When it comes to video games, they can average about eight hours in length, with some open-world RPGs even being tens or hundreds of hours long. Some games can even be infinite with no real ending, meaning they easily eat up a lot of your time. Not everybody has that kind of time on their hands, though.
Some people are really busy, yet they still might need time to unwind, and may wish to play a video game in that time. Fortunately, lots of games have come out that can be knocked back in one sitting. Short games like this can be found in a multitude of genres, too, from horror to adventure.
If you're the kind of person who is running around a lot but still wants to find the time to actually finish a video game one of these days, fear not, because these games can all be finished in three hours or less. The Exit 8 is a Japanese horror game set in a nondescript Tokyo metro tunnel. Your goal is simple: get out.
This is no easy feat, though, because the tunnel is an infinite loop that keeps sending you to the exact same stretch of ground, passing by the exact same businessman. Your task is to meticulously check your surroundings and locate anomalies; things that are different than they usually are. Sometimes, this can be subtle, like a door being in the wrong spot; other times, it can be much more violent and in your face.
Should you spot an anomaly, you must turn around and walk back the way you came. If at any point you misjudge something, it's back to the beginning. To win, you must get a consecutive chain of eight correct guesses.
The catch is that encounters are completely randomized, and there are a lot of them, so no two playthroughs are exactly the same. This game can be beaten in just under an hour, yet it somehow managed to receive a feature-length film adaptation. Despite its simplistic approach, the liminal design is deeply unnerving, and the game bears an atmosphere like no other.
Superhot is a first-person shooter with a really interesting catch: time only moves when you do. What this effectively means is that it's a puzzle game as well as a shooter. Not only do you have to worry about taking down enemies, but you also have to worry about yourself, since you can die in one hit.
This means taking a second to evaluate your environment, plan your approach, and execute it in short bursts of motion. If you're not moving, bullets hover in the air, enemies are frozen, and you have a moment to calculate. The game's minimalistic design might leave a lot to be desired, but the gameplay is much more fun than it has any right to be.
It's also a game that is absolutely unmatched—there's just no other game like this out there. Whoever conceived of this game was an absolute genius. Aside from its challenging gameplay and varied level design, the game can also be completed in about two hours, although it could easily go for much longer if the developers wanted it to.
Most of the Metal Gear games are reasonably long, but not Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. This game felt like a cash grab since it's only one level, and it came as sort of a paid demo for the"Actual"Game, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the following year. This made a lot of players very furious, especially those who had to pay full price for it.
Today, though, the game is pretty... Well, solid. It's easier to appreciate if you get it for a lower price.
The main mission only takes about 30 minutes to beat, and that's if you're taking things slow. There are some side missions, but even including those, the game is only about 90 minutes long. Truth be told, this stealth action game is pretty fun and presents a fresh take on the franchise.
It's set at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, in the year 1975, where Major Boss has landed to rescue his old friend Chico and his old adversary, Paz. This was the first game in the series to feature none other than Kiefer Sutherland in the main role, which some fans hated, even though he does do a good job. The stealth and the combat are tight and rewarding, with some impeccable sound design.
It serves as the perfect introduction to the series if you don't want to commit to any of the longer entries just yet. Iron Lung is a horror game made by David Szymanski, which is set on a distant planet. The story is set in the distant future, following an event in which all the known stars and habitable planets in the universe mysteriously disappear, and humans are forced to search for potential homes on previously uninhabitable planets.
The player is a convict who is told they will earn their freedom if they embark on a recon mission to a distant planet covered with an ocean of blood. They do this using the rickety submersible known as Iron Lung. The goal is simple: navigate the map to various points of interest and take pictures of these strange sunken artifacts.
It should be noted, though, that you can't navigate by sight, as the sub's window is closed off due to the immense pressure of the blood ocean. As such, you must travel blind, using coordinates and a compass to roughly estimate your position. The game is incredibly atmospheric, which is what eventually led to a movie adaptation released earlier this year.
It's unnerving, deeply immersive, and remarkably short, able to be completed in as little as 40 minutes. Minit is a top-down adventure game with a pixelated, monochrome aesthetic reminiscent of the early days of gaming. The game starts out pretty unremarkable until you find a sword washed up on a beach.
