Video gaming is known as a time sink of a hobby. Even short video games typically last several times as long as the average movie. However, one genre is known above all others for how long its games can last. Role-playing games are notorious and beloved for their vast main stories and wealth of side content.
Most RPGs take dozens of hours to finish, particularly for more completionist players. However, some go above and beyond with how much content they provide. Just one playthrough of games like Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Baldur's Gate 3 can take well over a hundred hours, with different characters and alternate routes through the game padding things out even more.
10 Cyberpunk 2077
Average Completion Time: 63 Hours
Cyberpunk 2077 is an unusual case of a time-consuming game. Its main story is a respectable length, clocking in at 40 hours for most players. This isn't particularly notable by RPG standards. Instead, the bulk of its content is in side stories. Cyberpunk 2077's Night City is full of sidequests for players to explore.
Cyberpunk 2077's main star is its character missions, optional activities, and incidental quests that players come across in their travels. Players miss out on the game's best content and a significant chunk of its appeal with these. If players go out of their way in Cyberpunk 2077, they'll easily lose over a hundred hours to it.
9 Dragon Age: Inquisition
Average Completion Time: 88 Hours
Most Dragon Age games aren't overly long by RPG standards. However, Dragon Age: Inquisition has an infamous amount of padding that stretches the game out significantly. Every new area has many incidental quests for players to complete, many of which resemble MMO design in their straightforward and repetitive nature.
Players will spend plenty of time in Dragon Age: Inquisition finishing these quests in every area they come across. This stretches the game far longer than its story content alone would suggest. Players driven to complete all these quests can spend over 200 hours in the game at a push.
8 Assassin's Creed: Valhalla
Average Completion Time: 104 Hours
The Assassin's Creed franchise's leap into the RPG genre has seen its games grow significantly longer as well. Newer Assassin's Creed titles are far longer than older ones, which are action-adventure games padded with collectibles. Assassin's Creed: Valhalla epitomizes this new direction for the franchise.
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla has a mammoth main story full of lengthy missions alongside a vast open-world map it encourages players to explore every inch of. Really committed players can sink over 100 hours into Assassin's Creed: Valhalla without touching any DLC.
7 The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom
Average Completion Time: 106 Hours
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom doubles down on the infamously vast The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's design. Both games start the player in a vast open world that they can explore to their heart's content. Particularly talented players can beeline the main route and the final boss within hours, but most have a long journey ahead.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom contains Breath of the Wild's open world with two more regions. Players can sink even more time into the Sky Islands and Depths, finding their items, secrets, and power-ups. There isn't much replay value in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but there doesn't have to be for it to require a vast amount of player time.
6 Fallout: New Vegas
Average Completion Time: 131 Hours
Fallout: New Vegas is a deceptively long title. A single playthrough won't cost a player too much of their time. It has more focused design than Fallout 3 or Fallout 4, with less of its charm being hidden away in a vast open world. However, Fallout: New Vegas has significantly more replay value than other titles.
Fallout: New Vegas has four main routes through the game, each of which gives a very different experience. Players who want to experience the game to its fullest have to enjoy four playthroughs. Even if they don't commit to seeing everything on each playthrough, this causes playtime to balloon significantly.
5 Baldur's Gate 3
Average Completion Time: 97 Hours
Baldur's Gate 3 is much quicker to play than the tabletop version of Dungeons & Dragons, but that's not saying much. Its lengthy main areas, dozens of sidequests, and plentiful combat encounters make progressing through Baldur's Gate 3 slow but entertaining. This is particularly true for completionist players, with areas like Grymforge in the Underdark adding many optional hours to gameplay.
Baldur's Gate 3 is a long game to finish in a single playthrough. However, it also encourages replayability. There are so many builds, paths through quests, and romance options that many players will tackle it at least twice. As a result, it can consume even more time than bigger games if players stick with it through multiple playthroughs.
4 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Average Completion Time: 140 Hours
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt moves The Witcher franchise into the open-world genre, and does so with gusto. The Continent is stuffed full of content for the player to explore. Aside from a notoriously lengthy main quest, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has side activities like dozens of optional quests, monster hunters, fistfights, and the infamous Gwent.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt becomes a more intimidating time sink with its DLC. The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone isn't particularly notable in this regard. However, The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine adds an entire game's worth of quality content onto a long experience, stretching things out even longer for players who want to see everything the game has to offer.
3 Divinity: Original Sin II
Average Completion Time: 100 Hours
Divinity: Original Sin II hearkens back to the marathon isometric RPGs of previous eras. Each of its main acts has an entire game's worth of content in its own right. The main quests are vague and open-ended, each accompanied by dozens of sidequests for players to explore and sink their time into.
Divinity: Original Sin II encourages players to complete every scrap of content they find with its exponential scaling. Players who skip sidequests risk falling behind and staying there. Furthermore, it's an infamously replayable game. Character creation is so flexible and versatile that somebody could play the entire game a dozen times and not experience every possible build.
2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Average Completion Time: 132 Hours
Part of Pathfinder: Kingmaker's length is due to its system. It adapts the Pathfinder tabletop RPG, where making a character can be every bit as much fun as playing one. Races, classes, archetypes, feats, and more present thousands of different ways to play. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a game that begs to be replayed, extending the experience significantly.
However, there are few quick ways to play Pathfinder: Kingmaker even once. Its story spans from first level to twentieth, with plenty of content to help players skyrocket in power. Even straightforward Pathfinder: Kingmaker playthroughs can last close to a hundred hours, and that's without making another character to play it again.
1 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Average Completion Time: 113 Hours
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is notorious for its longevity. Many gamers still play it today, well over a decade after its initial release. This is partly due to mod support, with many enjoying new content made by fans. However, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has plenty for players to spend their time doing in the base game alone.
Side content is one of Skyrim's defining features. Players don't need to fight Alduin and stop the dragon threat. They can instead spend hundreds of hours serving the Dark Brotherhood, becoming Archmage of the College of Winterhold, becoming infected with vampirism, leveling their skills to 100, and buying a house. There is never a shortage of things to do in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.