Talking Point: How Often Do You Replay Games?

If it has New Game+ there is a higher chance that I will replay, especially those longer RPGs. With New Game+ I can usually just steamroll through the game and enjoy the story with a much smaller time commitment.

Often. I've been 2016 Doom like 4 times. Must e played Fallout NV and Fallout 4 about 3 times each. Same for Skyrim and Doom Eternal. On my 3rd Vermintide 2 playthrough as a different character.

I don't really know the difference between only certain titles and hardly ever on the poll, i picked hardly ever. I replayed Oblivion when the remaster came out, and I replayed Skyrim a few years ago with one of its rereleases. I replayed Remnant From the Ashes after beating Remnant 2 to recontextualize the story and that was very worth it since I didn't understand it the first time. I replayed The Last Remnant (I guess I like to replay games with Remnant in the title?) when it came out on PC and changed a lot of the systems for the better, but that's 15 years ago - so replays for me are very few and far between.

Big survival horror fan here so I have replayed the original RE 2 countless times. Probably my favourite game of all time. I’ve replayed RE2R plenty of times too.

All the time. I tend to play 3-4 games at a time and at least one of them is a replay. Im big into retro emulation so I end up doing full replays of a ton of really old games. I would guess something like 40% of my games are replays.

Some games I play yearly. Pumpkin Jack is downloaded and ready for its annual halloween week playthrough.

Never. Too many games release for me to spend time doing replays. Games take me forever to beat too since I sometimes get like 1 hour every 3 days to play

I have more than 1000 games bought, so I don't replay games too much nowadays.
If I do, I probably wait more than a year to do it.
There are special cases though, but that's just for my all time favorites, like Mass Effect, the Persona 4-5, Dragon Age 2, Assassin's Creed Odyssey or The Witcher 3.

Mass effect trilogy, red dead 1 and 2 all naughty dog stuff, Witcher 3...twice.

Gta5, half life 2....thrice.
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Bloodborne NG+7

I play through the campaign of every single Gears of War game (including Tactics) every 12-18 months, and have played through all the Halo games a few times. I did also replay The Witcher 3.

The games have to be very special to me, so I have replayed Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2, and Baldurs Gate a few times for example, as I have the Dead Space and Mass Effect franchises, which I really enjoy.

I have also replayed each of The Last of Us games, and both of the Horizon Zero Dawn, and also Days Gone a few times now. Plus I re-play each game when it is re-released as a remaster, but also play either the sequel or the first game so that I get the full experience. So, when they remastered The Last of Us Part 2, I played the first game first, and then the new remaster.

So for me, it is where I really, really enjoy the franchise, as with Gears of War, or when a game that I have enjoyed is re-released. Honestly though, I buy new games all the time, and so the time I have to replay older games is very limited.

I like playing games across different gens. I've just finished GTA4 after not playing since 2009. When ff7 remake is out I'll replay that at it's higher frame rate/fidelity.

A game has to be special though. I won't play something like South of Midnight again, even though it was wonderful

Certain titles, absolutely. I have a yearly ritual of dusting off the old ps4 and basking in the glory of a fresh Bloodborne playthrough, along with a plethora of nostalgic games from my childhood on various ancient consoles—NES, Saturn, etc.

I’ve always been a new game experience gamer and rarely play old games. I do try now and again and stop after a short while.

I like beating games on multiple platforms, like F.E.A.R. 1 & 2 on Series X and PS3, Inside and Limbo on Switch and PS4, and Control on PS4 and PS5

Sometimes for me. Often when a sequel releases I will replay the previous game(s) just to get back up to speed with a franchise.

Or if I want to compare the old with the new which is what I am doing now by replaying Dying Light 2 so I can have a fair comparison to DL The Beast.

Non stop. 90% of my game time is replaying older games.
Games from the 360/PS3 gen are so much better than modern games, that by playing older games you’re playing better & more fun games than what’s released nowadays.
Modern games are more polished & convenient, but no way near as fun.

