When you want to replay a game, sometimes you just haven’t played it in a long time or want to try the higher difficulties. However, there are games out there where, in order to fully understand the story, you need to play through at least twice.
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To boot, there are tons of games, especially RPGs, where there are so many branching paths that you essentially need to complete them more than once to get the full experience. Trying different romance options or being evil this time are must-see aspects of these games.
9
Silent Hill
A Story Easier To Understand The Second Time Through
There are two big reasons you need to replay Silent Hill 1 after beating it for the first time. The most obvious reason is to get the best ending, because virtually everyone playing SH1 without any outside knowledge will likely kill a major character towards the end of the game on their first playthrough.
Even if you take the proper steps, you’ll likely have no idea you’re supposed to use a certain item at a specific moment. It’s not until the end of the game that you realize what you were supposed to do. Plus, playing through it a second time makes it much easier to understand the story and what’s going on as you realize key aspects you didn’t think much of the first time, like the Seal of Metatron placed around the game world.
8
Alan Wake 2
“It’s Not A Loop, It’s A Spiral”
When you first beat Alan Wake 2, there are many unanswered questions you will have left, with the ending quite open. That’s where the Final Draft mode comes into play. Final Draft is essentially a New Game Plus mode but with a vast number of changes that make a second playthrough worthwhile.
These changes can be very striking, with even Alan pointing them out in-game. The cherry on top has to be the extended ending that reveals so much more, yet it still leaves some threads dangling for another sequel.
7
Red Dead Redemption 2
Will You Uphold The Code Of Honor?
Replaying any Rockstar open-world game is a big ask with the time investment, but if there’s one Rockstar game to play through twice, it has to be Red Dead Redemption 2. The key element here is the Honor system, brought back from RDR1. You can be a true saint or the nastiest cowboy in the West. Honor affects not only the gameplay, like the previous title, but also the story.
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The conversations, what happens at camp, and even key plot events, including the ending, get changed based on the alignment of the Honor scale you’re at. There’s so many changes that you need to play RDR2 a second time, plus you can play only the main story if you want to speed up the process.
6
The Mass Effect Trilogy
Gaming’s Biggest Sci-Fi RPG Epic
Action RPGs are ripe with replayability, and while one game can offer enough content, what about a trilogy of games containing one whole story with a beginning, middle, and end? Mass Effect is the best trilogy in this regard, with nearly all your choices affecting future events.
It’s literally in the game’s title. Frankly, there’s so many reasons to replay the Mass Effect trilogy, whether it’s playing as a different gender, going Paragon or Renegade, different romance options and how they can play out, and a battalion of story choices to make that you can replay this game for the rest of your life.
5
The Witcher Trilogy
Gaming’s Biggest Fantasy RPG Epic
The original Witcher trilogy, focusing on Geralt of Rivia, has many of the same reasons to replay it a second time as Mass Effect. You can transfer your save data between games, although only on PC, making your choices matter.
Once again, you have many romance options, multiple endings that are significantly different compared to the ones in Mass Effect, and key choices that change the rest of the game, like choosing between Roche and Lorveth in Witcher 2. There are not as many differences as in Mass Effect, so you won’t be replaying this for the rest of your life, but there’s still enough material for at least three whole playthroughs of the Geralt trilogy.
4
Resident Evil Outbreak
Left 4 Dead Before Left 4 Dead
By far, the best Resident Evil spin-off game has to be Outbreak, both files 1 and 2. An RE game in the style of the classics but with some modern flair, like being in a group, online play, and traditional analog controls, its replayability seems oddly akin to the later title Left 4 Dead. Like Valve’s iconic zombie shooter, you have numerous campaigns/scenarios here with some randomization.
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However, the core reason you must replay each of these is the sheer amount of stuff you can do. Not only are there multiple endings and pathways, but different ways to complete core tasks, as well, along with a ton of side objectives. Each scenario has an event checklist, and the game’s so fun that full 100 percent completion is very tempting.
3
Return To Monkey Island
An Ending So Baffling, At First, You Must Do A Second Run
Sometimes, a video game ending can soil the entire experience, and for many, that was the case with Return to Monkey Island. A phenomenal adventure title with great humor, Return to Monkey Island’s ending flips the entire game on its head. It will make a lot of people baffled and possibly angry. That is, until you replay the game and realize it was all set up from the very beginning.
Replaying the intro and reading the full notebook you get when you beat the game adds a lot of clues to understanding the ending. Throughout the whole game, there are several moments that cleverly foreshadow the ending that you won’t even think about during your first run. You need to play through this game again to truly appreciate the stellar story Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman told here.
2
Until Dawn
So Many Ways To Die
Along with RPGs, a big genre that’s ripe for multiple playthroughs is the choice-based narrative horror game popularized by Until Dawn. Using the Butterfly Effect system, most choices in Until Dawn have dramatic consequences, with the body count being the most important factor in the story.
For the best ending, you’ll want everything to live, but what’s much more interesting to seek out is the death scenes. They are brutal, and there’s a lot within the game. Many people’s favorite parts of a horror movie are the death scenes and Until Dawn delivers. You can replay the game many times just based on that aspect alone.
1
The Last Of Us Part 2
Even The Developers Force You To Do A Second Playthrough For The Platinum Trophy
The Last of Us Part 2 has a vastly bigger plot than the original. Completing Ellie’s section takes you on a journey that’s expected since it’s presented as a revenge tale at this stage. When you switch over to Abby, you get so much context about the conflict in Seattle that it completely opens up the narrative.
Ellie is a complete outsider to this area, just like you, so when you replay her section again, you understand so many things now. For example, the main antagonist of Abby’s section has a whole backstory within the notes found in Ellie’s part of the game, showing his rise to power. You must do a second playthrough to fill in the puzzle here, plus you’ll need to do it anyway for the platinum trophy.
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