Here are the best games to play if you're short on time.
There was a time when video games were only a couple of hours long. These days, however, giants like Baldur's Gate 3 are stretching upwards of a hundred hours. Not everyone is lucky enough to have so much free time on their hands. Fortunately, though, there are many great games available that you can cram between those breaks.
This list mentions some of the best games for busy people. This includes roguelikes that have ten-minute runs as well as large, AAA games you can beat over the weekend. There are a lot of beautiful, short games mentioned here, and hopefully, you'll like a few.
1) Vampire Survivors
Vampire Survivors lets you pick a character from the over one hundred available and survive for the next 15 to 30 minutes. Enemies come at you nonstop while your character automatically attacks using their weapon. During stages, you can level up, acquire new weapons, attain passive effects, and do so much more. There's also freedom to create various builds. Whether you win or lose, you'll also always gain currency and are able to buy upgrades to make succeeding runs fun.
Vampire Survivors' roguelike shoot 'em up nature makes it super addictive to play. It has an easy learning curve, so busy folks will quickly get the hang of it. But best of all, Vampire Survivors is a game you can play at any time: during your lunch break, in the metro, or wherever else. Vampire Survivors is perfect in that, firstly, it lets you kill time in a fun way. Secondly, there are hundreds of characters, items, stages, and effects to unlock. So all that time you spend, you invest toward goals that help you become better at winning easily in future runs.
2) 20 Minutes Till Dawn
20 Minutes Till Dawn is like the grim, goth version of Vampire Survivors. Both games share nearly the same gameplay loop, bar a few differences. For starters, 20 Minutes Till Dawn has an eerie tone with a Lovecraftian atmosphere. However, the bigger difference is in the combat. 20 Minutes Till Dawn has you manually aim your weapons, so it's a bit more technical.
The weapons also differ greatly. 20 Minutes Till Dawn is more inspired by guns, kunai, and elemental skills. It also allows players to earn currencies and unlock new characters and buffs. But 20 Minutes Till Dawn is a little bare bones compared to Vampire Survivors. Having said that, both games are fantastic if you're looking for a quick flick. You should jump into Vampire Survivors first because of its vast offerings. But if you've already cleared it out, then 20 Minutes Till Dawn will be more of the same.
3) Mafia: Definitive Edition
Until this point, only short indie games have been listed. If you have the itch for something AAA, then fret not. Mafia: Definitive Edition is a remake of the action-adventure game Mafia from 2002. It tells a crime story based around the rise and fall of Tommy Angelo. Tommy, a humble cab driver, is turned into a stone-cold gangster when a chance encounter with the Salieri crime family changes his life.
The fascinating plot aside, Mafia: Definitive Edition is only 10 hours long. It takes place in a fictional version of 1930s Illinois. The architecture and map design are faithful to the timeline. The combat and driving feel polished, but it's still the narrative that carries you the whole way through. The story is filled with dozens of scripted moments, from car chases and high-stakes heists to full-on gang wars. Mafia: Definitive Edition is basically a movie and a video game, so you can kill two birds with one stone.
4) Dead Cells
Dead Cells is a roguelike-metroidvania, and it's one of the best to ever do it. As The Prisoner, you have to navigate through several terrains and fight a big, bad boss at the end. The terrains are procedurally generated. Mini-bosses, weapons, and merchants are located in random locations throughout. The combat allows for swift movement. Rapid long-range and melee attacks lead the offense, so fighting monsters feels snappy.
What's more fun is the progression system of Dead Cells. Once you beat the final boss, you're automatically sent back to the first terrain. However, this time, new weapons, permanent upgrades, pathways, and much else are available at your disposal. Dead Cells is available on console, PC, and mobile. All versions are exactly the same. That means Dead Cells' stunning graphics and animation are served equally well everywhere. No matter what platform you're on, you can boot up Dead Cells in a jiffy and delve into the world of monster slaying.
5) The Rogue Prince of Persia
The Rogue Prince of Persia can be called a cartoony, parkour-focused version of Dead Cells. The map layout is similar to other platforming games with different biomes. But what makes it unique is that the player character can climb poles, wall-run, and perform double jumps. This smoothes out the movement, making it seem like you're floating through the levels fast.
