Factorio, it’s fun from the first minute but you’ll still be learning new things after 1000 hours.

cracktorio

Project Zomboid, Rimworl, Dwarf Fortress, Stellaris, Starsector…

I’ve been playing Tf2 for over 1.5k hours now. I recommend you to try it out There’s a reason why that game from 2007 is still not dead.

Warframe. Inching closer to 3.000h currently.

It does come in waves, but every once in a while I go all in again and lose myself in the infinite things you can do.

The only two games I have that I’ve put more than 1000 hours in are Factorio and Rimworld. I’d highly recommend both.

There was a moment in my life when I thought that perhaps I was outgrowing games… that they were just not really designed for the entertainment of adult human beings in a way that could satisfy me. Not one of my old stand-bys could, as you said, “scratch the itch” or provide “the same enjoyment that it used to.” I found myself spending more time with films and books.

Then I got into FromSoft games and indie titles, and within a year I realized games still held incredible experiences for me. I hadn’t outgrown games. I had only outgrown the bland slop represented by most AAA releases, and especially by online multiplayer releases. Personally, I’d recommend giving up on looking for a new 1000+ hour obsession. Instead I’d recommend seeking a broad array of 10-100 hour loves. If you haven’t already tried them, for me a love of gaming was saved primarily by: Dark Souls, FTL, Spelunky, and Hollow Knight.

Not a favourite anymore but still beats my second most played games by a factor of 4… Warframe was fun at the beginning and really clicked at about 200hrs. I left after about 2200hrs because I burned out but it still has a place in my heart.

Monster Hunter. The first one I played, MH4U back in the 3DS days, I put 1,000 hours into. That was nearly 10 years ago, and I’m still playing the franchise to this day. Currently finally going through the Sunbreak expansion of Monster Hunter Rise on the PC, and noticing a marked improvement in my mental health over playing other games.

Elite Dangerous is my go-to lately.

It’s different to most other games, by not being goal-oriented except for the goals you set for yourself. No main quest line dictating progress. No mandatory tasks. No win condition. Instead, it drops you into a simulation of our entire galaxy roughly 1300 years in the future, where humanity has mastered hyperspace travel and spread through hundreds of star systems.

(To give an idea of the simulation’s scope: Around 85 million systems have been recorded by players so far, and those are a vanishingly small fraction of what’s out there. Space is big.)

I like that it offers a variety of activities to fit whatever mood I might be in on a given day. I can hunt pirates, mine asteroids, engage in a bit of piracy myself, find and collect bio samples, infiltrate rival settlements, venture into vast unexplored areas of space, discover Earth-like worlds that nobody has ever encountered before, defend humanity against hostile forces, photograph beautiful stellar phenomena, rescue stranded survivors, customize and finely tune my ship to perform beyond its original specs, team up with friends, pledge to a political power and expand their influence, or chill out as a space trucker and haul cargo to earn enough money for my next upgrade. It can occupy all my attention, or just be relaxing entertainment while I listen to music or an audiobook.

It’s an MMO in the sense of having a large game world (galaxy) shared by all players in real time, but PvP is optional. One mode exposes you to other players, while another limits you to NPC encounters. You can switch between them at will.

One warning: A space ship has more than a few controls to learn, and they’re better suited to a game controller or HOTAS than a keyboard and mouse. I use button combinations for almost everything beyond basic flight controls, since there aren’t enough buttons on a controller for everything.

X4 Foundations… This sucks people life: you start a game when the sun goes to sleep, one second later the sun wake up 😅

Deep Rock Galactic

No Man’s Sky. A foot deep but a mile wide.

I’m amazed nobody has mentioned Kerbal Space Program (first one). That and TF2 are my most played

lol the problem with Destiny is they turned it into a treadmill and stopped putting the work into character and level design.

Elden Ring can easily take more than 100 hours on your first playthrough, and different builds significantly change your play style.

BG3, similar deal. Subsequent playthroughs are probably going to be accelerated, but there are a bunch of different story choices you can make that feel different, the party members have their own story lines, there’s a special custom character called Dark Urge that’s intended for a later playthrough that has it’s own twist, and you can change the strategy of encounters a lot with different party constructions.

Rimworld calls itself a story generator because you’re going to fail and have people die and whatever, but every game plays out different, there are a good couple scenarios, and there’s expansions and mods you can add on top of that for variety.

Just the first couple that come to mind. I’m not near 1000 hours on any of them, but they all have a lot of content.