What are some good games with zero replayability?
What are some good games with zero replayability?
I want to try and play some more games. That feels more fulfilling if you play games that you can finish and be done with.
So what are some good games that have zero (or close to zero perhaps) replayability? I'll start with my own suggestions:
- Return of the Obra Dinn: Amazing mystery/detective game. However once you've played it, you basically can't play it again as you remember the solution already and the challenge of the game is trivialized.
- Chants of Sennaar: Really great game about deciphering languages. However, once again, by playing the game once, you'll remember the languages and the game has no challenge any more.
- Outer Wilds: Mystery adventure game. There is some replayability as there are perhaps areas that you can still explore, but largely once you figure out the mystery and complete the game, there's not much more to experience. Some people speedrun the game though.
All of the above games I value extremely highly even though I only played them ~8-10 hours.
Do you have any others?
Antichamber - clever first person puzzle game. I played it exactly once and I loved it.
I replayed it after many years. It was fantastic, now I need to wait another many years to forget the solution.
The older you get the more often you'll be able to play!
I'd place Superliminal in this category as well.
Superliminal was cool, but I just didn't enjoy it. It was fun for a bit, but I feel like the mechanic overstayed it's welcome for how simple it is. There's not very many unique ways to use it. That's probably why Valve abandoned the idea too.
Still, it's interesting and worth a shot. Plenty of people love it.
You can replay it to find all the extra secrets though
This goes for most of these first person puzzle games. Once you solve the puzzle its not very fun to do it again.
Portal 1 and 2, the Witness, Talos Principle 1 and 2, Manifold Garden - all worth a play through. Next on my list to try is Viewfinder.
I kind of got bored of manifold garden. I guess it was the lack of any story. I just had no motivation to continue.
I feel portal could be replayed if you focused too hard on the puzzles the first time through, there were quite a few secrets worth exploring in that world, though none too deep unfortunately
I play through both Portal games every few years; maybe every 5 or 6. I think I’m due again soon.
I feel like portal 2 can get by on a playthrough every so many years based on the writing/VA making it enjoyable even if you half remember the puzzles.
Good suggestion, I played it many years ago as well :)
Copying my comment from elsewhere in this thread
I was going to write anti chamber, because I never want to play it again, but %'s 30-90 of the way through the game I was itching to start over. It had me so hooked, but then the ending just took the wind out of the sails so hard. Heck maybe 10-98% of the game had me itching to replay it.
Awesome game. I was high on cannabis when I played it, and managed to beat it in one sitting about 10 years ago. I want to play it while high on shrooms, that would be even crazier.
There was an old flash game called "You Only Live Once"
It's basically a rudimentary mario-like platformer. But once you die, the game just cuts to your funeral. Each time you load up the game again, it just shows time passing as your grave slowly ages and is forgotten.
There's a similar one called 'One Chance', in which you have three days to cure a disease that will otherwise kill everything. Same sorta concept.
This feels like it'd be great for a networked game where what you do gets passed onto other players so eventually someone can finish it. Souls-like or Death Stranding-like multiplayer style. The issue is it'd probably take a lot of effort to make in a way that be interesting and take long enough, and also if it can only be done once then that sucks for making money. I guess it could use procedural elements and make it replayable, but that'd probably remove some of the charm.
Could you could clear your cookies or open an incognito tab and start over?
Yeah, you could clear cookies to start over. I never actually got to see what happens if you survive the whole game though
What Remains of Edith Finch. A psychological horror game that REALLY sucks you in. As you play, there is a lot of stuff that doesn't make any sense, but there's a secret (disturbing) meaning behind it all.
I spent a good chunk of a Saturday going through it and there's no need to do it again, but it was a great ride!
And if you do want more try out Unfinished Swan.
The Unfinished Swan is such a hidden gem, honestly. I never hear anyone talk about it. Very unique style and mechanics and an endearing story. Some beautiful environments too. And pretty short, so not a big commitment.
It's a great, great game.
Thanks for pointing that out, I had never heard of that one. I looked it up and I'll definitely check it out.
I am thinking of replaying Edith Finch because I must have missed a lot of details by the time I realised what the story was about.
Also take a look at: The Suicide of Rachel Foster
It's currently 90% off on steam at 1.79USD
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a little older but it kind of reminds me of Edith Finch in vibes. It's also really beautiful.
Oh man - I loved WRoEF, but the bathtub segment has ensured I can never play it again.
Oh yeah. They aren't subtle in that one, you know what's coming and I think I just muttered "oh no. Oh no. Oh no." through the whole thing.
Puzzlers usually fall into that category. If that's up your alley you should try the Talos Principle.
I've played it once, waited a few years until I forgot the solution to all puzzles, and then played it again.
I'll probably replay it again a few more years from now. I love that game.
Firewatch
I replied it after several years cause of nostalgia, but yeah first time is where it is at!
First impressions, I thought it was going to be a boring on-rails walk simulator.
Then I teared up at the end with Delilah. I can't believe how good the acting is for me to fall in love with a voice.
Great example
Subnautica.
I found it to be one of the best games I have ever played with a fantastic story that really pulled me in. If you do decide to play it, look up nothing. As in don’t even google it because it’s a slightly older game and people spoil the entire thing.
Great game, too little story line and too much grind to replay.
It's actually very granular on the grind difficulty. There's a story only mode that removes the survival elements and leaves only the material gathering for crafting. There's also a creative mode where you don't even have to gather materials and can just build whatever and go wherever and see all the story bits with almost no challenge at all. You choose how you want to go at it.
