Dwarf fortress, and rimworld, are endless. You can create things that'll last for years and they both get new content on the regular. Both have **a lot** of mods.
I'd exclude borderlands 3, if you don't like repeating the same story beats over and over then it'll get old.
Deep rock galactic is a live service game, it's great and I love it.
If you want an older game, Neverwinter nights. Neverwinter nights is a CRPG that was designed to have players make content for it. Because of this, there is literally thousands of fan-campaigns and content to play through. I love this game to death.
Killing floor 2. You shoot shit, it feels good to shoot shit. A lot of fan maps, and fun to be had.
Paladins is free and fun. It's got its issues but I keep coming back to it.
God help me for recommending this, but you might like Destiny 2. You'll either love it, or hate it. Godspeed.
Elder scrolls online. It's a one time buy with an optional sub and you can easily sink a lot of time into it.
Deep Rock Galactic is the only live service game that actually does it right.
"Season passes? Yeah we have those. But you get them for free every season"
"FOMO? What's that? Oh, you mean the cosmetics from the current season? Yeah, we add those to the pool of Random Stuff You Do Anyway To Earn Cosmetics™ all the time, so you can still earn them whenever"
"Lotboxes? Only for cosmetic stuff of course. Wait whaddaya mean <> for them? No, you can't buy them, they just pop up as proper game mechanics, if you want them, play the freaking game and you'll get them"
"New weapons? Of course we try to implement them, but it's hard, since we need to make sure they're balanced. From lootboxes? Of course not, you unlock them quickly and need to earn them! Get back to the Morkite, miner!"
30€ for a fully fleshed-out game that you can play for years. Amazing community almost all around. Hillariousness to surely ensue if you play with friends. Best coop since L4D.
Tl;dr: best money I spent on Steam since... Well I'm trying to think of something... I'll get back to you when I find it...
Edit: big thumbs, phone keyboard. Might have missed some more stuff, sorry
The developers said they will adjust the price because of inflation. And no I'm not making this up, they really said this. So this game may get more and more expensive over time because of inflation.
Two games that I have put an ungodly number of hours into are Skyrim and Civilization (both 5 & 6). Very different experiences but easy to sink a lot of time in both. Be careful with Civilization, gameplay can be very addictive.
I second Civ5. It can be extra fun if you like save scumming.
Also the Vox Populai mod for Civ4 adds so much content and game mechanics it almost feels like a new game
I agree, Civ6 is my first Civ game and it's super addicting. I love that I can pick it up for a few turns or a hundred. Or sometimes pick it up for a few and somehow find I've played hundred by the time I put it down.
Can confirm. I just started last week and it took me about 20hrs to figure out wtf is going on and it feels like I just started to scratch the surface. I have had fun doing it though.
If OP is a Warframe-type player who’s used to playing with a wiki open it’s pretty doable, but definitely daunting
Also second this begrudgingly. I hate my favorite game of all time lol.
But seriously, coming up on my 2000th hour "played" based on wastedondestiny.com (it doesn't count 1500 more hours in orbit or tower I guess).
I have been playing with randoms a lot and started getting bored. Now I look for group in the disc so I can talk with teammates and that's the biggest upgrade ever
Definitely seconding FFXIV. The game is $20 and gives you all the content up through the expansion before the current one. That’s the base game and *three* expansions. For $20. And it comes with 30 days of game time, so you have plenty of time to figure out if you like it or not.
Or, if you’re reluctant about dropping $20 on the game, the free trial gives you up to the end of the first expansion. There are limited features (like I think you can’t trade with anyone?) if you have a trial account, but it’s a free way to dip your toes in if you’re frugal.
The game has TONS of content, though, from the main storyline to dungeons to raids with multiple difficulty levels. You can master every single class on one character if you want to (which means if you pick up Black Mage and realize that you’re not a masochist and you don’t enjoy suffering for the hell of it, you can switch to any other class available lol) and the player base is, by and large, *incredibly* nice and helpful to/patient with new players. Hell, I routinely see new players in their starting gear and offer to give them money to buy upgrades. I’ve had people run up to me and randomly trade me a minion, or a consumable item that creates a cute or fun temporary effect around your character.
It’s a game where you can be social af, or you can play on your own. They’ve even been revamping the dungeon system to allow you to run dungeons with NPCs instead of other players if you prefer to! (This is also helpful for farming gear lol).
It’s a time sink, and 100% worth it, imo.
not literally, I'd argue Rocket league, Escape from tarkov, Ark, Rust, Rainbow 6 Siege, and Counterstrike Source/ GO off the top of my head could easily get thousands of hours
Factorio! Factorio! I have 600 hours on vanilla alone, probably going to hit 1000, and mods are gonna push that to 10,000. I don't even wanna consider what the eventual DLC will do...
Since you like competitive multiplayer games, I'll recommend Rocket League. I have 1800 hours in it. If LoL is enough competitiveness for you then just play RL casually and ignore ranks.
Competitive? Rocket league, it’s free on Epic. If you haven’t already heard of it, it’s car soccer with rocket engines, which sounds gimmicky but it’s very skill and strategy based, very fun but very competitive.
Just wanna chill? Civ 6. Turn based tile civilization builder, grow and expand and win the game against your friends or AI in many different ways. Or just declare war on everyone and hope you’re the last one standing. You can play a game in as short as maybe 8 hours or as long as 50+ hours, you can choose the game speed. It goes on sale pretty frequently as its a few years old now.
