Talking Point: Do You Prefer Shorter Or Longer Games In General?

I prefer longer games. Shorter games have a harder time grabbing my atention.

It really depends on the game for me. Some games I want the shorter experience overall, especially one with a set, linear story. But there are some games I really don’t mind no set length. I’ve been enamored with Dragon’s Dogma 2 and have thoroughly enjoyed every moment I’ve spent with it.

I ain't got a lot of time to game so shorter games I can actually finish. There are a lot of games that I haven't even tried just because I really don't know if I can commit my time to finishing them. So Hellblade being 8 hours is just perfect.

I prefer variety. My yop 10 games have the following hour counts 256, 83, 35, 15, 56, 155, 23, 25, 65, 14.

If I'm spending money then I want really long games to justify the purchase. If I'm just grabbing something off Gamepass then I don't mind the length. My favorite games tend to be ones with near endless replay value, like Civilization 6 and Stellaris. Stuff like that.

No preference overall.

but if I’m buying it day 1 for £60-70 then I’m more likely leaning for something that is a little meatier.

If it’s £30-40 then I don’t mind shorter day 1.

I’ve played games from short indies to hundreds of hours on stuff like monster hunter. If a game is good all is fine with me.

10 - 20 hours is just fine these days, I have less time than ever for gaming. I’d rather have a focused and interesting 8 hour games over something like Valhalla for example.

The problem isn't that these games are too long now, it's that most of the length is from meaningless bloat just to say 'look how long our game is!' Just another reason Indies & AA games are better than most AAA outings now.

It depends on my mood and genre of the game. I like longer games followed by a few shorter games so that I don't burn out and get bored. I've noticed playing back to back 100+ hour games only makes me enjoy the second one far less.

I prefer an 8-10 hour game in general. But, I played the crap out of Elden Ring. Got 100% achievements. So there are exceptions.

It depends entirely on the gameplay, genre, and (if applicable) the story.

No preference really. My favourite game is Elden Ring but arcadey games like Tekken, FIFA and CoD will get most hours out of me overall because they are easy to dip in and out of.it completely depends on the game genre, how much it costs and whether it outstays its welcome by the end. I wouldn’t feel I was getting my moneys worth for a £50 digital game I couldn’t resell if I complete it in 8 hours.

I don’t mind both to be honest

Yes, it really depends on the game. A shooter or story driven action game can be fine at 8-10 hours. RPGs I prefer to be longer, 30+ hours, provided it’s actually good content like Baldur’s Gate 3 or the Persona games.

But regardless, I absolutely hate games that rely on filler. Ubisoft open world games are long because they rely on a lot of boring side quests. Even the Final Fantasy 7 remake games put in way too much boring garbage to pad the length.

I prefer a shorter game over a padded out game that is too long. I can imagine that a shorter focused experience keeps the costs lower, so maybe more developers would be able to stay open if the pressure to artificially lengthen games wasn’t there.

Definitely shorter as most longer games are not longer due to quality content. They are longer due to a bunch of filler content that could easily have been left out. It winds up boring me and I wind up losing interest in most before I am finished.

The overall length of the games is one of the reasons I have preferred indie and AA over AAA in recent years.

I only like to delve into longer video games once every few games.

I am just coming off of Final Fantasy XVI and clocked about 60 hours. While I do have Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, I couldn't jump into it right away, so I decided to get sucked into Alone in the Dark to "cleanse the palate."

I usually go through most games twice; once on the second hardest setting, and then on the hardest. I think (though I maybe wrong) that when the Developers state how long a playthrough would take that they are usually talking about the main quest (though I don't think Hellblade has side quests from memory) and also with it being played on Normal. Therefore, playing on Hard usually takes longer anyway.

I'm content with this game being at the shorter end of the spectrum as it's not the sort of game that suits being too long. Regardless, I'm really looking forward to it...

Generally for me 15-25 hours is the sweet spot. Anything less than that i feel is too short.

What did you think of Final Fantasy XVI, @GamingFan4Lyf? I am tempted by it, but also wondering whether I should wait to see whether it drops on the Xbox...

A game can be as short or long as it wants for me, as long as it's well made, enjoyable and doesn't has any unnecessary padding.

I'm equally happy playing a 100+ game as I am playing a 6-8 hour one, as long as I'm having fun with it.

It 100% depends on the game for me. I can put like 300 hours into JRPGs but 8 hour cinematic snoozefests like The Order 1886 or the original Hellblade feel like slogs to me.

@Fiendish-Beaver It was good. I wouldn't call it the GOTY Contender people were saying when it was released, but it was still enjoyable.

