A Love Letter to the Short, the Sim, the Endless

Here’s the truth: I want to love long games. I really do. But most of the time, I can’t connect with them.

Cyberpunk 2077 is the exception. I’ve spent 70 hours on one full playthrough, started a couple more, and I’m currently diving into another. It’s one of the rare long games that grabs my attention and keeps me coming back.

These days, I cling to two kinds of games: short, story-driven titles I can finish over a few nights, or endless ones where the progress doesn’t matter.

Life is hard, time is finite and responsibilities pile up. Even needing to write for my blog means I can’t sit and game for as long as I’d like.

When I was younger, I would play Pokemon endlessly. I’d spend hundreds of hours per game, beating them and starting over in endless cycles. I’d lose myself in Golden Sun and Final Fantasy X. 

Now? I buy games that intimidate me, like Final Fantasy XV with all of its expansions, and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Even Ghost of Tsushima and Resident Evil 4 Remake give me pause. Not because I don’t want to play them, I just know I’ll struggle to finish them.

These are games I want to play, or already know I love. Even shorter games feel impossible sometimes. I was genuinely excited back when Gears of War 4 came out, and it still took me years to finish. Not because it was long, I just didn’t have the time. And worse, trying to force myself made it feel like a chore.

I want to fall in love with long games. I want to lose myself in their stories the way I used to—the way I have with Cyberpunk. But each time I do get something out of my backlog, a dozen more games have been released.

And unless I’m feeling hyperfocused, gaming comes in short bursts. That’s why I love sims and sports games. Who cares if I never beat House Flipper when I can just work on a house or two and get the experience I want? There aren’t things I feel like I miss out on by not completing it to 100%. 

People trash talk sports games for being a rehash every year, but that’s half the appeal to me. It doesn’t matter if I finish one franchise season or 10. I can jump in and out, year by year, and enjoy myself just the same. 

I recently started Digimon: Cyber Sleuth. I love the franchise. It’s one of my all-time favorites. But when I looked up the length of the games and realized that between it and the sequel, it would take over 100 hours to play through them? I lost my desire to play before I even fully started.

Give me a game like Limbo. I beat it in just a few hours and it really stuck with me. I constantly crave replaying that title because I got to experience it as a whole and still have time left in my day.

Gaming and I have a complicated relationship. There’s so much I want to love and so much I want to connect with, but time is the final boss I can’t beat.

My Steam library alone has an estimated completion time of over 202 days. That doesn’t account for the shelves full of games for every other system you could imagine. 

That’s alright, though. These days I’ve found my joy in bursts: multiplayer shooters, cozy simulators and seasons of sports games fill my downtime. Sometimes I still get that surprise obsession. And when the next Cyberpunk comes along, I’ll be ready for it.