There have always been games that demand a lot of attention, a lot of hours. But never has there been so many of them. The dominance of MMOs and open-world games has made games that boast a hundred or more hours of content unexceptional. But how many of you actually have time for them?
That’s our Topic of the Week. We want to know if you make room for these massive games. Are you too busy for that kind of time sink, can you only fit in one a year, or are you sometimes juggling multiple humongous games? Let us know in the comments.
I’ll get the ball rolling.
As a reviewer, massive games are daunting, especially because you always want to experience as much of the game, from side quests to secrets, to gain the most informed impression possible. And on the internet, where every site is competing to get the most attention, getting their articles up as early as possible, that means deadlines. A 100 hour game and a tight deadline? That’s the social life axed, then.
Despite all of that, I love getting sucked into a world for hours on end. I want to explore them, and long games tend to offer up big worlds. I still play Skyrim, because I simply adore walking around there. I even reinstalled Assassin’s Creed Unity because, while the story and design is pretty awful, Ubisoft Montreal’s recreation of Revolutionary Paris is one of the most striking, well-realised game spaces I’ve ever played in. But I probably won’t be spending a hundred hours in it.
Really, what I think it comes down to is whether or not the game really deserves that amount of my time, or if it’s just bloated. That brings us back to Assassin’s Creed Unity. It’s a gargantuan game, but the vast majority of it is cleaning icons off the map, and most of the icons are collectibles.
At least, and this is the case in most games that boast great lengths, a lot of it can be skipped. Dragon Age: Inquisition is 150 hours long if you’re a completionist, but if you don’t care about collecting shards, killing all the dragons and completing the countless side-quests, it can be finished in around 20 hours. As long as these types of games keep letting me determine when I finish them, then I’m happy to keep playing them.
Okay, that’s enough from me. What about you lovely lot? Do you have time for 100-hour games?