r/Steam 4h ago

Fluff What game surprised you how long it was?

12.2k Upvotes

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1.7k

u/nolancheck11 4h ago

Elden ring..when you are 40 hours into the game and the map just opens up to show you aren’t even halfway there

490

u/Certain-Pack8466 4h ago

And then you enter the underground.

216

u/ScarletSilver 4h ago

Ah, Blackreach... not again!

99

u/TheDudeDunk 4h ago

No matter what game you play, every underground elevator eventually leads to Blackreach.

21

u/Violexsound 3h ago

All caves go to Blackheath.

22

u/fuzzyperson98 3h ago

Except in Blackreach there's not actually much to do.

40

u/RealMuffinsTheCat 3h ago

What do you mean nothing to do??? There’s the crimson nirnroots, the secret dragon fight, the elder scroll itself, and… checks notes…

Wait, that’s it?

16

u/shmailss 3h ago

And more crimson nirnroots! Don’t forget!

13

u/2ndRook 3h ago

*aggressive nirnroot noises*

1

u/xSTSxZerglingOne 1h ago

Skyrim has one of the most disappointingly short main quest lines of any modern game I've played.

10

u/Antarioo 2h ago

getting on that elevator for the first time was a trip.

damn....this elevator is taking a while.
are we there yet?
oh...OH...there's a whole other world down here!.

6

u/Titanhunter84 4h ago

And do that 3 times more!

2

u/crazyKB88 2h ago

I still remember the first time I went underground and was like "Holy shit! There's more!?"

2

u/Zenku390 1h ago

I honestly thought the underground was going to be like Tears of the Kingdom where it would encompass nearly all of the overworld. I'm glad it didn't, felt like they picked a good size for the underground, but I was definitely in shock.

1

u/Ote-Kringralnick 3h ago

Baldur's Gate 3

1

u/Purplesilk911 3h ago

Oh you thought you caught the game lacking like the developers didn't put a floating sky city?

How foolish of you

1

u/Temporary_Event8451 41m ago

I followed the YouTuber who shows how to 100% and pretty sure even with that it was well over 80 hours.

I still have technically four endings left to finish, but the hardest part of starting a new elden ring playthrough is finding the time and motivation.

When you do find it there goes a few weeks of your life.

Games way too good.

u/iconofsin_ 14m ago

I was using a guide in an effort to not miss things, but I was using it in a way to avoid spoilers and was able to not know ahead of time about just how much more game there was. The meteor surprised be and I was even shocked to figure out I had to go underground and see so much more game.

165

u/EviTaTiv3 4h ago

And then that happens again at least 3 more times.

28

u/eapirinite 3h ago

Finding the underground map for the first time broke my brain.

1

u/YadaYadaYeahMan 2h ago

because of the way my exploration went I ended up skipping that first boss on accident and down that underground elevator. going down that elevator blew my mind and it was so hard down there lmao

found the castle with the dude in it from the other way and couldn't beat him so I moved on thinking that would be progress.. didn't get much farther

21

u/Mind-The-Mines 3h ago

Elden Ring is one of the few games that compounded awe on top of wonder time and time again. The scope and scale with such intricate details are basically unrivaled.

6

u/AFlyingNun 1h ago

Volcano manor dungeon also deserves a shoutout since you can legitimately miss it in it's entirety on a playthrough.

1

u/xSTSxZerglingOne 1h ago

I never once set foot in Volcano Manor on my first playthrough, and what's crazy is I didn't feel like I missed out, even after I went there. It's not even because I don't like Volcano Manor, the game is just so complete, even without it. It felt like its own little Dark Souls inside of Elden Ring on my second playthrough.

It's such a true masterpiece of a game.

1

u/East-Ice-3199 53m ago

Yeah I straight up never knew it existed until I was like 90% of the way to platinum it lol

0

u/Lightning52 1h ago

It technically does from the Raya Lucaria

2

u/fragtore 2h ago

Combined with exquisite quality. The only open worlder I had the lust to play all the way through in like 10 years!

1

u/ricked_ways 1h ago

Its an all timer

13

u/Unusual-Print2016 4h ago

the scale of that game is kind of absurd tbh

66

u/JS_Originals 4h ago

Greatest game of all time, to me. The sense of wonder exploring the world is unmatched

-5

u/Amirax 3h ago

I'd love it... if it wasn't a Soulslike. I loathe the death penalties, so I modded out the rune-loss and put respawn points outside all the boss rooms... Then I died a bunch of times to random ass enemies out in the world and just said fuck it and uninstalled.

