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What are some good games with *zero* replayability?

I want to try and play some more games. That feels more fulfilling if you play games that you can finish and be done with.

So what are some good games that have zero (or close to zero perhaps) replayability? I’ll start with my own suggestions:

  • Return of the Obra Dinn: Amazing mystery/detective game. However once you’ve played it, you basically can’t play it again as you remember the solution already and the challenge of the game is trivialized.
  • Chants of Sennaar: Really great game about deciphering languages. However, once again, by playing the game once, you’ll remember the languages and the game has no challenge any more.
  • Outer Wilds: Mystery adventure game. There is some replayability as there are perhaps areas that you can still explore, but largely once you figure out the mystery and complete the game, there’s not much more to experience. Some people speedrun the game though.

All of the above games I value extremely highly even though I only played them ~8-10 hours.

Do you have any others?

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Literally anything focused entirely on telling a story.

They’re only worth replaying if you forget the story.

SorteKanin OP ,
@SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

Got any particular examples? :)

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Phoenix Wright comes to mind since I’m just watching someone else play the games I don’t have because there’s not much player agency so watching it is as good as playing it 🤷🏻‍♂️

MBM , (edited )

Sometimes you can still replay them for the same reason you’d re-read a book (like to catch things you missed the first time around). It’s not as common and a different kind of replayability though

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

I would say something like ICO is the latter kind for me. It is focused on the gameplay, but the gameplay is the same exact thing from the first moment to the last and you can find all the secrets in the levels themselves pretty easy the first time through (since the rooms ain’t that big there’s not much room to hide things), the only reason to replay it multiple times is for the special weapons you can get; which are more like skins than actual weapons, except for the energy sword that OHKOs everything. But you only get that after like, 5 or 7 completions I think? It wasn’t worth it. By the time you get it, a normal person would be totally over playing the game lol

I think Dark Souls and Elden Ring and such would be the same for me, if not for the PvP multiplayer. Other games copying that style without any multiplayer at all, I have so far only played once and then never touched again. But I keep coming back to the ones with PvP to make new builds and fight other players. And because of how you obtain items, making an entirely new character means playing through the entire game, or at least a good deal of it. Currently building a dude to be ready for Shadow of the Erdtree and seeing just how low level I can beat Mogh at. So far it’s been 60. 😄

nac82 ,

I would volunteer a lot of the single-player story games produced by Sony like Uncharted, The Last of US, with Spiderman being the exception to the rule.

Some of their games have a little more open game loop design, but personally, I don’t think I could play The Last of Us twice.

From what I played of God of War I would imagine it’s similar, but I never actually beat it.

I’m sure there are people out there who love single-player game narratives and would disagree. I just think a lot of these games are good for the story, but the gameplay feels like once you’ve done it, you’ve done it.

impudentmortal ,

There are some games that are entirely story based that fit the criteria better.

One that comes to mind is To the Moon. There’s some puzzle elements to make it a game but its appeal is pretty much entirely based on its story.

Abucketofpuppies ,

There was an old flash game called “You Only Live Once”

It’s basically a rudimentary mario-like platformer. But once you die, the game just cuts to your funeral. Each time you load up the game again, it just shows time passing as your grave slowly ages and is forgotten.

LunarLoony ,
@LunarLoony@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

There’s a similar one called ‘One Chance’, in which you have three days to cure a disease that will otherwise kill everything. Same sorta concept.

Cethin ,

This feels like it’d be great for a networked game where what you do gets passed onto other players so eventually someone can finish it. Souls-like or Death Stranding-like multiplayer style. The issue is it’d probably take a lot of effort to make in a way that be interesting and take long enough, and also if it can only be done once then that sucks for making money. I guess it could use procedural elements and make it replayable, but that’d probably remove some of the charm.

dandroid ,

Could you could clear your cookies or open an incognito tab and start over?

Abucketofpuppies ,

Yeah, you could clear cookies to start over. I never actually got to see what happens if you survive the whole game though

blackluster117 ,
@blackluster117@possumpat.io avatar

I would say Stillness of the Wind definitely falls into this category. A beautiful game about life and loss.

catalyst ,
@catalyst@lemmy.world avatar

Since puzzle games seem to be the theme overall here I’ll mention Cocoon. It’s a recent puzzler that is absolutely gorgeous to look at and did some super clever stuff imo.

RGB3x3 ,

I love Cocoon, it’s one of my recent favorites

CharlesReed ,
@CharlesReed@kbin.run avatar

Soma - This is such an amazing game, but it made me so mad that I would never play it again.