For me, it wasn't just the story, but also just randomly going out and exploring, checking things out, and finding cool (and sometimes scary) things.
It's one of those games that I'm hoping in like 10 years or something I'll have forgotten enough of it that if I go play it again it'll be mostly all new again.
Firewatch. Road 96.
Road 96
Huh? The point of that game is being a narrative roguelite, everytime you start out different and have different choices to make.
How "bad" is the walking simulator aspect in these games? Is it mostly just walking or is there actual gameplay?
I hate the term "walking simulator". It's totally missing the point. They're never about walking, but about discovery. Outer Wilds is a "walking simulator" in that there's no combat and traversal is the only "action" you take. That's definitely not what Outer Wilds is about though, right? That term should probably die.
Road 96 has quite a bit of replay ability as you're unlikely to get 100% of all stories on the first playthrough.
Tunic is a solid 10-15 hour adventure game, and I highly recommend playing without spoilers as several experiences are information-locked like Outer Wilds. It's an isometric adventure game heavily inspired by Zelda with some Souls influence bleeding into the lore, mechanics, and boss fights. Replayability is limited to speedrunning and challenge runs.
Bastion is a wonderful adventure game with a heavy focus on combat. It's a precursor to Hades from the same developer, and shares the same mechanical DNA minus the rogue-lite elements that Hades introduced. The followup game, Transistor, is also worth checking out, though it didn't quite hit the same highs for me as Bastion. Both are 10-20 hour adventures with limited replayability if you want to achievement hunt.
More games to check out:
Psychonauts and Psychonauts 2
Journey, Abzu, and The Pathless
Subnautica
Saying Tunic has zero replayability is absolutely insane to me. IT EVEN HAS A NEW GAME PLUS!!
I kind of agree with OC's sentiment. The game is a masterpiece, but the puzzle solving and metagame is half of the game, if not more. Once you've solved that, replaying it is just going through the motions of a pretty OK action adventure game. I dunno.
It's like playing Braid after beating it. Another masterpiece of a game! You could speed run it—which I was very much into—but the thought of playing it again after that just doesn't interest me. It's just going through the motions.
That being said, its been years and years since I've played it and there's a new anniversary edition coming out with new content. I'm almost certainly going to buy it.
I loved the built-in speed run of that game. You only had 45 minutes to beat the whole thing. The first time I accomplished that, my time was 44:58 and some change! I lost my shit that I managed to juuuust squeak in a win! 😂
I ended up getting it down to 37 minutes. There are so many tricks in that game to speed it up. I wonder what the official best time is. Back in the Xbox 360 days there were a lot of cheaters using the back-end to submit bullshit scores. Or people doing save trading and all having the exact same time down to 1/100 of a second.
I would somewhat disagree with Subnautica. There are lots of different settings you can tweak to make the game harder or more survival-oriented that might warrant a replay (although probably only one) if your first play-through was on a simpler/easier mode. Plus there are the creation modes where you can create your own base without restrictions, which sort of counts as replay? Mostly though the setting in Subnautica is quite unique, and short of playing Below Zero you won't be able to find that vibe anywhere without playing the game again. However as a story-oriented game I'd agree it has lower-than-average replay value.
I find Subnautica has less replayability than other survival games since the map and questline is static. Once you know where everything is and you've seen all the plot beats there's not much reason to play the game again unless you want to challenge yourself with a speedrun or, as you said, one of the harder difficulties.
I wouldn't consider creative mode or sandbox mode to be a core part of the game. They're great for fucking around or as an extended tutorial, but I see them more as external tools than as part of the game experience proper.
I would absolutely consider replaying subnautica if managing inventories wasn't so bad. Playing it to build up a base would be fun if it wasn't such a frustrating process to deal with. I think all crafting should pull from all inventories in your base, and also preferably adding inventories just increases the size of one large abstract storage system of your base that you don't need to worry about organizing.
As it is, once the story was done I was done. I had become so annoyed with building out my bases that I just couldn't be bothered to do it again.
I would highly recommend Tunic as well, played through with a GF and it's an amazing game! (Single player though)
I definitely played through Bastion at least thrice. There is enough build variety that you can make another playthrough feel totally different, not to mention the difficulty modifiers. First game that I took the time to 100% for achievements.
Bastion's story doesn't necessitate multiple plays. Sure, it's fun to play through again and try different builds. I've also 100%'ed the game.
The important thing, I think, for OP's question is that it can be finished in one play. It has a satisfying ending from which the player can set down the game and move on.
+1 for Tunic especially if you go for all of the late game puzzles and other stuff that I shall not spoil. I have the Tunic plushy up on my shelf!
For Tunic - you will 100% be expected to play like an old school game. So keep physical paper notes of what you see or you'll be going back and forth.
+1 for Tunic. Fantastic game. Not too long. Get it on sale.
I played it on my Steam Deck when I had Covid and was banished from my bedroom so I didn't get my wife sick. 😅
Superliminal - once you know the puzzles you know the puzzles, till then it has its fair share of mind bending moments. Speedrunning it is fun though
Absolutely this! I hate that I now know how to think in the Superliminal world.
The Witness has a lot of generative puzzles that I guess technically are replayable, but you can’t go back to before the moments of joy of discovery and that’s the core of what made that game incredible to me
If you want a good laugh, check out The Looker. It's a short satire of the Witness, free on Steam
I did play the Witness, though the ending was quite disappointing to me. I got kind of tired of the (imo) very similar puzzles throughout the game.