It's gorgeous, and wonderous, but holy fuck do I suck at it.

9

u/Sagemel 1h ago

Every boss already has a respawn point right before it though?

6

u/karatebullfighter 3h ago

Yeah, then you get to the entrance to the erdtree and it says "lol nope"

7

u/sadkinz 2h ago

Shadow of the Erdtree did this too. You touch the egg and enter the Gravesite Plain and think “oh neat that’s pretty big for a dlc” and that you can see the whole map since the Scadurtree is visible and that’s as far as the map goes. No. Turns out there’s two sub areas each a little larger than Siofra River and the Jagged Peak and Abyssal Woods. Felt like a Russian Nesting Doll

1

u/that_is_so_Raven 1h ago

SotE was like a ten floor skyscraper. 90% of the game was "how the hell do I get down there"

1

u/Bulky-Bad-9153 1h ago

"It's a bit smaller than Limgrave" Miyazaki you've done it again

1

u/Wendigo120 37m ago

Definitely my favorite open world layout of all time. No other game comes even the tiniest bit close. There's things I don't 100% love about the dlc, but the world itself is just unmatched.

21

u/MyCabbagesOhNo 4h ago

Man part of me thinks i need to replay elden ring, because i beat it for the first time in a little under 40 hours. I probably missed so many side objectives.

25

u/Bitter-Worldliness41 4h ago

There are also multiple endings which require a bunch of side stuff to be done a specific way.

15

u/Toughsums 3h ago edited 3h ago

You probably missed a vast majority of the bosses in the game. Technically you only need to beat less than 10 bosses to finish the game, but the game has like 160 bosses with like 40 more in the dlc.

Although a large chunk of them are repeats with a few different moves/elements etc, they still have their own unique caves/dungeons and enemies, new weapons and so on.

3

u/pikkuhillo 2h ago

165 + 42 bosses. Fuck tons of secret areas, caves and dungeons. Some bosses you access from questlines. My first run took 130 hours so that guy and his speedrun must have missed a lot :D

1

u/xSTSxZerglingOne 1h ago

It's 207. But most of them are repurposed normal enemies. I know it's 207 because Summer Games Done Quick just did a 4 man every boss run where they each took a portion of the bosses. It was a cool format.

u/Clipsus 7m ago

I think the absolute bare minimum is 12, right? Radahn is not gated if you go to Altus before fighting him, so that's one. Either Margit and Godrick or Red Wolf and Rennala, then DTS, Goldfrey, Morgott, Fire Giant, Godskin Duo, Maliketh, Gideon, Godfrey, and Radagon and Elden Beast (we count this as a single boss I assume since no rest between). Actually, Mohg is also not gated by any other boss, you can just die in invasions to unlock him, so 11 is the magic number if you're really into CBT.

2

u/General_Problem5199 3h ago

Part of me thinks I need to go back and finish playing it. That game gave me anxiety lol.

1

u/bigeasy420blazeit 3h ago

I literally couldn't finish it it got so overwhelming. I stopped halfway through.

1

u/General_Problem5199 2h ago

I got past the second boss fight, breathed a sigh of relief, and decided to take a break. That was like 2 years ago.

2

u/LatkeShark 2h ago

What would you consider the second boss fight?

2

u/Membership_Downtown 3h ago

Yeah, first playthrough took me like 120 hours because I was exploring every inch and I still missed stuff.

1

u/andrbrks 4h ago

Did you watch tutorials or something? How did you even know where to go?

5

u/DieDieDieD 3h ago

Don’t the bonfires point you to your next objective in most of the cases?

5

u/Membership_Downtown 3h ago

Yeah, the grace draws a line directly where you need to go.

4

u/FrostyD7 3h ago

Elden Ring is Fromsoft's most approachable and mainstream offering. It's still quite difficult and tons of optional content is difficult to find. But just beating the game? There might be a handful of tricky parts but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

1

u/MoistStub 1h ago

I think they were probably talking about how they managed to beat it in 40 hours considering the scale of the game. I think I sunk around 250 into my first play through, but I explored areas exhaustively.

2

u/Sagemel 1h ago

Then there’s players like me that Platinum’d it in ~160 hours. Doing the DLC on NG+4 wasn’t a great idea in hindsight but we got it done

u/dunnowattt 8m ago

Too many parameters tbh.

