What Makes A Game Replayable?

Game timestamps by first appearance: 0:13 - Hitman 2 0:14 - Minecraft 0:16 - Super Metroid 0:20 - Resident Evil 4 0:23 - Breath of the Wild 0:28 - Halo Combat Evolved 0:31 - OneShot 0:34 - CubeWorld 0:39 - Sonic Mania 0:43 - Pac Man Championship Edition DX 0:48 - Hades 0:48 - Mario Maker 2 0:48 - Hearthstone 1:02 - The Order 1886 1:02 - Motorbike 1:02 - Street Fighter X Tekken 1:08 - Katamari Damacy 1:11 - Hyrule Warriors 2:37 - Slay the Spire 2:42 - Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2:47 - Star Fox 64 2:55 - Mass Effect 2 3:00 - Witcher 3 3:01 - New Super Mario Bros 3:27 - Chrono Trigger 3:34 - Disco Elysium 3:47 - Skyrim 3:51 - Dark Souls 4:03 - Final Fantasy X 4:48 - FTL 4:56 - Spelunky 5:19 - Enter the Gungeon 5:40 - The Order: 1886 5:46 - Monkey Island 2 5:50 - Uncharted 6:12 - Ace Attorney 6:33 - Final Fantasy XIII 6:50 - Game of Thrones (Telltale) 7:02 - The Walking Dead Season 2 7:45 - Metal Gear Solid V 7:52 - ModNation Racers 7:56 - Rollercoaster Tycoon 8:04 - Dreams 8:05 - LittleBigPlanet 3 8:07 - Warcraft 3 8:20 - Terraria 9:37 - Civilization V 9:45 - Motorbike 10:01 - Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance 10:30 - Wargroove 10:39 - Super Smash Bros Ultimate 10:44 - Soundshapes 11:25 - L.A. Noire 11:36 - Red Dead Redemption 2 12:20 - Tetris Effect 12:26 - Rocket League 12:33 - Overwatch 12:40 - Splatoon 2 12:48 - Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 12:51 - Super Smash Bros Melee 13:13 - Chess on chess.com/ 13:48 - Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 14:03 - Crazy Taxi 14:10 - Donkey Kong 14:17 - Kingdom Hearts 3 14:26 - Bayonetta 2 14:29 - Devil May Cry V 15:27 - Super Monkey Ball 15:35 - Mario Kart 64 15:40 - Luigi's Mansion 15:42 - Zelda Ocarina of Time 15:52 - Pokemon Red/Blue 16:06 - Lawbreakers 16:19 - Super Smash Bros Brawl 16:21 - Street Fighter X Tekken 16:33 - Evolve 16:38 - Team Sonic Racing 16:48 - Super Smash Bros Ultimate 17:05 - Tetris 99 17:14 - Guilty Gear Xrd 17:28 - Pokemon Omega Ruby 18:04 - Shadow the Hedgehog 18:17 - Dragon Quest 3 18:37 - Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival 18:55 - God of War (PS4) 19:01 - Final Fantasy IX Leave a comment if you see a clip you don't recognize - we, or someone else, will let you know what it is.

Am I the only one who REALLY needs a "gameplay from:" tag at the bottom of the screen? It's been too many times where I've seen games that look really interesting used in these videos but have no idea what they're called!

unskippable cutscenes and the good old "please walk slowly besides me while I explain something to you" are my worst nightmares, and often times are the top reasons for me to not replay something.

Sometimes replayability can come from the writing and not gameplay. For example, if there is a massive plot twist that gets properly foreshadowed it's tempting to replay the game just to try spotting all the little hints that were there, as well as to see how various events are recontextualized by knowing the twist that is coming. Tales of Berseria and CrossCode are examples of such games.

Skippable Cutscenes absolutely help with replayability. I used to want to go back to play the original KH 1 and 2 but stuck with KH2 because it was a slog to go back to KH1. The rerelease helped fix that though, and now I go back roughly every year to play it again. Such a good childhood game of mine... Though apparently the Xbox One port is allowing the infamous unskippable opening cinematic to be skipped?

I also think that a major factor in replayability is "how long until I get to the fun bits?" because some games can be great fun but take their sweet time to get rolling, for instance an open world game that heavily restricts you for a very long time before it opens up. on the other hand, I haven't played Skyrim yet, but from what I hear of people who do play it more than once, it seems that a dominant reason is that they have to wait relatively little time before they just ignore the main story and go off doing random nonsense, their favorite sidequests etf. I even play linear games again because I know I can just get to the good bits without it being a chore. of course each person has a different opinion on what the "good bits" of a game are.

"But first, we gotta pay the bills" is such a great segue into advertising

One factor you didn't mention is aesthetics/nostalgia. I often revisit Banjo-Kazooie just for the music and level design. Its just a cool place to hang out. This especially applies to noncompetitive games like animal crossing. Perhaps thats more of a factor for what makes games worth revisiting rather than replaying, if there is a difference there.

3:27 Shadow the hedgehog used multiple endings to double playtime, and was worse off for it. Add alternate endings with caution.

"Unskippable cutscenes make a game less speedrun friendly." To be honest, I don't even understand why games STILL has unskippable cutscenes nowadays. Also, I think it's important to make it clear that NOT ALL GAMES should be replayable. Just because a game isn't replayable doesn't make it a bad game. As you mentioned, the Uncharted series barely has any replayability since most of your engagement with the game will be on your first playthrough. That doesn't make the Uncharted games bad. Amazing video as always. Keep up the good work!

Never stop doing these types of videos. They’re so Damn entertaining and educational.

Fire emblem games, especially three houses. Most games have a cast larger than you can deploy, so you have to choose what units to bring to each map. Additionally, more modern games feature stuff like reclassing so the same unit can be totally different each time.

That chess clip makes me so angry

As a big rpg fan I like to replay them for story and character's alone sometimes, also having new knowledge on how the game work's let's me experiment more with the battle system.

The 2D Sonic games are an excellent example of replayability through evolution. And they're also one of few titles I can think of that uses the "back to the start" style of game over to aid in that idea. The more times you play through the game, the better of a route you find, and the better your execution gets.

I love how randomizers helped with replayability for some older games. I’ve found myself going back to a lot of the older Legend of Zelda games to play the randomizer versions. Added challenge and different ways to approach the games.

A nitpick about Chess - the ruleset has been tweaked frequently for as long as the game's existed, so it's never had the same ruleset for even a single century. In the late 20th century, the international body governing Chess introduced a minimum period of 4 years between rule updates in order to limit the pace of change... My pet example of unskippable cutscenes is the start of Ocarina of Time - I've played the game dozens of times, and every time I have to resign myself to sitting through the opening, which even requires you to start pressing a button to advance text partway through so you can't even leave it running and come back when it's done...

I don't know if I agree that the Ace Attorney games aren't re-playable. They're as re-playable as a book is re-readable. I pretty much only play single player games where a completionist playstyle can be achieved and to me, any game is re-playable because I always try to make the act of getting everything as efficient as possible (perhaps not to a speedrun level) every time I decide to re-play a game.

For me, one of the biggest draws to replay a game is the story. Even games whose story is the same every time can incentivize replaying. Even if the story hasn’t changed, you may have, and you can find new meaning in and old story, or be reminded of the meaning you saw in it to begin with.

The Saints Row franchise keeps me coming back time and time again just for the amount of fun the user can create for themselves. Also, Final Fantasy 7 is a great game to go back and play again and again, as long as you inhibit yourself in some way. For example, last time I played it I wanted to get all of the weapons, limit breaks and materia within 70 hours.