What brings you back to a game time and again?

[StaceyPowers]

For games that you return to again and again for many years, what are the draws that keep you coming back?

For me, it depends on the type of game. If it is an open world game, it is usually the atmosphere, the music, the scenery, and just the fun of exploring. For linear games, all of that is part of it, but also the story and the characters, and wanting to experience what it is like to “be” those characters again.

[Patrik]

The nostalgia and mood, i have been replaying lot of older games recently such as Mafia 1, Driver Parallel lines & Manhunt for the sake of that old cool feeling that i had back then :D

[Family sedan]

For racing games it could be missing certain tracks, or commentators, or cars and that could make me want to revisit a game.

[Empire]

1. Games that have unlimminted where it never ends and you can keep on doing it with any new content that comes. Like ETS, ATS, most simulators games. Unless upon unless. I myself do flight sims.
2. GTA is always big and people still play older series of the games, mods that keep them going, roleplaying as a cop or whatever keeps the game running.
3. Then games that you just love, no matter how many times that you may did the story, you love it. Like Halo the first game for me 🙂 

No idea why I did dot points 😉 

[killamch89]

The modding capability of games like Skyrim and Fallout 4 always brings me back because I can play unique stories every single playthrough with different modlists. There's also the fun factor which will have me coming back to a game - I'm referring to games like DMC 5 and NFS: Heat.

[The Blackangel]

I would say the memories, but the only ones I have involve beatings. I come back to the same games because I want to escape into that world. I want someone to care. I don't want to sleep with a loaded rifle. I don't want to be looked in the eye and told that I should have been aborted. And the escape takes me out of this world and into another one where none of that ever happened. It doesn't exist. I can be the antagonist or the protagonist. And in a rare case, both. But above all, I get to stop being me.

[Shagger]

Great stories is an easy way to bring me back to a game. I've played through games like Final Fantasy X, Horizon Zero Dawn and TLOU more time than I needed to becasue I love the stories.

[m76]

Fun and varied gameplay.

A game can have the best story ever, if the gamelplay is linear without much chance to do things differently, it won't invite me back to play again.

For example I don't think I'll ever re-play TLOU2, because there isn't all that much more to it. Maybe if it comes out on PC and I can play it with a mouse and keyboard.

Games that invite me back do so because there is a strategy to them, skill based linear games offer nothing that I didn't already experience on the first playthrough.

Even RPGs fall under this rule, because how you build your character is a form of strategy.

[Gio]

The nostalgic feeling of a game will for sure bring me back to it, even if I know how to beat it or what the story line is going to have. The game called Paper Mario on Nintendo 64 comes to mind, because I played it so much as a kid. Even though I know the storyline, I will still go through it as a person who has not played it before to relive the memories.

[Patrik]

On 5/7/2021 at 11:22 PM, killamch89 said:

I can play unique stories every single playthrough

i didn't actually think that there are mods as stories extensions, some of these exist in GTA SA as well and can be made by everyone (some of them are known as DYOM missions)

[lludawg]

For me I often find myself going back to games that are easy to learn because I need something fun to do with friends or family. If I am bored one day, it is super easy to call friends over to come play games like Wii Sports or Mario Kart because these games do not need excessive prior knowledge to play. 

[Heatman]

For the fact that I really love the game, there is no way I'm going to play it just only once and leave it to rot.