Certain titles only. It's very circumstantial. It's a whole mix of factors like genre (soulslikes and platformers more likely to be replayed), game length (shorter more likely to be replayed), narrative linearity (games where there's loads of player choice in the story very rarely get replayed because I come to see my initial playthrough as 'canon' ), remasters being released (sometimes tempts me to replay a game), whether it gets ported to Switch (handheld novelty factor!), new game release schedule (I have more time to revisit old classics during dry spells), my own perception of my backlog (if I feel it's overwhelmingly long then I may feel 'guilty' for replaying games), my mood in any one month (sometimes I'm feeling nostalgic, sometimes I want new and shiny), direction of the prevailing wind etc.

It’s rare I will even complete a game once with my attention span let alone replay them but I used to do it alot as a kid when time wasn’t an issue and there wasn’t sooo much game choice. In my adult life it’s only really been From Software games on NG+ I’ve had any interest in replaying. Looter games like Diablo, Destiny and Borderlands sometimes get a replay with a new build as well I guess.

Many times a year. Especially retro games like Mega Man, Contra, SotN, Doom, old sports games.

On Xbox? I’d like to replay Skyrim/Fallout/Starfield at least every year. And Wildlands and Far Cry are my comfort games.

Was just considering replaying the Mass Effect trilogy for the first time since release.

There's just too many new games to play or old games I never played before, and since 2018 with game pass I've never had a time that I didn't have one of those options. I bought all FF 1-9 and the Sega Classics and haven't replayed any of them haha

Caveat being games like Diablo that I will go back to but I don't consider it replaying. It's just an ongoing game that I return to from time to time.

@Jenkinss almost the same as me. I didn't make it all the way through Oblivion remaster, but I did do a full completion of Skyrim with the SE and fps boost at the start of the gen. I'm slowly going through Morrowind again too, but it's maybe an hour or two every other month at most

When it's a game I like, I replay at least once if not twice. Recently, I replayed Star Wars Outlaws three times, and Dragon Age Veilguard three times. Fallout 4, 3, New Vegas, and Skyrim I have replayed four or five times each. And I have lost count of how many times I've replayed The Last of Us and The Last of Us part 2. I really feel like the second playthrough of any fun game is the best playthrough. When you are very familiar with the controls and kind of have environments and enemy tactics down.

It’s not how often, it’s how good was it.

Mostly survival horror games. I replay Resident Evil remake 2002 every year.

Little bit of random advice to everyone, forget your back log! Just forget it and play what you want when you want. You will enjoy gaming much more again and feel less like a chore.

@Kieduss Absolutely! Backlogs aren't real.

I'm somewhere between Never and only Certain Titles because I have and would replay Certain Titles IF they were fully remade and expanded and/or amended to bring something New to the game so its not 'exactly' the same with just a 4k/60 (or 120) and slightly higher polygon ount and higher quality textures (probably the 'Originals they had to 'reduce' in quality for that generation.

I don't enjoy movies or cover versions of songs that basically copy the Original as closely as they possibly can. I don't want the 'same' experience I had back then and I won't get the 'same' experience now just because it 'looks' and plays better. Its still an OLD game and so many 'newer' games have expanded and built upon those old games that they feel 'old' and 'dated', in need of a 'remake', built with the masses of resources they have access to today, not limited and restricted by old hardware to really make the game as they really envisioned or would make today....

Depends on how possible it is to play a different way with a different build and have an interesting second experience. Doing that now with Cyberpunk. Sometimes the nostalgia goggles have me wanting to replay a game that I have fond memories of, but once I start it’s just too familiar.

Depends on the game. Most games I'll never replay. Favorites from my childhood I enjoy revisiting from time to time. Resident Evil 4 must be replayed once a year; this is non-negotiable.

Newer games? Not that often.

Diablo 2, Link to the Past, Borderlands, Monster Hunter? At least every year.

Backlogs are very real, @ButterySmooth30FPS. I have over 1600 digital games in my Xbox library, and I would guess that I have not played half of them!

