Poll of the Day > Most hours you spent on a game that you have not "beaten"?

(+) Yeah! (+)

As for single-player games, it would be Skyrim with about 600 hours of play time with less than a third of the quests being completed. I think I am only half way through the main quest. Fallout 4 and Morrowind trail behind at about 300 and 200ish hours respectively. Fallout: New Vegas stands at 500 hours but I finally finished all the DLCs and main story about a year ago.

World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV takes the lead at over a thousand hours each but being MMORPGs, I will never truly finish these games.

Comments are appreciated,

Thank you

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Oblivion comes immediately to mind, where I spent 2-300 hours playing without progressing the story at all past the first Oblivion gate then promptly got bored and dropped the game when I tried to work through it (that one part where you have to clear a bunch of identical Oblivion gates in a row killed it for me). I don't know if that's actually the winner, but if we aren't counting games that technically have no end, it's all I can think of off-hand.

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Breath of Fire 2 and Chrono Trigger are probably two, got far many times in both but never beat them, i'd give 100-200 hours, funny is that I got till like end game in both of them but I got burnt out, took a break and never finished.

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darcandkharg31 posted...

funny is that I got till like end game in both of them but I got burnt out, took a break and never finished.

That is me with some JRPGs. I would search every nook and cranny and talk to every NPC in the beginning but after some grinding and whatnot I would get burnt out in the last third of the game at which point I either rush through the rest of the game or take a long break before finishing some weeks/months later.

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PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale although I did put 150+ hours into Witcher 3 before beating it.

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Ive probably spent a good 1000 hours on Skyrim and never beat the main quest (almost did the 1st time I played but exclusively did the main quest so got my ass handed to me and tried different stuff on all other play throughs)

I guess maybe Madden if you consider beating it finishing a full career, but I have won many a super bowl

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Probably close to 1000 hours in Skyrim over multiple characters and I've never finished the main quest

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I played Runescape for 3500 hours and never got a Max or even Completionist cape.

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The problem with Skyrim is how you define "beaten". Is it finishing the main questline? Finishing the civil war? Finishing literally every possible quest, sidequest, and general activity until all that's left are the infinitely repeating ones? Completing every Achievement/Trophy?

I've spent hundreds of hours on Skyrim across like 15 different characters, mainly because I dislike how the game handles plot (ie, I find it kind of stupid that you're simultaneously the Dragonborn, the head of the Companions, the Archmage of the College, the Guildmaster of the Thieves, and the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, along with whatever other minor titles you acquire). So I basically make different characters to do different things (I've got a "main" character who tends to do the Alduin/Civil War stuff, a separate Companion, a magic-based Archmage, a Stealth-based Thief, and an "evil" Dark Brotherhood character), and most of them wind up at least somewhere around level 50 by the time I finish their main questline and a few other general quests (and for all of them other than the one doing the Alduin quest, I play the entire game without Shouts, because I avoid triggering the dragon/vampire attacks via that quest).

I've actually done this three times (I perfected Achievements on the 360, then did it again on the PS4, and am currently playing again on the PS4 to get all the Trophies again on a sub-account). So I've got about a dozen different characters with something like a hundred hours each, none of whom have technically even started the main quest, let alone finished it. And three each that have done the main quest, civil war, and DLCs but never did the various faction quests.

But on the flip-side, I have completed every Achievement (twice, going on three times once I finish Dawnguard on my current playthrough) and "completed" the game (just spread across multiple characters). So once could easily argue I DID "beat" it.

If Skyrim's off the table, I've near-perfected Borderlands 2 twice (once on 360, once on PS4), and in both cases the only thing keeping me from completion is beating Terramorphous, so that's arguably "unbeaten", but I have finished the main storyline and most other sidequests and DLC multiple times, so that might not count either. Again, depends on how we're defining "beaten".