Agreed. By the end, i was just looking up the solutions so i can just figure out what the heck happened on the island, only to be met with the biggest let-down in my personal gaming history. Game went from an 9/10 to a 3/10 just on the ending alone.
A problem with The Witness is that the game’s single biggest excitement comes from a twist that revealing completely spoils
spoiler
The environment puzzles
So it’s stuck in the position of letting 80% of its player base walk right past the best part, or preserving the moment of discovery.
I’m personally grateful it has the integrity to let me find it on my own, but it’s also a bummer since at least two of my friends beat it without ever realizing
Brothers, a tale of two sons. It's a 2h ish long story, really good.
Ugh - this game!
I loved it. The mechanics of The Scene is still one of the most amazing bits of storytelling I've seen in a video game. I think about it frequently when I'm considering how video games can tell stories in ways that movies or books just can't.
The game as a whole is good, but a little uneven IMO. But I'd put that scene up there with Braid for the sheer impact of storytelling-via-videogame-mechanics.
I've played this game all the way through 3 times. The only thing that affects its replayability is the long-term emotional damage.
Thomas was alone.(I recommend this one up there with obra dinn)
Spec ops the line
Dlc quest
Limbo
For something quite a bit different, amnesia the dark decent.
This one might be controversial, but the original BioShock, I played it how I wanted, and >! Got the good ending!< And never felt the desire to pick it up. If you're a completionist on the first run, and it isn't very difficult to do (very rewarding I'd say), then there's 0 reason to pick it up again. I felt the same about replaying BioShock infinite, but more because I just didn't want to play it again (I felt like it had much more story to offer, and sidequests to do, but I didn't get any of the same satisfactions from the game, first one was done and wrapped up nicely, third one was barely unraveled and I chose to read other people's ideas of how it had ended)
Spec Ops The Line has sadly been delisted and is no longer available for purchase. If you already got it, you're fine, but the only way to get a copy now is 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
I played amnesia exactly once and still haven't brought myself to replay it. I tried a year ago (originally played in 2012) and, while I admit I didn't give it much effort to relearn the mazes, I didn't feel too motivated still remembering most of the plot and of course the finale.
Might be an unpopular take but the Red Dead Redemption 2 campaign. I've tried twice to start a second campaign but it's so slow. The first time around the narrative carries it, so it doesn't feel so slow. But knowing what happens next takes that away. The worst part is how ridged it is with mission failure/success conditions. It removes room for creative solutions.
This is not to say it wasn't wonderful to play once. But it plays like they wanted to make a movie not a game.
My biggest complaint with R* games is that they refuse to let players leverage the open world to even a minor extent in their missions. I understand that restrictions are important to telling the story and can even nurture creativity but for as detailed the world and fairly deep their systems are their missions are quite dictatorial.
I couldn't even finish it once and it took so long to get to where I stopped that I had important bits spoiled by random comments mentioning who dies and whatnot... It was really good for what I experienced but oh my God is it longggggggg.
Untitled Goose Game
once you played it, or even just watched it, it loses the initial trill.
I still have fun watching other people discover it.
When people are over at my house and we are just hanging around doing nothing I like to put on a game and toss a controller to someone with no explanation and just let them play while everyone watches. Goose Game, Donut County, ABZU and Journey are always a hit even for people that aren't normally into video games.
Am I missing something? I tried it for 5 minutes and felt like I didn't understand?
I put it in the Goat Simulator territory of twitch players love it because it's great for streaming and doing weird shit.
It's a puzzle game of working out how to complete your to-do list, so that the next area unlocks. Beyond its meme status, I do think it's a very smartly designed puzzler, with lots of experimentation and observation.
Out of all that I could've suggested, Ace Attorney series probably fits the bill the most
EDIT: Also, Lunacid! Finished it recently; what a beautiful experience it has been
EDIT2: Also, Beacon Pines! For the love of all that is holy on this bitch of a planet, please play it
And if you try ace attorney and liked it then I would highly recommend Ghost Trick by the same creator.
I have yet to play it, do you think it is better to go with the DS version or the Switch version?
This is not a joke question, I tried TWEWY on the Switch and I didn't like the controls.
Yeah, I've yet to check it out
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Please Don't Touch Anything. What genre does it even belong in? It would have been a flash game if made 10 years earlier. You're left at a console with a single large red button, and told to wait for a minute and don't touch anything. Depending on how you interact with this console, there are many different things it can do/behaviors it can have, and your goal is to find all the different endings. It was entertaining, I don't need to own it anymore.
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Shenzhen I/O and TIS-100. Both Zachtronics assembly-em-up games, which...I don't think there's absolutely zero replayability, because you might redo the level you just did or go back to an earlier one with a solution you just learned from a later level, but I don't know finishing these games feels less like beating Bowser at the end of Super Mario and more like graduating from high school. I'm done with that phase of my life and I can now move on.
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Antichamber. The video game equivalent of a Piet Mondrian painting. It's an abstract and brain knitting non-euclidean first person puzzle game that uses its surreal mechanics as a metaphor for the journey of life itself, and halfway though you get a gun that shoots cubes and it turns back into a video game. A lot of the actual impact of the game comes from how it comments on the epiphany you just had, and that effect is spoiled somewhat by "Oh I remember this part." I will note there is a speedrunning community for this game.
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Firewatch. There are some games where you'll watch a Let's Play, decide you want to have a go, so you'll buy and play the game. Not Firewatch; a Let's Play gives you 96.4% of the experience. It's a walking simulator that probably should have just been a short film. I'm not even convinced it is a "video game" because...how do you play it well or poorly? Like do we need a new term like "narrative software" or something?
