Question Weekend Question: What did you play obsessively for a couple of weeks, then never again?

[PCG Jody]

I ask the PCG staff a regular Weekend Question and post the answers on the site. If you'd like to throw in an answer here, I'll squeeze the best into the finished article!

This week's question is: What did you play obsessively for a couple of weeks, then never again?

Have you had an intense love affair with a game, only to drop it after like two weeks and never touch it again? Maybe you got really into a competitive multiplayer game until it threatened to dominate your life, or checked out of a free-to-play game the second you hit a progress limiter with a dollar sign on it, or felt open-world fatigue set in as soon as a new area full of icons appeared on the map, or played Fuser?

 

[MaddMann]

Stardew Valley for me. I waiting until after most folks had already passed through the hype before I picked it up. Once I did though, it became an addiction very quickly. It just hit that niche for me that I needed to see through to fruition. I think I one session of playing that game I didn't stop at all for at least 12 hours. I really needed that diamond sprinkler... Now I am afraid to go back.

 

[Pifanjr]

The only game that comes to mind is Eador. Masters of the Broken World. I played about 75 hours in a week or two until I hit a game breaking bug. I might have been able to get around it by going back to a save a few hours earlier, but having the risk of running into the same bug again didn't really make it worth it.

I did actually come back to it recently and played for a few hours, but I realized that with the limited time I have available now there's a bunch more games I'd rather play instead.

 

[Krud]

What did you play obsessively for a couple of weeks, then never again?

Too many to count. Patched-up No Man's Sky, Stardew Valley, Outer Worlds, possibly Cyberpunk 2077 (unless they come back with some great DLC), and pretty much any semi-linear adventure game of the past 20 years... it'd be easier for me to list the exceptions to this pattern, the games that I keep coming back to, because those are far more rare for me than the games that I get really into and then suddenly drop.

Almost every single MMO I've ever played, I've gotten into for a few weeks and then got bored and never looked back. Sometimes I'll dive into a game, play it for several weeks, walk away for YEARS, and then come back to it and play through it at a regular pace. I did this for The Witcher 3, Pillars of Eternity, and some other RPGs. I'll probably go back to Pathfinder Kingmaker and go through that one properly, too. Same with Kingdom Come Deliverance.

(Though usually not "obsessively", but that may be relative. I've never played 75 hours in a week, for instance, or a 12-hour game session. During the initial quarantine, I might have played Witcher 3 for 60 hours that week, but that was a rare exception. )

Anyway, of all the titles this applies to, the one that I really powered through obsessively because I was on a time limit, was The Outer Worlds. I don't remember how many hours it actually took me, but I completed it during a 10-day trial or something along those lines. (I think it was before XBox Game Pass gave you an entire free month, but I might be confusing my trials.) I plan to revisit it once any and all DLC is released.

 

[mainer]

Most of the games I play are RPGs, and if I really like a game I play for hours, but even if I "hit a wall" and need to take a few days or weeks off, I always go back. I can think of one game that I played that fits your question, and that was Risen (the 1st one) from Piranha Bytes. I love their games, and was really into Risen, as it was much like Gothic 3 in gameplay (though quite a bit smaller). I was obsessed with it until the end game. Exact details are a bit fuzzy as it was many years ago, but basically you had to wear a certain armor set and wield a certain weapon (regardless of how you built your character), then battle the end boss on a tile like floor, that had disappearing tiles, which would instantly kill you. I rage quit after about 10 tries and never went back. I really, really hate doing that, but it was the one RPG I couldn't finish. It still bugs me.

 

[Pifanjr]

I just remembered about Two Worlds II, which had one of my favourite magic systems, but where I also ran into a bug that would have forced me to redo several hours with no guarantee I wouldn't run into the same bug again.

 

[DXCHASE]

The latest game, because this happens a lot, would be Cyberpunk 2077. Played a huge chunk, did most of the sidequests/jobs as well as work towards the secret ending, beat the game, secret ending and all. hated the ending, couldn't go back to my character unless i reverted before the ending mission. Uninstalled and moved on, and wont go back until new DLC...maybe

Maybe you got really into a competitive multiplayer game until it threatened to dominate your life

Counter-Strike, always counter strike. Ill get up into Gold Nova from a resetted rank point, play and then eventually get too mad that i played 10 matches, won 6 or 7, lost 3 but deranked, so i unistall for another 3 months lol

 

[Yarichini]

Personally, I played "Battle of the Castles" for three weeks.