Beyond that, it might be Dishonored: Death of the Outsider. I'd started a run in that where I was trying to go for a perfect run (to get all the trophies first time through), which would have required no detection no kills, and I was doing well, but I got bored halfway through and just sort of stopped and never got back to it. I probably didn't put a TON of time into it (it's a short game and I only played the first half or so), but I finish nearly every game I put time into, so I don't really HAVE a ton of unfinished games, with tons of hours invested (I'm more likely to just buy and never play a game - one I start, I tend to finish).

As for online multiplayer games with no real "end" state, I've sunk a ton of hours into GTA Online, with a bit less in Elder Scrolls Online, but in general I dislike online multiplayer and MMOs in general, so I don't have a ton of games outside of those two.
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There are several multiplayer shooters where I spent hundreds of hours but never finished the main campaign.

Then there's Dark Souls, where I have over a hundred hours and I've been procrastinating on the final boss for a couple years now lol

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

The problem with Skyrim is how you define "beaten". Is it finishing the main questline? Finishing the civil war? Finishing literally every possible quest, sidequest, and general activity until all that's left are the infinitely repeating ones? Completing every Achievement/Trophy?

I would say that is up to the individual on when they feel they have "beaten" open world games. I felt satisfied with FO: New Vegas after finishing most or all of the companion quests, the DLC quests, and most of the different endings of the main quest.

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I've put hundreds of hours into GTA V, and I'm only about halfway done. And that's just single player.

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Far-Queue posted...

Probably close to 1000 hours in Skyrim over multiple characters and I've never finished the main quest

It took me 20 years to beat ff7.

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Ignoring online suff? Probably Skyrim or Assassin's Creed Odyessy

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adjl posted...

Oblivion comes immediately to mind, where I spent 2-300 hours playing without progressing the story at all past the first Oblivion gate then promptly got bored and dropped the game when I tried to work through it (that one part where you have to clear a bunch of identical Oblivion gates in a row killed it for me). I don't know if that's actually the winner, but if we aren't counting games that technically have no end, it's all I can think of off-hand.

That's where I always stopped in Oblivion's storyline as well. The Oblivion gates were just not fun at all.

Oblivion could easily be the answer to this question for me. However, I'm really bad at actually finishing games. I play a lot of RPGs and when I get to the final dungeon I usually like to do some grinding, and collecting some ultimate equipment first. Only problem is, that's also where I have a tendency to stop playing as well.

I'm trying to get better at finishing stuff though. I set myself a rule of not buying anything new unless I complete a game I already have. It's kind of worked, but I haven't been playing much lately either.

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InfestedAdam posted...

That is me with some JRPGs. I would search every nook and cranny and talk to every NPC in the beginning but after some grinding and whatnot I would get burnt out in the last third of the game at which point I either rush through the rest of the game or take a long break before finishing some weeks/months later.

I've got a bad habit of getting to the end of JRPG's (and similar games), leaving the final boss room to go finish up as many sidequests as I can, then getting burned out on those sidequests and drifting away from the game without actually finishing it. I've been better about it lately, but there was a point where I had like 10 different games I'd done this with. I forced myself to sit down and finish them all and I knocked them all out in like 2-3 days.

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I played Mass Effect 1 & 2 for 234 hours, but I've never played ME3 because until recently it wasn't available on Steam. EDIT: Oh, the Steam version requires you install Origin. OK, I guess I will never finish the series.

I've played Kerbal Space Program for 86 hours but entirely in sandbox mode, never in story mode.

I spent 24 hours playing Lego Lord of the Rings and got close to finishing it but rage quit after spending literally an hour trying to climb to the top of Orthanc only to get clobbered just a single jump from the top by the character switch bug.

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Skyrim and fallout 4 are my main ones. Hundreds of hours between them and I never saw the end of the main quest lines for either.

Incidentally, I finished the main quest line for fallout 3 and Morrowind (I think Oblivion too but, I am not sure.)