The Painscreek Killings - A really fun detective/mystery walking sim. You absolutely have to figure everything out yourself, as there is no hand-holding or hints given by the game. At all. But, like Return of the Obra Dinn, once you've figured out the mystery, there really is no sense in replaying it.

I was going to add some others before realizing I had a theme of mystery walking sims. I think that genre of games are pretty one and done kind of plays. They can be really great, but most don't give you a reason to go back and replay them, unless it's for achievements or something.

noxy ,
@noxy@yiffit.net avatar

SOMA was great, but yeah, not much replayability once you know everything. Curious, tho, what about it made you mad?

CharlesReed ,
@CharlesReed@kbin.run avatar

It's been a few years since I've played it, but I remember not being a fan of the female companion. To me it felt like she was just using the main character as a means to get to her goal and nothing more. I know that's an unpopular take (I've gotten into a couple light arguments over it), but I just could not stand her by the end of the game. The way she treated the MC just made the post-credits scene so angering.

noxy ,
@noxy@yiffit.net avatar

That makes a lot of sense, she did have the player do some relatively fucked up stuff that he wouldn’t have wanted done to him!

But also she was right to call him a fucking idiot for repeatedly failing to understand the core concept

CharlesReed ,
@CharlesReed@kbin.run avatar

Oh, yeah, don't get me wrong, he was not very smart, but she did not really help either lol

Caligvla ,

Dredge comes to mind. It’s a nice game and all, but outside of the two endings (which are basically a choose left or right situation) you see pretty much everything there’s to see in a single playthrough.

Ragnarok314159 ,

I will play Dredge just to fish. When I get sucked into an absolutely stupid meeting and am required to be there, fishing makes it fun.

CarbonatedPastaSauce ,

Midnight Suns was like that for me. The tactical combat was interesting and could have had replay value, but all the chores and conversations you have to do to progress the story made this a “no way” for a second playthrough. Absolutely worth it to go through once though, if you are into turn based combat games and marvel characters.

jballs ,
@jballs@sh.itjust.works avatar

I stalled out on playing this. I loved the combat aspect, but the chores and conversations feel too much like… well, chores. I just wanna fuck up some bad guys, not watch my character watch a movie with a Marvel character!

CarbonatedPastaSauce ,

Yeah I almost gave up too, it did become a bit of a slog in the middle with all the back and forth collecting shit and chatting everyone up. Definitely has some pacing issues.

quafeinum ,

Superliminal - once you know the puzzles you know the puzzles, till then it has its fair share of mind bending moments. Speedrunning it is fun though

Potatos_are_not_friends ,

Absolutely this! I hate that I now know how to think in the Superliminal world.

Nibodhika ,
  • Spec ops: The line. I think this was delisted from most stores though, so you might need to sail the high seas to get it. It might not be as impactful today as it was when it came out, but it’s a great game with a great twist.
  • Life is strange. It’s a story driven game, sure you can replay it and choose different things, but realistically you probably won’t since the main of the story is the same.
  • Batman games. Those were my go to for a while when I wanted something linear with an end.
deranger ,

I patient gamered Spec Ops and beat it a couple weeks ago. I found it to be rather mediocre. The combat sucks ass and the graphics don’t help.

Couple cool sequences but I felt it was massively overhyped.

Silentiea ,

I think it kinda falls into the same sort of category as citizen Kane. Important for what it did when it did it, but not really good by modern standards.

deranger ,

If I played this in 2012 at release I think I’d feel just the same. What do you find is important about this game? I’m curious as I see it mentioned all over the place, but I really don’t see what’s the big deal. Releasing a game where you shoot US soldiers, in the middle of hyper patriotism in the US, seems edgy for the time but that’s about it. The moral choices were few and only had impact in terms of a bit of flavor. No serious consequences.

I did enjoy the music and especially like the detail of the characters getting progressively dirtier as the game went on.

Silentiea ,

I haven’t played it, I’ve only experienced it through essays. I think it’s because it took a look at war and such from a pretty different perspective than other shooters had before, and examined the messier psychological aspects of it in a way that incorporated traditional shooter gameplay as hadn’t been done before?

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

Focusing on the gameplay really misses the point. It was practically an interactive story, but they wanted it to be a shooter so you’d feel more responsible for the outcome rather than just watching things unfold. And while the “choices” in game made little difference, that pretty much reinforced the message that some situations are basically fukt and “pushing forward” doesn’t make it any better.

deranger ,

Gameplay is 90% of time spent in the game, which is why it colored my experience so much. Regardless; what do you feel the game does well? Specific examples, please.

