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15 Video Games Everyone Calls Masterpieces but Never Finishes

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Ignacio Weil

Gaming - March 24th 2026, 19:00 GMT+1

1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015)

Nobody opens an enormous RPG expecting a side quest about a cursed village or a missing wife to derail the entire evening, yet that is exactly how this one traps people. What starts as a straightforward hunt for Ciri keeps expanding into political chaos, monster contracts, regional feuds, and detours that feel too good to skip. Somewhere in the middle of all that, *The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt* turns completion into a secondary goal, because simply existing in its world becomes the real habit. Players do not usually abandon it out of boredom; they abandon it because life eventually interrupts a game that keeps offering one more excellent reason to stay. Even years later, that backlog guilt still follows Geralt around. | © CD Projekt Red

2. Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)

*Red Dead Redemption 2* does not rush to entertain you in the usual blockbuster way, and that is both its greatest strength and the reason so many players never finish it. Rockstar built a world where travel matters, conversations breathe, and even small actions carry weight, which makes Arthur Morgan’s story feel richer than the average open-world campaign. The catch is that this level of detail demands patience, and not everyone wants to move at the game’s pace for dozens of hours. Plenty of people fall in love with the atmosphere, the performances, and the sheer craft of it all, then quietly stop somewhere in the middle without ever reaching the end. It remains admired, quoted, and recommended anyway. | © Rockstar Games

Baldurs Gate 3 — 3. Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023)

A lot of modern RPGs promise freedom, but *Baldur’s Gate 3* actually follows through on it in ways that can make finishing the thing feel almost secondary. One session becomes a rescue mission, the next becomes an accidental murder investigation, and the next turns into a disastrous romance decision that sends players back to character creation with a completely new plan. That is the magic and the curse of a game this reactive: every choice opens another possibility worth exploring. Instead of pushing straight toward the ending, people restart, reclass, reload, experiment, and build alternate runs that never make it to the credits. Few acclaimed games are better at replacing momentum with curiosity, and few benefit from that trade more. | © Larian Studios

4. Persona 5 Royal (2019)

Finishing a game gets complicated when the game in question also wants to be your school calendar, your social life, your dungeon crawler, your anime drama, and your style obsession all at once. The days in *Persona 5 Royal* disappear into palace infiltration, relationship building, menu planning, stat grinding, exams, and long story sequences that feel essential even when they slow everything down. That density is a huge part of why fans treasure it so much, because the world feels full rather than empty. At the same time, it asks for a level of commitment that can be hard to maintain once another release, another hobby, or plain exhaustion cuts in. Players swear they are coming back, then never quite do. | © ATLUS

ELDEN RING — 5. Elden Ring (2022)

People love pretending they are on a clean path toward the ending, right up until a glowing cave entrance or a suspicious ruin pulls them in the opposite direction. That is how so many runs unravel: not with frustration alone, but with distraction layered on top of difficulty, pride, and the constant temptation to see what sits over the next hill. The Lands Between are designed to reward wandering so thoroughly that the main objective can start to feel like just another optional thread in a much larger obsession. Boss walls absolutely stop some players, but just as many get lost in exploration, builds, and unfinished ambitions. That strange combination of freedom and punishment is a huge part of why so many people never quite close out *Elden Ring*. | © Bandai Namco

6. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)

No open-world game has spent more years living rent-free in people’s libraries than this one. Players install it, promise themselves they will finally finish the main quest, then immediately get swallowed by guild storylines, random caves, smithing loops, house-building, mods, and whatever chaos starts the moment a dragon shows up over the horizon. Somewhere along the way, *The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim* stopped functioning like a normal campaign and turned into a place people repeatedly visit without ever properly leaving. That is why so many fans have hundreds of hours and weirdly vague memories of the actual ending. It is one of the most beloved RPGs ever made, and also one of the easiest to live inside forever without reaching the credits. | © Bethesda

Cropped DEATH STRANDING — 7. Death Stranding Director’s Cut (2021)

Walking has never carried this much dramatic weight, which is exactly why some players think it is genius and others quietly tap out before the full journey is done. The strange brilliance of this game comes from how seriously it treats distance, isolation, and routine, turning simple deliveries into something meditative, tense, and occasionally bizarre. A lot of people admire the atmosphere, the performances, and the sheer confidence of *Death Stranding Director’s Cut*, but that does not automatically mean they stay locked in for the long haul. Its rhythms are deliberate in a way most blockbuster games avoid, and that patience test can be harder than any boss fight. Plenty of players end up respecting the vision more consistently than they complete the road. | © Kojima Productions

8. Disco Elysium (2019)

What sinks a lot of runs here is not difficulty in the usual sense, but energy. This is the kind of RPG that asks players to read closely, think constantly, pay attention to every small shift in tone, and stay tuned in to a protagonist whose mind is barely holding itself together. That is a huge part of what makes *Disco Elysium* so special, because few games trust writing, voice, and roleplaying choices this much. It can also make the experience feel less like background entertainment and more like a full commitment, the kind people deeply admire but do not always have the bandwidth to finish. When a game demands attention this intensely, even masterpiece status does not guarantee momentum. | © ZA/UM

9. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (2019)

Not every unfinished masterpiece gets abandoned because it is too long; sometimes the problem is one enemy with a sword who refuses to let you progress. The brilliance of this combat system comes from how exact it is, forcing players to learn rhythm, posture, timing, and aggression instead of relying on stat grinding or cautious turtling. That design made the victories in this game feel incredible, but it also created a wall a lot of people never fully climbed. Players would hit a brutal boss, step away for a few days, then realize they had no desire to re-enter that stress spiral. Admiration for the combat never disappears, even when the ending of *Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice* does. | © FromSoftware

10. Hollow Knight (2017)

*Hollow Knight* looks manageable at first, almost modest, until the world opens up and starts swallowing entire weekends. The map keeps expanding, the tone gets heavier, the bosses get nastier, and the clean little metroidvania people thought they were starting turns into something far more demanding and mysterious. That escalation is a huge reason the game is held up as one of the best in its genre, because every descent into Hallownest feels handcrafted and strangely beautiful. It is also why so many players stall out somewhere between exploration, backtracking, difficult fights, and the slow realization that this adventure is much larger than expected. Plenty of people adore it, recommend it, and never actually see the true end. | © Team Cherry

Nier Automata — 11. NieR: Automata (2017)

A lot of games say the real story starts later, but this one means it in a way that can either fascinate players or completely lose them. The first run already feels strange, stylish, and emotionally off-balance in the best way, then *NieR: Automata* keeps asking for more time, more trust, and more willingness to follow it into increasingly weirder territory. That structure is a huge part of why people call it brilliant, because the full experience refuses to behave like a standard action RPG. It is also why plenty of players stop after one ending, assume they have seen enough, and walk away before the game reveals what made it special in the first place. | © Square Enix

FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH — 12. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024)

Scale can be a dangerous thing when a game is already arriving with impossible expectations attached to it. What begins as a beloved story remake quickly turns into a massive RPG full of minigames, side content, open zones, detours, combat systems, party management, and enough distractions to make the critical path feel oddly optional. Players usually love huge parts of the journey, but maintaining that momentum across the entire experience is another matter. There is so much to do, so much to see, and so much nostalgia pulling attention in every direction that finishing becomes less automatic than it sounds. That is the weirdly perfect trap built into *Final Fantasy VII Rebirth*. | © Square Enix

Dragon Age Inquisition — 13. Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014)

*Dragon Age: Inquisition* has been living in that strange category for years: the RPG people remember fondly, praise loudly, and still admit they never actually finished. Part of that comes from how much of the game is spent gathering power, closing rifts, clearing zones, and dealing with side tasks that can make progress feel slower than it should. The world is rich, the companions are memorable, and the political fantasy has real weight, so the appeal is easy to understand. The problem is that not every player wants to keep pushing through the long stretches between the best story beats. A masterpiece reputation can survive that kind of fatigue, even when completion does not. | © EA

Cropped tears of the kingdom — 14. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023)

Nobody really sits down with this game and says, today I am going to focus only on the ending. Ten minutes later, they are building a flying machine, falling into the Depths, chasing shrine puzzles, experimenting with Fuse combinations, or wandering off toward something interesting on the horizon that was definitely not part of the original plan. That constant drift is part of what makes the whole thing feel so alive, because *The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom* turns curiosity into the main engine of play. It also makes closure surprisingly easy to postpone. A lot of players have spent dozens of happy hours in Hyrule without ever getting around to the final confrontation. | © Nintendo

Final Fantasy XVI 2023 cropped processed by imagy — 15. Final Fantasy XVI (2023)

The biggest surprise here is not that people love it, but how often they seem to fall away somewhere in the middle despite all the spectacle. The combat hits hard, the Eikon battles are enormous, and the darker tone gives the story a heavier edge than many players expected, yet that intensity does not always translate into clean forward momentum. Long stretches of side quests, uneven pacing, and the sheer weight of the campaign can make the finish line feel farther away than it should. Even so, the highs are strong enough that the game keeps its prestige intact in conversation. Plenty of players still talk about *Final Fantasy XVI* like an essential experience, just not always a completed one. | © Square Enix

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Every gaming generation creates a few untouchable titles, the ones people bring up with near-religious certainty whenever “greatest of all time” arguments start flying. The funny part is how many of those same masterpieces are still sitting half-finished on hard drives, save files, and mental to-do lists.

Sometimes it is the hundred-hour runtime, sometimes it is the difficulty spike, and sometimes the game simply asks for more emotional energy than players expected when they hit New Game. These are the video games almost everyone respects, recommends, and swears they will finish eventually, even if “eventually” never comes.

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Every gaming generation creates a few untouchable titles, the ones people bring up with near-religious certainty whenever “greatest of all time” arguments start flying. The funny part is how many of those same masterpieces are still sitting half-finished on hard drives, save files, and mental to-do lists.

Sometimes it is the hundred-hour runtime, sometimes it is the difficulty spike, and sometimes the game simply asks for more emotional energy than players expected when they hit New Game. These are the video games almost everyone respects, recommends, and swears they will finish eventually, even if “eventually” never comes.