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Looking for something a little bit less time consuming? Good news! Not all RPGs require 30+ hours of investment on your side. There’s plenty of awesome titles that condense the fun into more manageable adventures! So let's see what we’ve got for you then, shall we?
For a short RPGs to work, the most obvious element would be that the games don’t take too long to complete, obviously. But another very important part is that they are enjoyable! Luckily, since the games are shorter than usual, the fun bits are less diluted, which allows players to get more out of each short session and look forward to continuing the adventure the next day.
And if they didn’t have enough, there’s often enough alternative content to explore in another playthrough. Short but fun and repeatable games are popular for a reason!
There’s nothing wrong with games being short, since not every game requires 50+ hours to fully flesh out the world and characters. It can in fact be quite detrimental to the enjoyment if the game doesn’t keep players entertained or engaged for its whole duration, which becomes more challenging the longer it takes to complete.
Finding that sweet spot of being long enough but also fun throughout the whole game is quite essential to its success.
Games are meant to be fun. It’s not a very controversial opinion but sometimes developers get wrapped up in adding things without asking themselves “Is this fun?” or “Will the players enjoy this?”.
Even if the story isn’t the best part of the game, as long as it offers a challenging and entertaining gameplay loop it can still be really successful and potentially open an opportunity for a sequel.
Just because the player completed a game once, doesn’t mean that it’s “over”. Ideally the player should be able to play again and enjoy it in a different way, either by creating a completely new character or making alternative choices that should lead to some yet unexplored outcomes.
Either that or the gameplay itself could be fun enough to deserve another playthrough. The important part is that players have a reason to play it again, even after initial completion of the game.
It can be challenging to craft a great story in shorter RPGs, since it requires very skilled writers to condense them into something entertaining without leaving anything unresolved due to time constraints.
It can be tempting to create incomplete stories, hinting potential outcomes but leaving it open for interpretation. This can invite critique from players who prefer a proper ending, especially if the stories are really well written and characters are engaging.
Either way, a great story is quite vital in short RPGs.
And here’s a few exciting titles that shouldn’t take too long to complete and still offer plenty of fun!
The Outer Worlds is an action RPG developed by Obsidian Entertainment and released in 2019 by Private Division.
It’s set in an alternate future where megacorporations are de facto in control of everything. Human rights are virtually completely sidestepped to provide more profit margins and benefits to the shareholders and the ruling elites.
The game plot takes place in the year 2355 inside the Halcyon system, where space colonies are being run by the powerful megacorporations known as “The Board”. The player is put in the shoes of “Stranger”, a colonist arriving from Earth, who was revived from a cryosleep by a seemingly mad scientist Phineas Vernon Welles. He then asks the player to find resources to revive other colonists from the colony ship “Hope”.
The Outer Worlds keeps a similar vibe to the early CRPG Fallout series, with plenty of humour and references to balance out the crushing grim reality of the “corporate utopia”.
There’s a good character creation system that allows hybrid builds, giving more options within a single playthrough but also rewards specialising into a single role, whether it’s combat, stealth or diplomacy.
The game is split into planets, which can be reached via spaceship “Unreliable”, available after fixing it in the first segment of the story. Each planet provides a large open world area to explore, with plenty of side missions to complete.
While the main storyline is quite short, if someone wishes to complete every sidequest and side quests, it can become quite lengthy. There’s a sequel scheduled to release sometime in 2025, so no better time than now to jump into The Outer Worlds series!
A very interesting mix of action RPG and sport genres. Pyre was developed and published by Supergiant Games in 2017.
The story focuses on a party of “exiles”, banished to wander the lands of “Downside” for their transgressions against the “Commonwealth”. Those who wish to return to their old lives can only achieve that through participation in an ancient competition known as “The Rites”.
The PC (player character) takes the role of a “Reader”. Literacy is considered a crime in the Commonwealth and the PC is rescued by the party of exiles aboard the “Blackwagon”. In an attempt to get their freedom back, the group decides to team up with the Reader to complete The Rites by using their literacy to read the “Book of Rites”.
The Rites is where the player will compete against their opponents in a 3 vs 3 match up. Each competition requires the player to capture an orb and deliver it to the opponent's “pyre” through usage of various skills and abilities of active characters.
There’s an interesting story, a fun combat system and a great number of endings to achieve (around 20 thousand!), making it a really fun and interesting game to pick up.
A platforming RPG developed by Ubisoft Montreal and released by Ubisoft in 2014. It follows a story of a young girl called Princess Aurora, who wakes up in the magical land of Lemuria. She is given a task to bring back the sun, the moon and the stars in order to both save the land and return to her homeland of Austria.
The story is seemingly quite whimsical but covers some dark themes as Aurora discovers the truth about herself and the world of Lemuria.
The 2D art style is very charming with beautiful backgrounds and character designs. Definitely creates a unique vibe of what you'd expect from a world within a children's book.
A really engaging game with very cute and interesting characters, a hearty recommendation even for those not too crazy about RPGs.
Developed and released by Toby Fox in 2015, Undertale is a hit indie game drawing inspiration from games like the Mother (Earthbound) series and Touhou Project bullet-hell games amongst the others.
The plot is centred around a child that falls into the kingdom of monsters, sealed within a barrier by humans after a war broke out between the races.
Combat is played out inside a square/rectangular box where the player has to dodge/defend against incoming projectiles, sometimes requiring memorization of patterns. With each enemy having a different unique attack pattern to challenge the player with.
The game has quirky and fun characters to meet, great music and an amazing subversion of the typical RPG gameplay loop. It’s best to play it without spoilers to fully appreciate it.
Definitely recommended for anyone who likes a great story, fun gameplay and fantastic music.
If you enjoy RPGs but don’t have much time to spend on them, the above mentioned games should be right up your alley. Whether you’d rather spread them over a whole week or go all in on the weekend, they’re definitely worth the time you’ll spend playing them.
And if you discover that you’d like to give more RPGs a try, there are some interesting new and upcoming RPGs coming out in 2025 as well!
Not at all, while not applicable to every short RPG, the content is usually more packed and condensed to make the game more intense rather than spreading the content for a long play.
Yes, completion of one “path” often leaves the possibility to explore other potential narratives within the game, potentially unlocking different endings and previously locked content.
The game length isn’t tied to how well they’re written, so they can definitely have deep and interesting stories within them.
It varies greatly and rarely has any connection to length, a short RPG can be as high quality as a epicly long RPG and vice-versa.
