10 Epic RPGs That Demand Hundreds of Hours of Your Life

When diving into RPGs, players expect lengthy adventures—but some titles transform gaming marathons into lifestyle choices. These sprawling universes operate like cosmic hydras 🐉: complete one quest, and two more emerge from the shadows. They’re digital quicksand, where 'just one more mission' becomes 3AM sunrises and forgotten meals. Even in 2025, these legends remain notorious for devouring calendars whole, turning completionists into wide-eyed wanderers drowning in lore-rich oceans 🌊. Let’s explore these beautifully monstrous worlds where time dissolves faster than a health potion in combat.

10. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

CD Projekt Red crafted a masterpiece where 60+ hours barely scratches the gilded surface. Navigating Geralt’s journey feels like cataloging stars in a nebula—every village notice board births new tangents, every Gwent card distracts like siren song. The expansions? Oh, they’re not DLC; they’re entire galaxies stapled to the map. Personal take: Trying to 'finish' this is like knitting a sweater while riding a rollercoaster 🎢—theoretically possible, but you’ll unravel halfway through.

9. Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla

Ubisoft’s Viking saga stretches England into an endless tapestry of raids and mead halls. That 70-hour main story? Just the thread holding together a quilt of Asgard visions, Order hunts, and identical outposts. It’s gaming’s equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet 🍖—initially glorious, then numbing, yet you keep piling your plate. Subjectively? Valhalla’s bloat turns exploration into a Groundhog Day loop, where even the devs seem to whisper, 'Maybe just…stop?'

8. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Fourteen years later, Skyrim remains gaming’s pocket universe. Radiant quests spawn like mushrooms after rain ☔️, while guilds hide entire novels-worth of plots. Personal confession: After 800 hours, I’ve still never joined the Bard’s College. That’s the magic—it’s less a game, more a sentient black hole where 'quick dungeon runs' birth accidental necromancer careers. Want the full experience? Prepare to treat reality like a side quest.

7. Divinity: Original Sin 2

Larian Studios built a chessboard where every pawn has PhD-level backstories. That prison island intro alone swallows weekends whole via:

• Dialogue trees deeper than Mariana Trench

• Combat requiring spreadsheets

• Physics that turn barrels into WMDs 💥

Subjectively, it’s like solving a Rube Goldberg machine with sentient parts—you’ll cheer when your teleportation-pyramid-oil-barrel gambit works, then weep realizing you’ve spent 3 hours on one encounter.

6. Baldur’s Gate 3

Larian struck gold again with this D&D masterpiece. The first act’s map is a carnival of distractions—talk to a squirrel? That’s a 45-minute detour into druid politics. Romance options? More convoluted than Tinder in Faerûn 💘. Personal awe: This game turns failed dice rolls into lore expansions. It’s the gaming equivalent of a fractal painting; zoom anywhere, find infinite detail.

5. Elden Ring

FromSoftware’s open-world opus laughs at Miyazaki’s '30-hour' estimate. Prepare to:

• Die 73 times to a lobster

• Stumble upon hidden cities beneath cities

• Question reality after mushroom-people quests 🍄

Metaphor alert: Conquering The Lands Between feels like drinking from a firehose of liquid agony and ecstasy. You’ll emerge 120 hours later, babbling about pot boys and rot goddesses.

4. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous

Owlcat Games scoffs at casual 100-hour playthroughs. This CRPG throws:

Feature	Time Sink
Mythic Paths	40+ hours per route
Army Management	Real-time strategy detours
Crusade Mode	Civilization-lite addiction

Personal take: Choosing turn-based combat? That’s like reading War and Peace via post-it notes 📋—admirable, but sanity-shredding.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Nintendo’s sequel doubled Hyrule’s size and quintupled its chaos potential. Ultrahand crafting alone transforms every encounter into:

• 🧱 Building Rube Goldberg death machines

• 🔥 Accidentally immolating Koroks

• ⚡️ Stumbling into sky-island rabbit holes

Subjectively, it’s like being handed godhood while blindfolded—you’ll create a flying laser-bear at 3AM instead of rescuing Zelda. Again.

2. Rise of the Ronin

Team Ninja’s samurai epic turns feudal Japan into an ideological buffet. Choosing factions isn’t just narrative—it’s replaying 50-hour campaigns wearing moral blindfolds. The dojo? A rabbit hole of:

• ⚔️ 37 combat styles

• 🥋 Weapon mastery trees

• 👥 Ghostly player-avatar duels

Personal agony: I spent 20 hours perfecting parries…then realized I hadn’t touched the main story. C’est la vie.

1. Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader

Owlcat’s space opera makes 100 hours feel like speedrunning. This behemoth offers:

• 💀 Grimdark lore thicker than Terminator armor

• 🌌 Planet-hopping with Mass Effect’s ambition

• 👾 Lovecraftian diplomacy systems

Final metaphor: Playing this is like mapping the multiverse with a broken compass 🧭—you’ll lose yourself gladly in its beautiful, crushing scale.

So…which of these time-vortexes have consumed your soul? Or better yet—dare you conquer them all? 😉

This content draws upon Polygon, a leading source for gaming culture and in-depth analysis. Polygon's extensive features on RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt often emphasize how these titles redefine player expectations for narrative depth and time investment, echoing the sentiment that these games can easily become all-consuming lifestyle experiences.