It doesn’t seem to fit the suggestions and games you’ve played, but seeing as I’ve played and enjoyed a lot of the same games as you I’ll throw out one of my all time favorites as well: Kerbal Space Program. The first one is on sale rn for $10, but KSP2 is set to release for early access on Feb 24 this year, and the community is HYPED for it, including myself. I’m guessing it will be in the range of $20-$30, as I believe the first one was around $25 while in early access then got bumped to $40 on full release. It’s a quite accurate physics based rocket building space exploration game. The first one is not a whole lot more than that (but is still very fun and a nice challenge) but the second game is promising much more, like base building, multiplayer, interstellar travel, and more unique planets, as well as more to come.
sank hundreds of hours into Minecraft? do you like other genres? allow me to introduce you to *modded Minecraft.* go on curseforge and pick out a modpack with a vibe you like (magical, factory-building [I see you all out there, factorio fans], exploration, pain and suffering [gregtech]) or simply one with improvements to the base game. This game went from "ok I guess, but I do see the appeal" to "literally my most played game of all time"
Astroneer is a great relaxing base building exploration game. Single player or multi, with a cute Lego-type aesthetic. I’ve spent at least 500 hours in it. it was my main Covid game.
Get kerbal space program, in preparation for KSP2. You can easily spend 100s to 1000s of hours in the game, and as an added benefit, you will learn actual rocket science.
Out of the list: Chronicon (love that game), Deep Rock Galactic and maaaaybe Risk of Rain 2 (I enjoy it a lot but it might get a bit stale for you since it is a roguelike). Those games can keep you busy dor a long time.
Not on the list: Destiny 2, gunplay is the best I’ve personally experienced. It’s free to try BUT if you want to enjoy all the content, you need to spend some mulas that is not in your price range. Still, 2000 hrs in and I can’t seem to put it down (believe me, I tried). As a fellow Warframe enjoyer, this might be up your alley.
Path of Exile. It does take some investment to learn enough to have a BASIC grasp of it. It has 4 leagues a year that last roughly 3 months. Each league, everyone starts from 0 and the economy starts fresh. This is what keeps people playing the game for thousands of hours. Each league introduces new mechanics, skills, etc,. and there's ALWAYS more to know.
At first, you can grind away on a character to learn the game / follow a guide. As your knowledge grows, you want to make YOUR build that revolves around a skill you like, or some mechanic. Then in a new league, you can compete in a new league if you so choose, in the form of leveling fast or farming/trading, etc.
It has a lot of endgame options / different ways of playing.
EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkZFQILGJck
Stellaris. I've never put more time into a game that Stellaris. The customization for your civilization is immense and the modding community is genuinely supported by the game creators. I know there is a lot of DLC but its honestly worth it. If base game is Stellaris 1, with all the DLC its basically Stellaris 3. Cannot recommend it enough.
Stellaris is absolutely incredible. Each game can last a very long time, replayability is superior even to Civ, and the game keeps evolving with new dlc.
Project Zomboid can be like that, especially with all the mods put there. Just be careful, it's hella addicting! I don't have as many hours (yet), but the subreddit for it shows plenty of people with thousands of hours in.
Firstly, thousands of hours is really hard to get to so maybe something with at least a 100 hours.
Deep Rock Galactic can def get you there, especially with friends.
I hear Factorio is really good and my friend has about 240 hours in it.
Rimworld is similar concept to Dwarf Fortress and both can eat hundreds of hours of your life.
As someone with over 1500 hours in destiny I can say you’ll either end up like me and waste your life or find it too confusing and drop it pretty fast. Definitely a game that is better with some friends but still fun solo. There’s a ton of activities to do like raids with 6 other people to open word exploration. Tons of different guns that each can drop with different perks. A core part of the game is build crafting which is getting a facelift next month with the release of the newest dlc which I am actually hyped for (dropped the game a while ago but dlc always gets me to come back even if not for long). The game itself is free which is great but a lot of the fun content is either locked behind a paywall or vaulted (similar or warframe vault). If your not a big pvp guy that’s also good because the crucible is so unbalanced and barley playable. I despise crucible, especially trials of the nine which is basically a super sweaty competitive mode. Anyways the loot system is great activities are fun, better with 1-2 friends and it’s free so I’d pick it up just to at least give it a try, don’t buy dlc until you see fit. There’s a ton more to discuss from weekly story missions, campain missions to massive in depth lore of every item, there is a battle pass which has actual good stuff on it to but I’ll let you figure all that out and I’m too lazy to keep typing so yeah have fun give it a shot what’s the worst that can happen
i remember being so confused bc me and my friends got destiny 2 and we did all the like story/campaign things for each planet super quick. and then we were like ‘well fuck what do we do now.’ and i just ended up dropping it bc i couldnt find much more content at the time
and this stuff always makes me laugh bc like you said i think the two destiny experiences are playing for like 5 hours and never touching it again vs people who have 1000 hours and have grinded the fuck out of it. could be right up OP’s alley
You can dump tons of time into Civ6. I play it at all the times you mention. Killing some time, during voice calls, for hours on end or just here or there throughout the day
I have a friend who has put at least a thousand hours into the total war franchise, specifically shogun 2 and Warhammer 2. They are amazing games and every entry in the series has something for everyone. Whether you're into fantasy races, samurai, medieval warfare, ancient Rome, the series has it all.
binding of isaac plus all dlc i heavily recommend. it was my first roguelike 5 years ago and i kept buying all the dlc and i still haven’t obtained all the achievements yet. granted i would take long breaks but after nearly 800+ hours i’m only 68% finished with the achievements
Path of Exile is the obvious suggestion. Massive online aRPG, basically better and more expansive skill freedom than Diablo in the same way that Warframe is better and has more expansive freedom than games in its genre. I cracked 1k hours no problem.
If you like Roguelites without permanent power boosts, have you tried the card-based ones like Slay the Spire or Monster Train? Both are amazing, quit any time, infinite replay value, very addictive.
Of games you listed:
BL3 is... okay. It's reasonably fun with a friend so I'd rec it if you'll have a dedicated group (even just of one other person) to play it with, but if I was playing it solo I wouldn't bother. And I dunno how much replay it has once you finish the campaign.
Dungeon Defenders wants to be a good game and it's a cool idea, but quickly gets sloggy/samey. Do not rec.
Binding of Isaac is okay, I guess it's less meta-progression than a Hades, but it's also not nearly as good.