This sword is cursed, dooming you to die and come back to life every 60 seconds. You keep all your items and such when you die, but your position resets back to your house. The plot is simple: you must destroy the factory that is producing these cursed swords.
Due to the fact that you only have one minute to live, you'd better make every action count. Minit is an interesting and challenging game that forces players to think on their feet and remember alternate routes and potential ways forward, so that they can access them on their next life. Minit sounds like an incredibly annoying game to play, but actually, it's really fun and has just the right amount of difficulty.
The level design is really cleverly done so that everything feels nice and close to home. You're never far from where you last died. The best part is that this game can be completed in only two hours.
Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for. You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you.
You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things. The wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That's you.
You'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely. Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards. The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way.
What Remains of Edith Finch places players into the shows of the eponymous Edith Finch, a 17-year-old girl who is the sole surviving member of her family. Returning to her ancestral home for the first time since age 10, Edith is forced to explore the secret of her family's past and uncover the truth about their untimely deaths. Mysteries are unraveled, conspiracies are unearthed, and Edith is forced to come to terms with her family's dark history.
This is another of those "Walking simulator" Games, meaning it's basically a first-person adventure where the player can examine certain objects, walk around, and not much else. Despite its simplistic gameplay, the game received tons of award nominations and clinches, on top of critical acclaim. This is definitely a story-driven game, one which can be safely finished in only two hours or so.
The Stanley Parable is a first-person walking simulator with some brilliant humor attached. You play as Stanley, an office worker whose computer mysteriously shuts down while on the job. Exploring the office, Stanley discovers the entire building is completely abandoned.
He is accompanied by an unseen narrator, who instructs Stanley what to do, as if he is literally telling a story. However, you are not required to listen to instructions—you can actually perform the opposite action, and the narrator will react accordingly. The game received a remake in 2022, which added a lot to the game in regards to endings and extra content, so this version is generally longer.
The original, however, is easy to finish in about 90 minutes. Experiencing the numerous endings will take a while, but it only takes about an hour and a half to get through the game once. Still, it's a hilarious game with some surprisingly deep moments that became an instant classic.
Inside is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer set in a strange and unexplained world. The protagonist is an unnamed child who randomly finds himself in this mysterious place due to unknown circumstances. The game really doesn't give you much to go on, admittedly, but that's part of the fun of it.
You kind of have to discover things as you go, with the world gradually getting darker and darker. There isn't even any dialogue, so it's really up to the player to piece things together. Inside received critical acclaim not only for its atmosphere, ambiguous storytelling, and its visual and sound design.
It received so many award nominations and wins that it's kind of impossible to count them all. The best part about the game is that it's only about two hours long, yet it's highly replayable. Each time you play, you'll notice something that you hadn't before, which only adds to the story.
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a game that is, believe it or not, about two brothers. Their names are Naia and Naie. That's what players assume their names to be anyway.
It's kind of hard to figure out what their actual names are since everyone in the game speaks a made-up language. The story follows the brothers as they travel to recover sap from the Tree of Life to heal their sick father. The game is sort of a single-player coop experience, with each thumbstick controlling a different brother.
Each brother has their own unique abilities, making this gorgeous adventure a bit of a puzzle game, too. This game also boasts one of the most tragic endings in any video game ever made, one which will have you sobbing for days. It starts out whimsical and delighted, but gets dark very quickly, and by the end, hits players with a swift gut punch that's impossible to see coming.
The game was actually directed by Swedish filmmaker Josef Fares, and is fittingly the length of a feature film, somewhere between two and three hours long. Journey is a game that will completely change you. The story is about a cloaked figure who travels across the remnants of a broken world to reach a mountain.
The game does a superb job of making you feel completely and utterly alone in this paradise lost, as the only other beings you will encounter are hostile machines. There's no combat or anything in the game--it's just about getting from Point A to Point B. If you're playing online, however, the game has a little surprise for you at the end.
Upon completion, a list will be presented featuring the gamertags of everyone else who was playing the game with you, showing how you never truly walk alone. This stellar example of video games as an art form only takes about 90 minutes to complete, yet it's a spiritual and emotional experience that everybody should play at least once.