Firewatch is more in the visual novel category. I did in fact give it a replay with completely different choices to see how it changed things, and was disappointed to find that all choices are merely for aesthetics and make zero difference in the plot. However it's a well-made enough game (especially dialogue and voice acting) that it was still kinda fun to play again.
I liked firewatch, even though I usually dislike walking simulators. It really was a good mesh of dialogue and voice actors, unlike others where the dialogue just drags.
Interactivity really helps relate to the character you're playing even if you're not making any actual choices. And like you said, the dialogues are done pretty well to be enjoyable and not annoying. I liked Firewatch a lot.
So did I, which is why I listed it among good games that have no replay value. I enjoyed the thing that it is, I appreciated the visual style, it's well performed...it's one of the better walking simulators. The ending is controversial, which I take to mean it's a work of art.
I was going to write anti chamber, because I never want to play it again, but %'s 30-90 of the way through the game I was itching to start over. It had me so hooked, but then the ending just took the wind out of the sails so hard. Heck maybe 10-98% of the game had me itching to replay it.
When I think back on my time with AntiChamber, I don't really think about the ending. I really think of the beginning up through getting the green gun. It starts leaning farther into the direction of Talos Principle or Portal at that point.
To me the game was about the experience of coming to terms with this strange new world you've found yourself in, and the THIS IS AN ALLEGORY wall tiles. It's impressive how long the developer managed to keep that schtick up.
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Spec ops: The line. I think this was delisted from most stores though, so you might need to sail the high seas to get it. It might not be as impactful today as it was when it came out, but it's a great game with a great twist.
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Life is strange. It's a story driven game, sure you can replay it and choose different things, but realistically you probably won't since the main of the story is the same.
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Batman games. Those were my go to for a while when I wanted something linear with an end.
I loved the Batman Arkham games, but yeah, one and done is good.
I patient gamered Spec Ops and beat it a couple weeks ago. I found it to be rather mediocre. The combat sucks ass and the graphics don’t help.
Couple cool sequences but I felt it was massively overhyped.
Spec Ops: The Line can be bought on Steam.
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Omori. Finished the game in 15 hours across 3 days. Bawled my eyes out for the next few weeks. 15/10 would recommend.
Now play the other route.
Also, if you're interested, there's an official Omori orchestral concert on YouTube.
Tic tac toe has only a handful of replays.
Global Thermonuclear War has a lot of potential though.
To The Moon; Once you go through the experience of the story, there's really no need to replay again.
Nah, I replayed it and it is still great. (And I don't replay many games!) Like rereading a good book.
But there are sequels to play! Also, playing To the Moon with someone who hasn't played it before is just as good.
Funny OP, you named the exact 3 games I was planning on naming here.
Great minds think alike 😜
It's quite an open question. Most games I play are "one and done" even though I think most people go back to them. Even with replayability it doesn't mean that you have to and I'm happy to leave things be once the story is over.
Mafia trilogy sticks to the story and will take a decent amount of hours.
Inside is short but fun.
+1 for inside, I love this game
Don't forget about Limbo!
Stray
Honestly felt this way about BioShock Infinite - the gameplay was alright, but it was the story that made it good, but you only get to explore it for the first time once. I have zero plans to ever pick that one up again
Same for the latest Tomb Raider trilogy for me
Bioshock 1 had replayability for me, but the next 2 games were a bother. It's especially annoying in Bioshock 2 when you're expected to gather ADAM with the little girls for full completion, when the benefit of doing so doesn't justify the time it takes.
I played BioShock like 3-4 times! There's just so many ways to go through a level with different character builds!
Agreed. It was great game because the story, but I can barely remember anything about the gameplay aside from the interactions with Elizabeth. Sadly, my final moments were destroyed by a visual bug - right at the climax of the story near the end of the game Elizabeth's hair inexplicably stopped rendering... She was as bald as Sinead O'Connor. It kinda killed the vibe.
I replayed it a few years ago with a meele only playthrough. I had to use the pistol a few times but all in all it was more fun than the original play through.
There is a plasmid that lets you dash into an enemies face, which I combined with perks give your sky hook shock damage and an execute.
90s style adventure games like Sam and Max hit the road, day of the tentacle, monkey Island, Indiana Jones, etc. Lots of comedy you can't hear again for the first time, and puzzles that can be memorable.
scummVM can be used to run those games and runs on basically everything, phones, tablets, desktop.
Yeah I played S&M and Full Throttle probably once every couple months when I was a kid... how else can you recite every scene from the entire game?
Literally anything focused entirely on telling a story.
They're only worth replaying if you forget the story.
Sometimes you can still replay them for the same reason you'd re-read a book (like to catch things you missed the first time around). It's not as common and a different kind of replayability though
I would say something like ICO is the latter kind for me. It is focused on the gameplay, but the gameplay is the same exact thing from the first moment to the last and you can find all the secrets in the levels themselves pretty easy the first time through (since the rooms ain't that big there's not much room to hide things), the only reason to replay it multiple times is for the special weapons you can get; which are more like skins than actual weapons, except for the energy sword that OHKOs everything. But you only get that after like, 5 or 7 completions I think? It wasn't worth it. By the time you get it, a normal person would be totally over playing the game lol
I think Dark Souls and Elden Ring and such would be the same for me, if not for the PvP multiplayer. Other games copying that style without any multiplayer at all, I have so far only played once and then never touched again. But I keep coming back to the ones with PvP to make new builds and fight other players. And because of how you obtain items, making an entirely new character means playing through the entire game, or at least a good deal of it. Currently building a dude to be ready for Shadow of the Erdtree and seeing just how low level I can beat Mogh at. So far it's been 60. 😄
Got any particular examples? :)
Phoenix Wright comes to mind since I'm just watching someone else play the games I don't have because there's not much player agency so watching it is as good as playing it 🤷🏻♂️
Myst
Does it hold up?