Definitely more "God of War" than Final Fantasy. Some sections reminded me more of something like Bayonetta.

Story was good, though nothing I haven't seen before. It had some cool moments, though.

Graphically it was pretty impressive. Performance was consistent (I played in the Default 30fps Mode).

There is an update coming that will better identify "Important" side quests over just content filler quests that don't give much (though getting the EXP is probably helpful to get ahead as grinding would take forever - not that it's necessary).

It really all depends. Some games I don't want to put down (No Man's Sky!) because there's so much more I want to do. Some games (modern Assassin's Creed!) I'm just begging for it to end because it's just hours of walking from place to place doing repeating tasks for the purpose of time padding.

But it's also value for money. People want thousands of hours to justify the cost. Many want 60-100 hours to justify $70 and I don't think they're wrong, $70 isn't chump change for discretionary spend, we can talk inflation all we want but due to inflation, a lot of us are LESS willing to dump $70 on nothing than we were 15 years ago even though it's equivalently less money. To me an 8 hour game ought to be a $20-30 experience. Charge me $70 and I'm going to pick something I can get more invested in.

That's where GP really ought to thrive in this new budget constrained development world. I could really get into lots of small games without considering the finances of it and probably enjoy it more than one 100 hour game I paid $70 for.

@NEStalgia how much is Helblade 2 it’s not the full 70 right?

I get your argument that people want value for money and with higher priced games people want more content, but I would also argue that for the most part that demand is just leading to bloated, overlong and ultimately boring experiences. I would actually argue that in that regard, consumers are coming away worse. I don’t think any game should be 70, but I also think less can be more, a tight, interesting 20 hour game you never get bored playing to me is better value than a 80 hour one doing repetitive tasks. Regardless of price.

The expected length depends on the game. If Dragon's Dogma 2 or LAD were 8 hours, that would be really weird and $70 would feel too high a price. Even $50 would feel too high a price.

@Fenbops I don't think the price has been announced yet, so it might be. We don't know. But of course it's $18/mo on Game Pass so that removes that factor from the equation for subscribers, which is probably the target market for these types of games to begin with. That's the real benefit of that model.

I agree in general though. I'm an RPG fan so long games are the normal baseline for me, but the length has to feel like you're doing something and a lot of modern open world games feel like boring, tedious tasks for padding, not actually playing the game.

I prefer medium/long games. But, I hate when they are bloated just to meet some quota. Anyway, I play some short games between.

I prefer multiplayer games over story so my games have no length associated to them.

Well going by the picture that is used (Elden Ring) that cost 60 beans back in the day it was a good bargain for the length, It took me 300+ hours to complete and for me it was really enjoyable but if I bought my first game after buying a brand new console and that game was Hellblade 2, in a smart budgeting money aspect after buying the console but not knowing the length of the game I would be kinda disappointed because not long after completing it another 60/70 beans would be spent and maybe Elden Ring should have been purchased instead but I suppose gamepass kinda mitigates all of that but plenty of people still like to buy their games so it is what it is so on that note I voted 31+ hours and that seems a little too much on the short side

I was definitely more tolerant to longer games as a kid/teenager that had no real responsibilities and the freedom to waste time. But these days, anything 30 hours plus is draining; especially when it involves doing the same sh*t over and over.. there's only a handful of games that I've gotten truly 'lost in' as an adult.

I really have no preference on time. If I don’t want to play a long game I’ll play something else.

I have noticed when I beat shorter games, it feels better. With long games, it often feels like you just want it to be over and are only beating it due to time invested.

I voted for “middle”

Shorter games are fine for ps plus or gp but generally prefer middle to longer games when I'm spending my own cash

20 hours would do me for most games. RPGs are fine to be longer as long as they're not padded out with meaningless quests.

"It depends" a whole stinking lot of "it depends".

Like horror games require a certain level of suspense and you just can't pad that out. So shorter is better than longer.

Conversely wouldn't want a monster hunter game that took 10 hours to finish.

I don't like a game to drag or feel like it's gone in a flash.

Too many variables beyond just length that determines whether its long enough or not. Price plays a factor, replayability, game-play etc also do - I wouldn't pay the 'launch' price for The Order:1886 because I didn't think it was worth the asking price - especially its short run-time...

But other games I've played hundreds if not thousands of hours wouldn't be my Game of the Year either despite occupying the majority of my playtime.

What this has in it's favour which 'negates' the price factor is Game Pass. I don't have to 'pay' the price and 'find out' if I think it does enough to 'justify' its price. It maybe the perfect length for this and not leave me feeling - is that it? Pretty Graphics and its length won't help if I get bored/fed-up after an hour anyway...

