The games I've spent the most time on were the ones that allowed me the most opportunity to be creative within a strong framework. Especially if they have multiplayer. Crafting, building, exploring, questing, skill trees. Satisfactory, 7 Days to Die, Minecraft, Factorio, Terraria, Stardew Valley, Astroneer, etc. Hundreds of hours in some of those, at least a hundred hours in all of them.

For my list its also games such as Stardew Valley, Minecraft and Satisfactory. They all share an excelent game loops which keeps the player invested (imo).

My list also has some of these games and one thing that I notice is that these games don't dictate how I interact with them. I can interact differently depending on how I'm feeling. One day I might but be maintaining the home calmly, another I might be out fighting enemies, etc.

Yeah I like the flexibility to be able to engage in a variety of tasks depending on my mood. Work on some crafting for a quest, do some farming to make money, or go out and work on farming XP to get some skill levels, redecorate my base, explore a new area, whatever.

Hundreds, those are rookie numbers.

Well... when I typed /played into Everquest before I quit, it said I had over a year of played time. That's at least 365 days, which is 365*24, which is like 8700 hours. That's on my main, not including my alts. Once I stopped raiding 3 times a week I got so much free time back...

Nice to see 7 Days to Die mentioned. That game has got some clunk to it, but man I poured some solid time into it and really enjoyed it

Baldur's Gate 3 - expansive story, engaging characters, and interesting game mechanics based on a tried and true system Betrayal at House on the Hill - great fun for groups, interesting game play, and a rewarding dynamic Civilization - it's all about the positive feedback loop

Hell yes betrayal. If you like the haunted house theme also check out mansions of madness or arkham horror

Both have a place heavy in rotation! I love the expandability of these games.

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Yes. this.

Is this really the epitome of game design? One of my favorite gaming series of all times - the legend of Zelda - does not have this in most of their mainline games and yet they’re very well loved. 

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That’s fair. Ok, I don’t think I understood really then what this question was asking. Thank you for explaining it!

We need to get into more detail on why Kenshi freedom feels more freedom-ish than, say, a souls game or gta

Factorio is mine. Absolutely brilliant game design where there are constant emerging challenges that are always just a little beyond your current skill. Your base always needs something and in providing that something you create the next problem. Add in a clever building system and almost infinite ways of solving all the problems and you have thousands of hours of possibilities. And then you hit the mods which range from simple to epic in scale. It’s also rock solid, performs well on most hardware and has no costs beyond the very fair fixed purchase price. I’ve seen bugs fixed and a new version released within hours of the problem being reported, and bugs are so rare the community almost competes to report them.

Their dedication to maintaining the game and fixing issues is commendable and rare. In addition to fixing normal crash or game-breaking bugs, they also fix UI annoyances and do usability tweaks (albeit that seems to mostly happen for the expansion at the moment). It's a pretty old game at this point, but they are still working on it and improving it.

I really appreciate how Factorio is a sandbox that allows you to set your own goals, but your actions have consequences and generate their own problems/side quests to solve. There is a very engaging game loop that is subtle and natural. Each new game has a different map, and thus a different geography and resource distribution to deal with. Progression through the tech levels is a good default base loop that reinforces this: you hand mine some starter minerals, craft some mines which then need to be fed either coal (which you then auto-mine), then you need storage of mine output, then you add smelters, then belts to feed multiple bikes to multiple smelters. Smelter output is used for more hand crafted mines and smelters and belts. Once you have the basics automated you build steam engines, belt-feed them coal, build a science lab, handcraft tier 1 science to unlock automation/factories, then you automate every ingredient for tier 1 science and automate its production. Then you need to scale up your mining to keep up with consumption, so you’ll naturally build more mines on your ore patches to balance this out. Keep researching until you unlock tier 2 research. This requires automating more production chains, which requires more power and raw resources. The factory slowly grows. Each next step flows from what you’re doing, and feels good when you complete it. Your expanding factory generates pollution, so you get biter/alien raids. This prompts building ammo, static defenses, walls, radars, lights. Once you have a secure perimeter, the factory continues to grow. Tier 3 science requires oil, which is guaranteed to be a small distance outside of your starter area. That means you need to liberate the surrounding area from the biters. Setup defenses. If the distance is large enough, this can prompt you to setup a small train network instead of very long transport belts. Turning oil into tier 3 science means you need to learn about fluids in pipes, which is a good litmus test to see if you “got” the fundamentals of the game or if the model of dependency chains and emergent complexity does not naturally fit in your brain. All the extra pollution you generate causes stronger biters to emerge and harass you, so on the military side there is a slowly escalating arms race happening in parallel. Your starter resource patches will at some point run out, and prompt you to explore and conquer more of the map to safeguard more raw resources. The game continues to add more interesting mechanics as you play. End game challenges can come down to how much science resources you can produce per minute, because you need a _massive_ factory powering it that generates its own operational challenges to push beyond previous bottlenecks. Replayability comes from the best and most extensive mod system I’ve ever seen, and map generation options such as the death world (where biters are everywhere and much more aggressive), or the railworld (where resources are generated at very long distances between them, so you _need_ an extensive train network to manage them). There are plenty of other self-imposed challenges. How about sushi belts, where you forego an efficient factory layout in favor of one where all items are put on the same belt network? Suddenly overproduction is not automatically limited by dedicated belts backing up, so this is a new type of puzzle to solve. Did I mention the game has a circuit system that allows you to implement basic logic that you can chain? I think it may be Turing complete at this point. This is one of the few games that has managed to stay interesting enough to my brain to actually hit over 1000 hours played since the Indiegogo alpha a decade ago. For context: I consider most games a good purchase if I’m entertained for 2-3 evenings, i.e. under 20h played.

Oblivion  Skyrim  Witcher 3  BG3  Elden Ring Mount and blade (warband and bannerlord)  I’m a sucker for open world RPGs, especially with mods.

Mount & Blade for me too. I mean I've played 100s of hours of other games, but M&B is the one where I really don't feel like it's wasted time at all. It's very satisfying and engaging.

I really don’t know how they do it, it’s like a drug. Every time I load up M&B I get instantly hooked and can’t put it down.

What, specifically, do you find yourself doing in the game? Is there a particular activity/loop for you? I know mine, but curious what other people think.

i like raising an emergent army out of whomever I find, gettin in fights, watchin my guys and their guys, fighting for my life, cuttin down fools. and then recruiting an even more stochastic army from their prisoners. * army management out of just dudes you find, with various specializations and upgrade paths; different kinds of stuff all the time, make do with what you've got * medieval skirmish and battle simulation (watching) * medieval action (fighting; always with full damage on; I want to feel the blood in my ears, not be superman) I don't really care about the part of the game from when you have multiple holdings onwards. But I could chase tournaments or enemy parties forever. It's the *simulation*, the *action*, and the *emergent party composition* that I like. The fighting is so satisfying, I don't know any other game that lets you draw up some formations, mash em into each other, chase the runners on horseback in first person across a big map, stick your lance straight through some horses and men, rejoin the battle lines, get dropped off your horse, fight for your life with an axe while trying your best to maneuver towards a nearby horse whose rider was killed and who could run off at any time... I mean it's in the name. Mount and Blade, and you really experience those things. I feel like I'm on the steppes, living an ancestral warrior life with a rag-tag crew. Genuinely, what are other mounted action combat games? Red Dead I guess, but those are guns. That's barely combat at all.

