Losing interest in a game the closer you get to finishing it

[Deleted member 17402]

I really dislike that this happens. It's a phenomenon that happens with almost any game I play. It's definitely not because I had grown tired of whatever game I was playing by the time I realized I felt that way - on the contrary, I think this happens as often as it does because if I'm close enough to finishing a game's story, then that often means I enjoyed it enough to get to that point and will be let down once the adventure is finally over.

For this reason, I have so many games I completed 90% of the story in only to drop it once I realized I was near the end. Rarely do I see a game through to the end anymore. I think my mind wants to preserve the game as a never-ending experience, but I know the reality is the game will *finish* if I continue on.

I think games that have loads of side-content and a lot of RPG mechanics help offset this feeling for me, because once the story itself is over, I find myself easily focusing on leveling up my characters and making them stronger. I tend to finish games like that with less hesitation than most others.

 

[Ashura T. Hedgehog]

I've been doing this for years. Once I get close to the end that game just sits forever. Still haven't finished RDR1. I bought it in 2012.

Not with every game though. Just certain games.

 

[Deleted member 32822]

This happened to me with Astral Chain. I think I'm on the second to last level but I just cannot be bothered.

 

[Rae]

This is a timely post since I'm slowly losing interest in FE3H on BE: Church route like 70+ hrs and I'm like so...2x more routes eh?

Some other games I dropped would be Atelier: Lalua like I hit the moment where I realized I've exp the best of the game and now it can only go down.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Sigh. It's annoying and I really don't understand it.

 

[Mediking]

It happens all rhe time

 

[Naudyboy]

That was me with Uncharted 4. I loved 2 and 3 but boy did I find the later half of 4 just boring. From what my buddy tells me I was about an hour or two from beating the game when I just gave up.

 

[Socivol]

I was like this with Spiderman I did eventually end up finishing it. I really enjoyed the game but the open world got so boring by the end!

 

[psynergyadept]

this happens to me was well...sometimes I just stop halfway at times too.....my backlog just continues to grow....

 

[Deleted member 17402]

That was me with Uncharted 4. I loved 2 and 3 but boy did I find the later half of 4 just boring. From what my buddy tells me I was about an hour or two from beating the game when I just gave up.

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But what I'm describing is a personal inability to complete a game I'm enjoying because I dislike the thought of it ending. lol

 

[Kard8p3]

I find this happens more when I marathon a game, I end up getting burnt out on it because I've put so much time into it so quickly.

 

[TransEuropaExpress]

This happens to me with a vast majority of games.

For me it's mainly just that I'm really meticulous and slow when playing games I really enjoy so I think I tend to get my fill at like 80% completion or something most of the time. At least I think that's why.

 

[Putty]

Last game to do that was A Plagues Tale. Before that R&C PS4 and the last Batman game.

 

[bbq of doom]

Last time this happened to me was Super Mario Odyssey.

 

[Deleted member 17402]

I find this happens more when I marathon a game, I end up getting burnt out on it because I've put so much time into it so quickly.

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I'm playing Battle Chasers: Nightwar on PS4 and I was enjoying it until I read that level 30 was the max. Somehow knowing that and realizing I was half way to that number REALLY soured me. I was enjoying what I played so far but since progression in RPGs like this is often linked to your level , I realized how close I was to finishing it and now I am finding it very difficult to. That and I found out that a NG+ resets everything save for a few perks. Knowing that I wouldn't carry over my levels and just go from 30 to 60 instead really bothers me. Ugh lol

Last time this happened to me was Super Mario Odyssey.

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I think the last game I got 100% in was Super Mario 64. lol

 

[Deleted member 9486]

I'm the opposite. If I'm nearing the end, my interest tends to pique. I mostly play narrative-driven things so the story is tending to pick up and get me more engaged as I near the end.

If I lose interest in games, it's usually pretty early on. And I just dump them and move on. I used to power through, but stopped that years ago. Time is to pressure the older and busier you get, and games are some life altering experience. If I'm not feeling something, I drop it and move on to something that I have fun with.

 

[Ash735]

I'm the reverse, I'll start a game, get bored right away, then come back to it much later and pick it up again and finish it.

 

[A-Scuffington-Post]

Last time this happened to me was Super Mario Odyssey.

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This happened to me with Mario Odyssey also when it first came out....but as of late I picked it up again, my 6yr old daughter is so into it that it has me hooked again LOL. Might actually finish it this go around.

 

[CatAssTrophy]

I can understand it happening with open world games. I don't want to run through the main story and finish it before completing all the other things, so I am constantly in a cycle of telling the game to stop making the main quest my primary so I can focus on other stuff. I continue the cycle JUST LONG ENOUGH to become burned out with the experience.

