How Often Do You Replay Games?

Gaming 🎮
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This probably isn’t a unique scenario, but when I started collecting games, I went on a binge buying games. Not even accounting for my Steam Library I have so many games that I’d rather play a new game over replaying another game. Over the weekend I was bored and put in We Love Katamari wanting to play the infinite stage one time, but my save was on another memory card. I spent the rest of the afternoon beating the game in one sitting just having a ball (no pun intended).

I think for me because I spent most of my teens playing MMOs and Multiplayer games that I feel that I “missed out” on a bunch and am playing catch up. There’s a rush of beating a game and seeing the credits roll. But Katamari has me rethinking that. Why don’t I replay more games? I think it would be fun to play Dirge of Cerberus on NG+, or maybe do that crazy mega dungeon in Dark Cloud. I would love to try and plat a game and squeeze everything out of it, but there’s like 50 games on my bookcases that are still wrapped in the plastic waiting their turn.

How often do you guys replay games? Do you give games time to breath before going back in or do you come back years later?

The last game I think I replayed was Binary Domain, but that was me playing it back on hard just because I was having so much fun.

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Honestly I think I’ve only really replayed my absolute favourite games, things like Final Fantasy X, the Silent Hill series and Half Life to name a few. I’ve replayed those a few times over the years, but everything else I tend to just play once and then move on, even if I thoroughly enjoy it. There are just so many more games that I haven’t played that I want to explore, which leads me to not replay many things I feel.

Come to think of it, pretty much all of the games I’ve replayed are games from my childhood/teens, I’m sure there’s some psychological reason for that, something to do with them being just easy to dive into, comfortable and nostalgic I imagine.

I’m always a bit impressed/surprised when I hear people say they’ve replayed a game over and over again, even moreso if they replay a game immediately after finishing it, I can’t say I’ve ever done that, it’s just not in my blood haha.

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Most of the time I don’t really replay stuff, but when I do it’s close to what @Siors mentions about nostalgia and that comfortable feeling.

The last few months I’ve played through a lot of games I haven’t played before, which were all a blast. I didn’t really think about replaying anything since I didn’t want to become stuck in nostalgia and just felt like trying new stuff, but with fall entering the scene, I am thinking more and more about replaying some of my favourite games. Things like Stardew Valley, Astroneer and some simple LEGO games have been on my mind a lot lately, and it’s just because of that cozy and comforting feeling these games give me. They just always hit the spot for me.

With that being said, I do unconsciously also try to avoid replaying games too often because of not wanting to become stuck in nostalgia but mainly because the thought of “But I have other games I’ve payed for but haven’t played yet“ creeps in, and just the choice paralysis as well. I know this shouldn’t be a factor and most of the time it isn’t, but sometimes it’s just something I think about too much, and it holds me back from replaying sometimes.

So I do replay games sometimes, but only when the time feels right. When I need the comfort and cosiness of something familiar, I lean towards replaying. Most of the time there are longer periods between those replays, but when I do return at the right moment, these games hit very hard.

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There’s no consistent rule for me. I’m usually replaying a couple different Pokemon games every year (alternating). I’ll replay the Halo games every 5-10 years. I’ll sometimes revisit ones I’m in the mood for, it depends entirely on the game and how long it’s been, etc.
Especially games from my childhood-college years that I barely remember playing I’ve been revisiting off and on.

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I’m going through my fourth play-through of Stellar Blade right now!

I try to replay a few games every year. There are certain games that become comfort food with repeat plays; it’s fun to see my co-workers reactions when I tell them Dark Souls III is my cozy game. But it’s also tough sometimes because there are so many new games that I’m interested in and novelty is hard to argue with. At the same time, I often find myself frustrated because I yearn to return to an old favourite and yet I feel guilty for playing something I’ve already finished when there are so many games I’ve yet to even crack open. Having said all of that, lately I have been trying to be more intentional about what games I introduce into my collection while at the same time curating what is already there. My goal is in part to arrive at a lean collection of favourite games with high replay value.