I never played Myst as a kid but when I tried it a few years ago, the puzzles seem really hard and abstract by today's standards.
And I played a LOT of point and click games, and most I can solve without a walkthrough. But the 15 mins in Myst felt like I need to play it with a guide.
I haven't played it in a while but I did watch a playthrough recently and I don't think there was any guessing necessary or anything.
I replayed it the other week after not touching it since the original release. Was fun. I managed to forget a bunch of puzzles, and the new graphics made it fun to just explore the Ages.
If you want something very similar to the three you named, do not sleep on Case of the Golden Idol.
It might have a little more replayability due to they way decisions you make impact the story, but I'd also put in a strong recommendation for Pentiment.
Yesss, I loved both of those games. Pentiment was so strange - there are things I didn't love about it, but I still got so sucked in that I'd wake up the morning and be eager to start playing again to find out what happens next. I haven't felt that way about a game in a while.
Dredge comes to mind. It's a nice game and all, but outside of the two endings (which are basically a choose left or right situation) you see pretty much everything there's to see in a single playthrough.
I will play Dredge just to fish. When I get sucked into an absolutely stupid meeting and am required to be there, fishing makes it fun.
Unpacking.
I would volunteer a lot of the single-player story games produced by Sony like Uncharted, The Last of US, with Spiderman being the exception to the rule.
Some of their games have a little more open game loop design, but personally, I don't think I could play The Last of Us twice.
From what I played of God of War I would imagine it's similar, but I never actually beat it.
I'm sure there are people out there who love single-player game narratives and would disagree. I just think a lot of these games are good for the story, but the gameplay feels like once you've done it, you've done it.
There are some games that are entirely story based that fit the criteria better.
One that comes to mind is To the Moon. There's some puzzle elements to make it a game but its appeal is pretty much entirely based on its story.
Factorio.
Just kidding, someone please help me
I recently started factorio, damn iam HOOKED
Am I the only one who just plays any given game once?
I only play games you can't really finish.
My favorites are Crusader Kings 3, Kerbal Space Program, Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress and Euro Truck Simulator 2.
I struggle to define what "playing it once" would even mean in those games.I mean there's games like... Minecraft that I certainly have played many, many times for many hours with lots of different combinations of mods. That's repayable to the max.
Yes that's a good point. I don't have a lot of time to play so I try to stick with shorter games as you said in the post. Even if there is replayability I just drop it after I finish it the first time. For that reason I don't play stuff like Minecraft and also rarely open worlds, I've played a few but try to stick to the main story
For me, it depends how much of the game is story-driven, how long a campaign takes, and how dynamic the gameplay is. I've never replayed an assassin's creed game (from 3 thru Odyssey), but rank them highly. I consider racing/sim games "replayable" in the sense that I never finish the absurd number of championships but will binge them for a while as I buy more dream cars. Similar story for battle Royale/arena/non-story games like rocket league or fortnite. My most-replayed game series is Ace Combat (4-7), but that's because the campaign is only about 5 hours typically and offers more variation in gameplay along with attainable medals. Puzzle games like Portal 1/2 or The Turing Test offer replayability to me because I never really remember all the tricks to the puzzles, but that's like 5 years between replays to not spoil the entire story.
This is also driven by having less time available to game. I wish I could learn 2 games every week but a good gaming week has 10 hours of gameplay for me. It's usually less than 5. So there's a little more motivation to play something familiar so I can start having fun faster. Ironically, Elite: Dangerous is a comfort game despite the common complaint of its complexity. Some PS2 era games come to mind
Sure, in the same way that some people only watch movies once, or read books once.
Speaking for myself, I've found only a small handful of games are worth my replay time, and most of them are Mass Effect...
The Cat Lady
To The Moon
SOMA (you can play it again of course but the raw shock and intensity of the plot is lost the second time)
A lot of people are posting games that are short and linear. But to match your energy, games that cannot be replayed unless you forget what you learn;
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Case of the Golden Idol is a mystery/deduction game, a la Obra Dinn.
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Toki Tori 2 is a puzzle metroidvania, where you can do your full moveset from the start - tweet and stomp. Right from the first screen, big chunks of the map can be shortcut through once you put your later learnings into practice.
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I'm currently playing through the ace attorney series, couch party w my fiancee. We're having a blast, but there's absolutely no doing this a second time. The nature of the games is such that you can't really progress in any of the cases without having asked every question of every witness, gathered every piece of evidence and explored every relevant branch in cross-examination, so by the time you finish a case there's just nothing left to go over a second time.
Visual novels, and the Frog Detective series.
Doki Doki Literature Club being the biggie (or well-known one), Florence is very sweet, Yenba is also very nice (Game Pass).
Undertale, if you have a heart.
This is worth replaying as the hero and villain imo
I wouldn't be able to stomach being the villain, so I just watched someone else do it on YouTube. lol
I think I do, but I still won't play it until I play the Mother games... I don't know why I impose that rule to myself though.
