What is a game that, without cheating, you can complete the game doing hardly anything you are supposed to do?

[ZedClampet]

The first one that comes to mind for me is Minecraft. You don't have to mine or craft. You don't have to build that castle that ends up looking like a cardboard box. No farming, no cows, nothing. All you have to do is explore and find treasure chests. In fact that's a vastly faster way of getting to the Ender dragon.

Another one is Resident Evil 7, but that's just because you can run past all the enemies except for the boss.

Of course, I have a lot of sandbox games with no point to them at all, but I'm not counting those.

So can you think of any?

 

[Zimbaly]

A few Far Cry games ya can can't ya?

 

[BeardyHat]

Been sitting here and mulling over this question and I'm struggling to come-up with stuff.

I guess maybe like Dark Souls? You could theoretically run past all the enemies, just do the necessary bosses and complete the game at Soul Level 1.

Doom? Again, run past the enemies, grab keycards and hit the end of level.

Guess maybe that's kind of the same.

Morrowind? Assuming you could get yourself some decent gear, you could likely run to the final boss and kill him without doing anything else.

We should probably consult the Speedrunning community.

 

[ZedClampet]

A few Far Cry games ya can can't ya?

Yep, I'm not sure about all of them, but Far Cry 4 and 5 can both be ended within a few minutes.

 

[Zloth]

Two Worlds used to be beatable fast. There's a scene very early on where the Big Bad mouths off and makes you run away. If you actually try to fight him, you'll die for sure. However, it seems you could run into the village close by, get killed, and thus make the entire village angry at Big Bad. You respawn, and the villagers kill him off. Game over, you win.

View: https://youtu.be/b9P6mvhjnAw?si=9PfYu3G7hOO-99Vx&t=48


The developers changed the game so this wouldn't happen.

 

[February's Ghost]

View: https://youtu.be/j1CSqWAULFw?si=Qppn4hwK0hqTgyCM

 

[Colif]

Given how many speedruns there are out there. I expect the list is pretty long but then they use glitches or out of bounds to achieve a lot of it. All of which are unintended ways to beat a game. Many include end warps which take you right to ending of game.

I don't know myself as I normally try my best not to finish games as then I am back to being stuck with nothing to play.

 

[Pifanjr]

If you go the Joja Mart route in Stardew Valley you can complete the entire game by just grinding money. You don't need to fish, you don't need to mine (you can buy ores), you don't need to socialise with the other villagers, you can ignore farm animals, you just need to pick one profitable crop and fill your entire farm with it. Then you can sleep through the days until it's time to harvest, replant and repeat.

 

[Colif]

In TDU2 you could get a lot of cars and houses without completing most of the races... I know as that is how I played. Mainly using the casino DLC to win the money to buy the cars/Houses. Admittedly you probably need to win all the races to actually finish game but I got bored of game before I did that. Once I had all the Pagani cars in the game I lost interest.

The question is really about what games have hidden endings...

Far Cry 4 hidden ending comes to mind. 15 minutes to get to end

Not exactly as short as Two Worlds 2 but not result of bad game design.

Or maybe alternate endings.

 

[mjs warlord]

The game that spring to mind is THE WITNESS i remember when it was featured in pc game magazine and the person who did it only showed a few screen shots because he said he did not know what to say about it without doing any spoilers.

Mr google says it has over 650 puzzles , a lot are really well hidden , i got to the end sequence and only did 417 of them.

NOTE.... If you have not used the game DONT get into an elevator you will find near the end sequence or you cant go back to do the things you missed out.

 

[Colif]

Technically in the witness you need to have done at least 7 of the lasers to get into the mountain, so while you could finish it early, that is hardly nothing...

But any% doesn't even go in the mountian the expected way.

takes about 5 minutes to any% game

and just over 1 hour to 100% the game if you know what you doing

But for most it takes way longer

I watched someone play it recently, there isn't a lot of action involved but so many line puzzles.

 

[mjs warlord]

Technically in the witness you need to have done at least 7 of the lasers to get into the mountain, so while you could finish it early, that is hardly nothing...

But any% doesn't even go in the mountian the expected way.

takes about 5 minutes to any% game

and just over 1 hour to 100% the game if you know what you doing

But for most it takes way longer

I watched someone play it recently, there isn't a lot of action involved but so many line puzzles.

I just reloaded my last save from many years ago , it seems like i got all 11 , as you fly past the first 7 the lazers dip down and go out but you dont fly past the other 4 before you get to where you started.

 

[Pifanjr]

We should probably consult the Speedrunning community.

I just remembered watching a speedrunner playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I think in both that game and in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom you can go directly to the end boss fight as soon as you're released in their open world. You might need to pick up a couple of weapons on your way, but otherwise you can skip pretty much every quest and activity in the game.