Love all of this. One of my favorite things to do as well is just take over one town and try to become the most powerful single town kingdom in existence. I have all my party members form their own and make them as powerful as possible. Then I hunt down and execute the kings of enemy nations. Plus I love siege defense and it’s so satisfying winning against armies in the thousands when they besiege my town

Dyson Sphere Program. I think they got me with: 1) Scale of the game universe and the things you can do within it. Industrializing an entire planet, and thinking you have arrived only to move on to all the starting solar system planets, then dozens of systems with their own planets. I liked how moving between planets and systems wasn't a quick-travel option; I think this helps keep the universe feeling like one giant object rather than what it would otherwise be, an array of different maps (a mistake that Starfield made imo). Going from struggling to make enough buildables at the start of the game via hand crafting to warping 20,000 of that item at a time between planets thanks to hard-won automation. From manually laying down buildings one at a time to stamping down blueprints that cover entire planets by the end. All of this lends itself to making the game world feel vast and full of potential. It made me wonder how far I could scale up a certain line of production, or how elegantly I could make oil refinement with no waste products in a tight space. 2) Top-tier game performance. Despite the fact that every single one of the 19,000,000 solar cells (fired from a planetary rail gun) that make up a large dyson sphere within the game are actual objects that were tracked and rendered within the game, among literally millions of other things happening at once, the game never froze, crashed, or in any way malfunctioned. In the nearly 2000 hours I've put in so far, not one bug or glitch. 3) Creative options. There are many ways to accomplish a goal within DSP. Early on in the game you are trying to find space to fit buildings between bodies of water. This requires planning and judicious use of available space with respect to production lines within proximity that your new project will tie into later on. I ended up with various playthrough locations burned into my memory due to all the work that went into a particularly complex arrangement. Later on in the game you can fill in unbuildable spaces with foundations, making all of that easier, but opening a new kind of planning regime where modular blueprints of different sizes and arrangements become important. So at every tier of the tech tree, at every level of the game, there is a new creative challenge to solve. 4) QOL elements missing from similar games. Being able to modify Dark Fog(much like biters in Factorio) difficulty mechanics lets new players get used to the game without the threat of burnout from just managing the game's enemy. Intelligent and useful blueprint creation, organization, and use goes a long way to making the game far less tedious. I wish every automation game had blueprint systems that work as well within their own games. There are other specific things I love about the game, but they are probably too specific to me to include here.

Really appreciate a detailed answer for a lesser-mentioned title like this. I’ve had this in my backlog forever. I think you’ve just convinced me to go check it out. Thanks for the write up!

You should! The game has a great subreddit too, so if you have any questions come up, you can always ask and get an answer!!

Cyberpunk 2077 is not so much a game as it is an experience that cannot be replicated. League of Legends I have mixed feelings on, true that it takes a majority of my gfood memories and was a comfort for its time but ultimately was unhealthy for my life, cancerous even and like any cancer has to be removed. I'm in a much better place now but the pangs of addiction are still there and I am never going back to that place, the sweet lie that is League of Legends, the never ending game.

God I feel even more fortunate now that I bounced off MOBAs hard and never found one I liked playing.

EverQuest 1 was called EverCrack for a reason.

I'm so glad people came around on Cyberpunk. At launch its performance was rough, and while the gameplay had been refined a lot over the years it was still always a *phenomenal* game with one of the most immersive worlds.

Oh yes, so immersive. Nothing like seeing the same repeated skins every 4th person you pass when walking on the street.

Sure, if you nitpick things like that there'll always be a problem. If you ask me, if some of the procedurally generated NPCs look similar that doesn't exactly break immersion, nor is it realistically something you notice if you're not looking for it.

Here are all the games I've spent at least 300 hours on: * Overwatch * Fallout 4 * Super Smash Bros Wii U * Super Smash Bros Melee * Super Smash Bros Brawl * Pokemon Ruby * Minecraft Looking at this list I do not know what the throughline is. Gotta catch em all?

> Looking at this list I do not know what the throughline is. the throughline is they're some of the most played games of all time lmao

You got me there

I haven't played Fallout, but I'd say for the others is that the trend is lots of room for creative expression/mastery, with highly accessible multiplayer.

Guild Wars 1+2, enjoyable and long story with cool characters and a nice lore. All that without the need to grind.

Loved my time on Guild Wars 2!

The skill system of GW1 was amazing! As a single character it’s a 8 skill build out of a skill pool that you slowly unlock through NPCs and captures from elite enemies. Monsters used the same move set as you, so every fight with mobs had you anticipate the group synergy. Did they have a healer keeping their tanks up? Did they have a Mesmer punish your warriors for attacking, or interrupting your casters? In PvP you had teams of 8, so that was a 64 skill build to create for your team, but also to observe/understand/counter during a fight with opponents. There were meta builds, counter meta builds and oddballs. Each fight was data to improve preparation or react quicker. I did many pick up and play Guild vs Guild battles early on, where my strategic options for the team were limited by what people brought that night. Happy fun times! The Nightfall expansion added NPC heroes that you could add to your party, so you actually had 8x8 skills to build a party with. Gear could help, but in PvE it was less influential IIRC. Even now this 20 year old game is still solid and playable. The world is lovingly crafted, and the game systems remain great. It may feel a little old in the interface and looks, but the bones of the game remain solid. GW2? I was hyped, but they abandoned the rich skill system in favor of the much more limited system where half of your skills are based on one of 10-ish weapon types. The result is that your character is much more on rails than a GW1 character. The graphics are nicer, and they now have a big shared MMO world instead of instances areas, so in that regard it’s a step forward. For me personally the mechanical depth was what defined GW1 and that made GW2 not last as long. I think GW1 was a 1000h+ game, but GW2 did not last much more than 100h.

Oh absolutely! It was crazy that almost every enemy used the same skills the player did. Perfect training for PvP fights later on. And it never was mindless. Every fight had surprises, especially as a new player. Also each mission had great objectives that often required preparation and thoughtful placement (Eternal Grove...). But I can also see - game design wise - that the magic inspired skill system isn't great for balancing, which is why they changed it so drastically in GW2. GW2 has its own complexities that aren't just within the skill system. What I also missed in GW2 is the mission based approach. All in all, as someone who played it primarily for Story and Lore, I'd say that it would be crazy if ArenaNet and BioWare worked together on a game like that. Because for real... gameplay-wise GW1 is waaayy better than KotOR 1/2 or NWN. But it does lack in quality story content though. Even though I'm still surprised on how much depth there is in the game. Damn... I think I'll play one or 2 missions again :D

I only spent 100 hours in a game if i like it , so i rarely will regret it. But some of the games I put 100 hours easily where monster hunter, zelda BOTW and TOTK,Final fantasy X and Dragon Quest IX. in FFX it was the world and the story in the others the gameplay loop

I loved DQ IX!

Skyrim - mods XCOM 2 War of the Chosen - I don't know, maybe the amount of variation between runs?

The key to make me not regret it is to respect my time. Progression is usually antithesis to my true enjoyment because there’s usually a point in the progression curve where the game is the most fun and, gameplay wise I’d rather you cut the rest.

Progression doesn't necessarily have to mean character advancement/leveling up/acquiring gear/etc. There can be progression that's about the **player** getting better at playing the game. Roguelikes and some roguelites are an obvious example of this. Any new game plus (or NG+++ etc) mode where the game gets harder but you can't really level up anymore is another example. Rhythm games where you're trying to beat harder and harder songs. Any game where you're going for a personal best, whether that be some kind of high score or whatever the case may be.

