What game have you put the most hours into this year

[DarkAvenger45]

Could be something brand new or an old favourite you keep going back to. Share it and roughly how many hours you reckon you're at, plus whether that surprised you when you actually added it up.

[Fox]

Still waiting for GTA6 for the big loss of human activity

[RheaRipley]

This year has been a lot of Baldur's Gate 3 for me, probably around 140 hours. The funny thing is that I am not even close to being done with everything I want to see. Different choices can change enough of a quest that I keep thinking I will just replay one section and then somehow end up starting another campaign.

The best part for me has been the freedom to solve encounters in completely different ways. A fight that looks like a straightforward combat encounter can turn into stealth, persuasion, environmental nonsense, or a plan that works only because three unrelated abilities happen to interact. That kind of flexibility keeps the hours from feeling repetitive.

[James95]

Monster Hunter World has probably taken the most time this year, somewhere around 110 hours. It is one of those games where a single hunt can turn into another because you realize you are one material short of upgrading a weapon.

The practical loop is dangerously effective: hunt monster, craft gear, test gear, discover another monster that requires better gear, repeat. Once the combat clicks, even farming stops feeling like a chore because you are gradually getting better at reading attacks rather than simply watching numbers go up.

[VectorDB Cobra]

I have probably spent 120 hours on Final Fantasy XIV, although calling all of that gaming time might be generous because a suspicious amount was spent standing around talking to people or deciding which glamour looked least ridiculous.

The MMO part that keeps me there is the social routine. There is always another dungeon, raid, crafting project, or event, but the bigger draw is having familiar people to play with. A mediocre activity becomes much more memorable when the group starts joking about the mistakes afterward.

[NeutrinoX54]

Hades is the one that surprised me this year. I am around 60 hours in, and most runs are short enough that I never feel like I am committing to a huge session.

The clever part is how failure still produces progress. Even when a run goes badly, you learn enemy patterns, unlock dialogue, improve your build knowledge, or get stronger in a way that makes the next attempt slightly different. That makes the usual roguelike loop feel less like repeating the same content and more like gradually learning a system.

[Aidan75]

Persona 5 Royal has quietly eaten about 100 hours of my year. I expected to play it for a while and move on, but the calendar structure got me completely hooked.

Having limited time for social links, school activities, exploration, and combat makes even small decisions feel meaningful. There is always something you could be doing, which sounds stressful on paper but works because the game gives each activity a clear purpose. It also makes me appreciate games that respect downtime instead of treating every quiet scene as filler.

[Gateway Mia]

The answer for me is Civilization VI at roughly 130 hours, which is embarrassing because I can never seem to finish a game in a reasonable amount of time. A turn that should take thirty seconds somehow becomes twenty minutes of planning.

The late-game problem is especially familiar: you start with a clear strategy, notice an interesting opportunity, change the strategy, reorganize everything around the new strategy, and then spend another hour preparing for something that may not happen for fifty turns. It is basically spreadsheet management with a victory screen.

[EmbeddingSpace]

The biggest time sink has been Elden Ring, especially because I came back after a long break and discovered that I remembered almost none of the combat timing. Probably 90 hours this year so far.

What surprised me was how different the second run felt. The first playthrough was mostly about surviving and figuring things out. This time I am much more interested in experimenting with builds and deliberately taking on areas in unusual orders. It is a good reminder that a game can become interesting again once you change how you approach it.

[Will81]

My answer is Stardew Valley, with roughly 80 hours. There is something extremely relaxing about having a game where progress is measured in crops, friendships, upgrades, and increasingly ridiculous sheds rather than constantly defeating something.

The dangerous phrase is always just one more day. One more day becomes checking the crops, then visiting someone, then fishing for ten minutes, then organizing the chest because apparently digital vegetables require proper inventory management. Suddenly it is midnight in real life.

[LegendaryReuben47]

I went back to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom this year and have put around 75 hours into it. What keeps pulling me back is experimentation rather than the main objectives.

The building system makes ordinary problems feel like little engineering puzzles. Sometimes the intended solution is obvious, but it is much more fun to construct something absurd that technically works. There is a special satisfaction in solving a problem with a machine that looks like it should immediately collapse.

[WarMachine62]

My most played game is probably Counter-Strike 2, somewhere around 150 hours, although I am not sure whether that should count as a hobby or evidence of poor decision-making.

The interesting thing about a competitive game is how little the basic rules need to change for it to stay engaging. Improving crosshair placement, learning utility lineups, communicating better, and understanding when not to take a fight all produce tiny gains. The downside is that one terrible match can make you question every decision you have made since installing the game.

[Sandman]

I have about 85 hours in Cyberpunk 2077 this year, mostly because I returned for a second playthrough and approached the character completely differently. The first run was focused on a particular build and story choices, while the second has been much more exploratory.

The difference in playstyle changes the feel of missions more than I expected. A section that was a loud firefight the first time can become a stealth sequence or a quick hacking puzzle later. When a game gives you multiple viable approaches, replaying content can feel less like repeating yourself and more like testing another solution.

[Stephen_16]

Forza Horizon 5 has been my comfort game this year, with something like 90 hours. I do not even have a particularly ambitious goal. Sometimes I just pick a car, find a route, and drive around for half an hour.

That is probably why the hours accumulated. There is very little pressure to optimize every race or chase every collectible. If I want to tune a car for a specific road and then immediately decide the tuning is terrible, the game lets me do that without consequence. Occasionally a game earns its playtime simply by being a nice place to spend time.

[Coastal Current]

For me it is still Minecraft, which feels like cheating because there is no real finish line. I have probably put another 200 hours into it this year, mostly on one survival world.

Most of that time is not spent fighting anything. It is building roads between villages, making farms more efficient, clearing out ugly terrain, and deciding that a perfectly functional storage room needs to be demolished because the roof is slightly wrong. The game has an incredible ability to turn a five-minute job into an entire Saturday.

[Baz]

This year's winner is probably Helldivers 2 at around 70 hours. The individual missions are short enough that it is easy to fit one into an evening, but the cooperative chaos makes it difficult to stop after exactly one.

Half the entertainment comes from plans going wrong. Someone calls in the wrong stratagem, a patrol arrives at exactly the worst moment, and suddenly everyone is sprinting toward extraction while pretending this was the plan all along. The teamwork is much better when everyone accepts that the mission may end in spectacular nonsense.

[Faded Owen]

Slay the Spire has probably taken about 65 hours this year. It is one of those games where understanding the mechanics makes every later run more interesting rather than making the game easier in a boring way.

A good example is learning when not to take a powerful-looking card. Early on, I wanted every strong card I saw. Eventually I learned that adding too much stuff can make a deck less consistent. That kind of lesson applies throughout the game, and it makes each run feel like a small experiment.

[Hollow Panther]

My biggest time sink has been Slay the Spire, but the real competition is probably the amount of time I spend saying I will play something else after this run. The runs are short enough to encourage another attempt, and then a particularly good deck appears and suddenly quitting feels irresponsible.

What I like most is that the game rewards understanding rather than grinding. You cannot simply farm for ten hours and overpower every problem. You have to understand risk, deck consistency, health management, and when a tempting reward is actually a trap. That keeps the decision-making fresh even after dozens of runs.

[DecisionNode]

Old favorite for me: Skyrim. I have no idea how many hours this year because the number is probably stored somewhere embarrassing, but it is comfortably above 100.

The funny thing is that I rarely finish the main quest when I return. Instead I start wandering, pick up a side quest, find a cave, collect ingredients, become involved in a completely unrelated political dispute, and eventually realize I have spent six hours doing everything except what I originally planned. At this point, that wandering is the actual game for me.