Anywhere from 10-15 hrs is my sweet spot. I have to be really invested to go over 25 honestly. 50+ has to be goty for me to continue on.

I'd prefer longer hours for games I really like, but I also want short games so I can play more than one game. But no less than 30 hours.

8 Hours is way too short for me, but I'd never play a game like hellblade 2. Tho I did buy the first game when it first came out. Was stuck on a dark maze and never touched it again.

Ideal, thank you, @GamingFan4Lyf. It certainly sounds like something that I'd enjoy. I've never played a Final Fantasy game, but 16 has caught my eye...

@Fiendish-Beaver I just started into XVI myself, and agree with everything @GamingFan4Lyf. What it is is a pretty good PS3 era corridor action slasher like a fast paced GoW with a more "fun" world/story. Which is better than 70% of modern games right there. What it is not is Final Fantasy, an RPG of any kind, or "ZOMG this is GOTY hands down" like the crazy launch hypesters liked to believe. I'd only disagree that the performance is not good, in fact it's as dismal as I would expect of a Luminance-based Squeenix game. Performance mode makes edges and textures weirdly soft and performance isn't even close to 60fps locked, while graphics mode looks "a bit sharper" though not revolutionary, and is a chuggy almost 30fps with lots of tear and framerate pacing problems. It's a fast moving game, I couldn't imagine playing it in that graphics mode tbh. I tried. I couldn't do it. Just spinning the camera in the outdoor courtyard of Rosaria near the beginning had me scrambling back to performance mode fast. It's perfectly fine in performance mode, but I can't imagine playing graphics mode, and performance mode is not as good as it should be IMO.

To me it feels like a spinoff action series set in the FF universe, that basically tried to meld XIII's game design design, XV's feel, and combine it with a GoW-meets-DMC combat mechanic, that tries to ape Dark Soul's approach in the same way XV tried to ape Monster Hunter's approach.

It's a weird, cool spinoff with a retro vibe and good presentation. It's definitely not an RPG or FF. At all. Good game, stupid name.

I genereally prefer shorter games, unless it’s an open world action/adventure/rpg. Those games can be as long as they want, because I love open world exploration and I usually never tire of that genre.

8 hours sounds perfect for a game like Hellblade 2.

@NEStalgia Screen tear? I never noticed screen tear once. As far as stutter, I never noticed that either.

I never turned Performance Mode on once.

Maybe it's because I am not sensitive to 30fps that I didn't have a problem with it. The whole game felt fine to me in the almost 60 hours I played it in Quality Mode. 🤷‍♂️

@Fiendish-Beaver There is a demo that covers the Prologue - so there is no risk trying it.

I guess I'm in the minority but I thought of Assassin's Creed Valhalla with all of its DLCs was a little short. I kind of felt ripped off even though I got it on sale for $15 new for the base game and then I got all the DLCs when they were on sale. I have about 290 hours in it. I felt like it should have been around 400.

@GamingFan4Lyf The displays characteristics does influence the whole fps issue and the faster the display the worse the effects, but OMG this is one of the worst offenders because it's so fast paced and the fps so uneven and poorly paced. Similar to Forspoken and XV, all based on the same sucky engine. It's like Bethesdas Creation engine. You can only paint over the rust so much before it bleeds through.

But if you could suffer this game in graphics mode, could I also interest you in the purchase of this lovely iron maiden bed? 😂

I like short games. Big games often overstay their welcome and end up dragging things out to pad the runtime. I'd rather play a 2-5hr indie game than a 20-50hr one.

Hellblade is a good example where it's based strongly on a story and moving through different environments. If it goes on for too long then there's definitely the risk of the player losing interest in the story if it's too dragged out.

Also for the poll is missing the option that you think 8hr is too long.

As others have said, if Im paying $70 for a game, you better have more than 15 hours of content, and lots of replayability. $30 is acceptable for a 15-20 hour game.

@NEStalgia Curious what kind of TV you're playing this on.

Mine is a Vizio M7 Quantum. It's only a 60Hz LCD, but it does offer VRR (only down to 40Hz, so the 30fps mode is well out of the support VRR range).

I'll have to fire up the game again and see if I noticed any screen tearing - I am actually very sensitive to it so the fact I never saw it at all is curious.

But, I also know people are very sensitive to 30fps and see it as unplayable.

I'm not arguing your feeling on Graphics Mode, it's just odd that what you describe is very extreme to the experience I had with the game.