But had I not done that, I may have finished the campaign and then not felt like going back and cleaning up the rest of the content.

 

[Strangelove_77]

Going by PSN trophies this happens a lot.

 

[bbq of doom]

This happened to me with Mario Odyssey also when it first came out....but as of late I picked it up again, my 6yr old daughter is so into it that it has me hooked again LOL. Might actually finish it this go around.

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I struggled through to the finish and promptly traded it in. Good game, I guess, but it's a slog if you don't love the loop.

 

[RustedEdge]

This is a timely post since I'm slowly losing interest in FE3H on BE: Church route like 70+ hrs and I'm like so...2x more routes eh?

Some other games I dropped would be Atelier: Lalua like I hit the moment where I realized I've exp the best of the game and now it can only go down.

Click to shrink...

I love FE3H but I can't do any more routes because the first half is the same every single time and I just can't do it.

 

[Illusion]

Yep happens to me. I try and go back, but typically what happens is some game I'm more excited for is released like a week later than I don't feel motivated to go back and finish the other game.
Or I was just not having that much fun, to begin with.

Astral Chain was great and I need to go and finish it. I dropped off at the mini game episode. Which to most people will probably be understandable.

Link's Awakening I'm slowly edging away at it. But I have a feeling once Sword and Shield come out both those games will be thrown into the abyss.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

My replay of Okami sits right before the final boss lol.

 

[Tangyn]

Yep it's happened to me so so so so many times. Most recently with divinity original sin 2 and weirdly with that game I have now replayed up to about lvl 15 three times but can't even seem to finish it up!

 

[Shahadan]

I had dozens of separate FF7 savefiles that all ended at the northern crater. I only witnessed the ending two years later because my brother finished it.
I'm not even sure I have completed it myself once as I sure as hell didn't want to back then.

 

[monmagman]

This never really happens to me tbh....but I am willing myself through the final few hours of The Ringed City in Dark Souls III right now.
I just want to get the game done and that's not the best attitude to have with these games,my patience has kind of gone with the formula right now.....will be taking a long break before my next From game,lol.

 

[tr1b0re]

Yeah that's Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda for me

Both games I got right up to the final mission and just kinda...forgot about them and never went back

 

[Ploid 6.0]

Happens to me a lot with RPG or loot based games. The game for me is making builds, and finding gear to make it work. When I complete the collection and I'm stomping all over things I get bored because there's nothing else to do, and unless it's Dragon Age I don't care about the stories in these types of games anymore (DA got a hold on me since I got hooked starting with DA:O).

 

[Wyman Manderly]

I have to really be engaged in the story to finish it all the way through - I tend to start checking out of a game when the gameplay becomes familiar and repetitive.

 

[Lord Vatek]

Every so often. The worst case was Three Houses. I beat one route, started a second, and then I realized the game wasn't very good and never played it again.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

The original Deus Ex does this to me after Paris, as that is the last "hub" area with peaceful places in the game and the rest of it is completing linear missions.

 

[Deleted member 17402]

This never really happens to me tbh....but I am willing myself through the final few hours of The Ringed City in Dark Souls III right now.
I just want to get the game done and that's not the best attitude to have with these games,my patience has kind of gone with the formula right now.....will be taking a long break before my next From game,lol.

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Funny you should mention Dark Souls. That's one series that I can see through to the end over and over because the "end" only leads to a NG+ (a huge number of them), so I never really feel like I'm finishing the game - I always have more to look forward to once I've beaten all the bosses and go to NG+.

 

[W17LY]

Deus Ex Human Revolution. After the ship chapter (the one who was added as DLC but included in the campaign in Director's Cut) I lose all the interest and couldn't complete it.

 

[Naudyboy]

But what I'm describing is a personal inability to complete a game I'm enjoying because I dislike the thought of it ending. lol

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Oooo I should of read it all the way through. The Witcher 3 and Red Dead 2. Especially Red Dead 2. That hit me hard, didn't want it to end cause i was really enjoying the story.

 

[Kor of Memory]

I consider this a pacing issue, or a story issue typically.

Like, when the game doesn't really "open up" to side quests until just before the final dungeon, then all of these new directions almost feels like choice paralysis. This has kept me from every beating FFX again, as I always end up dropping the game right after Yunalesca.

I've done the same thing with the new Spider-man game, but this one is more about the story of it. I've all but finished the game, all that is really left is side quests and the completion of the story, but at this point the story has become predictable and I no longer have a desire to finish it.