At first I liked it very much, but then the desire faded

 

[andrei9999]

I played "Counter-Strike " and "Mine craft"

 

[Scaramouche]

Isn't that how you're supposed to play every game? One title does come to mind. Fallout Shelter. For weeks I would check on my post-Apocalyptic ant's nest. Luckily I played on PC and could cheat a bit, otherwise I would have spend hundreds or dollars in microtransactions on mobile. Still, at one point it was just obvious that the fun had stopped a while back and there was only chores and OCD left. I uninstalled and made sure my save file would be forever lost as well.

 

[Rolfil]

Last was probably Death Stranding and before that Assassins Creed: Odyssey.

 

[Zloth]

I didn't play obsessively but Outer Wilds took about two weeks. Then I quit because I won - and this really isn't the sort of game you play a second time. (But I do like listening to the music from time to time.)

 

[Pifanjr]

Isn't that how you're supposed to play every game?

I don't think the original post referred to games you finish. Of course that still leaves a lot of games that don't really have an end, like Fallout Shelter. Though personally I did return to Fallout Shelter twice.

I have a long list of games that I started but never finished, most of which I've forgotten about. But I'm pretty sure most of them I either didn't play obsessively to begin with or I replayed them some time later.

 

[millianna]

Sims

 

[Sarafan]

Maybe it's not just a couple of weeks, but I have to say Hearthstone. I was almost addicted to the game and played it for two years basically every day in a row. It was very time consuming, but I just had to do daily quests. Luckily it didn't impact negatively on me, apart from variety of games that I played in this period of my life. I stopped playing Hearthstone mainly because I didn't like the changes that the game underwent. I have no intentions of returning. I would probably need to spend insane amounts of money to be competitive once again. Besides that, I now prefer to diversify the types of games that I play. Hearthstone clearly doesn't favor this type of approach to gaming activity.

 

[RonStar]

When I get obsessed with a game I will always comeback, the only game or games that I have not gone back to play was the "Fear" series, played thru them all to the end. I found them very intense, very scary, and of course very good.

 

[InteraMR]

I ask the PCG staff a regular Weekend Question and post the answers on the site. If you'd like to throw in an answer here, I'll squeeze the best into the finished article!

This week's question is: What did you play obsessively for a couple of weeks, then never again?

Have you had an intense love affair with a game, only to drop it after like two weeks and never touch it again? Maybe you got really into a competitive multiplayer game until it threatened to dominate your life, or checked out of a free-to-play game the second you hit a progress limiter with a dollar sign on it, or felt open-world fatigue set in as soon as a new area full of icons appeared on the map, or played Fuser?

Euro Truck Simulator 2

 

[Pifanjr]

Maybe it's not just a couple of weeks, but I have to say Hearthstone. I was almost addicted to the game and played it for two years basically every day in a row. It was very time consuming, but I just had to do daily quests. Luckily it didn't impact negatively on me, apart from variety of games that I played in this period of my life. I stopped playing Hearthstone mainly because I didn't like the changes that the game underwent. I have no intentions of returning. I would probably need to spend insane amounts of money to be competitive once again. Besides that, I now prefer to diversify the types of games that I play. Hearthstone clearly doesn't favor this type of approach to gaming activity.

I like the single player "rogue-like" parts. I recently started playing the plagues one on heroic and spent quite a lot of time on that. It's kinda weird since the card packs you can choose haven't changed in composition I think, but they do use the nerfs and any random effects can give you current cards or minions.

I just wish the app isn't so anal about being online while playing single player, as it makes it a lot harder to just play a bit in between doing other stuff.

 

[Sarafan]

I just wish the app isn't so anal about being online while playing single player, as it makes it a lot harder to just play a bit in between doing other stuff.

Well, it's an online game after all. It requires online connection to prevent players from implementing some kind of cheats. It's a sign of the time. Even single-player games sometimes require online connection.

 

[Pifanjr]

Well, it's an online game after all. It requires online connection to prevent players from implementing some kind of cheats. It's a sign of the time. Even single-player games sometimes require online connection.

It could make the reconnecting part more smooth though. It feels like it takes way too long to reconnect even after putting my phone on standby for like 10 seconds, then at the end of the match it will tell me my game was "saved to the server" or something like that and it kicks me back to the main menu, which seems unnecessary if it properly reconnected me.

 

[Moo Guy]

I played Frostpunk for like 14 hours, pulling an all-nighter. Then I did it again, completing the campaign. I never touched it again out of fear.