I went to check to see if Digital Foundry found something I may have not noticed but even they only found rare instances where framerate went below 30fps (by like 1 or 2 frames) and frame pacing was off and noted no screen tearing in the Graphics Mode.

You sure your PS5 is working okay?

Longer, but with nuance.
I'd like a denser game, if that makes sense.
Like story and main mission content.
Not because I have to spend 100 hours looking for some pointless collectibles.

Looking at you Ubisoft. Lol.

Definitely shorter. Games like Witcher 3 and Skyrim just take way too long to complete; after an hour of 20 my interest in the game starts to wade and after 30+ hours it's just gone and I move on to something else.

I prefer shorter games, so 8 hours is a good length. I'm not against something being longer; if a game takes around 40 hours to completely 100%, I'm generally down for that. But if I've got others things to play that are shorter, I'll prioritise those.

I say all this fully aware of the irony of currently being 126 hours into Persona 5 Royal 👀

@GamingFan4Lyf It's definitely very display device dependent. I actually game on a monitor close up (I'm a lapsed, PC gamer, what can I say?) and my old monitor I used last gen was a much slower IPS 1080p panel and 30fps wasn't a problem at all. I actually argued with Banjo on the old NL XB thread for Forza Horizon 3 that graphics mode was way better than the performance mode because of the terrible jaggies on the grass (still stand by that!) Everyone else insisted performance for racing was a must.

But when when the new gen launched I bought a new monitor for it with 4kHDR - still a 60hz IPS but much better looking. And happens to have a MUCH faster overdriven response time than the old one. And the judder/flashing at 30fps with poor pacing is horrendous.

OTOH I played Hogwarts on XSX at the 45hz compromise mode and it was fine. I started replaying it in the 30hz raytracing mode and it was less pleasant but fine. I played Yakuza Kiwami 2 and 6 at 30hz and it bugged the heck out of me at first coming from the 60hz 0/KW1/Y5 but I adapted to it fairly fast. But something about that Luminance engine core, both Forspoken and XVI, on PS5, and also XV in 4k mode on XSX is just insufferable. I also am playing XIV in 4k mode which is uncapped, often 60 + but also sometimes dives considerably, and it's also not the same nasty effect. Some games make it worse than others but the Luminance engine's 30fps deserves a Firaga to the face.

My PS5's fine. I play PSVR2 on it. 120hz aaaaalll dayyy loongg..

I think 15h is the sweet spot for most games or the main campaign of open worlds. But I’m all in for a tight 8h of pure immersion!

I think the only time I preferred long games was when I was a teenager and had all day to just play games. Now a days I just never seem to have the time to get through big long epics. The only games I put a ton of time into are the kind of games I can just keep chipping away at and playing whenever I am in the mood such as racing and sports titles.

I like a good tactical shooter/sniper game. So it varies. Sniper ghost warrior contracts is pretty short but really good and replayability is good too. Ghost Recon wildlands is pretty long with DLC and you can really spend a fair bit of time on each mission, trying to wipe out an outpost etc in a tactical way without ever being seen. And there's a load of exploring and collectibles to find. I really enjoy that game. So yeah, if the actual game is good enough, I don't mind how long it is. I just happen to like games like fallout 3,4 and new Vegas which are long, but also games like Shing!, 9 monkeys, pinball fx etc which are shorter but really good games.
Quality over quantity is an obvious statement, but quality AND quantity is good too.

I've always worked on a £ per hour for value. That means if I'm paying £60+ for a game, I look for a similar number of (quality) hours' playtime.

My default position historically has been long form 100 hrs+ but since having kids it has become too impractical and I find myself ignoring titles I know I would adore in favour of experiences I can finish.

Other than the performance, that does certainly sound good, @NEStalgia. Are you playing on an OLED screen? I've heard that may improve things...

@Fiendish-Beaver No, it's an IPS with a fast overdriven response. OLED is actually the fastest and from what I've heard actually makes frame rate matter more, not less. Hasn't been an issue in switch OLED, to me, but switch fps always seem bad so it may not matter

I guess I'll find out when I try it for myself, @NEStalgia. I do have an OLED and I've not encountered any issues in any game that I have played thus far.

@Fiendish-Beaver Yeah if you know your display is good at 30fps I'm sure you'll be fine.

Luminous just can't be optimized though. Runs terribly on everything. There was an area yesterday with rain and even in performance mode the fps was choppy. There dropping to 30 still felt slow but was actually more even. Didn't really look much better anyway though so I went back to my framereate mode. 30 may have been Even but it still feels like slow motion in a very fast game.

Thank you, @NEStalgia. It'll be a while before I get round to it anyway, so hopefully when I do, some of these things will have been patched.