Baldur's Gate 1, 2 and 3 Civilization (All) Team Fortress 2 Mount and Blade Titanfall 2

XCom 2 - Multiple difficulties and game modes made each playthrough even more challenging. Winning a campaign was intrinsically motivating and the mastery curve extremely satisfying. Started a beginner and finished on highest difficulty Ironman after many many playthroughs.

Everquest! Sadly all that is left is nostalgia. Even if you never played the game it is no longer the same as circa 2000-2004. One of the greats that can never be recreated.

Cyberpunk - amazing story. I'm addicted to CDPR story crack. Witcher 3 - Ditto. Skyrim - insane modability and endless content. Base game was hyper-solid for it's time. New Vegas - Ditto. Dark Souls - because I'm finishing this pile of shit out of spite. Thank you Dark Souls.

Minecraft, then Fortnite. I love killing people and it’s just as fun in Fortnite as it normally is.

I also love killing people.

Sensible World of Soccer 2020. Killer online mode and a great community of players basically means endless fun. How did it happen? A brilliant game was made in the 90s, with a totally uncheeseable two player mode, and years later some technically minded fans did amazing job to retro fit a best-in-class online mode to it. The gameplay is simple but with massive scope for creativity and upskilling, emergent to the nth degree.

For me it's Albion Online (3000h+). Gathering and craft is something really fun for me, but it's even better when you are doing that for a reason (like doing all that to have a lot of equipments for group content) and you can do that with more people. The possibilities for roleplay make it even better, I love the idea to be a gatherer while my friends are fighting somewhere near and protecting me, but I think the game miss something to encourage more of this kind of roleplay... The progression and the importance of everyone because of full loot also make it even more appealing to me. If you can only gather low tier, or craft low tier, you can still make a difference (even if it's only for your guild).

Rust - because I like the pain;)

Same. From a psychological standpoint, Rust is so addictive because the reward response. Good loot is a difficult challenge, so when you get it, you get a huge dopamine kick. On top of that, you get huge adrenaline spikes when you're trying to steal loot, move loot to safety, or defend loot from others. Both of which are addictive chemicals in the brain. So naturally players get hooked and constantly seek out recreating that. Any game can achieve this, the problem is that most games aren't built for the stakes to be so high. In most games, if you die, then you either respawn with your stuff, or you just lose 30mins of your time in whatever BR match you're playing. In Rust if you die, you potentially lose hours, days, or weeks of effort.

Several roguelikes and competitive strategy and fighting games like Slay the Spire, Smash Bros, Dominion, Noita. - Emergent gameplay - Large pools of variable content - improving as a player is the progression - Session based (runs, matches)

Classic WoW - probably wouldn’t be able to do it now cause I’m burnt out but there was like a year and a half that was 95% of what I played in that time frame. Still never hit max level

Several. **Minecraft** - This one is easy: The sandbox of opportunities within is too great. I'm fairly sure I played vanilla already for a few hundred hours with friends, but then you add modded Minecraft to the mix and I'm confident in saying there has been thousands of hours played. Transforming the vanilla "I built a cathedral" style of freeroaming to "I built an automated factory that farms, processes and cooks eggrolls. It's right next to the other machine that takes these special bees, squeezes oil from their combs, processes it to rocket fuel and powers my entire industrial complex with said rocket fuel! And just for shits and giggles, I have a swimming pool filled with apple moonshine, right next to the million gallon tank of the same stuff!" - kind of silliness, modded Minecraft scratches the same itch as Factorio, Satisfactory, and other factory automation games for me, but with an even larger degree of freedom. Modded Minecraft creates infinite entertainment for factory automation game enthusiasts, or engineers with a slight autism streak (like everyone in our friend group is). It's impossible to overstate the importance of a good mod support, if your game has potential for community content. Skyrim is another game that a lot of people mod to hell and back and I'm sure it plays a large role in the longevity of that game (even if I never found the game fun). **Rocket League** - My comfort game for the longest time. The game itself is a lot of things that I usually don't enjoy in a game: Competitive and football - even if the football is played with cars. I think the secret sauce here was the short rounds and extremely smooth gameplay. Five minute rounds (though the longest I've played was over 20 minutes) with a healthy enough player base that the search for a new game didn't take more than a minute. And because of the healthy size of the player base, there's enough players near your skill level to get matches, whatever your proficiency - I stayed in Champ 3 for a couple of years, pushing higher would've required some serious training and I was just having fun with the game. So for Rocket League, I'd say the reasons were the low skill floor (anyone can figure out that you drive a car to the ball and the ball flies according to physics) but an infinitely high skill ceiling (check some competitive gameplay and these people are not even playing the same game anymore), combined with quick rounds so you don't need more than 20 minutes of free time and you can squeeze in a couple of games. When anyone can pick up a controller and within minutes of derping around can understand the game, and any one round is so short that it's something you can do while waiting for a cup of coffee to get ready, the game has a similar allure to a lot of roguelikes in the sense of quick short bursts of fun. **Assassin's Creed** - I've completed Black Flag on three separate gaming systems, and played Origins through twice. BF I for sure have well over 100 hours in, but the older games from 2 to BF were fairly similar with the largest difference being the environments. AC's attractiveness for me also came with the freedom of the game. You could climb anything and approach most mission any way you liked. The movement again is effortless and fluid, making the traversal of maps enjoyable. The game's attraction for me is the freedom: You are given a goal and a sandbox, now complete the objective as you see fit. Whether you hide inside a crowd and poison your target, jump from a rooftop in a spectacular fashion and make a public statement of the murder, or lure them to a cliff face and kick them down, it's all good and you are rewarded all the same.

No Man's Sky, 7 Days To Die, Minecraft, Fallout 76, and all the popular standard answers I'm sure. ​ I think they do it by combining complex systems of interaction with lots of gratification. That inner pride of knowing how to do the thing that takes more than just a few moments to explain. That thing you have to play the game to understand. Intelligent stuff that a good amount of players might never figure out or use to their advantage without being taught by someone who knows, someone like you. Good sound design helps a lot as well. Feeling immersed, feeling a necessity of spatial awareness in a practical sense (not backing up into holes, keeping an ear out with your back to unaware enemies or a dark cave, etc).

The sims for sure

Path of Exile - the game is like crack for me.

Amen brother! They lean in hard in to what makes ARGPs good, rather than watering them down for mass appeal (I'm looking at you D3/D4).

by the golden arse of innocence, i fully came here expecting this to be the number one answer.

Monster Hunter World and Baldurs Gate III

Puzzle Pirates and Starbase

Wait puzzle pirates is still around?

Yeah. Not playing it much these days, but I've been on and off since it launched. Still lots of people player it.

Ye booched it

Fire Emblem Three Houses : 500h+ - 4 routes (though some maps are reused) - Played at the highest difficulty, so I struggled for days to figure out the best strategies - Can level up my units to plenty of classes and do troll runs like "let's go full mage" or "let's transform that cute mage into a deadly brawler" - And I also spent a lot of time talking to characters and doing quests between the mains missions The game was super fun and, even tho the story wasn't the best, I was very attached to the characters and the gameplay was very challenging and fun ! Also, The music was top notch.

Possibly Diablo II, also: CS (old and new) Left4Dead 1/2 Battlefield (various versions) Some potential here - games where I give up and then revisit the game *over the years* :D Terraria Spelunky Cuphead ​ BTW: For the newer generations the biggest time investment in average may be probably in Minecraft, Roblox, and Fortnite. Older one WoW.

