It’s the holiday season, and some of you might be looking forward to hibernating indoors with a nice time-consuming game. There are many games with amazing content and long play times to keep you glued to your console for hours on end.
Looking for a quality game that’ll take you many hours to beat? This article is specially put together just for you. Here, we’ve compiled top games that balance length and quality. These behemoth titles are packed with plenty of primary story content, side quests, and immersive experiences into which players have sunk hundreds of hours.
Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim (about 230 hours)
Elder Scrolls games are massive, but Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is arguably the largest of them all. Skyrim is so full a world that it sometimes feels like an actual world. Thus, this well-thought-out RPG from Bethesda is a strong contender for the best game of all time.
When it was first launched in 2011, Skyrim blew players away with its spectacular locales, titular lands, epic dragon encounters, fleshed-out maps, rich storylines, and memorable characters.
It was the number 1 game on all charts for 2 years until Dota 2 came out. In fact, Dota 2 broke Skyrim’s record with 297,000 concurrent users on Steam during beta.
Dovahkiin, the player character, traverses the seemingly unending world of Skyrim, interacting with NPCs, completing tons of quests, and exploring everything that the game’s RPG mechanics have to offer.
Completing Skyrim’s main story may take a mere 34 hours, but doing everything else will require a lot more than 230 hours.
Elden Ring (about 220 hours)
When they released Elden Ring, FromSoftware developers told us that beating the game would take about 30 hours. However, when the game arrived on our consoles, we soon realized that it went on for hours—in fact, it seemed unending.
Players have indeed beaten Elden Ring’s primary storyline in record time. Nevertheless, the main attraction of this game is its sprawling open world littered with enemies, side quests, and other things to explore.
When you think you’ve done it all, Elden Ring unleashes new regions with legacy dungeons, enemies, catacombs, and quests. Basically, becoming an Elden Lord takes about 220 hours, but you can still go back and replay some of your favorite epic boss battles.
Elite: Dangerous (200+ hours)
How would you like to warp thousands of light years through the milky way galaxy, colonize a new planet, explore breathtaking star systems, pillage alien ruins, fight in war zones and do much more in over 200 hours gameplay? This is what Elite: Dangerous has to offer.
Elite: Dangerous is one of the most unique, in-depth space video games ever created. The game developers are also relentless—new updates are constantly being released, making the game even longer and more interesting.
Unlike other games in this article, Elite: Dangerous lacks a central plotline. Instead, you simply start with a starship. You then work your way up as either a mercenary, pirate, trader, or miner. This open-world Sci-Fi goes on to offer you over 200 hours of space, action, and adventure to keep you on your toes.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (around 190 hours)
Geralt of Rivia is easily one of CD Projekt Red’s most successful projects. The Witcher series redefined ARPG gaming to become a global pop-culture sensation.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will take over your life. The game’s open world, well-written narrative, the absolutely loveable protagonist, and do-whatever-you-want exploration style make it one of the best games of all time.
The massive Witcher 3 world is downright addictive. It’s crawling with deadly monsters, fascinating tombs, delightful side quests, and a deeply captivating main story.
Completing the main story in Witcher 3’s Game of the Year Edition take 40-60 hours. The completionist time for the game, on the other hand, is close to 190 hours.
Persona 5 (About 173 hours)
Persona 5 packs in so much story that playing it often feels like being on a long-running TV show. This monstrous RPG/life-sim drops you in a high school full of teenagers, where you’ll be exploring Tokyo and the metaverse daily.
Being a stylish but deadly teen is a perfect escape. Persona 5 and its subsequent Royal re-release allow you to do it for over 100 hours. Completing everything in Persona 5 requires about 173 hours. Nonetheless, Persona 5: Royal has so much addon content that its completion time can easily spill over to 250+ hours.
Honorable Mentions
Xenoblade Chronicles X: 200 hours +
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild:180+ hours
Red Dead Redemption 2: 170+ hours
Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn: 140+ hours
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: 100+ hours