I read a ton of positive comments before playing it, and avoided spoilers for years. Turns out there’s much to spoil, IMO. There’s the white phosphorus scene, but you can’t even choose to not do that. It was very disappointing when I sat there and it railroaded me into using WP when my squad mate was telling me not to. I don’t feel it was a pioneer in any way, and feels quite dated even against games many years it’s senior. Bioshock came out five years earlier and has deeper social commentary, more engaging gameplay, and much better graphics.

If you have specific examples I’d love to hear them. It’s entirely possible I’m just not getting it, but I feel this game seemed epic for some console gaming teenagers in 2012 and it’s mostly nostalgia. I don’t feel the game did anything that special.

JayEchoRay ,
@JayEchoRay@lemmy.world avatar

Spoilers

:::

spoilerMy interpretation and granted it is probably a bit shaking as I havent played in a long time is: I personally found spec ops interesting into the slow descent into darkness, how your team is professional in the beginning and over time they become savage, to the point of blood thristiness, their animations changes, their speech, mannerisms and their models get gradually worn down. You do actions but over time you think wait - am I really doing the right thing, like if you decide to help the cia guy, you find out you’ve been played and just destroyed the water supply for a whole area that is in desparate need of it, this come back to haunt you later on when an angry mob catches up to one of your team. I still remember feeling vindictive of hearing my teammate scream in panic and fear as I was rushing to get to him Then to get there and see him murdered and and an angry mob looking for blood, my first reaction was vengeance not orderly dispersal… The character and the remaining team mate gunned down civilians mercilessly because I felt outrage at them killing one of my own… and the crowd had just cause to be pissed as your rag tag band of misfits have been blowing up commiting warcrimes after to warcrimes justifiying it to some “greater cause” As you play the game even the loading screen are questioning you if you are enjoying yourself and nothing is stopping you from continuing to play. It is quite in your face to say that what you are doing is wrong, but if you keep playing and by finishing the game you are justifying the main characters actions, you are complicit in the acts of violence as you the player are determined to see the game to the end just as he is Their original mission was to just scout… and it somehow turned into this Dubai tour de violence because the main character believes that there was a radio call from someone he idolised If I recall there is that scene at the end that shows all the bullshit, the hanged men, the voice on the radio your character thinks they see and hear is in their head - they have severe ptsd, and have “main character hero syndrome” and none of the game would have happened if they just followed orders

:::

deranger ,

You’ve got a solid recollection of the events. I think my expectations were set too high from what I read online. It was decent, but I was expecting S tier.

I did really enjoy how “degraded” the characters got as they went through everything like you mention. Very nice little touch.

JayEchoRay , (edited )
@JayEchoRay@lemmy.world avatar

spoilerIt was watching like a train wreck in slow motion, I ended up just going along for the ride to see how far this rabbit hole would go I really tried to be trigger disciplined in the beginning only firing after the point of a negotiation seemed impossible and before I knew it I caught up in this zoned out mentality - no decision is right, all that matter is the mission, just trying to survive and just devolved into killing on sight and in scenes that feel like it is out of some fever dream - still remember that “lights out” section as someone in some sort animalistic fight or flight zone blinking and someone just appears in front of you I guess it stuck with me how the main character kept making excuses and blaming someone else for all the problems and by the end of it and you see that scene with the chair looking out at Dubai and see that “I caused this” and with that call backs to the the choices and saw how it all was just some “cope” it kind of stuck with me

jballs ,
@jballs@sh.itjust.works avatar

I loved the Batman Arkham games, but yeah, one and done is good.

Ragnarok314159 ,

Spec Ops: The Line can be bought on Steam.

fushuan ,

Brothers, a tale of two sons. It’s a 2h ish long story, really good.

swordsmanluke ,

Ugh - this game!

I loved it. The mechanics of The Scene is still one of the most amazing bits of storytelling I’ve seen in a video game. I think about it frequently when I’m considering how video games can tell stories in ways that movies or books just can’t.

The game as a whole is good, but a little uneven IMO. But I’d put that scene up there with Braid for the sheer impact of storytelling-via-videogame-mechanics.

jballs ,
@jballs@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’ve played this game all the way through 3 times. The only thing that affects its replayability is the long-term emotional damage.

DichotoDeezNutz ,
@DichotoDeezNutz@lemmy.world avatar

I’m surprised no one has said Outer Wilds. Amazing story about space exploration.

Rentlar ,

Might be because it was in the 3rd bullet of OP’s body text.

DichotoDeezNutz ,
@DichotoDeezNutz@lemmy.world avatar

Oh yeah that would make sense.