For example, 250 hours for 1 playthrough....is too much.

Then there is the "skill" of each person. Everyone will get stuck on some bosses, but not every boss, or not too many tries.

My first playthrough, with going literally everywhere was around 90. But i also pretty much only play soulslikes and i didn't get "stuck" in anything for more than a dozen tries. Maybe Malenia took close to 20.

Looking at howlongtobeat, a good average, for doing everything is around 130h. But based on my personal experience, anything that howlongtobeat says, i usually do it like much faster. My friend who is new to games, and his only experience was Sekiro and Dark Souls 3, it took him 120h.

Then there are the people who for some reason only went in a straight line, following the golden line. 40 hour is more than enough to finish the game like that. Minimal exploring, only to find out how to go to the next part.

If you start the game right now, and since you know how to go to the next area, if you just kill the main bosses in a straight line, you will be done with the game in like.....10 hours max.

2

u/Fine-Amphibian4326 3h ago

What part of the main progression stumped you?

Step 1, big ass castle right in front of you. Step 2, explore everything south and east of that. Step 3, explore north of that. Step 4, go up in one of at least two obvious ways, and explore that area. Step 5, go through the massive gates and explore that area. Step 6, walk to the enormous cauldron. Step 7, go back to 4, which is pretty obvious. Game over.

1

u/QuidProQuo_Clarice 3h ago

There's a popular mod called Convergence that just released 3.0 and has an astonishing number of new bosses, weapons, spells, and areas, plus some reimagined old areas and QOL improvements. I'd still recommend vanilla first for people who have never played the game, but for people who have already played through once, it adds a lot of depth in a way that blends seamlessly with the original. Very impressive mod, do recommend.

Of course, if you just skipped a bunch of stuff the first time, then just exploring the nooks and crannies of the vanilla game might provide some equally novel experiences

1

u/Gre3nN3xus 2h ago

Why?!?! Why did you have to make me aware of this!? Now I want to lose another 100s of hours of my life to that masterpiece!!!

1

u/Tequila_Sunset7 38m ago

I wish I could just play Shadow of the Erdtree. give me a menu option that gives me a choice between 8 level-appropriate pre-made builds and put me directly in the Land of Shadow please. I miss it so much but going through all of Elden Ring a fourth time is just slightly too much commitment.

1

u/cjthomp https://s.team/p/ncnm-pc 37m ago

It might be my favorite game. I have about 500 hours, NG+8, every ending, multiple builds. And that's just single-player.

The graphics, the lore, the gameplay, it's pretty close to my perfect game.

-10

u/ang3lofsnow 4h ago

I got the plat in around 70. First playthrough and just kept going. Ill be real, i like DS3 way more. ER and NR suffer from huge empty spaces. That doesnt happen in their other games.

7

u/RedShift_308 4h ago

It's impossible to get platinum in ER with just one playthrough. You have to get multiple different endings, some of which require lengthy side quests to unlock. Also, the map is only empty to people who rush through without exploring, and platinum is only possible with heavy exploration.

I'm doubting this claim pretty hard

-1

u/ang3lofsnow 4h ago

Back up saves my guy. Back up saves. I have the plat in all their games all under 500 total hours

EDIT: Plat Chasers on youtube can teach you how depending on your console. Its essential. I cannot fathom you didnt know about cloud saves lmao.

3

u/RedShift_308 3h ago

While that makes sense, you still can't get it in that few hours unless you're heavily researching what to do and where to go in the shortest amount of time possible. Doing that and then complaining about the world being empty is bold

0

u/ang3lofsnow 2h ago

Don't die. Or load a save. It climates run backs and mistakes. You all act like I set some sort of record. Not even close.

1

u/Silverhand_777 4h ago

Yeah I wasn’t gonna play cyberpunk 6 times for each ending. Just reload an old save is the way to go

3

u/BlueDwaggin 4h ago

I got all achievements in Sekiro in less time it took me to do my first playthrough of Elden Ring

1

u/that_is_so_Raven 1h ago

To be fair, on your third Sekiro run, you're looking at maybe 3 hours tops.

3

u/MeanShibu 3h ago

Alexander the Great wept for there were no more lands to conquer. I wept because holy shit this game is 10x bigger and longer than I thought.

2

u/Fun_Bottle_5308 4h ago

This, but underground map

2

u/Confident-Action-213 4h ago

Yup, and I loved every second of it too.

