Games

I like skyrim, but completing it is kind of missing the point IMO. The draw is to install a whole bunch of new mods and see if the game still works.

Stardew Valley. He keeps adding things before I finish what was already released.

I think what you're describing is how I felt with Hollow Knight. When I set it down for the last time (so far), I did so knowing I would probably never return to finish it.

I don't get a lot of time to game, and the time I get is punctuated by months of hiatus each year. Any game that's too long, too difficult, or too complicated to pick back up quickly after I've been gone awhile is not a good fit for me.

I was too far along in the game to even consider starting over, not to mention that a lot of the magic would be lost. But I was also far enough along that I know I don't want to put the effort into relearning the mechanics, figuring out what I'm supposed to be doing, and having to re-explore everything.

Granted, by the time I stopped playing, it had already grown tedious and I wasn't enjoying it much anyway. It stopped being rewarding was just mostly just punishing at a certain point.

After I set Hollow Knight aside, I found other games that I liked better and were more accommodating to my circumstances (ex: Hades). And now, even if I did want some more time with Hollow Knight, I'd honestly just wait for the upcoming sequel / prequel / whatever it's going to be (Silksong).

Red dead redemption. I refuse to go in that fucking barn.

Satisfactory, it's so much fun, but looking forward to the endgame builds is super daunting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSV2Ku3DhTc

Most of the games I don't finish are because I don't want the story to end. Currently its cyberpunk

Skyrim.

I spent about 100hrs playing and even built my own house. There's a branch in the story line part way through where you have to choose to be a Dragon killer or supporter. I couldn't choose so I just kept doing side-quests. Not played it in years though.

Not my absolute favourite game, but one that I loved is Kingdom Come: Deliverance. But I just don’t have the time to invest into relearning the combat system anymore. Which is a shame because I think the world it creates is amazing and you can get a bit lost in it.

Noita, kinda. I've won a few runs and unlocked most of the secrets, but some of the late game quests just get absurd to the point of taking dozens of hours and even with a perfect god-mode setup there's still ways to get instakilled.

I love a game with depth and secrets but noita definitely reached the point of "y'know, I'm not having fun anymore. This is just work"

Fucked if I'll ever beat Nethack without wizard mode.

Death Stranding is another, though for a completely different reason. I know there's some super cool fun shit somewhere in there; but getting through the first few hours of the game to get to that point is so boring I always end up putting it down before getting to anything worthwhile. And that's with actually thinking the walking system is pretty kick ass.

Fallout 4. I keep finding new mods and other stuff to do so I never really got around to finishing it, even though I put hundreds of hours in.

Bg3. It's a fantastic game that I put 100 hours into. I'll never finish it though because I was just done with the well put together gameplay loop. It made me realize I may be done with that genre altogether now. I've put uncountable hours into various crpgs, and I've had my time with them. I finished off with one of the absolute best. Good enough for me.

Tetris

Europa Universalis IV and Stellaris. For exactly the same reasons.

I spend way too much time in those games. Hundreds of hours each. But the end game is just too much of a slog. You already won, so there is no challenge; the framerate tanks into unplayable territory; and the micromanagement to manage the late game wars and economy becomes insane.

But starting with a different empire, and doing early/mid game again is awsome!

There Is a game call Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADoM) that has been around since the early 90's. It's a traditional Roguelike that I picked up and started playing in 2003 and I have yet to actually beat the game. I have thousands of hours on it in Steam and much much more than that before the Steam release and I have yet to actually win. It's hard.

Half-life 2 has probably been installed on every PC I've owed over the past 20 years but I've never finished it. On the positive side I've managed to avoid spoilers for this long so what's another 20...

Subnautica. I always have a lot of fun building out my base and discovering things and poking around, but after a while I get distracted by another game and put Subnautica on the back burner. By the time I get back around to it, I've forgotten how to play and end up starting a brand new playthrough.
Another one is Darkest Dungeon. I have over 100 hours in that game and loved it, but I kind of stopped playing after all the strategies I had been using stopped working and all my parties kept getting annihilated. I was spending so much time recruiting, training, curing, etc that it sort of stopped being fun.

Old School Runescape. Kind of a cop-out answer as it's a MMO, but I'm never gonna get maxed there

Valheim. I just build shit though.

Fallout 4 I have around 450 hours in it, and like 10 are in character creation and 400 are in settlement building.

I have not meet the Institute, I have had two run in with the Railroad, I have defended Far Harbor when you first arrive, I have meet Virgil ones and I have never been on board the Prydwen. I did get to some big fight in the Automatron DLC after you build the brain bot, but I have now idea if it was the last or not.

But I absolutely love the game to bits and can roll play in it for hours.

Ghouls n Goblins yo

Rimworld.

Over the years, on and off, I've put 2k hours into that game, and I've never, ever built the ship or helped the High Stellarch or found the Archo Nexus. Never even gotten close. I love building bases and growing colonies, and with all the DLC+mods there's an endless amount to do, but yeah.. doubt I'll ever actually get to the end.

Honestly, most big RPG's. I really love character creation, and I love watching a character progress in power. For most games, however, I find that if you put even a little bit of thought into character building, you either become far too powerful too quickly and lose any sense of challenge the game can offer or the game has such aggressive enemy level scaling that you end up feeling punished for trying to progress. To that end, as much as I love their early games, I've never completed a Bioware game, most Bethesda RPGs, all cRPGs including Baldur's Gate 3, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and The Outer Worlds. Whenever I get the itch to replay them, I always make a fresh new character.

Minecraft. I love building crazy things in creative mode or on peaceful but I will never play with monsters on or even attempt to fight the Nether dragon.

XCOM: Enemy Within. I haven’t beaten it in general (got really close on Normal), but I’ve been specifically trying to clear Classic since that’s the mode where the game is mostly fair for both the player and the AI; the AI literally stops pulling punches and the game stops skewing RNG in the player’s favor.

It’s the dragon I’ve been chasing for over a decade; I’ll squadwipe on a mission that fucks up my entire run, ragequit, and not touch it again for a year or three, then go “how come I never beat it?” and start the vicious cycle again. BUT GODDAMMIT, IT’S SO FUCKING FUN TO PLAY (except for Newfoundland, all my homies hate Newfoundland).

This is only vanilla btw, don’t even get me started on my Long War “attempts” (read: repeated wipes within the first couple of months).

EDIT: more gooder english and PTSD flashbacks of Newfoundland mission.