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15 Video Games Everyone Calls Masterpieces but Never Finishes

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Ignacio Weil

Gaming - September 26th 2026, 17:00 GMT+2

Cropped The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt — 1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015)

Geralt is supposedly looking for Ciri, but *The Witcher 3* has spent years proving how easy it is to forget that minor detail. A monster contract becomes a side quest, the side quest becomes a three-hour tragedy, and suddenly you are playing Gwent in a village you never intended to visit. Its enormous world is one of the reasons the game remains so beloved, but it also makes reaching the credits feel suspiciously optional. | © CD Projekt Red

2. Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)

Rockstar made an astonishingly detailed Western and then stubbornly refused to hurry anyone through it. *Red Dead Redemption 2* encourages players to hunt, fish, gamble, explore cabins, chat around camp, track strangers, and occasionally remember that Dutch has another plan waiting. That deliberate pace is exactly what gives Arthur Morgan’s journey its weight, but it demands patience from anyone accustomed to faster open worlds. It is remarkably easy to spend dozens of hours here without getting particularly close to the end. | © Rockstar Games

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

The greatest enemy in *Baldur’s Gate 3* is not the Absolute; it is the character creation screen on your second playthrough attempt. Larian built an RPG so reactive that restarting as another class, pursuing a different romance, or making one catastrophically different decision can feel more tempting than finishing the campaign already in progress. Then Act 3 opens up and adds another mountain of quests. Plenty of adventurers save Faerûn eventually; others are permanently creating new Tavs. | © Larian Studios

4. Persona 5 Royal (2019)

*Persona 5 Royal* does not ask for a weekend; it practically asks you to enroll at Shujin Academy. Palace crawling is only half the schedule, squeezed between confidants, exams, part-time jobs, romances, Mementos trips and the constant anxiety that you are somehow spending every calendar day incorrectly. The payoff is a fantastic cast and one of Atlus’ richest RPGs, but this is a relationship measured in months rather than evenings. Taking a short break can very easily become never returning. | © Atlus

ELDEN RING — 5. Elden Ring (2022)

You can leave the tutorial of *Elden Ring* with every intention of following the main path and somehow end the evening fighting something unspeakable at the bottom of a mine. The Lands Between reward curiosity almost too effectively, with enormous optional areas, hidden bosses, underground regions, side quests and builds begging to be tested. Add FromSoftware’s usual difficulty spikes, and finishing becomes a battle against both the game and your own curiosity. Limgrave alone has probably claimed several unfinished playthroughs. | © FromSoftware

6. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)

A lot of people have played *Skyrim* for hundreds of hours while treating its main quest like mail they will definitely answer tomorrow. Bethesda’s frozen sandbox constantly offers better distractions: guild storylines, Daedric quests, dungeon entrances, houses, crafting, unexplored mountains and, eventually, the irresistible temptation to start over with another character. Saving Tamriel from Alduin sounds important until somebody mentions a suspicious cave nearby. In perhaps the greatest compliment possible, *Skyrim* is so good at letting players wander that finishing it almost feels beside the point. | © Bethesda Game Studios

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

Only Hideo Kojima could make delivering packages across miserable terrain feel meditative, stressful and weirdly heroic at the same time. Once *Death Stranding* establishes its rhythm, planning routes and rebuilding infrastructure can become hypnotic, but reaching that point asks players to embrace a deliberately unconventional kind of action game. Long journeys, inventory management and an initially slow narrative have scared off plenty of curious newcomers. Those expecting constant combat may discover that Sam’s longest delivery is simply carrying them past the opening hours. | © Kojima Productions

8. Disco Elysium (2019)

No enormous map or hundred-hour campaign is required to leave *Disco Elysium* unfinished. ZA/UM’s detective RPG can be exhausting for the opposite reason: nearly every conversation matters, your own skills interrupt you with arguments, and even a mundane investigation can spiral into politics, philosophy or an existential crisis about a necktie. It rewards concentration rather than reflexes, which makes playing while tired a terrible idea. People praise its writing for good reason, but this is not exactly a game designed for scrolling your phone between dialogue boxes. | © ZA/UM

9. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (2019)