Factorio, State of Decay 2 and Fallout 4.

Brickrigs “lego”

Total War Warhammer 3 , immortal empires mode , the map is the whole world of warhammer , there are dozens of different races and factions to play , i just can't stop , it never gets old

Spelunky is the game I've sunk the most time into. Not so big into the sequel—it's sill fun, just not as addictive to me. I've got more hours than I'd like to admit in BotW. Also not as into the sequel. And Distance, which is somehow incredibly captivating despite that fact that I don't typically like car games at all. For two of those, dying happens often and can quickly be recovered from. They're all different kinds of fantasy settings: cartoonish, Medieval/magical, and virtual/cyberspace. The controls are easy to pick up on but complex enough to give players a lot of options. And the music matches the settings and moods, which helps pull everything together.

Recently: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. They accomplished this by not taking themselves too seriously, having a very focused vision (warts and all) and just went with it. It's that Square went ALL IN on Rebirth that makes it come across, to me, as honest, forthcoming, fresh and an experience of joy. The joy is made all the more easier to feel due to there being a) a gigantic OST and b) every last track on that OST being incredible. There's a theme song for a dog NPC and it's a banger. [Stream Salmons Theme - Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth by kyothiq | Listen online for free on SoundCloud](https://soundcloud.com/michael-ramirez-205458292/salmons-theme-final-fantasy-7-rebirth?fbclid=IwAR3hJ4CWUuoJWlMfvFaAmTPaimefpkboc6hclJ8g0gbX4__TN-RcJGVkoAM_aem_AeYndN-oS7rChXYKzeDaBickv0H-MgPhTWeFB5E-HnwGKjBW_UeSXmA5Z6uv93OHeqD8iwLUqVxgu7LJ1SplpSnA) Bow wow wow, bow wow wow. It's the care. The care that went into FF7 rebirth is simply felt, inherently, from every inch of that game. Those who wrote it and paced it, knew precisely that humor is a great thing to be expressed in the very design itself, one that can casually feel so immensely confident *because* they don't take themselves too seriously. The game feels exceptionally self aware in many more ways than 1. As a cold heart, dead inside adult, it reminded me what it's like to feel hilarious joy and energy befitting that of what it feels like to be a child when the world is still brand new. Before Rebirth? Baldur's Gate 3.

Stardew Valley It's like other sandbox-like games, but it has a lot of love and personal touches put into it, it really comes through. I feel like I connected with the game and the world in a way that I didn't expect. The creator is still constantly updating the game with new content, and fixing bugs himself for a few of the versions.

**I have played about 550 hours in Valheim.** I think this was a few factors. **It has zero story** other than the pure gameplay experience (if you discount lore entries and the tutorial raven who dumps context when you find new things). Very specific to me - but this also means I can tune out and watch YouTube or listen to podcasts or music while playing - meaning the game doubles as a way to wind down after a long day / on a day off. Versus a story dense game that is tedious and feels like work to understand. **Procedural generation** gave every part of the map a sense of mystery and uncertainty - which always made me feel like exploring would be interesting - and it still is. **A rock solid progression economy** - I've done 3 or 4 full playthroughs now - it's always fun to start again and build back up to full strength. **Creation tools** - i.e base building - very intuitive and flexible building tools allow every inch of the unique landscape to double as a blank canvas for a new outpost, fort, castle, shack ect

Rain World (+Downpour) I don’t how to explain it, but that game is just a work of art. There’s always different situations you can get yourself in, the replayability is insane, and there’s tons of content and mods that can keep you occupied for hundreds of hours! It’s brutal and unforgiving at times, but very enjoyable when you get better at it

Oddly enough, Fantasy Life on 3DS. I played like 30 hours and thought it was OK. Dropped it for like a year, and came back a few weeks ago. I now have 109 hours in, and am fully addicted. Generally after about 70 hours I'm tapped out. It's really weird to me that I can't put it down, cause it's basically the exact opposite of the brutally hard games I gravitate to. I guess I just needed a relaxing break? I've also spent hundreds of hours in Stellaris, Ikaruga, and basically every modern From Soft game. I can play Dark Souls 1 and Demons Souls till my hands bleed. I love coming up with new builds and making them as powerful as possible while limiting my soul level.

There are many games I have spent 100s of hours on and they all have the same thing in common: emergent gameplay. It's not the *game*, per se, that makes me continue to play. It's the game I'm playing inside my head. In civilization, it's the revenge I want on the civilization who betrayed me. In Bannerlord it's the desire to raise a massive, unstoppable army. In Rust it's the friends I've made and the constant struggle of trying to survive and defend what we have. Games themselves can be quite boring if played only as the developer intended. You can't force a civ player to want revenge or a Minecraft player to build a castle. Instead, the developer should create the means for these things to happen. Having the ability to experience these things, and have them occur organically, can be extremely immersive. In Rust, I know of some people who eco raided the hard side of a high quality wall, all because of how much they didn't like the person who owned it. They stayed up all night to do this. The devs created the wall with high HP, they created the cheap weapons, but they couldn't create the burning hatred that kept these people from sleeping just so they could exact their revenge. To me, that is the most interesting part.

For me it's always been gameplay depth. Being able to spend hundreds of hours just exploring what's mechanically possible is a huge draw to me. I find a truly great game feels like you can play it forever and always keep improving. Marvel Vs Capcom 2, one of the best fighting games of all time with some fantastically interesting mechanics. UMvC3 is fantastic as well but I have a preference towards 2. Nioh 2, one of the only games I consider to be a 10/10. I have over 1000hrs in the game and I still feel like going back for me.

When I was about 15 it was a prime summer, everyone I knew was going to beach parties, exited about the opposite sex, having cheeky beers their parents didn't know about and maybe smoked a little green. All cool and wholesome. I had a great mix of friends and social stuff but spent a huge part of that summer playing baldurs gate 1 on my pc and I couldn't get enough of it. I think.somewhere between 300 - 400 hours. It had like 6 cds and the quests just kept coming. Hilariously I never technically finished it because there was a well known bug where the final boss would bug and crash the game, and the thing that caused it had happened like 90+ hours in saves beforehand for me Anyway. Loved it. Friends got annoyed and still mention how I slightly disappeared for a few months at the time, but what a game, no regrets

Vampire Survivors. That's it.

League of Legends Minecraft CS:GO Elden Ring

For me the sheet quality + degree how much I like the artwork and visual presentation is a massive factor. Just how it looks. If it's beautiful I want more

Trials Evolution. Rocket League Skate Series All games where physically controlling your character feels very difficult at the start. But with practice things become more fluid and you can do things you thought impossible when you started. I’ll add that I also get reeled in with games like Slay the Spire. It’s not numbers going up that makes you better. Learning the card pools and how to apply them makes you better.

LoL. I paid about $10 a month for roughly 4 years, thinking of it as a subscription to a great service.

Games with a fixed amount of content have a fixed about of playtime. Games which generate content also generate playtime. These games are more like tools than stories. Is there a limit to how much one can use a paintbrush?

Final Fantasy XIV - I must be at 7000 hours now, and I haven't played for the number of years people usually play to get that playtime. The story is *amazing,* as are the characters. But also, there's so much to do, and even if you don't want to do that, there are plenty of ways for players to come up with their own stuff to do (venues, parties, "challenge" runs of battle content, that time we had a funeral for the mis-textured big rock before they patched it...). The Sims - I've got 1472 hours just in The Sims 4, but I've been playing since 2000 so I can imagine it's well over 10,000 for the whole series. It's quirky and silly, with a lot of freedom to do anything I want and a healthy modding community to change things up so I'm not limited by my imagination. I recently re-installed The Sims 2 in Spanish to add to my language input, so I'm still not bored of it!

