10 Games You Can Finish in One Day

Back in the day, games were short, designed to be completed in a weekend. At most, in two hours of dedicated play, you could go from beginning to end of a game, if it was really good. The issue wasn't a design choice, but rather the limitations of a cartridge that was, at most, eight megabytes in size.

Everything had to fit in there: music, sprites, code. So, the adventures were relatively short. With the creation of CDs and DVDs, you already had games that could take ten to twenty hours to complete. Today, without physical media, games can take days to finish, and the sky (actually, the budget) is the limit for developers.

But, for those who have little time or miss shorter, more focused games, let's talk about ten games that you can finish in a single day dedicated entirely to the game that's worth playing. From games with intense and exciting stories to simple puzzle and platform games. And, if you have questions or suggestions for more games, leave a comment.

The campaign is approximately 20 hours long? Yes. Can you finish it in one day? Yes. And you use the other four hours of the rest of the day to eat and sleep! Released in 1995 for the Super Nintendo, Chrono Trigger is one of the most memorable RPGs of the 16-bit era and was born from a collaboration between Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yuji Horii, and the artist Akira Toriyama, of Dragon Ball.

The story begins when Crono and his friend Lucca attend a fair, and an experiment with a teleportation machine goes wrong, opening a time portal that sends Marle to another era. From there, the group travels through different periods of the planet's history, including prehistory, the Middle Ages, and a post-apocalyptic future, assembling a group while trying to prevent the awakening of Lavos, a creature capable of destroying the world.

Battles are turn-based, and the system allows combining the abilities of two or three characters to create joint attacks. Even with multiple endings and extra content, the main story usually takes about 20 hours, making Chrono Trigger one of those games that many people can finish in a single day dedicated entirely to the game.

Released in 1993 for the Sega Genesis, Phantasy Star IV is the last game in the classic era of Sega RPGs, created to compete with Final Fantasy, which was exclusive to Nintendo.

The story takes place in the Algol planetary system, where different civilizations live scattered across various planets. The adventure begins with bounty hunter Alys Brangwin and her young apprentice Chaz Ashley investigating the emergence of monsters, something that seemed like just an ordinary day. However, you discover that there’s a much greater threat linked to the entity Dark Force: an evil force called Profound Darkness.

The battles follow the traditional style of the franchise, but the game introduced new features, such as technique combinations called Macros, in which characters attack together. Another detail is the narrative scenes presented in illustrated panels in the manga style.

As a large RPG by the standards of the time, the main campaign usually takes about 20 hours. So, can you finish it in a day? Yes. But whether you're going to spend the whole day playing it’s up to you!

Released in 1991 for the Super Nintendo, Final Fantasy IV was one of the first games in the series to pay more attention to the plot and characters, marking an important point in the series.

Cecil Harvey, captain of the Red Wings military force, begins to question the orders of the kingdom of Baron after participating in violent acts to steal magical crystals. He loses his position and embarks on a journey to understand what is really happening and confront the plans of a mysterious figure named Golbez.

The game also introduced the Active Time Battle system, created by Hiroyuki Ito, replacing fixed turns with a time bar that defines the characters' turns. This change made battles faster and ended up influencing several later games in the series.

For those who decide to play straight through and intend to finish in one day, a run takes about eighteen to twenty hours. So it's another one of those games where you can even finish the main story in a day if you dedicate all your time to it.

Released in 1994 for the Super Nintendo, Super Metroid is a classic of the console, and the franchise has become synonymous with its genre: the Metroidvania. The story follows bounty hunter Samus Aran, who returns to the planet Zebes after a Metroid is stolen by space pirates.

Instead of following separate phases, the game takes place on a large interconnected map, with passages and secrets that are only discovered after acquiring a skill or item, encouraging exploration. As you find new skills, suit upgrades, and new weapons, previously blocked areas become accessible.

The main campaign usually takes between seven and ten hours for those who play it all at once. You'll probably take longer if you want to discover everything, but if not, this is one of the best games you can choose if you have enough time to finish it all in a single day.

Released in 2007 for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, Portal originated as part of The Orange Box, but quickly gained its own fame and became a classic. The game was born from a university project called Narbacular Drop, created by students at DigiPen, whose idea caught the attention of Gabe Newell, who eventually brought the team to Valve.

The story follows Chell, who wakes up inside an Aperture Science testing facility and must solve a series of experiments using a weapon capable of creating two connected portals on flat surfaces. These portals allow instantaneous passage from one point to another and are the basis of all the game's puzzles.