Combat is also quite similar to Dead Cells. Melee combat is nearly identical. However, The Rogue Prince of Persia has an emphasis on acrobatics, so aerial combat is highly rewarding. The Prince can perform a variety of aerial attacks like stomping the ground, double jump slashes, and whatnot. Each biome is scattered with enemies and NPCs. Randomized biomes ensure no two experiences are alike, and the non-linear storytelling lets you in on new parts of the narrative each run. This ensures that you keep coming back for more, which, if you like platformers, you definitely will be.
6) Frostpunk
Frostpunk is a city-building survival game. A post-apocalypse has left the world frozen. The last hope of survival is a giant furnace which you must activate and build a city around. You can initially command around a hundred citizens. You have to assign them specific duties so that resources are generated. Later, you can expand the city, send expeditions, and discover new parts of the frozen world. More and more people start arriving in your city, and it's up to you to manage everything from passing laws for order to establishing houses.
Frostpunk incorporates a strategy, building, and narrative in an innovative way. The story mode is around ten hours long, but if you strategize well, you can complete it in half that time. What's better is that if you end up liking Frostpunk after beating the story, there's an endless mode where you can develop your city on and on forever.
7) The Wolf Among Us
From Telltale Games' entire catalog of episodic adventure games, The Wolf Among Us is a timeless classic. It follows the story of different famous characters from fiction living in the same town. You've got characters like Red Riding Hood, Sleepy Hollow, Bluebeard, and so many more. Strange murders are happening across the town, so as the sheriff, you must investigate the case.
Episodic adventure games are the best. They are divided into several episodes. Each has a definitive starting point and ending. The episodes are always one to two hours long, so you can play them one at a time throughout the week. Since episodic adventures are mostly dialogue-driven and because The Wolf Among Us is a visual masterpiece, it'll satisfy two of your cravings at once. That of watching a good TV show and playing a great video game.
8) Papers, Please
You can finish it on PC, too, but Papers, Please is a game best played on mobile. It's a simple point-and-click game with puzzle elements. You're an immigration officer patrolling the border of a country. Anyone who wants to go in has to go through you first. You need to delicately check each passport and ticket, aiming to detect forgeries and wanted criminals with unsavory agendas.
Papers, Please might seem monotonous from the outside, but it's enjoyable once you get the hang of things. Levels are 20 to 30 minutes long, and new mechanics are introduced constantly. You're accepting and rejecting immigrants left and right, and after a while, the satisfaction of being good at your job follows. At the same time, you're on the payroll. The more you mess up, the fewer resources your fictional family has, and the closer they are to kicking it. Papers, Please is really distinct from other games. It's an innovative take on the point-and-click genre, which you should try out regardless of whether you have enough time or not. Glory to Arstotzka!
9) Stray
Stray is an indie adventure game about a cat that falls beneath the surface. As the cat, you solve puzzles and continue down a linear path while meeting various NPCs. Along the journey, you encounter robots, hidden cities, and weird contraptions. You see various sights and discover new places, and everything culminates in a beautiful narrative adventure by the end.
Stray is basically a short traversal simulator with puzzle-solving. It's only about five hours long, and apart from movement, there aren't any major mechanics in the game. However, Stray's world is gorgeous, and the wondrous sights constantly leave you speechless. It might not have action or open-world elements, but it's an enjoyable adventure nonetheless. One worth visiting, especially if you're short on time and still want to be wowed.
10) V Rising
V Rising is an action RPG with multiplayer and base-building mechanics. You play as a recently awakened vampire who is put inside a massive world. The map is divided into different regions, each with a unique presentation, enemies, loot, and bosses. The goal is to beat the bosses one by one, gather resources, establish your vampiric castle, and enslave humans into working for you.
The multiplayer aspect is just as good, too. When in multiplayer servers, you'll come across other players. You can go into their castles, form clans with players, go on raids with them, or even fight them and loot their base if you so choose. There's a lot to do in V Rising, but the great thing about it is that it's all divided into dozens of little milestones. You can take your time with each one, and the game rewards you for doing so. However, fair warning that time passes way too quickly in V Rising, so you might end up missing a few meetings.
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