2025 is a new year, and with that “sense of newness,” we can look forward and attempt to determine all we can about the games that are coming out and what they’ll be like. Some will be surprises, others will be disappointments, and a few could be the start of something special. However, we must also look at the past and remember that mistakes can be easily rectified if the right mindset is implemented. This is apparently in the mind of a former Quest Director at Bethesda who helped make Starfield, as he feels that gamers are “tired” of all these long games.
In an interview on YouTube, that you can see below, Will Shen talked about how “games are too long nowadays,” citing the numerous 100+ hour titles that gamers keep getting fed from certain developers. Bethesda would absolutely be included in that mix, given all the massively-long titles that they’ve made over the last two decades alone.
He noted at one point:
“A large section of the audience is becoming fatigued at investing 30-plus hours into a game.”
Shen also pointed out that plenty of smaller games have seen a bit of a “resurgence” due to their condensed natures and the ability to just “pick up and play them” without serious investment. As in all things, context is key here. While he is right in some ways that gamers are tired of “super long titles” that take a while to play, it’s often the case that they’re tired of the ones that take a while to beat without feeling like they’re doing anything meaningful as they go through it.
Starfield is an excellent example of that, for the game was billed as this “massive universe full of content,” and while critics were in love with it, gamers weren’t. In fact, they called out Bethesda numerous times about the emptiness of things while also citing how it wasn’t even close to the other massive universes/worlds they built in the past, like in the ones where the Wasteland or the realm of Skyrim was the focus.
Other developers have been making massively long titles for a while now, and gamers keep buying them. Atlus did one in 2024, and it was a “Game of the Year” nominee and winner in some circles. Furthermore, there have been “shorter” games that felt bland because not enough effort was put into them.
The “reaction” to a game is 100% tied to quality as much as the length required to beat it.