The Forgotten City. Interesting mystery game set in a Roman city, but after you know the spoilers there's little reason to play it again.
Stranded Deep - one of the only survival/crafting/procedural open world games that has a defined objective and an actual ending.
10/10 don't need to play it again but I might anyway because it was so great
I want to like this game but I keep making stupid decisions and being so confused at the start that I just gave up. The game is fun but doesn't do a fantastic job at explaining how to get going.
Escape Academy? It’s a great escape room game (even better in co-op) but it’s more engaging than Escape Simulator since there’s a story pulling everything together. The story’s ridiculous but honestly the context adds entertainment value, regardless of how absurd it is.
SuperBrothers: Sword and Sworcery probably fits this bill. It’s an odd game, but I love the shit out of every minute of it. I have 3 hours in that game. I haven’t touched it since 2013, but I still remember just how ethereal and soothing it was while still being an exciting adventure game. One of the odder things about it is how it instructs you when and for how long to play it. For example, it tells you to stop playing it for a few weeks so the moon’s phase can change. Not that that’s a bad thing, but
I would also say that most of the walking simulators that where mentioned here:
My mentions would be The Last of Us, Spec Ops: The Line and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Also The Stanley Parable depending on what you consider "completing" that game.
Since puzzle games seem to be the theme overall here I’ll mention Cocoon. It’s a recent puzzler that is absolutely gorgeous to look at and did some super clever stuff imo.
I love Cocoon, it's one of my recent favorites
Her Story
Human Powered Spacecraft
Tacoma
The Park
Betrayer
The Walking Dead (Telltale 2012)
Swapper
Pony Island
The Corridor
Spirits of Xanadu
Pneuma: Breath of Life
Deadlight
Valley
The Signal From Tölva
Control
Unepic
Ghost 1.0
Limbo
Super Trench Attack
Year Walk
The Room
Personally, any bigass AAA game that has a million different things to do. Like there's no way I'm playing the God of War sequel-reboot again even though I enjoyed it. Coming from someone who beat the original trilogy like 3 times each at least
More on topic though: Any adventure game for as long as you remember the solutions
I haven't even played the Witcher 3 DLCs.
I beat the the main game at one point but was so exhausted with the game I had to take a break. By the time I got back I didn't remember enough about the main game to play the DLCs, so I keep trying to replay it from the beginning.
I think I've made 4 attempts so far and end up stalling out about 10 hours in each time.
Limbo and Lost in Random
You could replay them for the vibe, but that's it
If you liked Limbo, you'd like the next game Playdead did, Inside.
Soma - This is such an amazing game, but it made me so mad that I would never play it again.
The Painscreek Killings - A really fun detective/mystery walking sim. You absolutely have to figure everything out yourself, as there is no hand-holding or hints given by the game. At all. But, like Return of the Obra Dinn, once you've figured out the mystery, there really is no sense in replaying it.
I was going to add some others before realizing I had a theme of mystery walking sims. I think that genre of games are pretty one and done kind of plays. They can be really great, but most don't give you a reason to go back and replay them, unless it's for achievements or something.
SOMA was great, but yeah, not much replayability once you know everything. Curious, tho, what about it made you mad?
It's been a few years since I've played it, but I remember not being a fan of the female companion. To me it felt like she was just using the main character as a means to get to her goal and nothing more. I know that's an unpopular take (I've gotten into a couple light arguments over it), but I just could not stand her by the end of the game. The way she treated the MC just made the post-credits scene so angering.
Outer Wilds. not only is it a fantastic game, but the entire premise and gameplay is centred around discovering the world. theres no progression, the story is all diagetic and not quest-bound or anything, and once you know the world you cant really discover it any more (unless you forget)
Storyteller
A short but memorable puzzle-type game where you have to put together scenes and characters to create a story. Actions in previous scenes affect how characters behave or appear in later ones.
Really liked that one, it's fun.
What remains of Edith Finch Life is Strange series The beginner's guide
While I'm not sure the "walking sim" games are what you're looking for, I'd add Lifeless Planet and maybe Dear Esther. Once you know what's going on/what happened, there's not much point in replaying.
I second the Dear Esther mention. I almost feel like it's a dead body starting at me from my Steam library for the past decade+.
The remake of shadow of the colossus since they removed the time attack mode with awesome unlocks.
I enjoyed
- "One Shot", it has a few achievements that might require going back to try to complete.
It is puzzle top down story adventure game( it does the whole look into your actual files for solutions thing), once I finished the main story I felt satisified. It allows for playing after the ending but doing so feels hollow and unsatisifying which is the point. It asks the question of why do you still want to play, but oh well I will allow it and makes it possible.
Outer wilds
If you're ok with point and click/puzzlers, the rusty lake games are probably some of my favourite storylines. Extremely well written imo, creepy and with a few jump scares to keep you on your toes.
They're incredible.
I hooked my wife with Rusty Lake Hotel, which is probably the easiest entry point into the whole series.
Then we went into a few cube games, and then Rusty Lake Roots, which is so well made and where all the best lore is.
Did some more cube games, and right into Rusty Lake Paradise and Samara Room, and Underground Blossom.
I also didn't tell her The Past Within is also a Rusty Lake game, so when she saw the connections while we were playing, her excitement went through the roof.
That dragon, Cancer
After playing it once, I can’t go through it a second time.
Wow. Yeah, absolutely. I had forgotten about that game until you mentioned it. Thank you for reminding me. It's entirely unique and deserves to be remembered. But yeah, I don't think I have it in me to replay it.