Okami_No_Rei ,
@Okami_No_Rei@lemmy.world avatar

Tunic is a solid 10-15 hour adventure game, and I highly recommend playing without spoilers as several experiences are information-locked like Outer Wilds. It’s an isometric adventure game heavily inspired by Zelda with some Souls influence bleeding into the lore, mechanics, and boss fights. Replayability is limited to speedrunning and challenge runs.

Bastion is a wonderful adventure game with a heavy focus on combat. It’s a precursor to Hades from the same developer, and shares the same mechanical DNA minus the rogue-lite elements that Hades introduced. The followup game, Transistor, is also worth checking out, though it didn’t quite hit the same highs for me as Bastion. Both are 10-20 hour adventures with limited replayability if you want to achievement hunt.

More games to check out:

Psychonauts and Psychonauts 2

Journey, Abzu, and The Pathless

Subnautica

BugleFingers ,

I would highly recommend Tunic as well, played through with a GF and it’s an amazing game! (Single player though)

Tier1BuildABear ,
@Tier1BuildABear@lemmy.world avatar

Saying Tunic has zero replayability is absolutely insane to me. IT EVEN HAS A NEW GAME PLUS!!

Okami_No_Rei ,
@Okami_No_Rei@lemmy.world avatar

NG+ is optional since it’s not required to finish the game or appreciate the story. It’s there for the challenge.

Tier1BuildABear ,
@Tier1BuildABear@lemmy.world avatar

“Finishing the game” comes before the “replayability” aspect though. You finish the game first, THEN you see if it’s replayable. So… Yes, I completely agree? Replaying is usually always optional lol

CrayonRosary ,

I kind of agree with OC’s sentiment. The game is a masterpiece, but the puzzle solving and metagame is half of the game, if not more. Once you’ve solved that, replaying it is just going through the motions of a pretty OK action adventure game. I dunno.

It’s like playing Braid after beating it. Another masterpiece of a game! You could speed run it—which I was very much into—but the thought of playing it again after that just doesn’t interest me. It’s just going through the motions.

That being said, its been years and years since I’ve played it and there’s a new anniversary edition coming out with new content. I’m almost certainly going to buy it.

I loved the built-in speed run of that game. You only had 45 minutes to beat the whole thing. The first time I accomplished that, my time was 44:58 and some change! I lost my shit that I managed to juuuust squeak in a win! 😂

I ended up getting it down to 37 minutes. There are so many tricks in that game to speed it up. I wonder what the official best time is. Back in the Xbox 360 days there were a lot of cheaters using the back-end to submit bullshit scores. Or people doing save trading and all having the exact same time down to 1/100 of a second.

Tier1BuildABear ,
@Tier1BuildABear@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve got my Tunic time down quite a bit too, and since your upgrades carry over I’m super OP with my health, magic, and stamina spanning basically the entire screen lol. To me it’s fun to go in and just do a run here and there. Personal preference obviously but there’s certainly replayability there.

Patches ,

For Tunic - you will 100% be expected to play like an old school game. So keep physical paper notes of what you see or you’ll be going back and forth.

catalyst ,
@catalyst@lemmy.world avatar

+1 for Tunic especially if you go for all of the late game puzzles and other stuff that I shall not spoil. I have the Tunic plushy up on my shelf!

Abucketofpuppies ,

I definitely played through Bastion at least thrice. There is enough build variety that you can make another playthrough feel totally different, not to mention the difficulty modifiers. First game that I took the time to 100% for achievements.

Okami_No_Rei ,
@Okami_No_Rei@lemmy.world avatar

Bastion’s story doesn’t necessitate multiple plays. Sure, it’s fun to play through again and try different builds. I’ve also 100%'ed the game.

The important thing, I think, for OP’s question is that it can be finished in one play. It has a satisfying ending from which the player can set down the game and move on.

fireweed , (edited )

I would somewhat disagree with Subnautica. There are lots of different settings you can tweak to make the game harder or more survival-oriented that might warrant a replay (although probably only one) if your first play-through was on a simpler/easier mode. Plus there are the creation modes where you can create your own base without restrictions, which sort of counts as replay? Mostly though the setting in Subnautica is quite unique, and short of playing Below Zero you won’t be able to find that vibe anywhere without playing the game again. However as a story-oriented game I’d agree it has lower-than-average replay value.

Okami_No_Rei ,
@Okami_No_Rei@lemmy.world avatar

I find Subnautica has less replayability than other survival games since the map and questline is static. Once you know where everything is and you’ve seen all the plot beats there’s not much reason to play the game again unless you want to challenge yourself with a speedrun or, as you said, one of the harder difficulties.