During the tests, the artificial intelligence GLaDOS converses with the character, and her comments become increasingly strange, hinting that something is amiss in that laboratory. With well-designed puzzles, ironic humor, and a lean campaign of about two to three hours, Portal is one of those games that many people finish on the same day they start.

Released in 2008 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, Mirror's Edge attracted attention at the time because of its unique approach: being essentially a parkour simulator, with running, jumping, and climbing, all in first person.

Here we meet Faith Connors, a Runner. In a world controlled by a government that monitors all information and means of communication, Runners deliver messages the old-fashioned way, while fighting guards and overcoming obstacles. Her mission is to help prove her sister Kate's innocence and catch the real culprits of a crime.

The idea isn't to go around shooting and killing everyone; it's about running, jumping, taking down guards quickly, and keeping running. The "Runner Vision" highlights objects in red that are part of the easiest route, helping the player maintain the game's pace. The main campaign of Mirror's Edge is relaxed, and you can finish it in about six hours, or even less, depending on what you do or don't do.

Released in 2020 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, Resident Evil 3 Remake is the next-generation console (and player) update of the game that originally came out in 1999 on the first PlayStation.

As we know, everything happens in Raccoon City during the T-Virus outbreak, an experiment created by the Umbrella Corporation that transforms the city's inhabitants into zombies.

Here we control Jill Valentine, former member of the S.T.A.R.S. team (and former almost-sandwich), who has to escape the city before the government decides to bomb everything to contain the virus. During her escape, she’s pursued by Nemesis, an infected monster created exclusively to kill all members of S.T.A.R.S. (and he keeps saying this all the time).

The game uses the RE Engine, the same as Resident Evil 7 and the Resident Evil 2 remake, changing the fixed camera of the original game to an over-the-shoulder camera, with free exploration, combat, and puzzles along the way. Despite the meticulous production, the campaign is relatively short, about five to six hours, which generated criticism and frustrated many people who bought an expensive game to play for only six hours, without multiplayer and nothing else to do afterward.

Released in 2022 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox consoles, Stray, or the "cat game", caught attention for its protagonist: a kitten lost in a futuristic city inhabited only by robots. The story begins when he becomes separated from his group after falling into an abandoned underground area and encounters a small drone named B-12, which helps the cat understand the place.

The city is full of robots that seem to have inherited habits from human culture, while creatures called Zurks dominate some dangerous areas. The adventure mixes exploration, environmental puzzles, and small action moments, always using typical cat behaviors, such as climbing, passing through tight spaces, and knocking objects down in the environment.

Even though it's a compact world, it's full of details and small stories scattered along the way. The main campaign usually lasts about five hours, making Stray another one of those games that many people can finish in a single day.

Released in 2017 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch, Little Nightmares is a dark, puzzle-platformer where you control Six, a small girl in a yellow raincoat who wakes up in a place called The Maw, a giant ship filled with enormous, strange creatures that, if they catch her, mean game over.

There are no lives, energy bars, or ways to attack enemies. Here you run and hide. If you're caught, at the very least you'll be devoured by the monsters. The story has almost no dialogue, and you understand it little by little through the scenarios and situations the character faces. The gameplay mixes stealth, small puzzles, and platforming sections.

The Little Nightmares campaign usually lasts between three and four hours, if you're good at hiding and don't go after secrets or achievements. But those are three very tense hours! Little Nightmares is one of those games that many people manage to finish in a single night and then stay up all night.

Released in 2024 for Xbox Series X/S and PC, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II continues the story begun in Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and follows the journey of the Pictish warrior Senua once again. The narrative continues to explore the protagonist's mental conflicts, as she grapples with constant voices and visions while confronting past traumas and elements linked to Norse mythology.

This time, the story takes place in Iceland during the Viking Age, where Senua embarks on a journey to confront enemies linked to the enslavement and oppression of her people. One of the game's most striking aspects is its level of visual realism, a result of detailed motion capture and scenarios created from real environments.

The surround sound is a fundamental part of the game, positioning the voices Senua hears around the player to create a more immersive experience (playing on a home theater is practically asking to sound like Senua!). With melee combat, exploration, and some puzzles along the way, the campaign usually lasts between seven and eight hours. Seven hours of an intense and heavy story, leaving you with that feeling of "it's over already? I want more!"