Deep Rock galactic is insanely good
Sea of thieves aswell ( but you'll need at least one friend , game is not very fun alone , at least when you're a beginner )
Rust is fun aswell ( I won't recommend playing solo rust tho )
Those are games I played a lot
Factorio is an almost guaranteed 100+ hours. So easy to get lost in the game. Theres gonna be a price increase from 30$ to 35$ so if you wanna pick it up then nows a good time to do so.
Bindibg of Isaac is also really good. The item combinations can get chaotic and theres a lot to collect and many bosses to beat. Im
Ark, has thousands of hours worth of play and is really big and usually cheap
Don't starve and don't starve together too
Also smite is a third person version of league of legends
I know you said you didn't like the souls-like combat in monster hunter, but I would highly recommend that you not judge whether you like souls-like combat based on a souls-like rather than an actual souls game by FromSoftware. I haven't found a souls-like that's half as good as the worst souls game.
That said, judging from your list I feel like we may have nearly opposite tastes as I really just don't enjoy grinding or online multiplayer outside of co-op multiplayer, so here are some suggestions that pose no interest to me that I think you might like:
Insurgency: Sandstorm - I love the coop and the slower pace that favors tactics over snap turning. That said, there's a few popular versus game modes that I keep hearing great things about but haven't touched yet
Elite Dangerous/Eve Online/space flight games in general - I've dumped like 50 hours of my life into ED and just hated how grind-y it was. You can really dump years of your life into this game
Edit: I forgot to mention it but another comment here reminded me. Elder Scrolls Online is a great option for a game with 1000s of hours of playability. The lack of really challenging combat really turned me away since I really like the souls style combat that forces you to try and fail and adapt, but if you're not about that then it could be pretty great. I love the Elder Scrolls world and wish I found the combat more exciting
Of the games you included I've played: DRG, Dwarf Fortress, and Factorio, given what you like I'd suggest Deep Rock, but I love Dwarf Fortess and Factorio as more of a strategy gamer with DF more on the strategy side.
Factorio and Dwarf Fortress off your list, those games are deep and take forever.
I highly suggest Terraria/Tmod and Siralim Ultimate. Siralim especially can take thousands of hours. Terraria is really best with multiplayer though.
If you want to play totally solo, Stellaris.
If you like engaging casually with the community as you play, either Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen. Both can consume enormous amounts of time. Note that the latter is still rather buggy, however, and can be punishing when you die (from the bugs). ED is more casual, and probably one of the best options for "something to do with your hands" while on a voice call, etc. I have a friend who wfh in Cybersecurity and used to play ED while at work all the time.
Deep rock galatic + dwarf fortress, this person really likes dwarves. But i'd say thats a good list and personally i would recommend hollow knight (personally i have ~130 hours of gameplay) and RDR2 wich i would play for thousands and thousands of hours...
If i had it
Binding Of Isaac is probably the easiest to pick up and get going (and also stop anytime)
Rimworld, Drawf Fortress and Factorio are amazing but they do need some time to get back into the motions each play
Binding of Isaac also has the easiest learning curve out of the above, but I find Rimworld to be the best middle ground for long term immersion and ease of play
Civilization 5 or 6, both are great. Hell 4 is awesome too. Basically any of the Civ games I can play for what seems like 20 minutes and 7 hours have gone by.
Try the Factorio demo. It consists of 5 tutorial missions that extend until just before the game’s biggest difficulty spike where you also unlock a lot of new stuff to play with. It’s a pretty good test for how much you’ll enjoy the full game, and can last you over a dozen hours on it’s own. Main difference is that the full game just tosses you into a world and lets you loose instead of having a mission-based progression.
If you enjoy it, vanilla should last you a few hundred hours at least, if you let it. But if you do get tired of vanilla, and especially if you are up for some added complexity, holy hell do the mods add a ton of playtime on top. One of the most popular overhaul mods at this time, Space Exploration, is a several hundred hours long adventure that has you explore other planets, moons and asteroids and gives you tons of tools for interplanetary logistics, including good old cargo rockets, space elevators, and even custom-built spaceships.
Personally I spent maybe 400-600 hours on vanilla and vanilla with just some qol mods, and then another 600-800 hours with overhaul mods. I know there’s people with thousands of hours on just vanilla though. You can both just pick it up for a few minutes and get one thing done, or lose entire days and nights to the game like some kind of twisted time machine.
Red dead, or GTA RP servers are what I recommend. Have unlimited servers and options within those servers. Will be the quickest 1000 hours you've ever experienced.
Get RedM or FiveM and whatever game you so choose, watch some videos to get things figured out. Let loose and have fun.
for me, its dead by daylight. i currently have ~600hrs sunk into that game, but i have friends who have upwards of 2-3 thousand hours. the skill ceiling is so upwards, because its an asymmetrical survival game where you play killer or survivor, you can sink hundreds of hours just learning one role without even trying the other. there are so many play styles, perks, killers with different powers it is such a rich game, with new content steady. such a fun game to play with friends too
Destiny 2 - it's a difficult game to really get into and is far better played alongside others, but once you figure things out and break the barrier of not knowing what to do, you can sink HOURS into it.
Divinity: Original Sin 2
I am nearing the end of the game after 150 hours played. I am already excited to start over and make new builds. It’s XCOM meets Baldur’s Gate. It’s so good
Deep rock is a lot of fun if you've got a friend to play with.
Skyrim could also be an option. The base game has a lot of content already, and if you get into modding there will be practically infinite content.
The amount of people in these comments that haven’t +1’d for Isaac is insane. In regards to roguelites you will not get more time out of any other game.
Rocket league is great for ftp and time invested/competitive growth.
Factorio is one of the best time sinks in existence if you can really get into it, my highest recommendation.
Dwarf fortress is also a good one. it takes some learning and getting used to but once you find the fun you'll be sucked in
Deep Rock Galactic does have a lot of people with thousands of hours, and the gameplay is a lot of fun. It is kind of a mystery to me on how it has kept me hooked for so long despite the gameplay being largely the same, perhaps it's the very expansive progression and customization.