I used to buy games all the time with the best of intentions of playing them, but then would be captivated by some nice new game, and then never get round to the games that I had bought previously. It is a really bad habit that I am attempting to put an end too by buying far fewer games at a time, and now rarely buy them in sales either. That said, I have bought 27 games thus far this year, and have only played 7 of them! Some of the games I pre-ordered but have not yet got round to include Assassin's Creed Shadows, Death Stranding 2, Silent Hill F, and Borderlands 4. I'd like to think I'll get to some of them this year, but time is marching on, and some of them are looking increasingly unlikely, and so they get added to my very real, and ever increasing, huge, backlog...

There are games that I liked but it was a relief when I reached the end. The kind of games I replay are Resident Evil (the classics and the remakes), Project Zero/Fatal Frame (all), Super Mario World, Rare's Donkey Kong Country trilogy, Sonic 1-K (now Sonic Origins) Banjo-Kazooie, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess, Super Mario Sunshine... Xbox One was my first Xbox, so Xbox exclusives came later to my life. The only game that is very long that I could see myself replaying is Persona 5 Royal, because it was more than a lengthy RPG to me.

@Kieduss Resident Evil Remake, one of my favourite games ever.

@Blastfemur I agree on the second playthrough sometimes being better than the first.

@nomither6 Many indies are overrated, but there are some I really liked like Unravel and Hades. The games I replay the most are older and not indie. Don't you replay some classics? Shadow The Hedgehog? 😜

I put hardly ever, but it’s because there is so much good new stuff. One day nostalgia will kick in and I’ll go back.

I don't replay to many. I have replayed Skyrim, Morrowind, and mass effect and the kotor series multiple times. Oh and oblivion and fallouts. shadowrun on the Genesis I have replayed a couple of times. really enjoying final fantasy tactics replay and enjoyed ogre battle replay.

I never replay games. There is no reason. They are too many games on the backlog and there is so little free time as an adult with work. I just play the game and move to the next one. If I am dedicated enough, I can play 1 hour per day from Monday to Friday, which I am working, and I can play 2-3 hours at the weekend that is my days off. This is 9-11 hour per week, or 35-44 hours per month, which is enough hours to beat 2-3 games. I mean action-adventure AAA game, not RPG. Games like Metaphor Refantazio or Yakuza can take 30-50 hours to finish.

I've used a lot especially rpgs. Nowadays hardly ever.

I replay a fair amount of games when I just get that itch to go back and play the series. Its normally tied to something else like recently I did Rangnarok with the Valhalla DLC so that made me go back and do the entire greek saga of GOW.

I watched Josh Strife Hayes attempting a permadeath Hardcore run of Baldurs Gate the other day so I have booted BG1 back up and am running through that again.

Other games I will replay are classic shooters like Borderlands if something just scratches that itch. Unfortunately modern games can be to long or feature to much bloat / annoying mechanics which can put me off replaying them no matter how good they are.

I have a few favourites that I replay regularly.

Games like Uncharted, or Hogwarts Legacy.

I have replayed all of the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series, many times, to see different parts of the story. Make different choices. Only completed Veilguard once so far, simply because I did not enjoy it as much as Inquisition. I must have completed Dragon Age Inquisition dozens of times!

I have replayed Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, completed that twice.

I have also seen the end of Starfield at least three times. But have no desire to replay it again for a long while.

I would not say very often but sometimes. There are classics I have played many times (link to the past and ocarina of time, super mario world and 64, all the 2d metroids, mafia (pc), etc.)
But also I kind of like achievements and I have replayed a few games on Xbox that I had played prior on other systems (mainly switch)

I often replay favourite levels rather than whole games. Plenty of old games that are regulars on the playlist that I can dip into for a quick 20mins or even an hour or two - FH4 &5, F1 2024, skirmishes on Age of Empires 4, Halo Wars 1&2, the ‘overhead’ air support missions from CoD games. Recently I’ve gone back to AC Odyssey and have also revisited Dishonored. Titanfall 2 is another I need to find time to repeat…..the problem is there’s still so much new stuff to play too…a good problem to have!

Hardly ever, I would love to replay games and "savour" others more, but as a busy parent who works a full time job doing so it's not a luxury I can afford at the moment (unfortunately).