Deathloop's story basically means that you're replaying the game because you failed your previous attempt at escaping. You can play it more than once, the game encourages you to, and I kinda want to, but I never did because I already won. In a lot of games replays are basically just "fresh starts" and here, they are part of the story, and ironically, that's what's stopping me.
Also... A big part of playing Death Loop was figuring out the proper order to kill everybody. ... and sadly, there's only one order that will work. So once you know the order, a big part of the challenge is eliminated.
It would have been really cool if the game selected a random ordering for your character at new game start and each target's vulnerable timing changes accordingly. Something similar to how some of Dishonored's missions could have multiple solutions.
... but I get why they didn't. Dishonored had mission variants just switch up some text which is relatively cheap compared to having fully different behaviors and speech and so on that would need to be created just for the tiny set of players that not only finish but replay a game.
As someone who played through Dishonored 1,2 and all their respective DLCs multiple times, I was sad that Death Loop didn't have the same level of repayablity baked into the overarching structure, but I still quite enjoyed the game itself. I just finished it once and moved on.
I don't mind that there's only one winning order too much. Could be cool to have more options but I'm okay with that design choice. Like you said, it's a lot of effort for not a lot of players. I could still vary the gameplay during the missions and that's good enough. Besides, I enjoyed the world and the characters more than in any other Arkane game, maybe on par with Prey, can't put one above the other.
OneShot is very much based on its story and immersion. Contrary to the title’s implication, there’s not so much potential for risk during play, even if it’s themed that way, but it does feel like any efforts to repeat the game would ruin some of the immersive thoughts present.
I think in its original form, browser based I think, you just had OneShot. But I really enjoyed it. Great to see it mentioned.
Penumbra Overture, never finished it but was fun exploring and figuring out stuff.
Black plague is even better, best Frictional game to date imo.
I'll wait for a sale but looks cool.
Scanner Sombre
Interesting main mechanic, good storytelling, but once you finish it, that's pretty much it.
Maaaaaaybe replaying the first room you start in with all the upgrades, since you can see more clearly, but that's it.
Man, a game I wish I could first-time again
For me pretty much every single linear / story type game. Even great ones I sometimes attempted to have another run but would immediately get bored and ended up quitting. They just don't really offer anything to me to make it worth it. Even a lot of New Game Plus modes aren't cutting it, because they're typically just some extra items or abilities.
Agreed. I feel the same of most story games. My favs such as: The last of us, God of War, Spiderman, Midnight Suns, FF7R, FF16, Like a Dragon, Days Gone, new Ratchet and Clank. The games don't really offer anything new upon replay so I consider them one-and-dones.
every single linear / story type game
Which ones are your favourites among those? :)
Tales of Arise
Hmm, tough question since a lot of them I played personally years ago as I eventually began EA & Ubisoft, which have some of the more commonly known franchises here and the feelings I have towards them unfortunately also tainted their games and the experiences I had with them. And I also generally got much more into more open ended / non linear type of genres like sandbox, open world or 4X games. I guess I enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn quite a bit, I also love TLoU Part 1 & 2, even though Part 2 is probably the heaviest story game I've seen (not played since there's no PC port yet but I watched stupid amounts of Let's Plays at this point), a little underdog / hidden gem is probably CrossCode, which was a complete surprise hit for me and one of those games that I will always try to sell whenever I can get the opportunity for it.
Some people might disagree with me, but Celeste.
I'd argue it's not even worth playing once.
13 sentinels: aegis rim
Escape Simulator definitely fits the bill.
It's great, but all about the discovery.
Midnight Suns was like that for me. The tactical combat was interesting and could have had replay value, but all the chores and conversations you have to do to progress the story made this a "no way" for a second playthrough. Absolutely worth it to go through once though, if you are into turn based combat games and marvel characters.
I stalled out on playing this. I loved the combat aspect, but the chores and conversations feel too much like... well, chores. I just wanna fuck up some bad guys, not watch my character watch a movie with a Marvel character!
Yeah I almost gave up too, it did become a bit of a slog in the middle with all the back and forth collecting shit and chatting everyone up. Definitely has some pacing issues.
I'm surprised no one has said Outer Wilds. Amazing story about space exploration.
Might be because it was in the 3rd bullet of OP's body text.
Oh yeah that would make sense.
Danganronpa, honestly any of them. Once you know the story, who the killers are, and the twists, it quickly loses it's charm. The only way afterwards is to watch other people play it for the first time.
I absolutely loved Recursive Ruin and I'm still waiting to forget the solutions.
Brothers: A tale of two sons maybe.
There are actually speedruns of Brothers, so someone is replaying it.
They are speedruns of Elmos letter adventure, Clash of clan, Club Penguin and baking an actual real life pizza. So I don't really think speedruns should dictate replayability.
They recently released an updated version of Brothers with new graphics. But the game is exactly the same. So it's not really a must buy for me. Especially since the original had pretty good graphics anyway.
The vanishing of Ethan carter
This game, One Chance, even goes beyond to try and make sure you only play it once
Breathedge - SciFi game where you are stranded in a small shuttle after your main ship exploded, you'll need to fly around in a space suit with limited air supply, gather stuff, examine objects to identify possible devices you can cobble together from random space trash, and eventually build and upgrade your equipment to the point that you can progress to another area, and so on.
Once you know how specific items are built, the solution is near identical, just some components might be drifting in another part of the screen.
Observation and Deliver us the Moon
the desolate hope. its a very unique robot themed game, but you only really need to play it once.