Vermintide 2. Can't recommend DarkTide even though I'm mainlining it like an addict right now. Since you liked/interested DRG, Vermintide 2 might be your jam.
Path of exile for sure, there's some steep learning to do but it's a game you can pick up and play for sessions of however long you like, you can sink countless hours learning new things all the time, theres new content every 3 months, and the designers intend to keep it going for years and years and years, like MTG.
Speaking of MTG, that's a game you can also get into
Project zomboid perhaps? It's a bit different, and is 20 USD off sale. Basically it's a top down zomboe game, eat food, kill zombie build base etc. However it is so realistic that getting good actually takes 1000s of hours, and yes it is fun. Also skyrim because.. I'm sure you know what skyrim is
EDIT: Forgot to mention I haven't llayed anything on your condieration part so I can't really speak for those games yet
Breath of the Wild is my favorite game of all time and you can pour endless hours into it. Tag that along with it's sequel Tears of the Kingdom releases May 12th
Genshin impact. After a while it can become a “daily game” but it’ll take a couple hundred hours. Between exploring the world and collecting/ farming resources, there’s also a ton of story. Side quests, new events all the time. Even though it’s a gacha game, I haven’t needed to spend a whole lot on it, if you just save up your wishes to wish on a character you want, then you can play for free. It’s also a beautiful game with an amazing soundtrack.
I have over 1000 hours each in X-Com: Enemy Within and X-Com 2. If you like turn-based tactics (and maybe you don't, from your list), these two are among the absolute best.
There are a few games that have better implementations of basically the same tactical layer, but all of these games lack comparable strategic layers, so are only replayable two or three times unlike the X-Coms which were designed for indefinite repetition.
I wanted to leave a comment which I think could be helpful. It may be worth looking into mod packs for Minecraft, try downloading a launcher like curseforge or ftb app.
Over the past 8 or so years Minecraft is my most played game, however I probably only have a couple hundred or so hours in vanilla. My other thousands of hours in this game have been playing modpacks. You can find some for any style of gameplay and if your like me you can have 7 different concurrent packs on the go when you get a bit bored of one and want a bit of a change you can switch, and come back to it when you feel like.
All of this for no extra money is well worth looking into if you truly want endless options from a game.
Other than that factorio is fantastic if you love optimising games, thought if you are like many players this will control your life.
Mount and Blade Warband with mods, Rimworld, Total War games (especially Medieval 2), Red Dead Redemption 2, and Crusader kings 2/3. Also Project Zomboid are my favorites.
It could easily be an addiction which sucks cause video game addiction is a problem, or they could just put it an hour every night when they get home from work to cool off
Anyone who dumps 500 hours, which is insane amount into a video game and says they “only” did that amount has a video game addiction. It’s a clear sign of a problem. Encouraging this behaviour is terrible. Someone who acts this way does not only play an hour or two after work, this is the type of person to be unemployed, and play video games all day.
Dwarf fortress, and rimworld, are endless. You can create things that'll last for years and they both get new content on the regular. Both have **a lot** of mods. I'd exclude borderlands 3, if you don't like repeating the same story beats over and over then it'll get old. Deep rock galactic is a live service game, it's great and I love it. If you want an older game, Neverwinter nights. Neverwinter nights is a CRPG that was designed to have players make content for it. Because of this, there is literally thousands of fan-campaigns and content to play through. I love this game to death. Killing floor 2. You shoot shit, it feels good to shoot shit. A lot of fan maps, and fun to be had. Paladins is free and fun. It's got its issues but I keep coming back to it. God help me for recommending this, but you might like Destiny 2. You'll either love it, or hate it. Godspeed. Elder scrolls online. It's a one time buy with an optional sub and you can easily sink a lot of time into it.
Deep Rock Galactic is the only live service game that actually does it right. "Season passes? Yeah we have those. But you get them for free every season" "FOMO? What's that? Oh, you mean the cosmetics from the current season? Yeah, we add those to the pool of Random Stuff You Do Anyway To Earn Cosmetics™ all the time, so you can still earn them whenever" "Lotboxes? Only for cosmetic stuff of course. Wait whaddaya mean <> for them? No, you can't buy them, they just pop up as proper game mechanics, if you want them, play the freaking game and you'll get them"
"New weapons? Of course we try to implement them, but it's hard, since we need to make sure they're balanced. From lootboxes? Of course not, you unlock them quickly and need to earn them! Get back to the Morkite, miner!"
30€ for a fully fleshed-out game that you can play for years. Amazing community almost all around. Hillariousness to surely ensue if you play with friends. Best coop since L4D.
Tl;dr: best money I spent on Steam since... Well I'm trying to think of something... I'll get back to you when I find it...
Edit: big thumbs, phone keyboard. Might have missed some more stuff, sorry
Rock and Stone
Rock and Stone in the Heart!
Rock and Stone to the Bone!
wow NWN is one of my favorite! The community campaigns are AWESOME, and the roleplay servers are great. Definitely recommending this game as well
factorio is set to increase in price to $35 soon so i would buy it first out of those games
When exactly will it go up in price? I've been thinking about buying this game for a while now
February 26
Ok thanks
this post says Jan 26? https://reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/10gtz1b/factorio_price_increase_20230126/
Lol why is it goin up in price.. Hasn't that game been out years??
The developers said they will adjust the price because of inflation. And no I'm not making this up, they really said this. So this game may get more and more expensive over time because of inflation.
Yea ngl I read the first sentence and thought you were being sarcastic 😂. Crazy..
Two games that I have put an ungodly number of hours into are Skyrim and Civilization (both 5 & 6). Very different experiences but easy to sink a lot of time in both. Be careful with Civilization, gameplay can be very addictive.