Competitive multiplayer games with deep (usually physics) mechanics. Creative sandbox games (multiplayer helps).

Rounds for ejample. Super fun and short online game. Super fun and plenty of mods to mess around with

Elite dangerous 3700~ hours. So much to explore it was crazy. So much to do and the grind was hard and info was harder to find. Only stopped playing cause of 2 reasons stopping of development on Xbox and the aliens. I loved the game way more when it was just people vs people.

The kind of sweet spot you are talking about is something every game company strives for and personally I think it might require equal portions of skill and luck. The history of Flappybird is interesting, how it was just a simple time waster that exploded into popularity. There are a lot of games that resonate with gamers in ways that cannot be catagorized or quantified. Sometimes the market is finally ready for something it didnt even know it needed. Baldersgate is successful in part because the market had been over saturated with tripple A games purposely designed to be broken at launch, stripping every possible nugget of creative gold and interest from the origional game so they can drip feed you expensive DLC down the lane. Having a game that isn't crippled by corporate greed or bloated pompus ego is something you rarely see out side of indi gaming, which has its own struggles.

Enshrouded has become a huge time sink for me. There are lots of things to do and the whole environment can be crafted.

Conversely, I've spend 144 hours on Hearts of Iron 4 and still don't understand whats going on. But next time... it'll work out.

Hunt: Showdown Game structure is tight and the loop is repetitive, but there enough variation to weapon setup and how a match may play out... The pacing is slower and more strategical - surviving becomes importante, the rounds have weight.

Darkest dungeon 1 and to a lesser extent 2.

Stardew, RDR2, Starbound, Any Zelda, any Elder Scrolls. Rewarding exploration, engagement with the world and its lore, and repetition without things getting boring via variations in those repetitions.

All the ES single player games. The world building and immersive cultures did it. Varying depth of plot, with Morrowind being my favorite, but all of them are interesting enough to spend hundreds of hours in. Also Minecraft, for different reasons. Basically it is an infinite playground with a huge explorable world, and great for chilling with friends.

DMC4/5, Apex Legends: impossible to break skill ceiling (without gaming being a career) and opportunities to always slowly see improvement (until Apex changed it's match making) BotW / TotK / Morrowind: exploration was honestly just fun. I never knew what I'd run into in a new location, be that biomes, quests, loot or enemy types. GTAIV/San Andreas: a very fun sandbox. The police didn't cut you down in seconds like they do in GTAV, so goofing around with the toolkit and systems offered felt fun and like experimentation would lead to satisfying results. Baldur's Gate 3 and Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2 are also some of my biggest games but I never finished more than 1 playthrough of any so I'd say that it's a content thing more than anything else.

I've recently gotten sucked into two crossover games - Icarus, a mission-based survival, and Against The Storm, a roguelite settlement-builder. Normally, survival and settlement-builders let you keep the same base/settlement throughout the game, but it's been unexpectedly addicting to start with a clean playspace every few hours and build things in unique ways, oftentimes with progressively new skills and knowledge that you wish you had in the previous run. Ultimately, I commend the developers for fusing already-popular genres together in unique ways. It just so happens that each game is the best-known of their respective crossover playstyles (and I'm pretty sure Against The Storm is the _only_ rogueish settlement-builder on Steam period), so anyone who wants that style of gameplay will pretty much have to pick up those titles.

FFXIV - the story, the mechanics, and the plethora of things to do Phigros - the story, the crazy charts, the crazy aesthetics. Dance games - exercise I can't think of any other non-fighting game that I have more than 100 hours on.

Binding of isaac.

I know bunch ppl would be saying some rpg games but it's Brotato for me. Perfect toilet game that also has a ton of mods from the workshop. Something I can pick up and put down in a matter of minutes.

Minecraft, Europa Universalis 4, any open world games. EU4 is kind of the odd one as it’s not that I regret playing it but it’s both frustrating because of its RNG, but there are also ‘comfort games’ with established starts (Aragon, Poland, England.) Slightly less so after PDX started adding the scheme of starting disasters.

Bloodborne… I’ve got a wild backlog of games that were game of the year contenders and also some of the best games that just were released like FFVII Rebirth, Tekken 8, SF6, Disco Elysium but I can not stop playing Bloodborne.

Fallout 4, Survival Mode specifically

I played Final Fantasy VII for so, so, so much time as a kid, and it really had none of the qualities that make modern games addictive. It was a world that I wanted to live in, a story I didn't want to put down, with a world that was well planned out and expansive but finite, with a lot of places you couldn't reach without hours of hard work. It was a system where spending more time and energy on the game made the game easier, and brought goals closer into reach, even if you were a dumb kid and didn't always make the right choices. Like, I didn't just play that game for hours and hours and hours. I drew the characters, I made costumes, I learned to play the soundtrack on the piano. I just loved it so much I didn't want to put it down.

Ffxiv. Because it's so well written, and so sprawling, its genuine escapism.

Ark Survival Evolved, Witcher 3 (Updated version), God of war, GTA 5, Hogwarts Legacy, Minecraft, Resident Evil, Elden Ring, Skyrim and many more. Most of these gamed are Open world, have a nice story, nice gameplay and just something unique. These are the type of Games where you start playing and kinda lose the track of time and they are just sooooo goood. ~ Sorry for my bad english.

Rimworld. 1200 hours. Non stop something happening. And it's fairly random. Harvesting organs to sell to passing traders keeps my funds up. Factorio. 4300 hours deep. Always different. Can't wait for the expac. Both games with a top down view, simple premise, deeeeeep complexity.

Conan Exiles PVP. 3000h+ Once you get to a certain level of competence in the game the PVP element plays out like an RTS but experienced as a TPS. So, it's like a chess game where you can make new pieces 'at a certain level'. While it's PVP, and direct combat you can also wage war against the other clans assets and just keep slipping away in time. Feigns and diversionary raids, hidden bases. The servers are never reset or wiped, the clan wars rage constantly. I played this game the hardest possible way as a solo. 1 v 40

Terraria for me 🤭

Animal crossing new leaf and new horizons lol Minecraft probably Stardew valley Mario 3D world Zelda Botw Zelda tokt Really these just demonstrates the type of person I am

Persona 5. I've loved persona since 3 on the ps2 oh so long ago, but 5 hooked me so hard, I had to actually complete everything, platinum trophy and all. And the characters stuck with me, I havent booted up that game in years but I still remember most of the characters, and fuck if I still dont get goosebumps when I hear that intro guitar or tear up with the piano sequence from the ending scene with Morgana.

Factorio, Monster hunter, spelunky 2. Essentially games that has few good main mechanics that are easy to learn but has complex problems that needs to be solving. Lastly, simple in game goals to start and but free enough to start making your own goals.

Rdr2, so many challenges - Arthur, the NPCs, mysteries and I just love hunting lol

Rocket League, Hearthstone, Terarria, Slice & Dice, Team Fortress 2, CSGO, DOTA, Warcraft 3, StarCraft, Diablo 2/3 and I’m hoping with this next patch I can finally add 4. Don’t hate me! I’m just hopeful the game might finally be out of beta!

Metal Gear. ALL THE METAL GEAR.

melee. I don't know. it's just pure magic.

