General News - Are RPG's Too Long?

Why you wouldn't want more content is beyond me, but Syfy Games' Tony Nguyen thinks that RPG's could be better if they were condensed.

Whenever I think about role-playing games, the first thing that comes to mind is the thought of embarking on a grand-scale adventure filled with hours upon hours of content. In fact, one of the reasons why I decided to purchase Fallout 4 the very first day it came out — despite how notoriously glitchy Bethesda games tend to be at launch — was because I knew that I was going to spend dozens of hours seeing everything the game had to offer. True to my expectations, I did spend over forty hours exploring the Boston Commonwealth, shooting countless numbers of Ghouls, Raiders, and whatever the wasteland wanted to throw at me. I didn't even finish half the list of the available side quests, or even half of the supposedly short main quest line!

During that, I discovered a little gem called Undertale. While it's enjoyable for its own reasons — which I highly recommend that you find out for yourself — one of the main things about it that stood out to me was that it was a relatively condensed adventure. Although you won't explore a vast wasteland or anything even remotely comparable, I feel like the game still somehow managed to deliver a satisfying journey. In just around ten hours, I got to meet an interesting cast of characters that I came to love, witnessed a story full of genuinely unexpected twists and turns, and even managed to tear up more times than I'd like to admit. So, it has me wondering: should RPGs be shorter to deliver a more focused experience?

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