- 18/05/2025
The best games come to those who
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Have a big slurp from my cat, Merg.
00:03Alright there, you little demons, Jules here from WhatCulture.com,
00:06back again with another episode of the awesomely named and awfully hosted
00:10Use Your Own Adventure, the weekly medieval themed format
00:14where I, the crowned Jules of WhatCulture.com, take a list chosen by you.
00:17Yes, you, the person who legitimately has a hernia right now.
00:22I'm 36 and somehow I managed to get a hernia.
00:26It's quite painful and I'm on a lot of pain medication at the moment,
00:29so kind of equaling out pretty well at the moment.
00:32But apologies if I sound a bit more slurred and dopey than usual
00:35because, hey, it's early in the morning and I'm medicated, brother.
00:40Yes, you get to decide what list I dole out to you each and every week.
00:44And this week we have none other to thank than
00:46KayCollier2192 for their suggestion of games that you've spent so, so many hours in
00:54and still haven't even bloody finished.
00:56Now, truly, a game needs to be special for most players to willingly sink in over 100 hours into it,
01:03or at the very least has to be bloody damn addictive.
01:06And while for most players, 100 plus hours spent will signify that a game is well worth the money,
01:10what about those games that, even after so much time, you still haven't rolled the credits on?
01:15Because while we're going to be talking about a lot of games that you technically can beat in way less than 100 hours,
01:20have you really, truly experienced everything if you put in any less?
01:24Well, no is the answer.
01:25You haven't even scratched the surface.
01:27So let's have a chat about them.
01:28As I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com,
01:30and these are eight video games that you've spent 100 plus hours in and still haven't finished.
01:35And you know the drill by now.
01:36Put your suggestions for next week's episode down in the comments section below.
01:39And with that in mind, let's get on with the list.
01:408. The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim
01:49Now, obviously, there's going to be some people who finally behooved themselves to finish Skyrim
01:55in the 12 years since it first came out,
01:57but they're most certainly outliers amongst the more than 60 million people who own this game.
02:03But it's almost comical just how many of these players have actually gone and spent an entire life's worth of time
02:08in this game and still haven't even completed the main campaign.
02:12There are literally entire Reddit threads of folks confessing that they're more than 1,000 hours into this thing
02:18and yet haven't even once beaten a main story that is no longer than actually 30 hours in total.
02:23That is incredible and mad.
02:26But it's somehow totally understandable,
02:28because like most Bethesda games, Skyrim is so, so much more than its campaign,
02:33which really feels like an added value proposition than the real reason to play the game.
02:37And if we're being honest, and yes, I rightly accept you stabbing me with your mythical spoons and forks
02:43that you've used the alchemy and enchantment perks and abused them to turn them into world-enders
02:47and you're going to insert them right in my gut,
02:49the story isn't even that good.
02:50If we're being honest, if we're being honest, come on, it's just not that good.
02:53The real allure, of course, lies in drinking in this utterly mesmeric world.
02:58And that's without even considering how much depth that mods have added to this game,
03:02nor how many times so many of us have restarted Skyrim each time it's been ported to a new system.
03:07Or as the case with myself, where I start a new playthrough of Skyrim,
03:10I get so far in, I do all of this stuff apart from the main campaign, obviously,
03:14and then I just go, hey, I'll leave this for a bit.
03:16I come back to it, and because it's been like about, I don't know, like a month or two away from playing it,
03:20I'm like, wait, what was I doing here? What was I doing around here?
03:22Uh, I can't really remember what's going on here.
03:24Better start again. Better start again and build the same sneak stealth archer build.
03:28Every time, Jules. Every time you have something wrong with you.
03:31Number seven, Yakuza 5.
03:33Now, it is wildly variable how much time it will take you to beat a Yakuza or Like a Dragon game,
03:39because, like, for example, if you just stick on the critical path of the man who raised his own name,
03:43you'd probably take about 10 hours.
03:45But then you can go into other games, and it's like 100 is barely scratching the surface.
03:49Case in point, Yakuza 5's monstrously oversized campaign,
03:53which revolves around a stonking five playable characters,
03:56and takes about 40 hours just to mainline.
03:59Yet, considering that large swathes of the core story are quite the stamina-annihilating slug,
04:04you'll probably be tempted to peel off the critical path
04:06and indulge in the game's more entertaining side activities instead.
04:09And trust me, the side missions, like most Yakuza and Like a Dragon games,
04:14are INCREDIBLE.