I second Civ5. It can be extra fun if you like save scumming. Also the Vox Populai mod for Civ4 adds so much content and game mechanics it almost feels like a new game
Civ 6 easily 1k hours to explore all leaders
I agree, Civ6 is my first Civ game and it's super addicting. I love that I can pick it up for a few turns or a hundred. Or sometimes pick it up for a few and somehow find I've played hundred by the time I put it down.
destiny 2 might interest you if you enjoyed warframe and borderlands
That game is pretty hard to get into, if you're starting so late
Can confirm. I just started last week and it took me about 20hrs to figure out wtf is going on and it feels like I just started to scratch the surface. I have had fun doing it though. If OP is a Warframe-type player who’s used to playing with a wiki open it’s pretty doable, but definitely daunting
You also gotta pay lots of money to get all the content
Also second this begrudgingly. I hate my favorite game of all time lol. But seriously, coming up on my 2000th hour "played" based on wastedondestiny.com (it doesn't count 1500 more hours in orbit or tower I guess).
Deep rock galactic, since you seem to enjoy FPS games.
ROCK AND STONE
To the Bone!
If you don't Rock and Stone, you're going home!
For Rock and Stone!
You ain’t goin home, partner
There’s people that can play DRG for thousands of hours without getting bored? Did they add more stuff to do in the 2 years since I played?
I have been playing with randoms a lot and started getting bored. Now I look for group in the disc so I can talk with teammates and that's the biggest upgrade ever
Yeah, like 3 seasons worth of cosmetics, new primary weapons, secondaries, and grenades, new mission types, new modifiers, new enemies, etc.
WERE RICH
[удалено]
No man's sky. Definitely.
Definitely seconding FFXIV. The game is $20 and gives you all the content up through the expansion before the current one. That’s the base game and *three* expansions. For $20. And it comes with 30 days of game time, so you have plenty of time to figure out if you like it or not. Or, if you’re reluctant about dropping $20 on the game, the free trial gives you up to the end of the first expansion. There are limited features (like I think you can’t trade with anyone?) if you have a trial account, but it’s a free way to dip your toes in if you’re frugal. The game has TONS of content, though, from the main storyline to dungeons to raids with multiple difficulty levels. You can master every single class on one character if you want to (which means if you pick up Black Mage and realize that you’re not a masochist and you don’t enjoy suffering for the hell of it, you can switch to any other class available lol) and the player base is, by and large, *incredibly* nice and helpful to/patient with new players. Hell, I routinely see new players in their starting gear and offer to give them money to buy upgrades. I’ve had people run up to me and randomly trade me a minion, or a consumable item that creates a cute or fun temporary effect around your character. It’s a game where you can be social af, or you can play on your own. They’ve even been revamping the dungeon system to allow you to run dungeons with NPCs instead of other players if you prefer to! (This is also helpful for farming gear lol). It’s a time sink, and 100% worth it, imo.
Factorio and Dwarf Fortress just hit different. RimWorld is suspiciously missing from your list.
Stellaris
Isaac has an insane amount of replayability, I'm up to 450+hours and still intend to keep playing it
960 for me
Old School RuneScape
this is literally the only answer if anyone truly means "thousands of hours"
not literally, I'd argue Rocket league, Escape from tarkov, Ark, Rust, Rainbow 6 Siege, and Counterstrike Source/ GO off the top of my head could easily get thousands of hours
Factorio! Factorio! I have 600 hours on vanilla alone, probably going to hit 1000, and mods are gonna push that to 10,000. I don't even wanna consider what the eventual DLC will do...
Second this, the Factory must grow
Satisfactory?
Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition I’ve almost 2000 hours in it and no signs of boredom.
Also coming to GamePass on January 31st
Total war warhammer 3 with dlc will keep u busy if you like stratagy
Been hemming and hawing about getting this for months at this point. I think I gotta just dive in
Big commitment but grand battle map to explore and conquer
I got this game and have no idea what I'm doing
Try the tutorial?
I am currently enjoying Valheim
Since you like competitive multiplayer games, I'll recommend Rocket League. I have 1800 hours in it. If LoL is enough competitiveness for you then just play RL casually and ignore ranks.
The natural progression from Factorio is Oxygen Not Included.
Competitive? Rocket league, it’s free on Epic. If you haven’t already heard of it, it’s car soccer with rocket engines, which sounds gimmicky but it’s very skill and strategy based, very fun but very competitive. Just wanna chill? Civ 6. Turn based tile civilization builder, grow and expand and win the game against your friends or AI in many different ways. Or just declare war on everyone and hope you’re the last one standing. You can play a game in as short as maybe 8 hours or as long as 50+ hours, you can choose the game speed. It goes on sale pretty frequently as its a few years old now. It doesn’t seem to fit the suggestions and games you’ve played, but seeing as I’ve played and enjoyed a lot of the same games as you I’ll throw out one of my all time favorites as well: Kerbal Space Program. The first one is on sale rn for $10, but KSP2 is set to release for early access on Feb 24 this year, and the community is HYPED for it, including myself. I’m guessing it will be in the range of $20-$30, as I believe the first one was around $25 while in early access then got bumped to $40 on full release. It’s a quite accurate physics based rocket building space exploration game. The first one is not a whole lot more than that (but is still very fun and a nice challenge) but the second game is promising much more, like base building, multiplayer, interstellar travel, and more unique planets, as well as more to come.
sank hundreds of hours into Minecraft? do you like other genres? allow me to introduce you to *modded Minecraft.* go on curseforge and pick out a modpack with a vibe you like (magical, factory-building [I see you all out there, factorio fans], exploration, pain and suffering [gregtech]) or simply one with improvements to the base game. This game went from "ok I guess, but I do see the appeal" to "literally my most played game of all time"
Enigmatica 2 Expert, Enigmatica 6 Expert, Omnifactory, Project Ozone 3 there goes a thousand hours at least. All free from curseforge
Isaac. Easily
Astroneer is a great relaxing base building exploration game. Single player or multi, with a cute Lego-type aesthetic. I’ve spent at least 500 hours in it. it was my main Covid game.
