10 Video Games You Can NEVER 100 Percent

“Grand Theft Auto V” (2013)

GTAV might just be the pinnacle of Rockstar’s open world game design, but just because you witness the end of Franklin, Michael and Trevor’s journey and see the credits roll, doesn’t mean you finished everything in the game. With countless side activities including sports, hunting, racing and even more, GTAV is the closest Rockstar has come to recreating the real world in the series. Couple this with the absolutely massive world for players to explore, full of hidden secrets, easter eggs and locations off the beaten path, and the goal of getting gold in every single player mission, a campaign which can already take well over 100 hours, even simply approaching the idea of 100% in GTAV is a daunting one. And if GTAV is this overwhelming, just imagine what GTAVI will be like.

“The Binding of Isaac” (2011)

Any game that forces you to use your own tears isn’t going to be interested in whether you’re going for 100 percent completion or not. The Binding of Isaac takes the rogue-like formula and uses it to great effect, where merely surviving the randomly generated levels is only half the challenge awaiting players who descend into the basement. Along with the game’s punishing difficulty, The Binding of Isaac has also seen multiple expansions and numerous additional playable characters, all with their own playstyles and challenges. With the addition of higher difficulty tiers, hidden areas and boss encounters as achievements with the most stringent of requirements, you could easily play the game with every character multiple times and still not see everything The Binding of Isaac is hiding.

“Rock Band” (2007)

Being part of a real-life band is hard enough, but attempting to master a simulated one might be even worse. Not only do players need to master every single instrument and the vocals, as well as every single song on expert difficulty, but they then need to assemble a group of friends to take on the challenge once again, this time in perfect harmony. And as if this wasn’t challenging enough, the devs force the band to play every song back-to-back with zero breaks and without getting booed off stage. This isn’t even mentioning the numerous track packs that were released post launch, each with roughly an additional 20 songs for players to master. And this is only the first Rock Band game. There were three additional sequels for players to master, each just as difficult if not even worse... Even real-world bands don’t have to deal with this much stress.

“White Knight Chronicles” (2010)

Level 5 have created some of the deepest and most detailed RPGs in the genre, but with White Knight Chronicles, not only did they get a bit too ambitious, but they took some of the worst aspects of the genre and ran wild with them. The traditional story is roughly only 50-60 hours, so far good, but it’s all the additional content, collectibles, side quests, guild quest lines, and crafting missions that could take you well over 1000 hours to fully complete them all. While this may be a drop in the bucket for those used to MMOs, for traditional RPG fans, this is an absolutely absurd prerequisite to 100 percent what is typically regarded as a mediocre RPG.

“World of Warcraft” (2004)

Naturally any MMORPG is going to be difficult or damn near impossible to 100 percent complete, but after almost 20 years, WoW and its near constant content drops mean that players who have been plugged in even from Day 1 are unlikely to have seen everything the game has to offer. Not even accounting for the game’s well over 3000 unlockable achievements, there’s multiple power levels, raid battles, side quests, and even PvP. There is so much content in World of Warcraft, many players have dedicated their entire lives to the game to the point where an intervention became necessary. WoW addiction is real, people. With Blizzard still updating and supporting the game 20 years after launch with new patches and content drops, at this point the WoW servers will outlast its player base and eventually even the sun itself.

“Stardew Valley” (2016)

Inspired by the farming sims like Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley greatly expanded on those concepts and gave players enough content they could practically live a second life within the game. From clearing land and planting crops, to creating lasting relationships with the many unique townsfolk, the most basic day-to-day activities barely encompass everything players can do in Stardew Valley. Fishing, mining, crafting, raising livestock, complete quests for the community, and even getting married and starting a family are all possible during your playtime. Players from other farms can even join your community and have lives of their own, making the world feel more alive and interactive than a traditional farming sim. Players are even able to unlock new areas as they continue to play, adding additional resources to maintain your simple farm life that really is anything but.

“Animal Crossing: New Horizons” (2020)

Animal Crossing has been letting players craft their own idyllic slice of life for over two decades, but New Horizons manages to give players so much to do, craft, create and explore, there’s quite literally no way to finish the game. With an endless amount of side activities to complete, and no set goals to achieve besides those you assign to yourself, or whatever you must do to pay off Tom Nook, players are given an island and set free to do with it as they see fit. Coupled with the ability to travel to different islands to gather materials not native to your own or even visit your friends’ islands for inspiration and trade, Animal Crossing New Horizons gives players not only a lifetime’s worth of gameplay, but Tom Nook an endless stream of revenue.

“The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” (2011)

Bethesda is well known for their expansive RPGs and Skyrim was already their largest Elder Scrolls game to date with numerous different races to experience the game as, countless role playing choices to make, a massive open world to explore, secrets to find and quests to complete. Even just the base game itself could easily take a couple hundred hours and players still wouldn’t be able to see or complete everything the game has to offer. Although Daggerfall could technically make this list as well due to its procedurally generated map, Skyrim technically outdoes its predecessor with the inclusion of its radiant quests, procedurally generated side quests that the game endlessly generates for players to complete. Bethesda would use this same system in Fallout 4, albeit much less successfully with Preston’s settlement quests. We know, Preston, we know.

“Minecraft” (2011)

In a world where you can create almost anything, is there ever really an end to your creativity? Not only is Minecraft one of the OGs when it comes to endless procedurally generated worlds, the player’s ability to craft and create almost anything to their heart’s content means the only limit is your own imagination. Sure, there is something of a story and you can end up reaching credits if you really try, but by doing that you’re missing out on the core aspect of Minecraft, the user created experience. With a well-established community of creators, oftentimes working together, players have managed to recreate entire cities, both real and fictional, while endlessly exploring every single aspect of this voxel world. Minecraft has maintained its popularity for over a decade for the simple reason it has no beginning and no end, it simply is.

“No Man’s Sky” (2016)

No Man’s Sky has come a long way from its disappointing launch in 2016, finally delivering on all those promises made by Sean Murray and even surpassing them. Giving players a fully realized and procedurally generated galaxy to explore, full of endlessly new planets, flora, fauna, and animal life to discover, theoretically, No Man’s Sky could be the only game someone plays for their entire life, and they’d still never see everything the game has to offer. With numerous additional content drops that allow players to craft their own ships, living spaces, and even their own star systems, simply exploring the galaxy is only one aspect of the adventure. As with many of the other games on our list, you can technically reach the credits, but this isn’t the overall goal of No Man’s Sky, with the journey through the galaxy and the sense of wonder and discovery trumping any ending credits.

Which video game do you feel like you’ll never be able to fully complete? Share your picks in the comments below.