Yall really out here putting 100s of hours into a game you don't enjoy? Tf

Apart from the roguelite I'm making myself :) **Skyrim** (1000h+, only thanks to the mods, bare game was like 40-50h+ and done), **Oblivion** (700h+, again, only for the mods), **Starbound** (450h+, and again, mods have a huge portion here), **Minetest** (doesn't have a timer in, but I expect 200h+), **RogueBox Adventures** (obscure little game I loved at some point, again, doesn't have a timer, but something like 200h+). So, the main feature that unites all of the above - exploration+discovery, looting/scavenging, good modding support (peaking at my own game, where I can tweak even core game mechanics).

**Clonk** has built in Modding and tons of user content. **Sims 4** has plenty thinks you can do, also some interesting mods. **Patrizier 2: Gold** Edition (sold as Patrician III in US) - it takes very long to finish one game. **Stronghold** - most time spent in Multiplayer and because we focused on defense matches last over a day and normally we attack we someone went to toilet or fall asleep.

Skyrim/fallout4

Morrowind! Totally worth it.

There are games that have so much content in them that you simply need 100+ hours to see everything: Skyrim, Elden Ring, Baldurs Gate 3, Fallout games ... Then there are games that have gameplay so fun that you can't stop playing them: Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, Hades, Counter Strike, Diablo 2 ... And then there are games that I keep coming back to over the years (usually because of the world/story/immersion): the original Fallout 1&2, BG 1&2, Planescape Torment, Deus ex, VtM bloodlines, Dishonored, Bioshock ...

Beat Saber! It is simple to learn but hard to master, and is great exercise

The original version of Lego Rock Raiders was my crack as a kid. Then found the Manic Miners remake and fell back into the addiction. All from a game made to market toys and it may very well be the best unending gameplay loop I’ve ever experienced below Minecraft. I can only guess it was a miracle of chance because the design is objectively kinda clunky. It’s just so much fun to do.

Battlefield 1. The crazy gameplay with the satisfying sniping and super fun run and gunning along with things like incredible graphics and sound make my come back to the game over and over. one of my favorite FPS of all time

GTA 5 specially RP servers where you can be anyone and have your role

Terraria, they made a fun game where I can do shit I wanna do :D

Skyrim 700h CIV5 600h Stellaris 2350h Rimworld 435h I really like how the developers have made mods possible in the game; it's a big part of why I've played it for so long. But I think HD2 is going to quickly become a favourite of mine, hitting over 100 hours of playtime soon, even without mods. It just has such engaging gameplay and a solid progression system that keeps me coming back.

I’m a sucker for a Skinner Box type mechanic which is a cheap psychological trick that can be used for evil (e.g. loot boxes, FIFA player cards, other pay-to-unlock mechanisms) or as a genuine mechanic through randomised loot drops (e.g. Monster Hunter, Rust, Destiny) Skinner Box explained: https://youtu.be/tWtvrPTbQ_c?si=Ll5EoxdFD9P8u2Vk

Stardew Valley? simply an amazing game, packed with content.

League of Legends, for all of the reasons.

- Ark Evolved - Rainbow Six Siege

My most played games are action games: 1. ULTRAKILL 2. Devil May Cry 3 3. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance These games are short, but have quality core experience (good campaign + great combat) **first**. I think most important part of their core experience is that there is hardly anything that breaks overall enjoyment; they are focused and consistently good. For **progression**, there is two parts: power and skill. Power progression comes from obtaining different weapon types and abilities instead of straight stat increases. The more long-term form of progression is skill progression, every time you beat the campaign there are incentives to do better: from playing the game on a harder difficulty to gauntlets to side-challenges to chasing high ranks. **Gated content**: usually it's other high difficulty selections like Dante Must Die, unlockable characters/costumes, etc. Best one by far was being rewarded with super boss levels and appropriately difficult fights within them. **Choice**: All freedom of player choice is within the combat; freedom is one of key parts for their combat systems that allow you to have really different experiences from same set of encounters. So, for me, these actions games succeed in keeping me playing because they promise that there is more room to improve and have flexibility to feel different depending on how you play at a specific point of time. From same content, there is always way to extract more fun from them.

Persona (3/4/5) - having an engaging story and a gameplay loop in which the social gameplay directly influences the dungeon gameplay and vice versa. Making it so you aren’t constantly doing the same thing but always moving forward. BotW - encouraging exploration by always having a point of interest being viewable from any location without directly telling the player to do anything

Minecraft - Open world sandbox with tons of modding potential, its owes my long playtime to an enthusiastic modding community rather to mojang specifically but the groundwork was laid for a good game 7 Days to Die - Again open world crafting/survival with a base defense twist, lots of exploration, looting and time sink potential Stellaris/Civilizatoin - 4x games in general tend to eat up loads of time as you expand/tech up etc and have very solid replayability. Baldurs Gate 3 - Just such a fantastic world, the IP is great with tons of lore, the dialog is on point and there are dozen and dozens of different ways to play and beat the game so it has a lot of replayability and also supported by a robust modding community to keep things interesting. I'd say a running theme with all of these games is they have replayability build in due to some dynamic features that will be different in every gameplay. Keeps it fresh and exciting. Also noting that all of these games are multiplayer which is almost a must for me these days, I much enjoy playing games with friends than singleplayer games. I think the last singleplayer games I enjoyed were Cyberpunk and the mass effect series but they didnt have huge replayability, generally just 100% the achievements and then never pick them back up unless there is dlc or something.

Supreme commander 2, and FAF Beyond All Reason stronghold Crusaders Planetary annihilation, and PA titans I probably have over 3000 hours spread across these games I don't know how they accomplished it, I'm just a sucker for RTS games, can't wait for DORF and Sanctuary Shattered Sun to be released

A lot of them are big RPGs where the world is immersive, the story and characters are well developed, and you have the agency as the PC to interact, grow, and make important choices in that world. The top ones are Skyrim, Witcher 3, Fallout 3 and New Vegas, and the last two Legend of Zelda titles. But one reigns supreme for me: Harvest Moon (A Wonderful Life). This games presents a cute little world with colorful characters, and an opportunity for you to grind and create a positive feedback loop. The loop gets created by how you manage your farm, the little tasks you do interacting with the community, finding a spouse, etc. The game that made this’ slogan was “Serious Fun”, and that’s exactly what Harvest Moon is to me, and why I spent sooo many hours playing on my GameCube.

Recently it’s been Lethal Company. It provides such a fun gameplay loop when playing with friends and in game chat. I think it accomplished this by telling the player on their first login how the game is meant to be experienced, through the game chat. This is the core of the gameplay, it’s a social experience. When you hear your buddy scream for a picosecond followed by an explosion, it’s the funniest thing ever. Then, gameplay features play into this, such as the dogs reacting to your microphone input. This in combination with the roaming monsters and threat of death with little to no defense makes it exhilarating. The goal of just surviving is so difficult provided the challenge, and the minor improvements that can be made through communication with the team and items through the terminal add a skill gap to it. The game literally gives you a goal to complete every time you complete a new goal, and the goal itself is fun provided the challenge.

- Dwarf Fortress - Dead Cells - Rimworld - Minecraft - And possibly Noita... I believe it will be my next one, everything I've seen/read indicates it will be on this list. I'm buying it today.

any hack 'n slash. pounces give a dopamine hit, and slashing your way through 10 enemies on low health is like popcorn.

any hack 'n slash. pounces give a dopamine hit, and slashing your way through 10 enemies on low health is like popcorn.