04:16And weird.
04:18I absolutely fall in love with them each and every time.
04:20When a new release pops its head over the horizon,
04:23I'm not even bothered about the main story.
04:25I'm just like, what can I do this time around?
04:26Oh, karaoke, fantastic.
04:28Can I race those tiny little matchbox electric scale electrics cars again?
04:32Yes, that was the winner.
04:33That was true gold, baby.
04:35Less said about the live-action women thing,
04:38where you have the Kleenex shot at the end of every visit or deposit,
04:42as the case should be.
04:43Trophy or not, nah, weird.
04:45Number six, Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
04:48Now, you might notice that I've got the evil finger temple of doom right here,
04:51because I never said that spending 100 hours in a game is always a good thing.
04:55And case in point, when it came to Valhalla,
04:57ye gods, both new and old,
05:00this was a long, long stay in this area.
05:03It overstayed its welcome many hours ago.
05:06You're just there like,
05:07oh, man, what a joy it is to walk across such barren, open landscape
05:12and see nothing.
05:14Woo!
05:15Ubisoft, you spoil me!
05:17But anyone who pumped major time into the game,
05:20or actually finished it,
05:21will appreciate that the main story is a 20-hour romp distented into a 60-hour chore
05:26packed with relentless busywork and bloat.
05:28And if you throw in a, air quotes,
05:30healthy amount of side quests and exploration,
05:32you're easily over the 100-hour mark before you roll credits on this thing,
05:35if you even do it at all.
05:37And again, there are tons of Reddit threads of players
05:39basically coming together to try and motivate each other to finish the bloody thing.
05:44It's become a job for them.
05:47That is incredibly sad.
05:49It's precisely this sort of exhausting experience that many evidently got tired of,
05:53instead moving on to another game or ultimately never returning to it.
05:56Which is why the recent Assassin's Creed Mirage is such an oasis in a desert of content,
06:02because you can basically get through this with all of the side missions in around 30 hours.
06:06That is much more appealing.
06:09Thank you very much.
06:10And I don't say thanks to Ubisoft very often.
06:145. Xenoblade Chronicles 2
06:16Now, many fans were relieved that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was noticeably shorter than its
06:21two predecessors, either of which would comfortably qualify for this entry.
06:24I mean, you're looking around 60 hours to beat the main stories of the first two games,
06:28but the inevitability of periodically going off the beaten track to explore and play side content
06:32ensures that both can become 100-plus-hour time sinks.
06:36But here's the thing, the 100-plus-hour time sink when it comes to Xenoblade Chronicles 2
06:41is a bit of a weird one, because it's not just the incredibly bloated story and tons of optional
06:46content, but the actual gameplay itself feels drawn out and elongated to the point that you're just
06:51like, hurry the f**k up!
06:55Xe2 definitely has its defenders, of course, and it's a terrifically entertaining game up to a point,
07:00albeit one that has a near-sadistic lack of respect for the player's time, which can make getting to
07:05the end, even with well over 100 hours already in the bank, feel like a Herculean feat.
07:09Number 4, Red Dead Redemption 2.
07:12Oh, Red Dead Redemption 2, how I love and hate how much time that I've spent in your meticulously
07:19crafted world. Now, this is most definitely a story-based game, but it is one that tells you,
07:26in no small terms, to just stop, smell the flowers, kill some wildlife, kill some locals,
07:32kill some wildlife and locals, and throw them in front of a moving train. Then take a bath,
07:36because you're so greasy and grubby. Now, you almost certainly know by now what happens at
07:42the end of this game, but actually rolling the credits for yourself? Nah, that's just not going
07:45to happen, is it, anytime soon? Because even if you rush through the story, you're looking at around
07:4940 to 50 hours to beat both the main campaign and the lengthy epilogue, and this being a rockstar
07:54game and all, almost nobody is going to do that. I mean, if you take a peek at Red Dead Redemption 2's
07:59PS4 trophy data, you will find quite a worrying statistic that less than a quarter of the player base
08:05has actually managed to reach and beat the epilogue. That is a low number, which, more than
08:10five years removed from its release, suggests that the overwhelming majority of people have
08:13just clocked in epic playtimes without actually concluding the story in full.
08:18Number three, Elden Ring. Okay, so let's set the record straight right now. Elden Ring is a huge
08:24game, and even if you are good and are able to go through every single boss first time and absolutely
08:29batter them like Scottish cooking, you will clock in around 50 to 60 hours. It's a girthy boy.