Part of this is because of how my brain works. Like lets look at Arkham City or Arkham Knight. I know how these games are structured. I know I'll get a new upgrade that lets me do something that I couldn't do before. Because of this, I usually don't bother hunting down side quest stuff because I don't typically like to go through a bunch of effort, only to realize I simply don't have the right item to do this specific challenge right now. So I'll wait until I have all my upgrades unlocked (usually acknowledged by the game with an achievement pop) and then I'll do all the side quests. Or that's how I'll plan it, what really happens is I overwhelm myself and just stop playing.

Admittedly, this happens way more with games that aren't my first playthru. It's rare I don't finish a game at all, but this definitely happens a lot on a subsequent playthru.

 

[Fergus Mac Roich]

Bloodstained was like this for me. But then I thought it was crap after the Bloodless boss fight, so maybe it was that.

 

[Joffy]

Games have a real problem with not knowing when enough's enough. It's not the devs fault, it's people insisting on the time played = value metric. By the time I reach the back half of a game I'm usually done, I'm just getting to the end for closure. There are a few exceptions though and it's great to find a game you can finish and feel like it delivered until the very end.

Which is kind of the opposite of your issue, but I did feel your situation with breath of the wild.

 

[monmagman]

Funny you should mention Dark Souls. That's one series that I can see through to the end over and over because the "end" only leads to a NG+ (a huge number of them), so I never really feel like I'm finishing the game - I always have more to look forward to once I've beaten all the bosses and go to NG+.

Click to shrink...

Yea,I can see that.
I enjoy the games a lot,but I'm not amazing at them and the last boss of the last dlc and the first of this one have pushed me to my limits,lol.

 

[Orbis]

I think it's just really damn hard to get pacing right in a game, both for developers and players. As a player I'm never sure if I'm playing through too quickly or too slowly; is the way I'm playing going to turn a 30 hour game into a 60 hour one? Am I doing enough side activities, or too few? For developers, they have to deal with the flawed idea that more hours = better and more content = better, whether they like it or not.

When it comes to losing interest towards the end specifically, that's definitely something I experience far too often. I've lost count of how many times I've been completing what are clearly late-game missions and thinking "ugh, another one?" when I find there is more to go. Maybe it's hard to write compelling endings. It definitely doesn't happen in every game.

 

[Wood Man]

Oh yeah, happens all the freakin' time.

I'm still near the last boss in Breath of Fire 4 for almost 20 years now.

 

[TheBiInBilingual]

I had this problem with Gears 5, I'm probably alone in this but I lost interest because the two big environmental chapters took longer than they could've been. I felt like I had seen the colour red for way too long (the desert area) , could've gone for more colour variation. I was really about to lose interest to progress, and then the game was over.

it probably also didn't help because before you stare at the colour red for like 2 to 2,5 hours, you have been in a snowy mountainous area that has mostly white. Everywhere. Was just straining on my eyes.

 

[Begaria]

I've got the opposite problem - I go harder on a game closer to finish, then have trouble starting a new game after finishing the prior one because I feel like I should be playing the one I just finished more.

 

[Giever]

Happens to me a lot. I think it's because I enjoy games largely due to immersion. The closer I get to the end of a game, the less content pops up, the more the boundaries of the world become apparent and I get less invested.

 

[Mazzo]

I know the feeling, it used to happen more to me. Since then I think I became more selective with my games, meaning I can better identify what I like and will keep me interested until the end, and pay less attention to the next big hyped game.

 

[Auron.90]

It has happened to me with FFXII and Kingdom Hearts 2, both finished ten years after the drop.

 

[Waggles]

All the time.

plenty of games blow their load in the opening hours, and it's diminishing returns from then on.

another user mentioned astral chain, and i almost did the same. Game starts strong, and just gets worse as you go.

 

[Zephy]

I feel you OP.

Confession time, I have never finished Final Fantasy IX. And I only finished VIII when I replayed it a couple of years ago ; until then, I had stopped both games when I reached the final dungeon.

 

[Aranjah]

This happens to me a lot with Pokemon games the closer I get to the Elite Four. I've played all of the generations of it and only actually beat the Elite Four in, like...3 of them.

Most other games that I don't finish, it's because I get distracted by a different game. It's mainly the Pokemon games where I kinda slow down when I get near the end.

 

[Blue for Sale]

This reminds me that I have to finish Hollow Knight. It's been sitting for a few months now, waiting to be completed.

 

[Deleted member 17627]

For me, this happens when I feel like a game has shown me everything it has to offer. Whether this is caused by pacing, backtracking, or padding, so many games do this thing where they last long than they need to and it feels like I'm just doing what I've already done at a certain point.

If the game has a good narrative, I will do my best to finish the game. But if it doesn't, then I usually don't have a reason to keep playing after I've hit a point where I've lost interest in the game itself.