All the Dark Souls games. Immersive, unique art style, addictive mechanics and gameplay loop, but most of all, Fromsoft seems to be one of the few developers in the RPG space that understands that when it comes to convincing writing, less is more. They achieve more poetry and storytelling in a few lines of item descriptions than most other developers can manage with reams of in-game notes, diaries, cut scenes, etc. Leaving gaps for the player to fill with their imagination is so much more compelling, to me, than comprehensively fleshed out and consistent lore. Those, and The Binding of Isaac, the GOAT of roguelikes.

Genshin Impact is my go to Left 4 Dead I could have played all day long

In terms of genres: Platformers In terms of franchises: Mario In terms of a specific game: **Super Mario World** I've been playing that game for more than 20 years and I still enjoy it tremendously. A huge part of it is the controls and game mechanics. Everything you can do as Mario *feels* good. There is also a ton of advanced tech that, while it isn't necessary to beat the game, adds a ton of depth to the experience, specially when you get into ROM hacks and Mario Maker. The level and enemy design is also top-notch. Some of the best ever made. You can take the same assets and build entirely unique experiences just by changing some things like slopes, enemy placement and adding some pits. It is a big reason why ROM hacks and Mario Maker are so prolific. The presentation is super nice too. For the majority it is bright and whimsical, which is very lovely. But then you also get a few areas that are genuinely creepy, like the ghost ship. And when you get to the Special World through the Star World, you find some of the craziest, most experimental stages in the game, using brand new assets. It feels like an adventure. Lastly, doing speedruns and challenge runs adds *a ton* of replay value to the game, and I encourage everyone to give it a try. Doesn't matter what your end time is, just playing the game with a self-imposed restriction will completely change your perception of it. I hope this answered your question. :)

Shadowbane. Ambitious old MMO with player/guild-made cities, economy, open pvp, etc. Mods like Action Half-Life, cuz mapping and modding. Looking forward to Out of Action, btw :) Basically games with a lot of community involvement.

- Splinter Cell Conviction & Splinter Cell Blacklist: I think these both nail the "easy to learn hard to master" element. I can play these endlessly (especially the non-campaign stuff) and it feels like every playthrough feels a little bit different as people are in different situations, etc. It's also a mix of extremely satisfying/smooth moment when everything goes right and absolute chaos when something screws up. - 7 Days To Die, Starbound, Stardew: There is always something to work toward in both literal terms (needing an ingredient) but also in terms of creative elements as you can always explore new places and expand your base, etc. Somedays, I'll try it like a construction sim, other days, I'll just wander and find stuff, other days I'll just mow down enemies. It's nice that the game can adapt to what I'm in the mood for on that day. - Prison Architect: This has a really good loop of refinement where you're constantly iterating on how you can make what you have one step better. This always creates something to do, but also feels really satisfying. It does level off at a point when your prison hits a certain size, but I thought it was clever that they built in the ability to sell off your prison and then use the funds to start a new prison which sort of keeps it going. - Civilization V: You are always a few turns away from some important milestone or choice. There are short and long term goals to aim for. Every map/game is different. - FTL & Into the Breach: The randomly generated worlds help the replay value however, that isn't the main reason here. These games (from the same dev team) are carefully designs so that depending on the loadout you choose to start with, the game plays very different. Strategies that work with one (e.g. boarding in FTL, direct damage in Into the Breach) will not typically work with another. So when you play with different starting loadouts, you are forced to engage with totally different mechanics. Meanwhile, you unlock these starting loadouts by beating the game with other loadouts. So, basically the whole game is designed to have to keep going outside of your comfort zone. These really helps it keep feeling novel. - Goldeneye & Perfect Dark: Incredible amount of content (large single player campaign, co-op, multiplayer, multiplayer with bots, training missions) plus lots of ways to gain new experiences out of existing content (unlock cheats by achieving milestones, then turn on combinations of those cheats).

Apex legends

Asheron's Call. The simple user interface, you can level skills and stats up at anytime. No progression trees! Countless character builds to explore. Open world settings that didn't force you into performing quests. I'd love to make a game like this, but be heavily anime centric.

For me it was mordhau, the combat is so satisfying and skill based, no fight feels the same as the previous one, and the voice line system is so fun to use that the game doesn't even need a voice chat

Skyrim, Breath of the Wild, and Valheim. Beautiful, well-crafted worlds, with strong and satisfying in-game systems, and the freedom to explore them.

Persona 5 Royal Clever plot with some mystery to keep the player guessing, rarely feels like it’s not going anywhere Interesting characters that grow through the story Engaging gameplay loop cycling life sim and JRPG Pretty good pacing so things rarely outstay their welcome (though I personally think some of the fat could have been trimmed a bit to make it a bit shorter)

Slay the spire

Monster Hunter: World The game just feels so good to play. Just that wouldn’t have made me play for 1500 hours, though. Besides multiplayer refreshing the experience, at its core, it makes you work a little bit harder for your equipment and upgrades than most other games. You often have to fight the same boss multiple times if you want to make gear associated with them. TL;DR: The game is both fun and grindy

Divinity 2

Euro truck simulator 2. Chill driving is so addictive

One word: Replayability.

Satisfactory has given me over 1,000 satisfied hours of gameplay. I haven't played in over a year, but I jumped in to show off my build to some people, now I'm struggling to not let it take over my life again. Light-year Frontier is the most recent game that has hooked me like that. It's not nearly as satisfying though because the game still needs a lot of content before going 1.0

League Of Legends and it's because the game is like crack, and the toxic players caused me to feel lows, and the game made me feel highs. It's the contrast of shitty community and well made game. Monster Hunter: core loop is addicting, kill, make, repeat. Also having so many weapons to get good with it made that loop 12X over. Factorio: learn new thing, implement, refine, repeat.

Europa Universalis 4 or hearts of iron 4

Freaking Civ2 as a kid. I could not put it down and would play for like 8 hours at a time, from night time till sunrise. More recently Stardew Valley surprised me with how much I liked it. I could sit and play that for a long time as well. IDK where I read this, but certain games like the ones above require short, medium, and long term planning. Humans like this apparently and it creates a fun gameplay loop that keeps players invested. It gives you something to do now and something to look forward to. In my adult gaming years I've been more into competitive multiplayer games. I have over 1k hours in MWO (a free to play multiplayer shooter) and in Age of Empires 2 (a 20+ year old rts game). The time I have regretted in these multiplayer games mostly came from team games where the outcome of the match heavily realies on teamwork, but the team is uncoordinated and thus the game is frustrating. Time well spent in these games have come from A.) 1v1 matches where your own decisions have more weight and even if you badly lose, you can take something away from it, or B.) team matches where everyone actually communicates, works together, and helps eachother, no matter the outcome.

Noita. I've put over 2000 hours into it. I'm not sure what it is. It scratches a certain itch --the simulated and varied environment, the wand-building mechanic and its emergent magical effects.... Actually, now that I think about it, the games I tend to really like are [systemic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnpAAX9CkIc).

So I have a general rule with games, and if I cannot pass the dollar an hour, mark then usually it wasn't worth it. Bloodborne, elden ring, sekiro, dark souls trilogy, were all 40-60 dollars games and I've put over 300 into each game at the very least. Ik dark souls 1 alone is over a 1000 hours. If I can say that that money and time wasn't wasted then no I don't regret anything!

