For many games, the length stops players from completing them in one go. Many games can take upwards of thirty hours to complete, and plenty boast that they offer more than a hundred hours of entertainment. As a result, stopping is only natural because life still goes on.
Despite being theoretically completable in one playing session, some are unlikely to be for a different reason. Though they are short experiences, some games are intense and better-suited for short bursts where their intensity can fuel a player's efforts rather than long sessions where they might turn into lengthy bouts of stress.
10 Resident Evil 3 Has You Hunted Relentlessly
Hot on the heels of the Resident Evil 2 remake, Resident Evil 3 was criticized on release for its short length, clocking in at around eight hours for a first playthrough. A dedicated session could see this completed without ever leaving the seat.
However, aside from the general horrific imagery of Resident Evil, the remake sees you pursued for lengthy sections of the game by Nemesis, using the experience gained from the original Nemesis, Jack Baker, and Mr. X. Many players find the experience of trying to solve puzzles while being pursued stressful. Doing the whole thing in one go may prove too much for some.
9 Amnesia Is Notorious For Its Atmosphere
One of the popularizers of survival horror games that leave their protagonists unarmed and fleeing, Amnesia: The Dark Descent won acclaim for its well-built atmosphere, perfectly using lighting, sound, and enemies to leave the player fearing every corner or dark room.
This atmosphere is one of the game's biggest strengths. However, playing the game in one sitting spending hours afraid of everything that moves would frazzle the nerves of many players. As a result, it is best played in two or more goes - or with friends to ease the tension.
8 Life Is Strange Throws One Choice After Another
Not every game that is intense is a horror game. Some simply use hard-hitting story beats or emotionally powerful moments. In Life is Strange, the player guides the character of Max Caulfield through a poignant adventure about friendship, love, choices, and consequences while touching on hard themes like sexual violence and suicide.
The game is not particularly long, but hitting each of the game's emotional beats one after the other without pause is likely to dull them and see that some of their effect is lost.
7 Dishonored Can Be Both Tense And Brutal
The storyline of the Dishonored games has received acclaim for its simple but engaging plot and well-realized world. However, one aspect of its world is that it is a brutal place, full of crime, corruption, and treachery.
Even if a player could handle the constant discipline and tension needed to do some of Dishonored's harder ways to play, such as never being seen or never killing, seeing occasion after occasion of people being killed, framed, tortured, or oppressed is likely to lead to a bleak mood. Some levity in between is encouraged.
6 PT Is Considered One Of The Scariest Games Ever
PT is very short because it is not a full game but instead a Playable Teaser for the canceled Silent Hills title. As a result, it has been played in one sitting numerous times, often on-stream, due to spreading rapidly through word-of-mouth shortly after its release.
Nonetheless, PT is an undeniably intense experience. It mixes a terrifying aesthetic and mind-bending puzzles with some of the most blatantly horrifying imagery a creator has ever put into a game. As a result, many who have pushed through to finish it in one go on-stream have commented on spending the entire time nervous and tense.
5 Spec-Ops: The Line Doesn't Hold Its Punches
Another non-horror game, Spec Ops: The Line puts the player in the role of Martin Walker, a black-ops soldier sent to carry out reconnaissance on Dubai following a US Army Colonel defecting in the wake of a humanitarian crisis.
To complete his mission, Walker commits worse and worse deeds, culminating in attacking civilians with white phosphorous, many of which the player has to take an active hand in. Commended for its anti-war themes and story, the game is nonetheless bleak. Without much levity to break up its increasingly dark sections, it may be too much in one go.
4 Five Nights At Freddy's Requires Constant Vigilance
Before many saw it as reaching oversaturation, Five Nights at Freddy's took horror gaming by storm with its simple yet effective interface for generating scares and forcing the player to be constantly on guard.
The game has almost constant tension, with the near-helpless player aware that they are being hunted more or less from the beginning. This is coupled with jump scares, which happen every time the player dies and generally during gameplay. As a result, the game is notorious for the high levels of stress it puts players under, and many may not want to finish it in one sitting.
3 DOOM Runs On Sheer Adrenaline
DOOM (2016) has many of the trappings of a horror game but almost entirely flips the script by having the player be heavily armed and incredibly lethal. In a break from the first-person shooters of its time, it is an intensely mobile game, requiring the player to constantly move to avoid being encircled and to rack up kills as quickly as they can.
While not often scary, there is no question that the game is intense, with every part of its design intended to invoke a mad frenzy of violence. Getting the heart rate up from time to time is a good thing. Getting it up for the entire length of DOOM is less recommended.
2 Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice Is An Unflinching Look At Mental Illness
When it was released, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice won acclaim from critics with its unique storytelling approach to psychosis, working with mental health specialists and patients in order to create a game set in Norse and Pictish times that nonetheless reflects an accurate depiction of the condition.
The result is a very powerful and very rewarding game. However, it combines deeply emotional moments with psychological horror and nightmarish imagery, providing a barrage of emotions that are likely best with a break in between.
1 Dead Space Is Nightmarish And Non-Stop
Alongside its unique approach to combat, Dead Space was praised for its approach to building atmosphere. Between the game's aesthetic, sound design, and direction, the player can feel Isaac Clarke's terror as he's forced to combat a situation he can hardly understand.
Nonetheless, the game is almost relentlessly scary in a way that forces the player to be on guard at all times. Enemies can come from corpses, from the ceiling, from behind, and nearly anywhere else in an experience designed to fray nerves that is best suited to short bursts. Furthermore, the game's difficulty may lead to frustration when playing for a long time, dulling the intended horror.