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Shorter video games are better, and I want more in 2024
9K View2023-11-23
I’ve gotten into some hot water these past few weeks for some views of mine that have been controversial. But one of the things that appealed to me about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III was that the campaign was shorter and more concise, and it’s only one of a number of games with shorter campaigns that I’ve enjoyed receently. This has led me to a conclusion I’m only now realizing in my life as a gamer: Shorter video games are better.
Before I get bombarded with threats and outrage in the comments, hear me out. I’m not saying that longer games don’t have a place in my heart. I love traditionally long-winded series like Final Fantasy, Baldur’s Gate, God of War, and Assassin’s Creed. But open-world fatigue is real, y’all, and having to spend hours working through a skill tree, side-questing, and roaming an endless map is exhausting! This goes double when one is a neurotic completionist like me. It almost feels like a failure if I don’t do everything the game has to offer.
But what does accomplishing that actually look like? In my life, it means locking myself inside and hammering away at a game for days straight, even though these titles are undoubtedly meant to be treated more like marathons instead of the breathless sprint I end up running. In my adult life, though, shorter campaigns just fit better.
Part of determining whether you prefer games longer or shorter is simply pinning down what you’re looking for in your video games. For my part, the biggest draw in a game has always been a strong narrative, and being able to get in and out within ten hours seems to be a sweet spot for providing a story that satisfies me. Let me run down a few examples.
Bramble the Mountain King is a retelling of Scandinavian folklore that delivers its narrative beautifully without overstaying its welcome. It’s one of my favorite games of 2023, and when I realized I could complete it in a weekend, I couldn’t help but wonder why more games weren’t like that.
Another great example I recently played is Jusant (French for receding tide), a great exploration game from the developers of Life is Strange. The main protagonist of Jusant is completely silent, but the game still managed to offer a great story by showing rather than telling. It incorporated unique gameplay and storytelling techniques and reminded me that video games are also art. And the best part is that I had finished the game in a weekend!
These are just a few examples of shorter games that have hit me really strongly. A game’s length clearly doesn’t equate to how good it will be, and in some cases, the length can actually make an otherwise powerful feel stretched too thin. The older I get, the more I cannot help but wonder whether a game really requires a hundred-plus hours of my time to get its point across. Is it actually telling one hundred hours worth of story, or do the developers feel pressured to add in a ton of padding to make publishers and some demanding gamers happy?
The Assassin’s Creed franchise might be the prime example of this phenomenon from recent years. Ubisoft’s mega-franchise started with ambitious but still relatively approachable games that would take fifteen to thirty hours to complete. Beginning with 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins, though, Ubisoft blew up the series into a new epic action-RPG form, with each entry taking over a hundred hours for full completion...and that’s before you even think about the string of beefy DLC additions!
I’m not saying that games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla are bad by any means. I loved both of them. But I can’t lie, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I discovered that Assassin’s Creed Mirage was returning to the franchise’s roots. Mirage isn’t exactly a short game—it still took me over twenty hours to finish—but it’s so much more concise and tightly designed than the past few games in the series.
I accept that many readers might disagree with me about this short game preference, but there’s at least one misconception I really want to push back on. Some view a preference for shorter games as a “casual gamer” thing, but shorter campaigns don’t necessarily have to be less challenging or easy to get through.
Lots of people complained about Modern Warfare III being too short. Yet, I’m willing to bet these people didn’t think to increase the difficulty. As a Call of Duty veteran, I preferred playing on a higher difficulty, which required moving through levels at a slower pace and being more strategic.
I’m only saying it’s nice to have some control over your progress and a finish line that’s within a reasonable distance from the starting point. I don’t want to be forced into a life of solitude and anxiety while working through a to-do list as long as my arm just to finish a video game. Games are supposed to be recreational, not testaments to the amount of time I’ve spent sitting in front of a screen. What matters to me is the quality of the experience overall, not how many hours it successfully took up in my life. That’s why as far as I’m concerned, shorter video games are simply better.
💬 Are shorter games better? Let me know in the comments.
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Comments
Why Today's games have radicals (Bad) Story Line's
You Know my first Game is Super Mario Bros 3 and that game have a small storyline, but still I connect with it same with my favourite game Metroid but in today's games I don't see this story part as a big part of games, and there many reasons for that and I played many game's that have bad, bad story but still because of graphics and marketing this game achieve top spots.
In the realm of video games, storytelling has become an integrated part of the gaming experience. However, in recent times, there has been a growing concern over the quality of game narratives, with an increasing number of titles being criticized for their lackluster and sometimes radicals storytelling.
Ram093172024-01-10
The Power of Narrative (Story) Transforming Games and Connecting Players
Games are like exciting adventures, with cool graphics and fun ways to play. But don't forget about the story – it's like the backbone of the adventure. A good story in a game can make you feel like you're really part of the action, not just watching.
Imagine being taken to different worlds when you play a game. A good story does that – it lets you escape from real life for a bit. When the story is mixed well into the game, you feel like you're not just watching; you're in control, making choices, and caring about what happens.
Ram091522024-01-28
#GameswithaGreatStory
Punishing: Gray Raven
The story is about a post-apocalyptic world where technology is advance enough to transfer human consciousness to an advance robot, and they use this advancements to fight a virus who's goal is to wipe humanity.
The story telling is very detailed, in a way that makes you imagine a scene based on the words displayed. The characters are well developed as all of them have backgrounds, and all of it correlates to each other and to the whole lore. This game also makes stories for minor characters which the significance is lower than an npc to set the foundation and atmosphere of the lore, this way of storytelling really makes the story profound. Each of this minor stories aren't irrelevant as they further describe the universe this game takes place.
Kamaboko Gonpachiro1K2022-11-23
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Mannnn, I am so with you on this. I always feel nervous saying it, since playing games is literally part of our job, so like maybe we're biased in favor of shorter games? But even when I wasn't writing about games for a living, I always preferred games that I could sit down and finish in maybe a week tops. Feels especially strange admitting that as someone who adores RPGs most of all but there it is!
2023-11-28
Author likedthat would be cool if the game would not cost 70€
2023-12-08
I absolutely agree with you. The obsession with packing as much content into a game as possible that AAA developers have these days is making their games take a big dip in quality. Length by itself does not a good story/game make; a short but engaging experience is better than a long but bland one.
2023-11-30
Author likedJust play the demo versions of those games they are free and shorter lol plus don't put the opinion of a Twitter user they are irrelevant
2023-11-29
Author likedgood job on completely missing the fucking point. They're not saying that they don't like playing a game after a certain amount of hours, the point of the article is that games don't need to be long to be good, and, in fact, being long can *hurt* a game by stretching its ideas too thin and making the game drag on.
2023-11-30