I personally think the main series Danganronpa games alongside Despair Girls have enough of a play through the main story mode (don't know if there are any other modes for Despair Girls) and then you don't replay almost ever type of gameplay since they're visual novels, technically. (I don't consider them visual novels because I consider those to be just images/animations and a text box on screen with no control over a character).
The 3rd game even has a mode you unlock at the end that has replayability, though, so I don't know if that would disqualify it.
Also, another game I like with pretty much no replayability besides watching your favorite scenes play out would be the point and click adventure game Beyond the Edge of Owlsgarde. It's a game that, if you know what you're doing, can be completed in 2 hours. My first playthrough took a lot longer though, since I didn't know what I was doing. Also, it only has 2 endings and if you miss the good ending, you'll get a hint at the end of the bad ending which will guide you to the good ending.
I went so hard on Danganronpa. And I hate visual storybook games.
But the incredibly well written scenarios, the intrigue, and the overall wackiness really pulls you in.
I think about the series a lot.
I would say Stillness of the Wind definitely falls into this category. A beautiful game about life and loss.
If you liked chants of shenaar, check out heaven's vault. I think it does what chants of shenaar does, but better, and it did it years before. It was a bit strange to me to see chants of shenaar get so much hype, but have heaven's vault stay slept on.
I considered it as well, but this review made me reconsider. Would you say it is as bad as that review makes it seem?
Funnily enough, what that review said is basically what I said in my review about chants of shenaar, except without the glowing praise. Lots of tedious running across maps and very surface level language-puzzling, whereas I don't remember any tedium with heaven's vault at all. I guess different strokes for different folks?
I would say, it's such a unique and well-executed concept that I would give it a play yourself to see what you think. It's one of those games I haven't found a replacement for, even with chants of shenaar.
Well - I played both and I quite enjoyed Heaven's Vault as well.
I played HV through twice - once for the story and then a second time to see how far I could alter that story with different choices. My wife even played a third time to try for a really particular set of events.
The translation game in HV goes much harder than Chants'. After the first playthrough, you get longer and more challenging texts to decipher.
Also - there's no backtracking really required. The game is pretty strict about telling you where you can and cannot go and reacting to what you found or didn't find. You can cut whole plot lines in HV and it's no problem.
Which makes it one of the better games for replayablity in my mind.
It is - for sure - slow paced. Almost meditative.
They don't exactly fit with your theme of short mystery and puzzle games, but based on your initial question most JRPGs and most story-focused games came to mind. Let's go over a few of them I'd recommend to everyone interested in those games:
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Persona 5 Royal: It's about a 100h and very story-heavy. There are some twists and turns which keep you engaged and you build relationships with a wide cast of characters. Besides the story and actual combat, there's a ton of side activities, all of which you only do a few times. It's probably my favorite game I'll never replay, because all these things are an absolute slog to play again. The same goes for Persona 4 and maybe 3, haven't played that one.
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every Etrian Odyssey: They are old-school dungeon crawlers originally released on the 3/DS and got remakes on steam and the Switch. You draw your own maps of every layer the dungeon has, which is a large puzzle in itself. However, once you know the dungeon, there is literally no point in exploring it again. You know every trap, every worthwhile detour and of course the path to take.
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Like a dragon 7/8: They combine an open world with lots of mini-games, funny and/or touching side stories and an epic overarching main story to follow. There are tons of interactions with your companions, all of them interesting. It's just, similarly to Persona 5, all these mini-games and interactions only carry themselves for the short burst you get them in and while they are fresh. Replaying them? It's an absolute slog. You know every punchline, you have optimized most mini-games and probably remember most of the great backstories each character has - you'd be skipping most of the content and the non-optional combat system isn't fun enough to carry itself on its own.
Can't you have fun in dungeon crawlers by trying other party compositions? Or is EO badly balanced where you can only succeed with an specific composition?
You absolutely can! There are classes, subclasses and equipable skills depending on the game. All with different builds. You can win with all of them and swapping around can be fun. However, you can also do this within a single playthrough. At least in my opinion, the dungeon is the main draw here - but of course, as with all games here, there are certainly people who like to replay them.
I'd argue it's the opposite, EO games have so many interesting builds to try that they're among the most replayable dungeon crawler games.
I love Etrian Odyssey V (especially the music), but I suck at it lol
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Would you count NG+ as replayability? I know for Nier Automata and Armored Core 6, it's basically part of the story and you haven't finished until you've unlocked all of the main paths. There is enough new stuff each playthrough for it to be unique though.
Walking Sims, point and clicks, puzzles.
Darkspore.
as much I love the genre, but most single player 3D action/adventure platformer games that are based around a story OR fully arcade-y.
both aspect looses their point if you 100% the game.
Like, I just finished New Super Lucky's Tale, and though it was an excellent 3d platformer, I don't think I'll start a new game.
but not only 3D games. Like Shovel Knight also falls into this category. Amazing and exciting game, but other than a harder difficulty (as New Game+), it doesn't really have too much of a replayability.
There is a game from the MS-DOS age of 1996 called Realms of the Haunting where you traverse large open areas for hours searching for items and interactables needed to progress.
You might clear it a second time just to make the experience seem like a linear cohesive string of events but I can't imagine you would want to clear it any more than that.
I feel like the yakuza series is fucking fantastic, but not that replayable. Usually it's because I seek out all the substories and stuff on my first run, so it takes fucking ages to finish, but I've never got the urge to play it again after I've completed the stories.
But I want to replay 0 so much... I've played through 4 but the story just doesn't hit as much.