I wouldn’t consider creative mode or sandbox mode to be a core part of the game. They’re great for fucking around or as an extended tutorial, but I see them more as external tools than as part of the game experience proper.

Ragnarok314159 ,

For me the story really drew me in. It was like watching Terminator 1 and 2 for the first time - you had no idea where it was going but it was going to be awesome.

I have watched both movies again, and while they are great they don’t hit the same as the first time.

Cethin ,

I would absolutely consider replaying subnautica if managing inventories wasn’t so bad. Playing it to build up a base would be fun if it wasn’t such a frustrating process to deal with. I think all crafting should pull from all inventories in your base, and also preferably adding inventories just increases the size of one large abstract storage system of your base that you don’t need to worry about organizing.

As it is, once the story was done I was done. I had become so annoyed with building out my bases that I just couldn’t be bothered to do it again.

dandroid ,

+1 for Tunic. Fantastic game. Not too long. Get it on sale.

I played it on my Steam Deck when I had Covid and was banished from my bedroom so I didn’t get my wife sick. 😅

flicker ,

Undertale, if you have a heart.

Tier1BuildABear ,
@Tier1BuildABear@lemmy.world avatar

This is worth replaying as the hero and villain imo

lady_maria ,
@lady_maria@lemmy.world avatar

I wouldn’t be able to stomach being the villain, so I just watched someone else do it on YouTube. lol

kratoz29 ,

I think I do, but I still won’t play it until I play the Mother games… I don’t know why I impose that rule to myself though.

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar
  • Please Don’t Touch Anything. What genre does it even belong in? It would have been a flash game if made 10 years earlier. You’re left at a console with a single large red button, and told to wait for a minute and don’t touch anything. Depending on how you interact with this console, there are many different things it can do/behaviors it can have, and your goal is to find all the different endings. It was entertaining, I don’t need to own it anymore.
  • Shenzhen I/O and TIS-100. Both Zachtronics assembly-em-up games, which…I don’t think there’s absolutely zero replayability, because you might redo the level you just did or go back to an earlier one with a solution you just learned from a later level, but I don’t know finishing these games feels less like beating Bowser at the end of Super Mario and more like graduating from high school. I’m done with that phase of my life and I can now move on.
  • Antichamber. The video game equivalent of a Piet Mondrian painting. It’s an abstract and brain knitting non-euclidean first person puzzle game that uses its surreal mechanics as a metaphor for the journey of life itself, and halfway though you get a gun that shoots cubes and it turns back into a video game. A lot of the actual impact of the game comes from how it comments on the epiphany you just had, and that effect is spoiled somewhat by “Oh I remember this part.” I will note there is a speedrunning community for this game.
  • Firewatch. There are some games where you’ll watch a Let’s Play, decide you want to have a go, so you’ll buy and play the game. Not Firewatch; a Let’s Play gives you 96.4% of the experience. It’s a walking simulator that probably should have just been a short film. I’m not even convinced it is a “video game” because…how do you play it well or poorly? Like do we need a new term like “narrative software” or something?
FilterItOut ,

I liked firewatch, even though I usually dislike walking simulators. It really was a good mesh of dialogue and voice actors, unlike others where the dialogue just drags.

nawa ,

Interactivity really helps relate to the character you’re playing even if you’re not making any actual choices. And like you said, the dialogues are done pretty well to be enjoyable and not annoying. I liked Firewatch a lot.

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

So did I, which is why I listed it among good games that have no replay value. I enjoyed the thing that it is, I appreciated the visual style, it’s well performed…it’s one of the better walking simulators. The ending is controversial, which I take to mean it’s a work of art.

fireweed ,

Firewatch is more in the visual novel category. I did in fact give it a replay with completely different choices to see how it changed things, and was disappointed to find that all choices are merely for aesthetics and make zero difference in the plot. However it’s a well-made enough game (especially dialogue and voice acting) that it was still kinda fun to play again.

Donjuanme ,

I was going to write anti chamber, because I never want to play it again, but %'s 30-90 of the way through the game I was itching to start over. It had me so hooked, but then the ending just took the wind out of the sails so hard. Heck maybe 10-98% of the game had me itching to replay it.

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

When I think back on my time with AntiChamber, I don’t really think about the ending. I really think of the beginning up through getting the green gun. It starts leaning farther into the direction of Talos Principle or Portal at that point.

To me the game was about the experience of coming to terms with this strange new world you’ve found yourself in, and the THIS IS AN ALLEGORY wall tiles. It’s impressive how long the developer managed to keep that schtick up.

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