10 Best Games You Can Complete in One Sitting

Games being hundreds of hours long doesn’t automatically mean they’re more enjoyable or have better mechanics on offer. There is an array of experiences that have a play time of under eight hours that are just as engrossing as the huge worlds on offer. Short games are also ideal for intriguing storytelling that doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Whether you’re looking for a short and sweet adventure with exploration, atmospheric horror to keep you on the edge of your seat, or a thought-provoking story to leave an impression, we rank some of the best games you can complete in a single gaming session.

10 Cocoon

Small Creature, Big World

Cocoon is a puzzle adventure game with a surprising twist, which involves each world existing as an orb that you carry on your back. Apart from each orb containing its own captivating biome, orbs also possess distinct abilities to add an interesting layer to puzzle-solving and to help you traverse beautifully crafted alien environments. I prefer the green orb's ability because it allows you to turn green mist into solid objects.

As you progress and learn about a civilization of the past, you will fight bosses using the game's unique mechanics, before evolving into a larger creature at the end of the game's five-hour runtime and discovering your place in the cosmos.

9 Lil Gator Game

A Little Adventure With a Big Heart

Drawing on some similarities with The Legend of Zelda series, Lil Gator Game is an adorable adventure set on an open-world island bustling with life and discoveries that amount to around six hours of playtime if you want to complete everything. Despite playing as a young alligator and making the world your playground, the story has a deeper meaning about reconnecting with loved ones and making new friends along the way.

There's plenty of charming scenery to take in as you discover new areas, opportunities for adorable interactions with the inhabitants of the island, and quests to complete. You can even craft new abilities that mainly focus on movement, as well as items to customize your character.

8 Mixtape

A Song and Dance Down Memory Lane

Mixtape is a coming-of-age story told through music, as three teenagers are drawn into a playlist that provokes dreamlike memories of key moments in their lives. Straight out of the 90s, it represents the peaks and troughs of being an adolescent, getting up to mischief, and provokes reflection on your own personal growth. The story balances seriousness and comedy incredibly well, and the music manages to elevate the narrative at every moment.

Typical of a walking simulator, the gameplay is very simple, requiring only a few interactions. If that's your ideal way of relaxing for three hours, Mixtape hits a lot of the right notes.

7 Stray

Feline Friendship

Stray is a third-person adventure where you take control of a cat who has been separated from their family. However, you must navigate a dystopian cybercity that's crawling with dangerous creatures and unravel a mystery to reach freedom. You won't take on this dark city alone because, fairly early on in your approximately five-hour playthrough, you'll be joined by a flying drone that acts as your companion.

The best part about Stray is the mechanics that naturally arise from playing as a cat. You get to interact with the environment through leaping, squeezing through tight areas, and sharpening your claws on various surfaces.

6 Journey

The Power of Simplicity

Journey is an immersive way to explore a mysterious desert with the goal of reaching a distant mountain. Expect to fly above ruins, glide across the sands, and bring cloth to life by singing to help you form paths to continue your adventure.

One of the most interesting parts about Journey is that there's a chance you will cross paths with other players on your adventure, with the absence of a name tag and voice or text chat. You can work together with the strangers you come across, but you won't be able to communicate with them outside your actions, maintaining the delicate atmosphere.

5 Portal

An Unforgettable Puzzler

The iconic puzzle game that is Portal was one of the most unique games of its time, and whether you've already played it or not, it's still an enjoyable way to spend three to four hours.

Portal and its puzzles need no introduction, but the portal gun makes completing your objectives in the chambers more interesting by connecting two areas with portals and even being able to launch objects through them. An AI called Glados is forcing you to complete the tests within the chambers, and even though they're a villain, I find the sarcastic lines Glados delivers to be particularly funny.

4 Inside

A Nightmarish Work of Art

Inside is a masterpiece of 2.5D puzzle platformers for its eerie atmosphere and the tension that it's not only able to build, but also maintain throughout your three to four hour playthrough. You play as a boy who finds himself inside a science facility that's home to a sinister project.

The puzzles are environmental and physics-based, in a similar vein to those seen in Little Nightmares, for example. Inside also features mind control that's used to control zombie-like bodies, which is integral to solving puzzles.

The story that lies in this dystopian world is as gripping as it is sinister, and stays imprinted on your mind long after the credits roll.

3 Thank Goodness You're Here!

British Humor at its Best

A bold and unpredictable comedy, Thank Goodness You're Here! is difficult to put down, so you'll more than likely want to spend the full four hours it takes to 100% the game in the bizarre fictional town of Barnsworth in Northern England, fit with authentic Yorkshire dialect.

Step into the shoes of a traveling salesman and meet the local residents, who will assign you increasingly strange jobs. Each job completed unlocks new areas of the town, with the jobs getting more absurd as you progress. With that said, it's the best way to pass the time as you wait for your meeting with the mayor, which is the reason for your stop at this unusual, yet visually appealing town.

2 Firewatch

A Beautiful Take on Human Connection

Firewatch invites you to step into the shoes of an ordinary man named Henry, as he leaves his chaotic life behind to work at a watch tower in the wilderness of Wyoming. Primarily, your job is to keep the wilderness safe and spot any smoke in the area, but there are strange happenings that force you to go deeper into the forest.

You will be in constant contact with your supervisor, Delilah, over a walkie-talkie, who you will never meet, but the conversations between Delilah and Henry are shaped by your choices that build or break the relationship between the two characters and influence the wider four-hour story.

1 What Remains of Edith Finch

Love and Loss

Play as 17-year-old Edith, who returns to the Finch house to uncover her family history, searching for stories and answers as to why she's the only member of her family left alive. Each story you find allows you to see life through the eyes of different family members on the day of their death, both from long in the past, all the way to the present day.

What Remains of Edith Finch is deeply emotional, centered around themes of loss, grief and sometimes surreal moments that make you ponder how fragile life is long after its two to three hour runtime.