In college, my roommates and I joked about Skyrim being so expansive that we’d never need another game again. A few years ago, a Discord friend and I made similar comments about Elden Ring. And I consistently champion the replay value of Resident Evil titles. That game I mentioned yearning to return to earlier? NieR:Automata. So I find myself asking myself, “Why do you need anything else?” Especially as the cost of this hobby continues to grow, I find myself opting to wait for steep sales for new games and otherwise revisit the Commonwealth, Lordan, or Silent Hill. As Mads Mikkelsen once said, “It’s a simple life.”

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Now a more interesting question is what games would you not want to replay again? Specifically the games you enjoyed that you don’t think you can play again. For me it would be the Darkness series. It was such an emotional roller coaster for me and the endings messed me up so bad I can’t even think about playing it again.

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Oof that’s a hard question. I would say that with some games like RDR2 or other story heavy games you already know the story so that’s part of the magic gone, but most of those games have very big replayability so those are definitely worth replaying. I do think less replayable story games can be replayed, but I would always leave big chunks of time between them so you “forget“ some aspects and the game is able to surprise you again if that makes sense lol.

I think I would have to go with League of Legends or any FIFA (online that is). Played those games a ton a few years back, but they always made me rage more than they were fun to play. Maybe one day with friends, but never solo.

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It depends on the game, ofc.
Like, my favorite games I replay usually once a year, because they’re short and replayable.

Stuff like Halo 2, Half Life (or Black Mesa nowadays), Dark Souls 3, Doom Eternal, Diablo 2. Starcraft 1 and 2 campaigns I basically never stop replaying. I’ll sort of replay some random mission on a weekly basis, unless I’m really dug in deep into another game, because they’re a kind of safety blanket for me. And even though I know these missions and games so well, there’s always someone better out there who can show me a new trick or strat which then makes a mission I know so well feel kind of fresh again.

Stuff like BG3 I can’t do that with as much. It takes weeks to potentially months to do a full run in that game anyway and you can’t just drop-in and drop-out, like you can with shorter, more linear, games. Like, if I play a game like BG3 or DoS2, I have to “only” play that game. If I take a break for a few weeks and come back, I’ll have no idea where I am, what’s happening and what my plan was at the time.

If a game is really my cup of tea, I’ll replay it several times in a row. I did that most recently with Stalker 2. Got it at release, played it for two months straight. Took a break for a month or two, replayed it again. And I did that twice more as the patches and updates dropped from then on. And I’m on track to do it again this Fall because 2.0 launched. Before that, it was Elden Ring. I could not put that game down for about 2 years.

I prefer playing less games, but playing games I like for longer. Getting deep into the weeds of the mechanics and design and really squeezing every drop of goodness out of them. I really like learning a game on a deeper level because that’s where I think the “good games” really shine. There’s so much depth hidden in well made games that can only come to light once you really “put your face against the glass”. For a “less good” game, that depth really isn’t there and once you scratch the surface there’s not much to find. Some people prefer novelty, while I look for mastery. It’s where my fun zone is.

Like, this summer, I replayed The Surge for the first time since release. Got a whole new appreciation for it, because I’m a different (better?) “me” than I was when it launched. And right now, I’m replaying Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, for the first time since like the late 2000’s. It holds up surprisingly well, for a 20 year old game. At least once you staple a few mods on it, because resolution, mouse acceleration, EAX and stuff weren’t really up to the standards of today.

And I actually don’t just do it with games. I do that with books and movies too, because I figured out that something I experienced before can have a whole different vibe and dimension once my own perspective changes over time. That’s why I said “a different me”. I’m not the same as I was when I first played, read or watched something. I changed. I learned new things, updated my own mental software, so I can potentially see a new angle that I hadn’t before.

