What was your longest binge/marathon?

[Smellincoffee]

We all know how absorbing a game can get, losing nights to "one more turn" in Civilization, etc. What's the longest period of time you've sunk into a game in a single session? When the current-gen Hitman came out, I spent an entire weekend replaying the same maps and doing different challenges -- but I think my longest single-sitting was an evening-to-dawn period during the summer as a teenager, playing Civilization III.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

We all know how absorbing a game can get, losing nights to "one more turn" in Civilization, etc. What's the longest period of time you've sunk into a game in a single session? When the current-gen Hitman came out, I spent an entire weekend replaying the same maps and doing different challenges -- but I think my longest single-sitting was an evening-to-dawn period during the summer as a teenager, playing Civilization III.

20 years or so ago I was in a guild with some RL friends in an old MMO called Legend of Mir 2. We would sometimes bring our CRTs and towers to a friends house on a weekend and sit together in the same room farming bosses from dusk to dawn, then sleep and do the same again on Saturday and Sunday. So probably that.

On my own it was probably either Civ 2 or Championship Manager 2. I'd sometimes spend a day off as a teenager playing from when I woke until late in the night.

These days if I get a free day in a year I can manage about 3-4 hours before I have to go and do something else for a bit.

 

[Frindis]

The longest was when I played through Hitman: Contracts. I don't remember exactly how long, but I do remember playing it the whole night and some in the morning. A friend of mine also came over for some hours, so it was also a nice social thing also.

 

[Alm]

Mine was probably at school age too. I don't know about a single game but it would be common for me and my best friend to play computer games as much as we could through half term.

 

[Brian Boru]

Red Alert release, 1996—yes, I used to buy games on release!

C&C was the game which changed my main hobby to video gaming, so I was duly primed and salivating when RA was released.

my longest single-sitting

Aha! Great, so it counts as long as you fell asleep in your gaming chair—especially if your first waking words were "Welcome back, Commander"

As for how long… that's hazy. I think I finished the game in one 'sitting', so a whole weekend. Such a relief to be done with it, so I could do something else—like immediately start my first replay!

 

[Zloth]

Errrr.... my memory is contradicting itself, but it was the first "double XP weekend" for City of Heroes. I got up early on Saturday and played through until around bedtime, eating at my computer desk as I played, as I recall. But I also recall it being 11 hours, which is way short of that. <shrug>

Now, even when I do have that kind of time, I don't do that. It's way too long to sit! My muscles give me hell if I sit for longer than about three hours.

 

[Pifanjr]

My longest gaming session was probably during a LAN party. I remember my legs hurting when I got up because I hadn't used them in so long. Also the consumption of a lot of energy drinks.

As for the longest gaming session playing a single game, I suspect the winner is one of the Civilization games. Though I do remember one of the first times I played Dwarf Fortress I played from somewhere in the evening until 7 AM the next day.

 

[Sarafan]

My result isn't impressive. For a single game it was 8 hours without a slight break. I just couldn't stop playing Planescape: Torment. If we're talking about a few different titles then it was around 12 hours of playing computer games non-stop. It was 22 years ago or so.

 

[neogunhero]

In 2017 I made a random friend group of people who played Squad. We had a Discord server and I think we called ourselves the BusBoyz because we took a group picture of us all standing on top of a destroyed bus. We would play Squad for 6+ hour long sessions. In between matches I would run down to the vending machine at my apartment and grab a Monster and a Diet Coke. We would stay up until we couldn’t keep our eyes open anymore. It was some of my fondest memories with video games haha.
Pretty much the same thing happened during the pandemic in 2020 with GTA Roleplay. My work friends and I made a gang and would wear all pink and would make money from drugs. Serious GTA RP servers have insane amounts of grind and planning required, so we would play for 6+ hours scheming and plotting on ways to make money. It was always devastating to die in those servers, so we took the game very seriously for about a month lol.

Usually I can’t play more than a few hours at a time for any game, so these were special times for me. For a single player game, I think I played The Witcher 3 for a solid 6 hours one Christmas break.
At times I wish I could play games like that again but I think I prefer to have more control over my video game consumption lol.

 

[Johnway]

i don't really binge games. The most is maybe playing a game for 3 or 4 hours as i'm stuck on trying to finish a tough section or in a very critical situation in game. Xcom springs to mind; one mission i was trying to save everyone and it just wasn't happening and only after a lot of trial and error and retries did i succeed. These days if i see a boss fight, i usually save, check the time and decide whether to venture forth or leave to another time.

 

[ZedClampet]

I just couldn't even make a guess other than to say it's probably in the 10 to 16 hour range playing Warframe.