Highlights
- Games like Dark Souls and Resident Evil offer multiple endings and hidden areas, providing ample replay value for players.
- Disco Elysium and Pathologic feature branching narratives, unique characters, and intricate details that make multiple playthroughs rewarding.
- The Stanley Parable and Baldur's Gate 3 have a variety of endings, dialogue options, and character customization that encourage players to explore different paths and experiences.
As games have evolved and developers have innovated over the years, there has been a massive focus on adding more replay value to games. While this is predominantly done through adding multiple endings, some games deserve additional playthroughs for the sheer amount of variety in their gameplay.
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Some games are completely different when played on a harder difficulty, have branching narrative paths, or even offer multiple characters to play as that changes up the gameplay dramatically. Some games simply offer so much emergent gameplay that it's highly unlikely a player would see everything they have to offer the first time around.
10 Dark Souls
Although Dark Souls has a vague narrative, it does include multiple endings, but that's not the only reason that players should replay Dark Souls. The world of Dark Souls contains plenty of hidden nooks and secret locations, which can often lead to hidden loot or even unique NPCs that can offer more insight into the game world.
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Furthermore, the loose quest system in Dark Souls allows players to encounter different interactions and dialogue with the various NPCs, and the amount of build variety on display offers even more incentive to return to Lordran over and over.
9 Resident Evil
The original Resident Evil HD remake is a highly replayable experience thanks to its two playable characters that dramatically shake up the game and its narrative, as well as the game's multiple endings that change based on who the player managed to keep alive.
Resident Evil also features multiple difficulties and a scoring system that allows players to replay the game in an attempt to get a better grade. Add to that the unlockables the game offers, such as "Real Survival," which unlinks the item boxes, and Resident Evil is a highly replayable game that's perfect for fans of survival horror.
8 Disco Elysium
This isometric role-playing game puts players in the shoes of a detective with a massive hangover and a case of memory loss, tasking them with solving a sprawling murder investigation as well as any of the game's side cases.
Disco Elysium should be played multiple times to experience not only the variety of outcomes in its quests and dialogue options but the amount of variety in character creation and progression, too. Furthermore, Disco Elysium's fictional city is full of small details and places to explore, making a second playthrough a rewarding experience for those who enjoyed the game the first time around.
7 Pathologic
This cult-classic hardcore survival adventure game is notorious for its clunky gameplay and sometimes tedious mechanics, but Pathologic shines brightest with its reactive narrative and characters, often unnerving dialogue, and dynamic town.
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Pathologic features three playable characters each with their unique storyline and motives, but that's not the only feature that demands multiple playthroughs. Pathologic is set over twelve days in a town ridden by plague, and throughout those twelve days, various events unfold, whether the player is there to see them or not. This encourages players to go back through the game and witness everything there is to see, and the different playable characters help to add more variety while doing so.
6 The Stanley Parable
This walking-sim game is revered for its great in-game narrator and its plethora of fun and creative endings for the player to discover. In fact, most of the fun to be found in The Stanley Parable comes from playing the game over and over to discover its different endings.
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The Stanley Parable is first and foremost a comedy game, featuring plenty of meta-comedy and funny interactions between the player's actions and the excellent narration, prompting players to try everything they can think of to get the narrator to say something new.
5 Armored Core 6
This latest entry in FromSoftware's cult-classic Armored Core series is one of the most polished and action-packed experiences in the franchise, bringing together everything FromSoftware has learned in their decades of experience.
Armored Core 6 gives players a variety of ways to build out their mech throughout the game, catering to different playstyles and offering a lot of variety for repeat playthroughs. Furthermore, the game’s branching mission paths, different endings, and New Game Plus mode actively encourage the player to play through the game multiple times.
4 Fallout: New Vegas
The Fallout franchise is known for its high replay value thanks to its heaps of side quests, optional areas, and RPG mechanics that allow players to build their character in a variety of ways, making each playthrough feel different.
Fallout: New Vegas is arguably the best of the series, and the most replayable. Fallout: New Vegas features a meticulously crafted and detailed open world, a plethora of side quests that can be completed in multiple, often creative ways, as well as a karma and reputation system that allows players to feel like they're having an impact on the game's world. Furthermore, the game features a variety of fun endings that players can strive toward throughout each playthrough.
3 Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
This cult-classic survival horror adventure game was released for the GameCube in 2002 and features twelve playable characters across a story that spans history. In the game, players switch between playing as the game's protagonist in the present, searching a mansion for clues, and playing as the game's various characters throughout different historic periods.
Eternal Darkness is known primarily for its fourth-wall-breaking "sanity effects" that are designed to cause confusion and heighten the horror of the game, but it also features multiple story paths and even multiple endings that reward the player for exploring every path.
2 Nier: Automata
This post-apocalyptic sci-fi hack-and-slash game is one of the more recent entries in the Nier series, featuring an open world, RPG elements, and a variety of gameplay styles that regularly switch things up and prevent the game from getting stale.
Nier: Automata begs to be played multiple times, featuring a multitude of endings made meaningful by the game's compelling narrative and beautifully crafted desolate world. Nier: Automata also features a New Game Plus mode that offers even more incentive for a second playthrough.
1 Baldur's Gate 3
The third entry in the already revered Baldur's Gate series took the franchise to new heights with its shocking amount of branching story paths, dialogue options, and meaningful character creation that can dramatically affect the way the game can be played.
The sheer attention to detail present in Baldur's Gate 3, along with its sandbox nature, allows players to immerse themselves and truly roleplay as their character, making each player's experience unique from the last. Because each playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3 is so unique, multiple playthroughs of the game are necessary to see everything it has to offer.