So yeah. That’s kind of my answer to that question lol

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Very interesting, I’m almost the opposite! Something with dense mechanics like StarCraft - or even DOOM Eternal, despite my always playing FPS, the “rhythm” of it takes some getting back into - I really struggle to revisit when I’m not ready to sit with it for a couple weeks.
Meanwhile my wife and I have been slowly hacking at our BG3 playthrough since launch and it’s a game I can always hop into without prep. My characters are there, my hot bar is loaded with the skills I mainly use, and I guess D&D mechanics are less needing to be re-learned for me or something.
It’s also turn-based and basically free to pause anywhere, with detailed quest journaling, so for me it’s the perfect short burst game.

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Fair point of view.

I see what you mean and can understand where you’re coming from. Trun based is indeed a nice feature when you can’t just sit at the PC / console for prolonged periods.

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I keep games installed where there’s some more side-stuff to do later, I am convinced I’ll return them soon and never ever do.

Borderlands all of them, Diablo 2, Titan Quest, Lost Ark
I have replayed the class&loot games with little time to breathe, I like to get immersed in the guides and sidequests and having a mental map of the general loot drops for a month or two at a time, complete it then be done with it. (checking back in with a live service game every three-to-six months for that little bit of new stuff feels very unnatural to me). Starting a new class doesn’t feel punishing since the normal progression is finishing the story on 3 difficulties back to back anyway. Does that score as ky-often-replays or ky-never-replays?
Similarly, I have replayed Halo Reach alone immediately after finishing it in coop since I struggled to recall much from the game itself besides the cutscenes (An attempt to remember Reach :link:)

I guess I need a little bit of gambling variety, in my head I count playing the really-similar releases as replays, like Costume Quest 2, Torchlight 2, Assassin’s Creed Rogue or the LEGO licenseds, years later.
I love Half Life 2 to bits but I wouldn’t return to the base campaign without MMod or something, I’d rather play custom maps.

I admire the chase for depth and mastery, but I’m a poser, the only games I can say I learned it properly like that is Dota 2 and some high-score chasing FPS: SWAT 4, Severed Steel and Wrack:Reclamation, technically replaying the same map, but not returning to them years later.

(I totally rewatch Youtube videos years later for comfort though)

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“I’m a poser”
”The only game I learned properly is Dota 2”, only one of the most complex competitive video games in existence lol

Now that’s modesty, if I ever saw it

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I think we’re often in a situation where we have so many games we’re luck if we play through the games we have once. But I have replayed games on average once a year. Usually it’s a game from my childhood on ps2 or ps3 maybe a steam game. There was a while I was replaying fallout almost once a year, but that was because I would get past the water chip and then get bored.

Just recently I’ve been more focused on newer titles, particularly indie games. I’ve been enjoying bombrush cyberfunk, feilds of mistra and easy delivery co as some examples.

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It’s funny since making OP, I’ve been on a replay binge lately. Me and my friends have been doing a lot of Archipelago. It’s a multiworld randomizer that connects everyone’s games together. I played Castlevania Circle of The Moon, while my friends played Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion. It was fun to sit there together and be all playing our separate games we haven’t played in forever. Because of the randomized nature it was cool to try and sequence break and figure out what to do without certain powerups. I beat mine in an hour at level 15 because they sent over all the keys needed pretty early.

We’re currently doing it again with me doing MH Rise, another friend doing World, and the last doing Super Mario 64. I have it to where every quest randomizes the objectives and I can only use certain weapons until I get the ability from them. So I’ve been stuck fighting endgame Rise Elder Dragons with nothing but a Bow (the one weapon I’ve never used before). Overall the system has been fun to look at the huge list of supported games and thinking “hmmm I think I can do that randomized.”

But I’ve also finally modded my 360 since the new ABadAvatar update dropped. So I’ve been playing a lot of XBLA titles again. Trials HD, Peggle, Marble Blast Ultra, Triggerheart Excelia, Hard Corp Uprising, Doritos Crash Course. I’ve been shuffling between those games pretty much every day slowly chipping at all of them or just playing them when I’m bored.

That’s where my headspace is at with trying to get into shmups. The mastery of trying to route even a 3cc let alone 1 is addicting. I probably should go back and play more games on harder difficulties. Maybe I can finally beat Ninja Gaiden on Master Ninja..