We know that certain games are big, like BG3 or Persona 5. But recently games like FF7 rebirth and Indiana Jones just kept going on and on past “Act 3”. Also Rise of the Golden Idol seemed a little short to me
Are developers getting more efficient with generating content?
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DDLC. It was a free dl, and I never played anything like it, so I figured I’d see what everyone was on about. It was surprisingly short!
Dragon Age: Origins. The base game was easily 80+ hours of interesting story and game play. Each DLC added 20-40 hrs a piece. I used to play it a ton.
I don’t recommend giving money to EA, though. They have properly shit all over the sequels.
You are 100% correct.
I just finished The Veilguard at 68 hours. I loved it, but haven’t played Origins. I bought it, but refunded after I saw how buggy and unsupported it is on new hardware these days. Maybe they’ll have a remaster some day, since everyone seemed to love it.
What problems did you have with it? Still runs surprisingly well for me. Haven’t tried Veilguard yet, but plan to as soon as I have some time. Felt that none of the sequels where able to match Origins yet, though.
Well, it crashed on launch, for one. I saw there’s a ‘4GB’ fix, but that doesn’t let me launch from steam, and I wanted to stream to the steam deck, where I do almost all my gaming these days.
I really loved Veilguard, but I’ve definitely seen people who played Origins complain about it. I thought the characters, story, and combat were fantastic though.
Well, people love to complain. I didn’t feel Inquisition was as good as Origins, but I still had fun with it, and I assume the same is gonna be true for Veilguard.
Anyways, that’s curios. I think the Dragon Age Games are some of the few I own on Origin. I’d be kinda surprised if EA made the effort to patch the games on their own client, though.
Might try running it tomorrow, out of curiosity.
Maybe not the length of the main campaign, but good luck 100%ing Cartherine, holy shit. Nevermind Full Body. There’s like 8 endings combined + insane challenges and 64-stage game within the game. +100 hours easy, if not more.
No matter how much I’ve played it, I don’t think I’ve ever got past half of the campaign of Sacred.
Now playing Elden Ring and even if I’m just starting out I’m constantly surprised by the amount of stuff in the world, most of which I only discovered the second or third time I visited the area it’s in.
I never expected A Girl Who Chants Love At the Bound of This World: YUNO on the PC98 to take me like 80 hours to complete without a guide.
That Pathfinder Kingmaker was long as hell. Not sure i want to start the sequel until I’m good and ready for another pleasant slog.
I just finished it recently as well and also need an break until I start WotR.
I still think owlcat is nuts for adapting not one, but two full APs to video game form. Those are each six books worth of TTRPG adventure and those can take years to complete
Pleasant slog should be the tagline on every owlcat game.
Love them but they definitely love a long game and a fuck you puzzle here and there.
I got surprised by DeathStranding.
Did not expect that a game that’s basically about going from A to B through walking could be that lengthy, having great scenery and a weird, vague but good story.
I’m really excited for its sequel, just hoping it will also be available for PC on release.
They already said it’s going to be a PS5 exclusive.
Is that correct? Kojima bought full rights to the IP couple of months ago and released Death Stranding on everything immediately. Seems like it’ll be timed exclusive at most.
They’ve only announced it to be getting released on PS5 in 2025. That’s almost all the information there is about the game rn. I would take it to mean timed-exclusive, but that’s still not releasing on all platforms at once.
I wasn’t surprised by the length of the base game, or even by the presence of the post game, but by how much time the game spent ending. You beat the villain, that should be it, right? Lol no, you have to traverse the whole game world without vehicles and no network support. That’s it, right? Lol no, here’s a giant boss monster. That’s it, right? Lol no, here’s a shitload of cutscenes. Then the credits, then cut to black. That’s it, right? Lol no, more cutscenes, then one last delivery… and one last burst of cutscenes, some of which should have come earlier. That’s it, right? Lol almost, you have to watch the credits again, and then one blessedly short cutscene before the postgame, and then you can finally go to the main menu and quit.
