The medium of interactive entertainment opens up the variety of things one can do when going through a fictional world and story. Games can vary up content to prevent the player from dropping off of a story, unlike the static narratives found in books and movies. It’s no surprise then, that some of the most time-consuming media of all time happen to be video games. With complex, huge open worlds to explore, and tons of characters to talk to, games have gotten more immersive over the years. 2024 is shaping up to be one filled to the brim with lengthy video games, so here’s our list of 10 of the longest games of 2024 so far.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak
If you talk to every NPC and exhaust all the dialogue available, there’s no escaping a 100-hour playthrough in Trails Through Daybreak. In Trails games, NPCs each have an ongoing story of their own that updates as you progress key story milestones. The main narrative of Trails Through Daybreak has tons of text on its own, not even counting the NPCs. Trails Through Daybreak’s English word count is well over 1 million, making it the second-largest script in the series to date. By contrast, the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy contains 455,125 English words while The Bible contains about 1 million. The ‘high speed’ fast forward toggle mitigates the time this can take by a bit, but unless you’re a super speed reader, sifting through the reams of text available here will be time-consuming. Interestingly enough, Trails Through Daybreak doesn’t feature the series-staple fishing minigame, so players can focus more on the intricate storyline and characters.
Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth
The latest entry in the Yakuza series also happens to be the largest. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth features a turn-based RPG combat system, a distinct shift from Yakuza’s familiar beat-em-up formula. The 100-plus hour playtime is partly due to the turn-based combat, but mostly because Infinite Wealth is so chock-full of minigames. Infinite Wealth features well over a dozen minigames, some of them being full-blown games with progression and a grind all their own. For example, the Dondoko Island minigame has its own control scheme, which is fitting considering what it involves. Within Dondoko Island, you build an island resort destination by scrounging up resources and then placing objects around the archipelago. Other minigames are more basic, though no less intriguing, such as the returning karaoke songs, as well as fun parody games inspired by Pokemon and Crazy Taxi. But Infinite Wealth has much more than just minigames to occupy your time. The main campaign consists of 14 meaty chapters that take anywhere from 50 to 60 hours depending on playstyle, which makes it one of the longest campaigns in the Yakuza franchise to date.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a massive game unto itself despite it covering ‘just’ the middle section of Final Fantasy VII. Rebirth retreads some of the most beloved parts of the original Final Fantasy VII and recontextualizes them: the Gold Saucer, Barret’s Corel story, and Cloud’s famous flashback sequence all take place in this middle chapter, not to mention all the twists and deviations toward the end. Much like the previous game on this list, Rebirth goes all in on minigames. You have Chocobo Racing to enjoy, as well as the array of Gold Saucer attractions. Even without the minigames, Rebirth boasts a seamless open world rivaling the size of Final Fantasy XV’s map. There’s a checklist of stuff to do in the open world, but the Protorelic quest is particularly noteworthy since it features some core story content and culminates with a showdown against a familiar character making Rebirth one of the longest games of 2024.
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes
This turn-based JRPG features a wide number of allies you can recruit. There’s a total of 120 recruitable allies in this game, though less than half of them don’t join you in combat, instead helping you out by giving you intel and whatnot. The process of recruiting these characters can range from merely speaking with them to doing fetch quests, so it’s not quite as time-consuming as it could’ve been. The range of other side activities helps make Hundred Heroes a 100-hour RPG.
Dragon’s Dogma 2
Dragon’s Dogma 2 doesn’t have the longest story campaign on this list, but the open world littered with side quests and activities will take you some time to explore for sure. Some of the side quests are substantial affairs, taking you around the world map and requiring multiple steps to complete. With over 40 side quests, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is not wanting in content. That said, the real heart of Dragon’s Dogma 2 lies in its procedural gameplay. Enemies react and behave in unpredictable ways, further compounded by the interactable environments. This leads to many hours had just messing with different builds and finding different ways to defeat monsters. It’s one of those games where you spend hours just messing around experimenting with stuff.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink
Granblue Fantasy: Relink’s campaign is swift and punchy, with about 24 hours or so of gameplay time. While it’s generally a well-received story with memorable characters, the real substance of this game revolves around its endgame content and co-op component. Think of Monster Hunter and you have the right idea. Raids feature difficult bosses and dungeons that you can tackle solo or with others. Leveling up characters and gear is a fixture of Granblue Fantasy: Relink’s endgame gameplay loop, and can take 100s of hours until you feel a sense of completion. All in all, this is a nice hybrid package that includes your traditional RPG story alongside a grindy endgame raid loop to dig into.
Rise of the Ronin
As an open-world samurai game, Rise of the Ronin features a lot of checklists and content to explore. There’s a total of 750 collectibles with 100 fugitives to save in Rise of the Ronin, some of which are very well hidden. The map in Rise of the Ronin measures 10.4 square miles. By comparison, Ghost of Tsushima’s map rounds up to 11 square miles. Though the main campaign comprises only three chapters, there’s still lots of side quests and stuff to collect in the open environment, making Rise of Ronin one of the longest games of 2024 so far.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Classic
In the video game world, you can’t really get any bigger than World of Warcraft. The Cataclysm expansion had the most lengthy story at its time of release, which is saying a lot considering WoW’s legacy. For reference, 25 players are polled on HowLongToBeat stating that Cataclysm takes around 385 hours to complete the main story and additional content. Cataclysm is the latest expansion to receive the Classic treatment, which helps smooth some things over with conveniences, but also adds additional wrinkles into the mix. Some additional features include the ability to use mounts, transmogs, and pets across all accounts, a streamlined auction house, and overhauled difficulty.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
Just about everyone was surprised to hear that Elden Ring’s expansion featured another huge open-world zone separate from Elden Ring’s Lands Between. When we actually booted the game up and played ourselves, that feeling of discovering an ever-expanding map hit us all over again just like the base game. The Shadow Realm is far larger than the game’s director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, said it would be in previews. The new zone is roughly the size of Limgrave, Caelid, and half of Liurnia of the Lakes combined. Add to this the additional verticality of the unpredictable terrain and you have another solid 60 or so hours of content on your hands, even if some of it is just empty space with one of those silly cookbooks waiting at a dead end.
Helldivers 2
As a live service co-op shooter, Helldivers 2 doesn’t have a definitive endpoint due to a lack of a traditional campaign or story. Still, despite having a mission-based structure, players clock in an average of 50 hours in Helldivers 2 according to HowLongToBeat. The mission structure revolves around 40-minute timers with a list of objectives to complete. There’s something to be said about completing stuff in 40-minute chunks. The compact time limit lets players know what they’re getting into while giving a sense of accomplishment, encouraging further commitment to the game’s loop. Getting to max level is one of the clear milestones you can achieve in this game, and that feat is typically accomplished around or just above that 50-hour timeframe.
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