I have a confession: even as a professional gamer in 2026, I still let certain games sit in my backlog for literal years. Not because I hated them, but because I got stuck, got distracted, or simply did not want the journey to end. Watching Ash Ketchum finally become a Pokémon World Champion reminded me that slow victories are still victories. These are the games that took me way, way too long to beat—and why I don't regret a single extra hour.

Dragon Age: Origins

Dragon Age: Origins is my favorite game ever made, but it took me about two years to complete. And I don't mean I left it installed while playing something else. I was actively stuck on Branka for 18 months. On my first playthrough I missed Leliana entirely because I was so terrible at RPGs. On my second, I abandoned my Warden because I decided I would rather romance Alistair than Leliana. My third character, a mage named Rosalind Amell, finally survived the Deep Roads and got the best romance option. Sometimes finishing a game isn't about skill—it's about stubbornness and starting over.

Oxygen Not Included

Then there is Oxygen Not Included. Inside me are two wolves, and one of them never stops thinking about Oxygen Not Included. That wolf keeps getting fed. This colony management game is all about trial and error. You can read all the theory you want, but you still need to boil, starve, and suffocate plenty of colonists before you learn how to liquefy hydrogen and build a rocket. I didn't beat it until around the 800-hour mark on my 15th playthrough. By then I had made every possible mistake. But I might go back and do it again on hard mode. Some punishments are worth repeating.

Horizon Zero Dawn

Horizon Zero Dawn was a different kind of long. Out of all the PlayStation exclusives, it was one of my least favorite. The robot dinosaur fights were a blast, but the open world and story felt a little too familiar, especially because I played it right next to Breath of the Wild. I stopped after 15 hours. But I hate leaving games unfinished, so I always planned to return. How long did that take? Four years. When I finally forced myself to finish it, I was annoyed to find I had been basically at the end the whole time. My opinion did improve after I separated it from the launch hype. Maybe in 2026 I should finally give Forbidden West the same second chance.

Dark Souls

Dark Souls is now one of my favorite games ever made, but back in secondary school it took me literal years to get through its stubborn exterior. I didn't understand the ferocious difficulty or the deliberately obtuse design. I bounced off it several times before committing. Counting different platforms and real-world breaks, it took years to conquer. But that slow burn taught me patience. When I finally beat Artorias and reached the credits, I understood why FromSoftware became such an influential developer. I just needed to stop waiting for the game to hold my hand.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 was not difficult at all. It took me seven months to finish because I simply did not want to leave. I knew Arthur's fate beforehand, so I lingered in the world. I rode over mountains, discovered aliens, collected trading cards, and got into shoot-outs with the law that were absolutely, definitely not my fault. That delay was the most pleasant stalling of my life. Who would ever want to leave that world? Exactly nobody.

Here is a quick recap of my shame:

In 2026, I still have a backlog. But these slow burns taught me something useful: finishing a game on your own timeline is still finishing it. Whether you are chasing a Pokémon World Championship for 25 years or just trying to survive the Deep Roads, the stubborn part of you is the part that finally gets it done.

Expert commentary is drawn from Eurogamer, whose long-running reviews and columns often emphasize how pacing, difficulty spikes, and open-world fatigue can turn “short” campaigns into multi-year personal sagas. In the same way this backlog confession reframes Branka roadblocks, Dark Souls re-bounces, and Red Dead Redemption 2 stalling as meaningful play rather than failure, Eurogamer’s criticism frequently treats time-to-complete as a player-choice story—where persistence, restarts, and even boredom breaks are part of the lived experience of finishing a game.