I really liked the game, but good lord.
Classic kojima
Developers are demonstrably not getting more efficient with their content. More content means more assets, and that’s why development timelines have only gotten longer over the years.
Yeah, games take time to make. It’s good that they have more content now. Do you not remember how short campaigns used to be?
I do, and I miss it. I’m far more likely to feel these days like they made too much game to its own detriment than to make it a length that felt better for the game’s pacing. Baldur’s Gate 3 was phenomenal from start to finish, but games frequently come in at a third of its length and feel like they were longer than they should have been. Lots of games transitioned to open world that used to be linear, and the open world is little more than a menu that makes it take longer to select your mission, because you have to travel there. They create checklists of busy work to keep you playing worse content between the moments that you actually want to do, like the side missions that litter modern Assassin’s Creed games with progression gates. I didn’t know how good we had it when we got FPS campaigns between 8 and 12 hours in the years following Half-Life 1, because they’ve been so rare since Titanfall 2 came out 8 years ago. Games being longer now is not solving a problem that I had, and I’d argue it’s often creating problems.
Maybe you prefer your games longer, and good on you if you do, but it’s most definitely not due to developers getting more efficient with their content. For one reason or another, because you’re demanding it as the customer or because modern asset pipelines make it make the most fiscal sense, they’re just spending more time making the content.
You can still get short games, you just won’t find them from AAA developers anymore because publishers want big games with bigger profits. Titanfall 2 was a great campaign even if short, but Halo 5 was the last short game we had and people threw a shit storm (rightly, it wasn’t near the quality of TF2 and had other issues).
If you want short games, the indie space has you covered. Always small games out there releasing.
And game devs have certainly not become inefficient, it’s just the standards of quality are higher. People still want more complex, better looking games. And I don’t mean just graphics; unique art styles are all the rage. Games like Balatro and Cruelty Squad prove graphics aren’t everything as long as you keep a cohesive style and have good gameplay to back it up.
Personally though I avoid small games. I’ve had my fill of them growing up, I’d rather play big games with open worlds and all that jazz. I want to be invested in these worlds not play and forget.
I 100% Tunic in 15 hours. I expected it to be longer and harder, considering it’s not even in a real language and you have to translate it to solve most of the puzzles.
Wow, that’s very fast imo. Good for you!
Great randomizer out there for it. And it’s Archipelago compatible so you can mix it in with other randomizers alone or with friends, in case you want more!
Universal Paperclip, was expexting day, weeks or more of gameplay and there were 4-5 hours of good gameplay. It was perfect.
It’s a surprisingly good game even it’s just a clicker game based on HTML forms.
I’m not usually surprised by the length but by the girth.
I went there too. Heh.
We’re talking about sidequests, right?
Oh of course. Not penises, obviously.
…unless they’re sidequest penises.
GTA IV actually, not even counting the two huge DLCs, just the base game alone.
I was trying to think of one since I feel the opposite most of the time. This one did surprise me with the length. You think the end is approaching, but some more bullshit is ejected at Niko every time. The main quests takes a lot of detours (in a good way). There isn’t just one villain and you help/fight tons of different factions across the islands.
GTA in general has a long story. Which I honestly don’t mind. It means you get your money’s worth with the story alone. All the messing around is just secondary and an added bonus.
Hollow Knight. Every time you think you’re nearing the end, there’s still a lot more. The true ending and optional DLCs add so much.
The final two doc battles more than doubled my overall playtime. Absolutely brutal bosses.
I loved nightmare grimm, but didn’t bother with the Godmaster stuff tbh. The boss rush was way too much for me.
Miitopia. I wasn’t expecting more worlds from such a simple game. I really enjoyed it though.
Elden Ring. Even after finishing the final boss there was so many areas I’ve not been to. And all those areas are unique - some with unique enemy types. It’s the game that dares to hide a secret area behind a secret area.
from the people who brought us illusory double walls of the Great Hollow and Ash Lake, go figure