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I'm probably at least 400 hours into Oblivion without doing much in the main storyline, although I think I finished some of the other guilds. Skyrim was similar, until I realized you had to quest for shouts (I had put in a ton of time without even getting Unrelenting Force). I wound up finishing all the achievements on the vanilla version of Skyrim.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The problem with Skyrim is how you define "beaten". Is it finishing the main questline? Finishing the civil war? Finishing literally every possible quest, sidequest, and general activity until all that's left are the infinitely repeating ones? Completing every Achievement/Trophy?

The campaign is really just the two main questlines. Everything else is more a completionist thing, although the guild quest chains are as close as you might get to a secondary campaign. (Overlooking that the DLC each has a separate campaign.)


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path of exile might count as i've never done anything remotely considered "beating" a league, never even beat shaper

i have about 1100 hours in it

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Batman: Arkham Knight. 40 hours on Steam, and probably more on PS4. Even after the fixes, the Steam release had problems so I never got around to finishing it. PS4, I've got about 80 Riddler trophies left for the story to be completable.
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Minecraft maybe? Never really cared about the Ender Dragon. That or WoW, if you count not ever finishing a current raid at the hardest difficulty before a new one or the final pre-expansion patch happens.

For more normal games, probably a Disgaea title. Aside from taking a long time to actually beat the primary story, it takes a while to actually beat the hardest bosses and such.

Edit: Oh, and Dragon Quest Builders 2.
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2500+ hours on Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, still some Training School missions not completed, still working on Treasure Hunt records.

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Dont think i have any notable time in a single player game while having it unbeaten. Ive tried KH 1 a few times and never liked it and that probably added up to a few dozen hours. Slay the Spire probably comparable to that as well as i probably wont ever do Ascension 20 or Act 4.

Multiplayer though...RuneScape and Oldschool RuneScape. About a year in playtime for Rs2 and almost certainly over that now for Os and am nowhere close to true max. Doesnt help that i restarted Os for an iron but still.

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Madden 2004. Franchise Mode required a 251 block memory card for Gamecube so I played countless times without being able to save my progress.

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Sephiroth C Ryu posted...

Disgaea

Yeah Afternoon of Darkness is another. I've been on the final chapter for years

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2178 hours

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Heck of a lot of hours on Breath of the Wild, have not even seen the final boss yet. Im just mainly dicking around in that game and when I get bored, I start the game over. Might actually beat it someday.

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Xenoblade Chronicle games. Played them and enjoyed them but never finished any of them

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I guess it would probably be something like oblivion or Skyrim but I think I did beat the main quest line relatively fast. If we do count mmorpgs runescape would be it since its a game you cant necessarily beat.

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InfestedAdam posted...

I felt satisfied with FO: New Vegas after finishing most or all of the companion quests, the DLC quests, and most of the different endings of the main quest.

For FO, I'd argue that you've "beaten" it when the game literally ends. Like, you see an ending, and the game stops you from playing any more. That's "beaten".

Sure, you can go back, play multiple run-throughs (I certainly did), explore to greater or lesser degrees before initiating the endgame, and so on, but you've still "beaten" it the moment you play the ending. Whether or not you do all the companion quests/side quests/exploration really isn't a measure of whether or not you've beaten it, just how much of a completionist you are (it's the difference between "beating" an Assassin's Creed game and "100%ing" Assassin's Creed game).

The problem with Skyrim is that it doesn't really HAVE an "ending". The main quest just sort of peters out and leaves you in the world, everything still pretty much the same, and depending on how you play, the main quest may not even really FEEL like the main quest, just "chapter one" (and you could even argue whether or not Alduin really even IS the main quest, as compared to the civil war). So there's no one real definitive endpoint you can point to and say "this is where you beat the game".

I'd almost be willing to argue that beating the Ebony Warrior is "beating" the game, but even then because of how different playstyles affect leveling (and with DLC added in), you could still have a ton of content left untouched by the time he shows up and complains about no challenges being left and nothing left to do.



Zeus posted...