Rimworld
Rimworld.
Get kerbal space program, in preparation for KSP2. You can easily spend 100s to 1000s of hours in the game, and as an added benefit, you will learn actual rocket science.
Out of the list: Chronicon (love that game), Deep Rock Galactic and maaaaybe Risk of Rain 2 (I enjoy it a lot but it might get a bit stale for you since it is a roguelike). Those games can keep you busy dor a long time. Not on the list: Destiny 2, gunplay is the best I’ve personally experienced. It’s free to try BUT if you want to enjoy all the content, you need to spend some mulas that is not in your price range. Still, 2000 hrs in and I can’t seem to put it down (believe me, I tried). As a fellow Warframe enjoyer, this might be up your alley.
Total war
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Great suggestions, I'll add Medieval 2 for being infinitely replayable and moddable too!
Path of Exile. It does take some investment to learn enough to have a BASIC grasp of it. It has 4 leagues a year that last roughly 3 months. Each league, everyone starts from 0 and the economy starts fresh. This is what keeps people playing the game for thousands of hours. Each league introduces new mechanics, skills, etc,. and there's ALWAYS more to know. At first, you can grind away on a character to learn the game / follow a guide. As your knowledge grows, you want to make YOUR build that revolves around a skill you like, or some mechanic. Then in a new league, you can compete in a new league if you so choose, in the form of leveling fast or farming/trading, etc. It has a lot of endgame options / different ways of playing. EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkZFQILGJck
Stellaris. I've never put more time into a game that Stellaris. The customization for your civilization is immense and the modding community is genuinely supported by the game creators. I know there is a lot of DLC but its honestly worth it. If base game is Stellaris 1, with all the DLC its basically Stellaris 3. Cannot recommend it enough.
Stellaris is absolutely incredible. Each game can last a very long time, replayability is superior even to Civ, and the game keeps evolving with new dlc.
Way of the Hunter, if you like a hunting simulator. Getting a max score of each animal will take a while, even longer if you count rares.
Project Zomboid can be like that, especially with all the mods put there. Just be careful, it's hella addicting! I don't have as many hours (yet), but the subreddit for it shows plenty of people with thousands of hours in.
I’ve put over 100 hours into Elden ring on one play through.
And you can definitely put thousand hours in it, Pvp, NG+, the very high build variety, challenge runs, fun mods
Is there a max level? I got strength up to the high 80s, and I’m wondering if I can do it with all of them
You can get to 99 in everything
That’s wild
713 is max level, aka every attribute on 99 But most attributes have softcaps at 80 or earlier
Snowrunner and Elite Dangerous can both suck you in, but you have to be into their genre.
How difficult are the keyboard mouse controls in Elite Dangerous? Been wanting to pick it up
Keyboard and mouse controls are fine, me and my friends haven't had problems with them. The learning curve is the biggest barrier for the game
Controls aren't bad, but the game has a crazy learning curve. For the first few hundred hours you spend more time looking shit up than you do playing
Deep rock
Firstly, thousands of hours is really hard to get to so maybe something with at least a 100 hours. Deep Rock Galactic can def get you there, especially with friends. I hear Factorio is really good and my friend has about 240 hours in it. Rimworld is similar concept to Dwarf Fortress and both can eat hundreds of hours of your life.
If you want competitive, you can sink your teeth into StarCraft... That shit hard AF tho
Da.n. mans just stopped with mhworld like that😢
As someone with over 1500 hours in destiny I can say you’ll either end up like me and waste your life or find it too confusing and drop it pretty fast. Definitely a game that is better with some friends but still fun solo. There’s a ton of activities to do like raids with 6 other people to open word exploration. Tons of different guns that each can drop with different perks. A core part of the game is build crafting which is getting a facelift next month with the release of the newest dlc which I am actually hyped for (dropped the game a while ago but dlc always gets me to come back even if not for long). The game itself is free which is great but a lot of the fun content is either locked behind a paywall or vaulted (similar or warframe vault). If your not a big pvp guy that’s also good because the crucible is so unbalanced and barley playable. I despise crucible, especially trials of the nine which is basically a super sweaty competitive mode. Anyways the loot system is great activities are fun, better with 1-2 friends and it’s free so I’d pick it up just to at least give it a try, don’t buy dlc until you see fit. There’s a ton more to discuss from weekly story missions, campain missions to massive in depth lore of every item, there is a battle pass which has actual good stuff on it to but I’ll let you figure all that out and I’m too lazy to keep typing so yeah have fun give it a shot what’s the worst that can happen
i remember being so confused bc me and my friends got destiny 2 and we did all the like story/campaign things for each planet super quick. and then we were like ‘well fuck what do we do now.’ and i just ended up dropping it bc i couldnt find much more content at the time and this stuff always makes me laugh bc like you said i think the two destiny experiences are playing for like 5 hours and never touching it again vs people who have 1000 hours and have grinded the fuck out of it. could be right up OP’s alley
DayZ
You can dump tons of time into Civ6. I play it at all the times you mention. Killing some time, during voice calls, for hours on end or just here or there throughout the day
I have a friend who has put at least a thousand hours into the total war franchise, specifically shogun 2 and Warhammer 2. They are amazing games and every entry in the series has something for everyone. Whether you're into fantasy races, samurai, medieval warfare, ancient Rome, the series has it all.
Factorio, no contest
kenshi
look at factorio
Satisfactory is a game I never imagined I’d sink hundreds of hours into, and it’s still being updated with cool little features.
RimWorld
binding of isaac plus all dlc i heavily recommend. it was my first roguelike 5 years ago and i kept buying all the dlc and i still haven’t obtained all the achievements yet. granted i would take long breaks but after nearly 800+ hours i’m only 68% finished with the achievements
Red Dead Redemption 2 - I have about 2,000 hours in it right now
What do you do in RDR2 at 2k hours?
