Everybody knows that video games are quite expensive (especially nowadays), so it’s always nice to play something packed with content that will take players multiple hours to finish, let alone complete to 100%. However, these types of games can be a double-edged sword, because sometimes reaching their ending may take way too long.
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The truth is that there are many great games out there, including some of the best ones in the entire industry, that take forever to finish, whether it’s because of their extensive length, because they belong to genres that usually don’t take long to complete, or because they’re paced in a strange way that defies the player’s initial expectations. Needless to say, the following ten games are notorious for falling into this unfortunate practice.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
19 Hours Long (Although It’s Mostly Cutscenes)
Every single game in the Metal Gear series is quite long, especially when remembering that they all have complex narratives with extensive cutscenes, but the fourth entry in the series, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, is the most egregious example. After all, this game is famous for receiving a Guinness World Record for the longest video game cutscene ever made, with its epilogue clocking at a whopping 71 minutes.
This is not something that only applies to its final hours, but it also extends throughout the entire game. Metal Gear Solid 4 is 19 hours long, and its cutscenes take around 9 hours of that time, meaning that there’s only around 10 hours of the actual game left. Of course, this is still an emotional masterpiece that satisfyingly ties every single plot thread in the series, but it can feel almost endless from time to time, especially on subsequent playthroughs.
Okami
33 Hours Long
With its beautiful hand-painted art style and its unique gameplay mechanics, Okami is undoubtedly a masterpiece of the open-world genre, one of the few games out there that can actually compete head-to-head against a 3D Legend of Zelda title. However, Capcom’s canine simulator is also guilty of having a very awkward story structure.
Okami starts off with the premise of Amaterasu having to defeat Orochi, and she finally does so right in the middle of the game. As a result, the second half feels like it came out of nowhere, and it’s made even weirder by the fact that the player has to go through a long boss rush level right before the final battle. Needless to say, the pacing of Okami is all over the place, and reaching the end feels way harder than it should.
Yakuza 5
36 Hours Long
The Yakuza/Like A Dragon games are notorious for their breakneck pace, as they often provide players with hectic and over-the-top missions that can be enjoyed in quick bursts. However, some entries in this series — especially those released before Yakuza 0 — are infamous for being surprisingly massive, with Yakuza 5 being the most egregious example.
Yakuza 5 is definitely the biggest and most ambitious game in the entire franchise, mainly because it boasts five playable characters, five explorable cities, around seventy different side quests and activities, and a main story that can take almost forty hours to complete. All in all, this is still a great action-adventure game, but finishing it can take way longer than expected, especially when compared to other entries in the series.
Ring Fit Adventure
36 Hours Long
Ring Fit Adventure is another one of Nintendo’s physical exercise software, in a similar vein to its Wii Fit series, so most people who buy it wouldn’t really expect its duration to be that long. Curiously enough, however, they’d be completely wrong because the main campaign of this strange but effective title clocks out at around 36 hours.
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In reality, Ring Fit Adventure is not only an exercise app but also a full-fledged RPG with over 23 worlds, several difficulty levels, and a bunch of boss fights. Considering the gameplay is dictated by the player’s physical movements, it’s safe to say that finishing just one part of this game is a challenging and lengthy achievement. This is ultimately a good thing, however, because it means that those who’re interested in using Ring Fit Adventure to improve their physical health can keep playing it for a prolonged period of time.
NieR: Automata
37 Hours (Across 3 Playthroughs)
At first glance, NieR: Automata checks all the boxes of what one would expect from a PlatinumGames/Yoko Taro collaboration. It’s an over-the-top hack-and-slash game with RPG elements that tells a strange but compelling narrative that’s full of shocking plot twists. So, when 2B and 9S defeat Eve at around the 20-hour mark, it feels like a natural and decent conclusion.