Other FromSoftware games often let a struggling player change builds, grind levels or summon help; *Sekiro* is much less interested in negotiation. Its biggest encounters demand that you understand deflections, posture and timing, and certain bosses essentially become final exams for mechanics you may have been bluffing your way through. When the combat finally clicks, it is spectacular. Until then, one swordsman can occupy your evening, your weekend and eventually the abandoned save file you promise yourself you will return to someday. | © FromSoftware

10. Hollow Knight (2017)

Those cute little bugs are committing fraud. *Hollow Knight* initially presents Hallownest as a modest underground kingdom, then keeps unfolding until the map resembles an archaeological project that has escaped supervision. Team Cherry fills it with optional routes, hidden abilities, difficult bosses and areas that can remain undiscovered for hours, all while offering relatively little hand-holding. Getting lost is part of the magic right up until you cannot remember why you entered a particular tunnel three play sessions ago. Beautiful? Absolutely. Easy to casually finish? Not remotely. | © Team Cherry

Nier Automata — 11. NieR: Automata (2017)

The first time *NieR: Automata* rolls its credits, the game has pulled a very effective prank on anyone who assumes they are done. Ending A is only the beginning of a larger structure involving different perspectives, new story material and routes that eventually push the narrative far beyond what initially looked like the finale. PlatinumGames keeps the action sharp enough to carry the experiment, but replaying familiar events can still test impatient players. Quitting after 2B’s first campaign means missing much of what made the game famous. | © Square Enix / PlatinumGames

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

Cloud’s mission should feel urgent, yet *Final Fantasy VII Rebirth* keeps placing another beautifully produced distraction beside the highway. Queen’s Blood, protorelics, combat challenges, regional objectives, chocobos and a frankly unreasonable number of minigames can double the feeling of an already substantial adventure. Square Enix turned the middle portion of the original *Final Fantasy VII* into an enormous road trip, and its excess is frequently part of the charm. The danger is spending so long clearing maps that the actual journey starts feeling like the side activity. | © Square Enix

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

The infamous advice to “leave the Hinterlands” exists for a reason. *Dragon Age: Inquisition* opens its doors so widely that players can spend absurd amounts of time closing rifts, collecting materials and completing regional errands before realizing the strongest material is often waiting in the main story and companion quests. BioWare’s characters, political conflicts and major set pieces can be excellent, but the game arrived during an era when bigger maps apparently required more icons. Completion sometimes depends on learning that the Inquisitor does not personally need to pick every herb in Thedas. | © BioWare

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

Princess Zelda can wait; Link has just discovered that eighteen wooden planks and several fans might technically qualify as an aircraft. *Tears of the Kingdom* gives players an enormous Hyrule, then stacks sky islands and the Depths on top of it before handing over tools specifically designed to encourage nonsense. Shrines, caves, armor hunts and Zonai experiments make ignoring the main quest almost effortless. Nintendo created a game where distraction is arguably the main attraction, which is wonderful until you realize Ganondorf has been patiently waiting for the last hundred hours. | © Nintendo

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

When *Final Fantasy XVI* goes big, it behaves as though destroying one spectacular landmark simply is not enough. Its Eikon battles provide some of the wildest set pieces Square Enix has produced, while Clive’s story leans heavily into war, revenge and political tragedy. The quieter stretches are a different proposition: long conversations and batches of side quests can dramatically cool the momentum between major confrontations. Players who adore the peaks may still stall during the valleys, especially once another cluster of quest markers appears before the next catastrophe. | © Square Enix

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Calling a game a masterpiece is easy; reaching the credits is another story entirely. Some of gaming’s most celebrated titles are enormous, brutally difficult, deliberately slow, or simply demanding enough to make even devoted players quietly move on halfway through. That doesn’t make the praise undeserved, but it does create a funny gap between the games everyone recommends and the ones people actually complete. These 15 video game masterpieces have earned legendary reputations, even if finishing them is a considerably rarer achievement.

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Calling a game a masterpiece is easy; reaching the credits is another story entirely. Some of gaming’s most celebrated titles are enormous, brutally difficult, deliberately slow, or simply demanding enough to make even devoted players quietly move on halfway through. That doesn’t make the praise undeserved, but it does create a funny gap between the games everyone recommends and the ones people actually complete. These 15 video game masterpieces have earned legendary reputations, even if finishing them is a considerably rarer achievement.