Starfield and its controls/gameplay as a result. Microsoft’s misplaced ‘A’ and ‘B‘ buttons don’t help. Anything else I play right now needs to be relatively quick and simple, Mario Kart 8 being my main palate cleanser.
And, if I’m being honest, even the best massive games could do with less filler.
FoximusPrime81 (gamertag/NN ID)
Gaming circles
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that I have less time to play games due to other commitments. I completed Assassin’s Creed Odyssey last year and it took me about nine months of not playing much else to complete the story and about a third of the extra content. Since then, I’ve found it a real struggle to play lengthier games with lots of padding. I escaped the dungeons in Baldur’s Gate 2 Remastered and when presented with the range of quests I immediately stopped.
I got off the first planet on The Outer Worlds and when I saw all the planets I could visit I couldn’t bring myself to continue. I gave the Witcher 3 another go and after about 30 hours I had completely forgotten about the main story and just been bogged down with side quests to try and level up sufficiently. I have always enjoyed role-playing games but you spend so much time just picking up stuff and travelling round in circles and it’s can get old really quickly.
I recently started playing Spider-Man Remastered on the PlayStation 5 and it’s been the breath of fresh air I needed. Say what you like about the Sony formula but it’s great to play a game with a strong linear narrative set in an open world with things to explore when you want a change of pace. When you only have a couple of hours a week it’s great that you know that you can go straight to some blockbuster gaming and really get absorbed into some action.
DM58
GC: Miles Morales is an even better example of that. We wish more games had that kind of focus.
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Piece of string
Games are as long as you want them to be. You can jump in and out whenever you want. There’s no limit on your own enjoyment. Games like Skyrim can be rushed through in a few hours if you just focus on the main story. My first Elden Ring playthrough cost me 127 hours. The second was around 10 as I was just rushing the last achievement.
Plan ahead if you are short on time. Buy Games like ABZÛ. They can be 100%-ed in three to five hours. No Man’s Sky is probably a 100+s hour or never-ending time limit but you can save at any stage and come back.
I’ve personally been playing through Red Dead Redemption 2 for several years and am barely 10 missions in. I end up fishing or hunting or simply messing around the world.
I don’t often check out a game’s length before I buy it but I can appreciate others’ time constraints. Go to HowLongToBeat before you buy a game you want. They have an average and a completion time.
Bobwallett
Going nowhere
Ah Goulash, not only are you delicious and filling but you’re also a mind-reader: I absolutely feel like video games are getting too long for me to be able to keep up. However, I’m not sure if that’s more perception than reality. I suspect it’s partly because many developers have recently chosen to reinvigorate their famous franchises by making them open world (or open world-lite), and partly because there are just so many good to great games released now.
I definitely feel like there used to be more eight to 12 hour campaigns in the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 era (e.g. Uncharted, Gears Of War, Vanquish, and Bioshock) but equally there are still series like Doom and Resident Evil that consistently have tight, beatable single-player campaigns.
Regardless, when I hear people are 100 hours into a game (inevitably about a week after release!) and they’ve barely scratched the surface it really puts me off; that’s probably about three months wall clock time for me.
It gave me a bit of a mental block and it actually put me off Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom for a few months (back to it now). The solution has been to accept I can’t keep up and just play what I want to, which seems obvious but as someone who used to ride the crest of the gaming wave it took a while to come to terms with paddling in the shallows (socks and shoes off, obviously).
All in all, I’m happy to pay full-price for shorter, more linear games if they’re of high quality and I hope that style of game persists. As Miyamoto didn’t say, ‘a short game is eventually cheap, but a long game will always take forever.’
Magnumstache
Hail Hydra
I’ve resigned myself to never being able to play all the games recommended through media and word of mouth. It’s such an odd pastime compared to other entertainment because of how time consuming it generally is, to the point where one person can’t hope to see everything worthwhile. Like the hydra of hobbies, where for every game I play, five more are released that just get thrown on a wish list or backlog.
The general length of a game is a big factor in that, and despite the value for money tint to so many discussions nowadays, I imagine there are a lot of adults like me where time is the bigger influence.
Last year I put 185 hours into Elden Ring and, due to my son arriving a couple of months later, it probably ended up representing about half my gaming time in 2022. This year I’m in the same position with Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom.
But I could never ignore games like those in favour of multiple shorter ones that I’m less interested in or hyped for. There’s only a small handful of games each year that I regard as genuinely unmissable, so if they all end up being under 30 hours that’s just a bonus in terms of what else I can give my time to.
With certain genres, though, I struggle to see the justification for them being so long. Japanese role-playing games for one. Surely there aren’t usually enough gameplay and story ideas in most of them to warrant more than about 40 hours of content, but when I’m not sure how I’ll feel about something like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 or Persona 5 I admit to being put off by the time commitment they tend to demand.
And it’s less of a genre as such, but service-based games also have absolutely no chance. At least with long single-player games they’re generally finite but a game designed to have no real end, and which is also primarily geared around exploiting compulsive behaviour, isn’t something I want in my life.
On that note, although it makes me sound like some sort of boomer gammon, I think gaming is one of those hobbies that’s more likely to be associated with excess. Especially the way our culture now seems to encourage that man-child stereotype where it’s often adult guys that get to indulge more in their lovably geeky passions.
Nothing wrong there but I know too many people who don’t struggle to fit gaming into their lives at all because everything in their lives has to fit around their gaming instead, so their real obligations and responsibilities take a back seat.
Panda
Take your time
The fact I love long open world games is the reason why I have a slight backlog, or I am rather choosey as to what games I buy in general. I do rather like open long adventures and for gamers like me, who like getting lost in a huge landscape of very diverse terrain, it is a very addictive process.
I don’t personally feel these should be shortened because the main quest can still be done as the only required part of the playthrough and the game will be over sooner. Time and time again I feel the main mission could have been done way quicker if not for all the exciting side missions and character intrigue.
I do also play more linear games, like Beyond A Steel Sky and Cult Of The Lamb, and a few third or first person action games that can be completed in a very comfortable eight to 12 hours.
There is a lot of choice for people like me, who love all the lore exploring, and plenty of games for gamers wanting a quicker but decent immersion that feels just as satisfying without using up too much of one’s owns precious time.
Alucard
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