10 Longest Video Games of 2024 [First Half]

The medium of interactive leisure opens up the number of issues one can do when going by a fictional world and story. Video games can fluctuate up content material to forestall the participant from dropping off of a narrative, not like the static narratives present in books and films. It’s no shock then, that a number of the most time-consuming media of all time occur to be video video games. With complicated, large open worlds to discover, and tons of characters to speak to, video games have gotten extra immersive over time. 2024 is shaping as much as be one stuffed to the brim with prolonged video video games, so right here’s our record of 10 of the longest video games of 2024 to this point.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails By way of Dawn

In the event you speak to each NPC and exhaust all of the dialogue out there, there’s no escaping a 100-hour playthrough in Trails By way of Dawn. In Trails video games, NPCs every have an ongoing story of their very own that updates as you progress key story milestones. The primary narrative of Trails By way of Dawn has tons of textual content by itself, not even counting the NPCs. Trails By way of Dawn’s English phrase rely is properly over 1 million, making it the second-largest script within the collection to this point. Against this, all the Lord of the Rings trilogy incorporates 455,125 English phrases whereas The Bible incorporates about 1 million. The ‘excessive pace’ quick ahead toggle mitigates the time this will take by a bit, however until you’re a brilliant pace reader, sifting by the reams of textual content out there right here will likely be time-consuming. Curiously sufficient, Trails By way of Dawn doesn’t function the series-staple fishing minigame, so gamers can focus extra on the intricate storyline and characters.

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth

The most recent entry within the Yakuza collection additionally occurs to be the most important. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth contains a turn-based RPG fight system, a definite shift from Yakuza’s acquainted beat-em-up components. The 100-plus hour playtime is partly because of the turn-based fight, however largely as a result of Infinite Wealth is so chock-full of minigames. Infinite Wealth options properly over a dozen minigames, a few of them being full-blown video games with development and a grind all their very own. For instance, the Dondoko Island minigame has its personal management scheme, which is becoming contemplating what it includes. Inside Dondoko Island, you construct an island resort vacation spot by scrounging up sources after which putting objects across the archipelago. Different minigames are extra fundamental, although no much less intriguing, such because the returning karaoke songs, in addition to enjoyable parody video games impressed by Pokemon and Loopy Taxi. However Infinite Wealth has rather more than simply minigames to occupy your time. The primary marketing campaign consists of 14 meaty chapters that take wherever from 50 to 60 hours relying on playstyle, which makes it one of many longest campaigns within the Yakuza franchise to this point.

Remaining Fantasy VII Rebirth

Remaining Fantasy VII Rebirth is an enormous recreation unto itself regardless of it masking ‘simply’ the center part of Remaining Fantasy VII. Rebirth retreads a number of the most beloved components of the unique Remaining Fantasy VII and recontextualizes them: the Gold Saucer, Barret’s Corel story, and Cloud’s well-known flashback sequence all happen on this center chapter, to not point out all of the twists and deviations towards the top. Very similar to the earlier recreation on this record, Rebirth goes all in on minigames. You have Chocobo Racing to take pleasure in, in addition to the array of Gold Saucer sights. Even with out the minigames, Rebirth boasts a seamless open world rivaling the dimensions of Remaining Fantasy XV’s map. There’s a guidelines of stuff to do within the open world, however the Protorelic quest is especially noteworthy because it options some core story content material and culminates with a showdown in opposition to a well-recognized character making Rebirth one of many longest video games of 2024.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes

This turn-based JRPG contains a extensive variety of allies you possibly can recruit. There’s a complete of 120 recruitable allies on this recreation, although lower than half of them don’t be part of you in fight, as an alternative serving to you out by supplying you with intel and whatnot. The method of recruiting these characters can vary from merely talking with them to doing fetch quests, so it’s not fairly as time-consuming because it may’ve been. The vary of different aspect actions helps make Hundred Heroes a 100-hour RPG.