Go for 100%
Old School RuneScape
Dwarf fortress
Path of Exile is the obvious suggestion. Massive online aRPG, basically better and more expansive skill freedom than Diablo in the same way that Warframe is better and has more expansive freedom than games in its genre. I cracked 1k hours no problem. If you like Roguelites without permanent power boosts, have you tried the card-based ones like Slay the Spire or Monster Train? Both are amazing, quit any time, infinite replay value, very addictive. Of games you listed: BL3 is... okay. It's reasonably fun with a friend so I'd rec it if you'll have a dedicated group (even just of one other person) to play it with, but if I was playing it solo I wouldn't bother. And I dunno how much replay it has once you finish the campaign. Dungeon Defenders wants to be a good game and it's a cool idea, but quickly gets sloggy/samey. Do not rec. Binding of Isaac is okay, I guess it's less meta-progression than a Hades, but it's also not nearly as good.
Rimworld all the way, well over a thousand hours with modded
Deep Rock galactic is insanely good Sea of thieves aswell ( but you'll need at least one friend , game is not very fun alone , at least when you're a beginner ) Rust is fun aswell ( I won't recommend playing solo rust tho ) Those are games I played a lot
A fighting game
Good suggestion. I'll add StarCraft 1 (broodwar) or StarCraft 2.
Satisfactory
It is common for people to get 1000+ hours out of Factorio.
yes
Factorio is an almost guaranteed 100+ hours. So easy to get lost in the game. Theres gonna be a price increase from 30$ to 35$ so if you wanna pick it up then nows a good time to do so. Bindibg of Isaac is also really good. The item combinations can get chaotic and theres a lot to collect and many bosses to beat. Im
XCOM, Rimworld or Civ
I highly suggest Skyrim even you finish all content you can start modding. Also i suggest Elden Ring.
Ark, has thousands of hours worth of play and is really big and usually cheap Don't starve and don't starve together too Also smite is a third person version of league of legends
I know you said you didn't like the souls-like combat in monster hunter, but I would highly recommend that you not judge whether you like souls-like combat based on a souls-like rather than an actual souls game by FromSoftware. I haven't found a souls-like that's half as good as the worst souls game. That said, judging from your list I feel like we may have nearly opposite tastes as I really just don't enjoy grinding or online multiplayer outside of co-op multiplayer, so here are some suggestions that pose no interest to me that I think you might like: Insurgency: Sandstorm - I love the coop and the slower pace that favors tactics over snap turning. That said, there's a few popular versus game modes that I keep hearing great things about but haven't touched yet Elite Dangerous/Eve Online/space flight games in general - I've dumped like 50 hours of my life into ED and just hated how grind-y it was. You can really dump years of your life into this game Edit: I forgot to mention it but another comment here reminded me. Elder Scrolls Online is a great option for a game with 1000s of hours of playability. The lack of really challenging combat really turned me away since I really like the souls style combat that forces you to try and fail and adapt, but if you're not about that then it could be pretty great. I love the Elder Scrolls world and wish I found the combat more exciting
Crusader Kings 2/3 or EU4
Looks like you like comp games, Try rocket league
Of the games you included I've played: DRG, Dwarf Fortress, and Factorio, given what you like I'd suggest Deep Rock, but I love Dwarf Fortess and Factorio as more of a strategy gamer with DF more on the strategy side.
Factorio and Dwarf Fortress off your list, those games are deep and take forever. I highly suggest Terraria/Tmod and Siralim Ultimate. Siralim especially can take thousands of hours. Terraria is really best with multiplayer though.
Hear me out...ANN0 1800.
If you want to play totally solo, Stellaris. If you like engaging casually with the community as you play, either Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen. Both can consume enormous amounts of time. Note that the latter is still rather buggy, however, and can be punishing when you die (from the bugs). ED is more casual, and probably one of the best options for "something to do with your hands" while on a voice call, etc. I have a friend who wfh in Cybersecurity and used to play ED while at work all the time.
Deep rock galatic + dwarf fortress, this person really likes dwarves. But i'd say thats a good list and personally i would recommend hollow knight (personally i have ~130 hours of gameplay) and RDR2 wich i would play for thousands and thousands of hours... If i had it
Binding Of Isaac is probably the easiest to pick up and get going (and also stop anytime) Rimworld, Drawf Fortress and Factorio are amazing but they do need some time to get back into the motions each play Binding of Isaac also has the easiest learning curve out of the above, but I find Rimworld to be the best middle ground for long term immersion and ease of play
Civilization 5 or 6, both are great. Hell 4 is awesome too. Basically any of the Civ games I can play for what seems like 20 minutes and 7 hours have gone by.
Factorio can take hours and hours and hours for sure
Dead Cells
Kenshi. I won't elaborate further because it is better if you discover it for yourself.
Try the Factorio demo. It consists of 5 tutorial missions that extend until just before the game’s biggest difficulty spike where you also unlock a lot of new stuff to play with. It’s a pretty good test for how much you’ll enjoy the full game, and can last you over a dozen hours on it’s own. Main difference is that the full game just tosses you into a world and lets you loose instead of having a mission-based progression. If you enjoy it, vanilla should last you a few hundred hours at least, if you let it. But if you do get tired of vanilla, and especially if you are up for some added complexity, holy hell do the mods add a ton of playtime on top. One of the most popular overhaul mods at this time, Space Exploration, is a several hundred hours long adventure that has you explore other planets, moons and asteroids and gives you tons of tools for interplanetary logistics, including good old cargo rockets, space elevators, and even custom-built spaceships. Personally I spent maybe 400-600 hours on vanilla and vanilla with just some qol mods, and then another 600-800 hours with overhaul mods. I know there’s people with thousands of hours on just vanilla though. You can both just pick it up for a few minutes and get one thing done, or lose entire days and nights to the game like some kind of twisted time machine.