However, that’s only Ending A, meaning that players who reached that point still haven’t technically finished NieR: Automata. Those who want to do so will have to play through the entire game two more times, once as 9S (which can feel tediously repetitive because he goes through most of the same levels 2B originally did) and another as A2. These two subsequent playthroughs extend the game’s real length to a whopping 37 hours, which is definitely way longer than what newcomers usually expect.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey / Assassin's Creed Valhalla
45 Hours Long / 61 Hours Long
There was a time when the Assassin's Creed games were known as simple but effective stealth/action experiences that could be finished in around 20 hours. But everything changed with the release of Assassin's Creed Origins, which was a full open-world RPG jam-packed with content that shifted the franchise into an entirely different direction.
Origins still isn’t that long, all things considered, but its two direct follow-ups, Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Valhalla, are infamous among fans due to their massively extensive lengths. Of course, they still are high-quality historical adventures, but they are so full of stuff to do that they feel bloated at times, not to mention that completing their additional content takes around 40 to 50 more hours per game. This all explains why Ubisoft was eventually forced to scale down subsequent entries in the series, starting from Assassin's Creed Mirage.
Red Dead Redemption 2
50 Hours Long
Judging a huge open-world sandbox game like Red Dead Redemption 2 solely on the length of its campaign can be a futile exercise, because most players will naturally prefer to spend their time exploring the map and doing whatever they want in it, instead of trying to finish the story in one go. Nevertheless, this game still presents a rich and cinematic narrative with a clear beginning and end that can take up to 50 hours to complete.
Players who have reached Red Dead Redemption 2’s ending can attest how surprisingly time-consuming the whole experience is, as some of its missions are not quite as entertaining as others (especially during the infamous Guarma chapter), and the epilogue even features an entirely different playable character. Yes, trying to finish Red Dead Redemption 2 can feel tedious at times, but doing so it's completely worth it at the end.
Bravely Default
54 Hours Long
Bravely Default is a turn-based JRPG, meaning that it belongs to a genre in which extremely long games are accepted and expected. However, most gamers don’t seem to have a problem with this title’s duration, but with how exactly that time is used, especially during its second half.
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Fans fell in love with Bravely Default’s art style, music, and the turn-based gameplay that was reminiscent of classic Final Fantasy titles, but everything changes when they reach its dreaded Chapter 5. From that point onwards, the game forces the player to go back in time and replay all the bosses over and over again. There are intriguing story reasons for this, but it makes the entire experience feel repetitive and never-ending, which is why many players sadly choose to quit Bravely Default altogether at that point.
The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom
60 Hours Long
Assuming that players are not trying to do something crazy (like defeating the final boss as quickly as possible), finishing the main story of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is quite a lengthy process that can take up to 50 hours in total. If that doesn’t seem like all that much, it’s important to keep in mind that its sequel is somehow even longer.
While The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom boasts a map of Hyrule that is similar in size to the one that was featured in Breath of the Wild, it also introduced two other enormous maps (the Depths and the Sky Islands) that Link is forced to explore at various points throughout the story. All of this adds up to a sixty-hour-long game that is only ten hours longer than its predecessor, and yet, it feels like it's double the total length. Nevertheless, this is not a problem at all because Tears of the Kingdom is a wonderful action-adventure game that gives players a lot of creative freedom to complete the story however they want.
Persona 5
97 Hours Long
Similar to Bravely Default, Persona 5 is part of the turn-based JRPG genre, meaning that most people who purchase it are highly likely aware of its length. Nevertheless, its 97-hour-long campaign is still shockingly extensive, which is made even more impressive by the fact that most gamers don’t seem to mind it at all.
The main reason Persona 5 resonated with so many gamers is that it blends elements from both the JRPG and life simulation genres. As a result, one half of the game boasts nine different dungeons that are full of enemies and bosses to defeat, while the other is centered on cozy day-to-day situations and interactions with other characters that are brimming with long dialogue sequences. Reaching the end of Persona 5 is a monumental task, and yet, some hardcore fans would love it if it were even longer than it already is.
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