08:37And the problem is with this game, is that it's kind of dependent on your skill. Like many, I am not
08:41that good at these types of games, even though I am thoroughly addicted to the formula, so my
08:46playthrough of my first time around the sun was well into the 150 hour mark, and I definitely did not
08:52see everything. In fact, the only thing that I did see was the giant boss's feet as they repeatedly
08:57crushed me to death. And no, I did not enjoy this experience, despite what my search history will
09:01tell you. But unlike basically every other game on this list, Elden Ring's low completion rate,
09:06despite colossal time investment from players en masse, is as much to do with the richness of
09:10its world and staggering amount of content on offer as just how damn challenging it is. I mean,
09:15sure, Elden Ring is certainly easier than most prior From Software games by granting the player more
09:21combat options and allowing them to return to challenging foes later on, but it's still, by any typical
09:26metric, a ball-bustingly difficult game. And trust me, you're going to want to go through
09:30every single nook and cranny in this game, because there's secrets galore, there's hidden side quests,
09:35hidden weapons, armor, character, rewards aplenty, and of course, most of the time it's just you
09:40go around the corner, it's like, oh, an instant death trap, or enemy that I'm totally unprepared
09:44for sick. And From Software, it's just that like, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, and you're like,
09:51oh, you're cheeky, oh, you're cheeky devil, what you like, what you like, oh, you bastard.
09:57Number 2, The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild is arguably
10:02the single most beloved video game of the last decade, largely due to Nintendo reimagining Hyrule
10:07as an almost impossibly wondrous open world. But you know what, this game is so much more than just
10:12about trying to beat Ganon. It is an experience, so much so that you won't have to look very hard
10:18to find players who are just like, I didn't want to finish this game, because it meant having to say
10:22goodbye to the phenomenal world building that is right in front of me. And I'm kind of here for
10:29that. Numerous prominent outlets have posted articles from journalists and players alike who
10:33have intentionally refused to fight Ganon because to battle and defeat him would bring this still open
10:38adventure to an unambiguous close. Even accepting that completion rates for most big AAA games aren't
10:43great, it speaks to a game's truly special nature when players want to prolong it in perpetuity,
10:49keeping it alive forevermore. And number 1, Persona 5 Royal. And so we close on Persona 5 Royal,
10:57a game that basically looks at your free time and goes,
11:00weren't planning on using that anytime soon were you mate? Hope you haven't got any commitments
11:06there pal, because whoo, you ain't going nowhere. Getting through the critical path in the original
11:12Persona 5 game was easily 100 hours, which took many by surprise for those who weren't familiar with
11:19the Persona elongated format. It never felt like it overstayed its welcome, it was a brilliant time,
11:24but then Persona 5 Royal came along and was just like, hey Lance, what if we added about 20 to 30 extra
11:30hours on top of that, yeah? You like the sound of that? You do, you cheeky devil, you. And what if I
11:35put a secret ending in it, right? The secret ending that you can only get if you basically go
11:39against what the game wants to tell you all the way through, yeah? Stay with me mate. And you get
11:44that at the end. Do you like the sound of that? So that means two full playthroughs of 110, 120 hours
11:50each to see all of the endings. Though Persona fans are certainly a dedicated bunch, there are a great
12:04many who have got well over 100 hours logged without reaching the original end. It's a brilliant game,
12:10no question, albeit one that demands an obscene amount of time from the player even to just get
12:14through the mere core experience. But thankfully Persona 6 has been pushed all the way back to
12:202026 though, hooray! I'll have maybe finished it by then. Who am I kidding? I won't.
12:29So there we go my friends, those were 8 video games that you spent 100 plus hours in and still
12:34haven't finished. I hope that you enjoyed that and please let me know what you thought about it down
12:37in the comments section below and if you want to chat to me, you can do so by following me over
12:41on the social medias that are shown right here, my friends. But before I go, I just want to say
12:46one thing. Hope you're treating yourself well. Hope you're treating yourself with that respect
12:49and love that you deserve. We all do as human beings and don't let anything or anyone else tell
12:54you otherwise. You are a massive legend. You deserve the bloody best, alright? Talk about there and smash
13:00your life goals today. I believe in you and you need to believe in yourself as well. As always,
13:04I've been Jules. You have been awesome. Never forget that. I'll speak to you soon. Bye.
Recommended
10:35
|
Up next
11:15
12:17
13:08
12:46
11:57
10:28