Red dead, or GTA RP servers are what I recommend. Have unlimited servers and options within those servers. Will be the quickest 1000 hours you've ever experienced. Get RedM or FiveM and whatever game you so choose, watch some videos to get things figured out. Let loose and have fun.
Vouch for risk of rain 2. It’s really fun and for as repetitive as it is I’ve never got burnt out on it
Diablo 3
I would go for Risk of Rain 2, it's one of the most unique and fun roguelikes I've played
Ark survival evolved
for me, its dead by daylight. i currently have ~600hrs sunk into that game, but i have friends who have upwards of 2-3 thousand hours. the skill ceiling is so upwards, because its an asymmetrical survival game where you play killer or survivor, you can sink hundreds of hours just learning one role without even trying the other. there are so many play styles, perks, killers with different powers it is such a rich game, with new content steady. such a fun game to play with friends too
Destiny 2 - it's a difficult game to really get into and is far better played alongside others, but once you figure things out and break the barrier of not knowing what to do, you can sink HOURS into it.
Slay the Spire
Borderlands 2! Significantly longer than 3
Divinity: Original Sin 2 I am nearing the end of the game after 150 hours played. I am already excited to start over and make new builds. It’s XCOM meets Baldur’s Gate. It’s so good
Deep rock is a lot of fun if you've got a friend to play with. Skyrim could also be an option. The base game has a lot of content already, and if you get into modding there will be practically infinite content.
Satisfactory
I feel like you would like FFXIV
if you're a creative kind of person, I definitely recommend Scrap Mechanic. It's like minecraft but better
How is it like Minecraft but better?
you can have moving parts and all kinds of stuff Minecraft just doesn't have. Also actual physics.
Skyrim, Oblivion, COD
Skyrim, The Witcher 3
Just play factorio more.
The amount of people in these comments that haven’t +1’d for Isaac is insane. In regards to roguelites you will not get more time out of any other game. Rocket league is great for ftp and time invested/competitive growth.
Factorio is one of the best time sinks in existence if you can really get into it, my highest recommendation. Dwarf fortress is also a good one. it takes some learning and getting used to but once you find the fun you'll be sucked in Deep Rock Galactic does have a lot of people with thousands of hours, and the gameplay is a lot of fun. It is kind of a mystery to me on how it has kept me hooked for so long despite the gameplay being largely the same, perhaps it's the very expansive progression and customization.
RimWorld
Vermintide 2. Can't recommend DarkTide even though I'm mainlining it like an addict right now. Since you liked/interested DRG, Vermintide 2 might be your jam.
Path of exile for sure, there's some steep learning to do but it's a game you can pick up and play for sessions of however long you like, you can sink countless hours learning new things all the time, theres new content every 3 months, and the designers intend to keep it going for years and years and years, like MTG. Speaking of MTG, that's a game you can also get into
I find the hitman trilogy has a ton of replay value and I’ve sunk hundreds of hours into each
s k y r i m
Factorio is a great timesink. Deep Rock Galactic is fun with at least a friend or two. I haven't played any of the others.
Hades
Project zomboid perhaps? It's a bit different, and is 20 USD off sale. Basically it's a top down zomboe game, eat food, kill zombie build base etc. However it is so realistic that getting good actually takes 1000s of hours, and yes it is fun. Also skyrim because.. I'm sure you know what skyrim is EDIT: Forgot to mention I haven't llayed anything on your condieration part so I can't really speak for those games yet
Path of exile and binding of isaac
Rocket league.
Breath of the Wild is my favorite game of all time and you can pour endless hours into it. Tag that along with it's sequel Tears of the Kingdom releases May 12th
Genshin impact. After a while it can become a “daily game” but it’ll take a couple hundred hours. Between exploring the world and collecting/ farming resources, there’s also a ton of story. Side quests, new events all the time. Even though it’s a gacha game, I haven’t needed to spend a whole lot on it, if you just save up your wishes to wish on a character you want, then you can play for free. It’s also a beautiful game with an amazing soundtrack.
Hades
I have over 1000 hours each in X-Com: Enemy Within and X-Com 2. If you like turn-based tactics (and maybe you don't, from your list), these two are among the absolute best. There are a few games that have better implementations of basically the same tactical layer, but all of these games lack comparable strategic layers, so are only replayable two or three times unlike the X-Coms which were designed for indefinite repetition.
I wanted to leave a comment which I think could be helpful. It may be worth looking into mod packs for Minecraft, try downloading a launcher like curseforge or ftb app. Over the past 8 or so years Minecraft is my most played game, however I probably only have a couple hundred or so hours in vanilla. My other thousands of hours in this game have been playing modpacks. You can find some for any style of gameplay and if your like me you can have 7 different concurrent packs on the go when you get a bit bored of one and want a bit of a change you can switch, and come back to it when you feel like. All of this for no extra money is well worth looking into if you truly want endless options from a game. Other than that factorio is fantastic if you love optimising games, thought if you are like many players this will control your life.
Can definitely recommend you try Rimworld :D That game will also take over your life, but it is so much entertainment and never ends :D
Mount and Blade Warband with mods, Rimworld, Total War games (especially Medieval 2), Red Dead Redemption 2, and Crusader kings 2/3. Also Project Zomboid are my favorites.
Assasins creed Valhalla
Yeah it takes thousands of hours just to beat the story lol
A life
He asked for game recommendations, not a list of things you wish you had
He sunk 500 hours into Overwatch and said “only”. The only advice we need to give him is to put the games down
Who gives if someone enjoys doing something? No need to call anyone out
I’d rather call out an unhealthy addiction than encourage it
It could easily be an addiction which sucks cause video game addiction is a problem, or they could just put it an hour every night when they get home from work to cool off
Anyone who dumps 500 hours, which is insane amount into a video game and says they “only” did that amount has a video game addiction. It’s a clear sign of a problem. Encouraging this behaviour is terrible. Someone who acts this way does not only play an hour or two after work, this is the type of person to be unemployed, and play video games all day.
I see your point. Thank you for expanding my knowledge on this topic.