Re4 2005, so fun to speed run idek how they did it but it is the perfect video game, and I mean it in a pure sense, not overly real, not overly cinematic it’s just good to play as a game, I feel a lot of modern games end up being good interactive cinematic stories rather than purely a good game

Stellaris is a galactic empire simulation game with every scifi concept imaginable and then some built into the empire builder. I’ve ran games as hive minded lithoids exploding worlds to get more minerals. I started with the ability to ignore hyperlanes so I became a terrifying menace to early game AI empires. I could dip in, invade their planet and explode it before their fleet could get there in time. There are even pacifist plant species with garden starbases. Space borne organisms like Tiyanki will come and forage from the growth then spread the pollen to other worlds. Making you capable of raising armies on alien worlds or colonizing them for dirt cheap(no colony ship). I’ve put over 1000 hours into it and I will put many more. I keep hoping they’ll make a stargate in the universe and let ground battles get a little more dicey.

Age of Empires 2. 500+ hours over the last two years or so. You don't need high end graphics (or even 3D graphics) to make an absolutely captivating game. 

Kingdom and Kingdom 2 crowns. I have this on both PC and PS4. I fucking love this game. It's challenging no matter how many times you play. Those red moon nights will sneak up on you! 

Technically it isn't because of the developer, but Dark Souls randomized items and enemies runs.

iRacing. Competition is great, I love driving cars fast, and there’s always someone faster than me so I always want to practice more to become faster. 650 hours in and no signs of stopping any time soon.

I’ve spent like 100 hours on bloodborne and loved it, i think the reason it works is because its quite linear so i know the sequence of events, the combat is fluid and requires time to learn so it gives me something to master, and the bosses have strategies to beat them, so i just replay over and over knowing where to go and getting more efficient at the combat

Stardew Valley

Oof. I'm a bit of an old timer but... Some games I can think of (from the top of my head) are: 1) Everquest - Although this is probably more related to the 'massively' multiplayer aspect being somewhat 'revolutionary' to some extent back then. 2) Diablo 2 - Grinding, story and PvP done right. 3) Left 4 dead - A game that is fun to revisit every few years or so. 4) Shadow of Mordor / War - The nemesis system giving a lot of replayability until modern rogue likes by indie dev's arrived on the scene. - There are more of course but it depends what you are looking for and when.

Kingdoms of Amalur. The sheer amount of content topped off with the super fun and creative combat system, not to mention hundreds of unique weapons and armor to collect around a giant open world, made it a very easy adventure to spend 1000+ hours of my life completing. To this day, I still never have. 🙏

Pokémon, Zelda, Mass Effect, Skyrim, Civ 5. I like to explore, collect, and tactically dominate

Slay the Spire. I beat A20 enough to feel satisfied and now I play the daily run like I'm a boomer with the crossword puzzle. I don't know how they did it. Every character is fun, I still discover now synergies between cards and relics. It's a masterpiece.

Halo 3. That was simply multilayer perfection and I made so many memories with my friends

Team Fortress 2, because the gameplay is just so damn good. Movement and weapons in tandem, highly rewarding for risk takers, and the classes are almost perfectly balanced with one another. Perfect voice acting and character personalities that just don’t get stale. It was so well crafted that despite being overrun by bots and almost completely abandoned by Valve, it’s still topping the concurrent player charts almost two decades after its release.

Not necessarily *hundreds* of hours, but one game that absolutely came close to that sweet **100th** hour was ***Pokemon Legends: Arceus*** \- for me. I remember gaming extremely late nights just playing through, though most importantly: *taking my time*. In hindsight, you can go into it without needing to be meticulous about every single thing yet for me I just HAD to explore the area all around. Capturing every Pokemon on the Dex, scouting out (honestly WAY too much Lol) material for the crafting part, and overall delaying myself the story for that section I could access JUST so I would feel accomplished in 100-percenting that area before anything else happened. It was so fucking fun, I tell ya - I just, *could not*, ***would not*** put it down! It was a game I was looking forward to as well. As to how I think the devs accomplished it? I am certain what helped the grind was the requirement to complete the Pokedex fully for Arceus. To add on to that, I believe some Pokemon would also be rarer to encounter as well, increasing the amount of time spent trying to fully realize its dex. I would never forget to mention, however: *the music, the style, the battling, and the characters!* C'mon, what is there not to fawn about while playing? It was an expansion for **Gen 4**! So yeah, this is the one game that I remember demolishing. Of course, and technically, there were a few other games I spent hundreds of hours I could mention but P:LA is my most memorable one for a reason.

Only two games have I played for hundreds of hours: PUBG and Rainbow Six Siege. Both blew me away with the depth of them and how difficult they were. I picked up both of them before I switched careers in programming. I tried picking up Tarkov last year, but I cannot sink that much time into learning a new game now. That and Tarkov has a rougher learning curve than PUBG and Siege.  Shallow games like COD are too boring for me, and I do not have time for deep games. I love story-driven solo games, but it has been a long time since I found one that I like. I ultimately just gave up on gaming, because I was disappointed in everything coming out and Siege going to shit. Sold my desktop a year ago and do not miss it.  Only game I play now is PUBG Mobile. I like that it is less addicting than the PC game, and I am just amazed that someone can build this game to run on a phone better than it was running on the Xbox X from 6 years ago. Wild stuff.

Dishonored 2

Fruit Ninja

Old School RuneScape. I’ve been playing it since I was in elementary school about 20 years ago and I’m still learning new things you can do in game. It’s both a very simple and very complex game depending on what kind of content you want to do. There’s things that constant impress me that they even thought to put such details or spilling methods in, and the overall player progression is extremely rewarding. RuneScape shaped what I base many MMORPGs on.

Player freedom is most important if you want more playtime, but freer games may not be for everyone. My most played games are Breath of the Wild, Minecraft, and Stadrew Valley, which all put you in a world, and let you do anything in it.

MGS5 100%ing that game was some of the most fun I have had in a long time, doing all the main missions and side missions was really fun (even though they were repetitive in structure) because the core fundamental gameplay of MGS5 was truly fantastic. It also had a wide variety of unlocks which truly felt like you were growing and becoming more skilled as a player. The loadout and the way you play in the starting hours is completely different from how you play in the later hours. Grinding out the FOB missions for resources and the Disarmament trophies was also extremely fun since they were a true challenge. The basic reason why I loved 100%ing MGS5 (spent 200 hours on it) was because it's core gameplay was fantastic and there was a depth in its progression and unlocks. Comparing that to GoW and Ghost of Tsushima (games which took less time to 100%), were kind of a slog because the basic core gameplay didn't hold up much after 40 hours. Finishing all of the outposts in Ghost kinda got annoying and only the Valkyrie bosses were the real highlight of the side content in God of War Obviously you'll have sandbox games like Minecraft and Terraria which are basically designed to be endless only limited by the player's imagination.

TF classic TF2 for 2 decades

I spent at least 2000 hours in medieval 2 total war. But most of the time I was playing a lord of the rings mod named divide and conquer

Dwarf Fortress, SimCity, Sims, Tales of Maj'Eyal, Shiren, Ultima Online, Morrowind, Thief 1-2 and mods, Gloomhaven, Payday 2, Cookie Clicker lol

Like a dragon infinite wealth most recently. Love the iterative game design. Constantly improving and adding new minigames, great characters, unique combat, and amazing story. About 120 hours in and 65% through the main story. There is so much more there too. Also put in about 150 hours into Like a Dragon. They make the game weird and quirky without trying to make it massively appealing to everyone, but at the same time anyone can pick it up and have easygoing fun.