Dragon’s Dogma 2

Dragon’s Dogma 2 doesn’t have the longest story marketing campaign on this record, however the open world suffering from aspect quests and actions will take you a while to probe for positive. A number of the aspect quests are substantial affairs, taking you world wide map and requiring a number of steps to finish. With over 40 aspect quests, Dragon’s Dogma 2 just isn’t wanting in content material. That stated, the true coronary heart of Dragon’s Dogma 2 lies in its procedural gameplay. Enemies react and behave in unpredictable methods, additional compounded by the interactable environments. This results in many hours had simply messing with totally different builds and discovering other ways to defeat monsters. It’s a type of video games the place you spend hours simply messing round experimenting with stuff.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink

Granblue Fantasy: Relink’s marketing campaign is swift and punchy, with about 24 hours or so of gameplay time. Whereas it’s usually a well-received story with memorable characters, the true substance of this recreation revolves round its endgame content material and co-op part. Consider Monster Hunter and you’ve got the fitting thought. Raids function troublesome bosses and dungeons that you would be able to deal with solo or with others. Leveling up characters and equipment is a fixture of Granblue Fantasy: Relink’s endgame gameplay loop, and may take 100s of hours till you are feeling a way of completion. All in all, this can be a good hybrid package deal that features your conventional RPG story alongside a grindy endgame raid loop to dig into.

Rise of the Ronin

As an open-world samurai recreation, Rise of the Ronin options a number of checklists and content material to discover. There’s a complete of 750 collectibles with 100 fugitives to avoid wasting in Rise of the Ronin, a few of that are very properly hidden. The map in Rise of the Ronin measures 10.4 sq. miles. By comparability, Ghost of Tsushima’s map rounds as much as 11 sq. miles. Although the principle marketing campaign contains solely three chapters, there’s nonetheless a number of aspect quests and stuff to gather within the open surroundings, making Rise of Ronin one of many longest video games of 2024 to this point.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Basic

Within the online game world, you possibly can’t actually get any larger than World of Warcraft. The Cataclysm enlargement had essentially the most prolonged story at its time of launch, which is saying lots contemplating WoW’s legacy. For reference, 25 gamers are polled on HowLongToBeat stating that Cataclysm takes round 385 hours to finish the principle story and extra content material. Cataclysm is the most recent enlargement to obtain the Basic remedy, which helps clean some issues over with conveniences, but in addition provides further wrinkles into the combo. Some further options embrace the flexibility to make use of mounts, transmogs, and pets throughout all accounts, a streamlined public sale home, and overhauled problem.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

Nearly everybody was stunned to listen to that Elden Ring’s enlargement featured one other large open-world zone separate from Elden Ring’s Lands Between. After we truly booted the sport up and performed ourselves, that feeling of discovering an ever-expanding map hit us another time similar to the bottom recreation. The Shadow Realm is much bigger than the sport’s director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, stated it could be in previews. The brand new zone is roughly the dimensions of Limgrave, Caelid, and half of Liurnia of the Lakes mixed. Add to this the extra verticality of the unpredictable terrain and you’ve got one other stable 60 or so hours of content material in your fingers, even when a few of it’s simply empty area with a type of foolish cookbooks ready at a lifeless finish.

Helldivers 2

As a reside service co-op shooter, Helldivers 2 doesn’t have a definitive endpoint because of an absence of a conventional marketing campaign or story. Nonetheless, regardless of having a mission-based construction, gamers clock in a mean of fifty hours in Helldivers 2 in line with HowLongToBeat. The mission construction revolves round 40-minute timers with a listing of targets to finish. There’s one thing to be stated about finishing stuff in 40-minute chunks. The compact time restrict lets gamers know what they’re stepping into whereas giving a way of accomplishment, encouraging additional dedication to the sport’s loop. Attending to max degree is among the clear milestones you possibly can obtain on this recreation, and that feat is usually achieved round or simply above that 50-hour timeframe.

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