How important is replayability to you?

[Lotus Victoria]

Nice to have, since I love to come back to older games. But not exactly necessary.

[I Push Buttons]

And see, to me replayability isn't the answer to the "$60 short game" issue. That's just the MMO solution, getting you to do the same thing over and over and calling it content.

Give me a game that's just good and is long enough in and of itself. Lets stop just blanket accepting "replayability" as some kind of awesome feature.

That's literally every game.

Every single game ever made is just doing the same thing over and over. Some of them just throw a good story on top of it. So a game where you do the same thing over and over longer than other games is genuinely more content.

The Last of Us, for example... You just sneak around and occasionally shoot, stab, strangle someone. Whether mission one or mission fifteen and every mission in between. (I should write poetry.)

[Raelbo]

In my opinion a game does not have to be replayable at all, not even once. I don't even know why I would want to play the same game twice. I have so, so many games I haven't played yet - why would I play the same one again and spend my time with something I already know when I can experience a new one?

What do you think about this?

Firstly, your opinion is 100% valid for you. That being said other people (like me) prefer to hone our skills on a game rather than continually seek out new games.

It's really down to individual personalities and these differences play out in all sorts of aspects in real life. Some people like to constantly experience new things and try out as much as they can while others prefer to find and savour their favourites.

Both are absolutely the right approach for those individuals. I guess the important thing is to understand and accept that what may be right for you isn't going to be the same for everyone.

[dope_danny]

I find it depends on the game, usually its a barometer of a short game being good or not. You can beat MGS1 in 4 hours? great now you can restart it with a bunch of crazy bullshit this time. Same with Metal Gear Rising or Silent Hill. Something like The Order 1886 thats more quicktime movie than game and replaying it is a 100% identical experience? yeah not so great.
Replayability comes into play when you have options to play the same game very differently, even if its just challenging yourself like a Nuzlocke. A bad game is one thats the same shit, different day.

[Pony Soldier]

It's kind of just something that if it's there cool if not no big deal. Sometimes I find a game so fun that I can just replay the story mode over and over whether it's finding collectibles and secrets or just playing through the story for the hell of it just because it was so fun. I mean I prefer a game to have SOME form of replayability like lots of collectibles or an open ended game but if the story mode is good enough that's all I'll need. For example Ghostbusters The Video Game for PS3/Xbox 360/PC. As a huge Ghostbusters fan I found this game to be one of my all time favorites and ended up playing through it like 10 times and it doesn't even have all that much in it for someone to go back and play it. I just found it to be that good of a game.

It also really just depends on the game though. A game could have all kinds of side missions and a plethora of collectibles to find but if the game was just a bore to play and you found yourself just rushing through it to get it done and over with then the replayable content is worthless and you'll just skip over it anyway. So it's not really something I'm looking for but if the game was good enough it'd be nice to have so that I could stay in that world a bit longer.

[unfilteredJW]

Not even the slightest.

But I'm the same with movies and TV, with very, very rare exceptions.

[Tackhisis]

Why would I buy anything that can be used only once?

[dextersmith]

It can't be that great if you never want to play it again.

[Poppincaps]

Depends on the game. The Last of Us for instance isn't very replayable, but it provided such a strong experience that that fact doesn't bother me.

Generally when a game series is replayable and then the new entry adds new features or removes old features that hamper replayability, then I start to have an issue with it. Like Bloodborne for instance.

[Deleted]

It used to be important to me but now its more like, I play "story" games only once, then put them aside and then have a bunch of nearly endlessly replayable games installed I never really grow tired of. For example strategy games like Civ 6, online games like LoL, MMOs etc.

[SirBeef]

I guess it depends on the genre. But for the most part it is not important to me.

[Deleted]

Pretty important; ableit actual end-game usually outweights it by a lot.

[Adam Jensen]

It can't be that great if you never want to play it again.

Not really. Take Tomb Raider, again. What's the fun the second time around when you've already figured out how to navigate the world and solve the tombs?

[Blueobelisk]

With movies, it's a bit different (for me). Sometimes, I want to watch movie multiple times to have better understanding about message that was sent. I watch Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Just kidding.

With games, I really have to care a lot about game in order to play it multiple times. I can count those games on one hand.

I'm having a hard time relating to your post. Can you post that handfull of games you've played multiple times, and could you also say the movies are that you watch multiple times to get the message (not just reruns, I assume)? I think with concrete names I'd be able to understand better.

[Mechazod]

I usually clear everything I can in a game, then move on. I have too many games, past, present and future to play.

[Arlee]

For me the longer a game is the less important it is it has replayability. I'm fine with only playing a game once if it's something which I can sink 60 - 100 hours in the first time. Less than that though and it either needs to cost less or have high replayability for me to be interested.

[Xargoth6634]

Not really. Take Tomb Raider, again. What's the fun the second time around when you've already figured out how to navigate the world and solve the tombs?

I actually disagree with this; Tomb Raider's gameplay was just a lot of fun for me. What I would've loved to have seen was a way to make enemies respawn (talking about the first of the new ones, haven't played "Rise" yet) on levels after you cleared the game so that you could blow through them with all your maxed gear. The combat in that game was so crisp and tight, but I felt like by the time you finished the game you hadn't had nearly enough time to enjoy your full power much. Sure, you can go back through levels and kill deer or whatever I guess since they keep respawning, but that's not particularly compelling gameplay.

But yeah, in the game's current state without that option I'm not sure I'd go through the whole thing again.