2

u/ThiefOfJoy- 4h ago

and then you see the dlc map

2

u/bbbttthhh 3h ago

Me entering liurnia for the first time thinking “wow they weren’t kidding this game is big!” Hadn’t even been underground yet

1

u/JustHereForURCookies 4h ago

I pretty much did a 100% playthrough of cyberpunk first time around because I thought the 3 % meters on the pause screen were completion rates, so i went around doing every side mission thinking one of those were 1 of the 3 main storylines. 

Turns out they're not completion rates. 

1

u/UnfailingBeef 3h ago

Wait so what’s the 3% meters then?

3

u/ChibiPurple 3h ago

One is your legend status. One is your friendship with johnny and one is how close the relic is to killing you.

1

u/LakeEarth 3h ago

"Wow I've seen so much already, let me check the completion percentage!"

32%

1

u/ZappVanagon 3h ago

It was my first souls game, I thought it would be over after reaching and beating that first castle.

1

u/Azarros 3h ago

Yeah... My first playthrough was 200 hours because I looked around a lot and tried to find everything I could, some of that was also spent farming cool weapons. Game felt like it would never end.

1

u/ChuzCuenca 3h ago

I drop it at 60 hours I think. I looked for how much game left and at my pace it was barely half of the game.

Love the souls games but I was tired of the game loop at that point.

1

u/Wolfhart_Kaine 3h ago

I came here to say this. You also get the same similar experience when you reach the DLC area.

You look around and think "oh cool, it's about the size of Limgrave!"

Then it slowly dawns on you that it's much bigger than Limgrave.

1

u/eshian 3h ago

The game just kept getting bigger

1

u/Satrynx 2h ago

Definitely Elden ring for me too. As soon as you get out of Limgrave, you're like..."oh....oh no..."

1

u/Will_ennium 2h ago

This is my answer too. I played through on release, so the general knowledge of everything in the game was still low. I was blown away be how the map just kept expanding and expanding to show new regions... Then there's an entire underground , and more! And initially, I thought the map showing the first zone was huge... But it just keep growing and growing

1

u/SpoogyPickles 2h ago

Yes, on PS5, so much of the progress doesn't change before Fire Giant. For so much of the game it just said I was about 35% done. Thought at first it must be a bug, but nope.🙃

1

u/MalcolmMcMuscles 2h ago

Spent 200 hours tryna get to that damn tree

1

u/Flat-Run-7572 2h ago

That moment when you warp to Leyndell from the Weeping Peninsula and check the map

1

u/Arria_Galtheos 2h ago

God, yes. This was what I came here to mention. The map just keeps getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

1

u/Archi_balding 2h ago

And when it feels like you've reached the midway point and the other half of the map unlocks... there's about a fifth of the game left.

1

u/Lower_Pension_2469 2h ago

Tbh in hindsight it's hard for me to get back into elden ring vs the other games. Open world was awesome but then becomes a slog on repeat playthroughs if you're one of those people that has to clear most of the map to proceed.

1

u/Bhuvan2002 1h ago

Man reading all these comments is making me want to replay the game. As my first souls like, it was definitely a once in a lifetime moment for me.

1

u/Numerous-Turnover518 1h ago

How about 20%

1

u/Meluvius 1h ago

And then you beat the game and buy the DLC and realize that at 140 hours in, you're only hafway done

1

u/CaptainFeather 1h ago

I knew it was gonna be big but my first playthrough was a solid 160 hours lol

1

u/Acemont 1h ago

And WHEN you do the DLC...

1

u/Obvious_Orchid9234 1h ago

Definitely Elden Ring. Also WDYM half way at 40 hours? I think mine was at 80, I kept exploring and exploring. I beat the game and then discovered Consecrated Snowfield, I was just flabbergasted.

1

u/JackPoe 1h ago

And then your second play through is like two hours long cause at least now you know where to go

1

u/MrBootylove 43m ago

Idk I was never really "surprised" with how long the game was. It was certainly surprising to see the map get expanded, but I felt like it was pretty clear right from the get go that it was going to be a chunky game.

0

u/SeroWriter 4h ago

First 30% of the game but it's where 80% of the development time went.

0

u/LitsMahony 2h ago

So 40 hours in and you feel your in the endgame?

0

u/Dick-Fu 2h ago

Yeah not quite as extreme as OP is saying, but Elden Ring was indeed way too long

-8

u/Visible-Reality2492 4h ago

And then you keep playing and realize 95% of the map unplayable space.