Still enjoy the gaming time I have anyways

Replaying single player games just has never been my thing outside of the original Mario games. The only title I have replayed in the last 10+ yr is Elden Ring.

When I was younger it used to be all the time. Now as I am older I will usually play through a game once and move on usually because of time and the fact I have access to far more games these days.

Question to X users: How often do you play your games? lol.

If I really enjoy a game I will replay it at some point.

As a gamer since 1978 (Atari VCS) I have only ever played a game all the way through once and crazy that it's Indiana Jones & The Great Circle, obviously I've played multiplayer games over and over. The only other game I would consider replaying again is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time when a remake arrives.

I think Fallout 3, Windwaker, and Gears 1 & 2 are the only games I've ever replayed outside of games from the NES generation.

@Kieduss Agreed! If clearing your backlog isn't fun, then why bother? And if replaying an old game is just as fun as playing a new one, then why not?
(I like to do both, for what it's worth- at least 60/40 in favour of new games- as I personally find that this is more enjoyable than forcing myself to only pick from the backlog.)

PS: Just recently started to get decent at REmake. Great game, and I already want to play through it more in the future! Could definitely see myself playing it every few years, at least.

All the time! After a decade or two, I tend to forget a lot of the puzzles, story elements, etc., and replaying an old game can almost feel like playing a whole new game! (Just with a nice touch of familiarity.)

I used to replay old favourites like the Marios, Sonics, Zeldas, and Donkey Kongs over and over when I was younger, but not so much these days, as the flow of time has sped up: if I played a game within the last few years, it often feels too recent to bother going back, especially if it's a game I played to death already. And as time goes on, I take longer and longer between play-throughs.

Sometimes I do. Especially if there is nothing interesting coming out or the new game disappoints.
Some games stay in the back of your mind and sooner or later you get back to it...

I replay mass effect trilogy every year, i do also replay other games but less often

I enjoy replaying GTA 5 very 2 or 3 years, same goes for San Andreas, those are 2 classics I genuinely enjoy revisiting. I've played RDR2 a total of 3 times since release.

There's also series I'll go back and play though, BioShock 1, 2, and infinite I've beaten more than once each. Gears of War is an EXCELLENT trilogy that I adore and love going back to. Assassin's Creed Black Flag, Assassin's Creed Origins and my absolute favorite Assassin's Creed Odyssey I've beaten more than once. I still haven't beaten Valhalla yet, and I haven't even started on Mirage even though I own it.

So yeah there's definitely games I enjoy revisiting, and replaying. Happy gaming ✌️

@dkxcalibur the gears of war trilogy is just too good not to revisit every once and a while, especially on Series X|S where the games get fps boosts and auto HDR

@Bimba Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is a game I definitely see myself playing through more than once. I'm still working on my first playthrough lol it's just a good game through and through. 👍

@Kieduss agreed 💯 percent! I own games I've never played, that I really want to play (Assassin's Creed Mirage, Beyond Good and Evil remastered, & Star Wars Outlaws) but I get deep into other games to the point where I don't end up playing my back log at all I just keep playing whatever else I find intriguing.

It's actually funny now I'm 32, I've started playing through multiple games at once. For example, I beat Avowed and was playing through The Outer Worlds at the same time. I spent more time with Avowed, finished it first and then finished up The Outer Worlds as I was playing through Diablo 4 Vessels of Hatred. I've found I don't need to ONLY play one game til it's "done" I can enjoy multiple games at once, when I get tired of one thing I can pick up another and keep going, that way I don't get burned out of games I'm REALLY enjoying.

To my fellow Xbox enthusiasts who have crazy back catalogs, cheers and happy gaming ✌️

I frequently replay parts of games I´ve finished before, but anything from the 2010s and more recent suffer from a lot of bloat and nonsense map-clutter, so I rarely finish them the second time.

Replaying games is never that fun imo. Once I've done it it's done. Plenty more fish in the sea.

Wonder how many are voting that they do because they want to own their games and not feed into the argument of licensing