The campaign is really just the two main questlines. Everything else is more a completionist thing, although the guild quest chains are as close as you might get to a secondary campaign. (Overlooking that the DLC each has a separate campaign.)

Yeah, but because of how the game is designed, they don't really feel all that much more "significant" than just beating side missions. So it doesn't feel like "this is the main game" as much as it feels like "this is a succession of strung-together missions".

The civil war has more effect on the world as a whole than Alduin's plot does (Jarls change, the major cities will show "siege" damage afterwards that is never repaired), but for the most part, in both cases everyone in the entire world will react to you in exactly the same way, nothing else changes, nothing ends or is really closed off, and you can go right back to doing every sidequest or faction quest right from scratch (and other than being able to use "I'm the Dragonborn" to get into the College, none of those factions even remotely give a shit that you're basically one of the highest ranking Stormcloaks/Imperials in Skyrim, and just saved the entire world from an evil dragon).

So the Alduin and civil war quests don't feel like the "core" game, that you've "beaten" after finishing them. They wind up just feeling like part of the overall gameplay loop (a major part, but just a part nonetheless). In some cases, the faction questlines can feel just as significant or epic (if not more so) than the main quest and civil war do.

Which is why I implied it's hard to really draw a line under a definitive "ending". Some people might say, "Sure, Alduin and the civil war and you're done, everything else is extra", other people might say you have to do both of those plus all the faction quests, someone else might say you have to get every Achievement/Trophy (but not necessarily all in one run), some people might say you have to do EVERYTHING in one run, and some people might say you haven't "beaten" it until there's literally no quests left anywhere other than the infinitely respawning radiant quests (and some might even argue that you can't beat Skyrim, ever, because those infinitely respawning quests means the game never really ends).

By some definitions I've beaten Skyrim more than a dozen times. By some I've only beaten it three times. By some I've never beaten it once.
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J_Dawg983 posted...

If we do count mmorpgs runescape would be it since its a game you cant necessarily beat.

there's literally a completionist cape

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

For FO, I'd argue that you've "beaten" it when the game literally ends. Like, you see an ending, and the game stops you from playing any more. That's "beaten".

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The problem with Skyrim is that it doesn't really HAVE an "ending". The main quest just sort of peters out and leaves you in the world

Touche. I felt compelled to do the companion quests and DLCs before finishing the main quest again because I knew the game ended after that with no post-ending gameplay. I finished the main quest before the first DLC and was not till my second playthrough after all the DLCs were released that I worked on the companion and DLC quests.

For Skyrim though, one could finish the main quest which is technically "beating" the game and then go back to finish off the other faction quests and DLCs. I can see what you mean by Skyrim does not quite have an ending.

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J_Dawg983 posted...

I guess it would probably be something like oblivion or Skyrim but I think I did beat the main quest line relatively fast. If we do count mmorpgs runescape would be it since its a game you cant necessarily beat.

Eh, Skyrim sorta works for me too. In a different way.

I played Skyrim on PC. Which means modding is available. I never finished the game. I just modded. Until it broke, borked, or otherwise was enough to just start over and choose mods anew.

You would be surprised how long that can last you. Especially when half of them were basically UNRECOMMENDED mixtures of graphics mods to see what would actually work together (and yet did a good half the time to surprisingly coherent results without issues OTHER than those in literally the base game... like that weird issue affecting a certain shortly-after-tutorial waterfall where it dropped to 2 FPS even without a single mod [on a then within-one-year-80-percentile-or-higher-gaming-system-for-a-PC] ... and mods including unofficial patches didn't help either, the game literally broke that badly on a fairly standard motherboard, CPU, GPU, and other associated fun, on the then-current version of windows... and yeah, it STILL happened whenever I even so far as LOOKED at that waterfall for some reason... oh, and said waterfall was next to an important stone too, so yeah).

Yeah, lets be honest. Bethesda. You kinda have this issue? Where your community is better than you. Please fix this. Like, communities shouldn't have to make their own PATCHES to fix base bugs with the game.
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