Are There Any Masterpieces You Can Beat In One Weekend?

Gaming is not only an expensive hobby, but it’s also time-consuming. Many of us have jobs, families, friends, and lives outside of our gaming consoles, and it can be hard to find the time to sit down and play through the latest hit video game in a reasonable amount of time. With so many fantastic games releasing every year, this can cause your backlog to grow beyond what’s reasonable.

Thankfully, not every game is a 100+-hour RPG. These next games are all fantastic, you might even say masterpieces, but you can easily finish each one in a weekend, with the longest coming in at just over 10 hours. From co-op to rhythm games to walking sims and platformers, you’ll remember playing these games for a long time, even though it won’t take you very long to roll credits on them.

Firewatch

Combat-Free Narrative Adventure With Excellent Character Writing

How Long to Beat: 4–5 hours

Set in Wyoming in 1989, Firewatch is a narrative adventure where you play as Henry during his first day as a fire lookout in Shoshone National Forest. A nearby lookout, Delilah, reaches out on Henry’s walkie-talkie, welcoming him to the gig and asking if he can investigate a report of some illegal firework use.

Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.

Easy (5)
Medium (7)
Hard (10)

Start

Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.

Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)Start

Henry’s day quickly spirals from there. Missing teenage girls, his watchtower ransacked, and a strange figure watching him from on high will immediately set you on edge. Meanwhile, Delilah’s friendly demeanor carries you through, but it’s a small comfort when, in reality, you’re all alone in the forest. Firewatch is carried by the strength of its two leads, Henry and Delilah, and the gradually unfolding mystery that Henry becomes embroiled in. While there’s not much action, it’s more than enough to get you through its 5-hour runtime in a couple of days.

Inside

A Strange, Stressful Platformer With An Insane Third Act

How Long to Beat: 3.5–4.5 hours

Playdead’s two dialog-free horror platformers are both masterpieces that you can beat in a weekend. While Limbo is relatively simplistic, Inside has a lot more going on from a world-building perspective. You play as a nameless boy in a red shirt who is inexplicably breaking into a heavily guarded facility. What motivated the boy to do this is never explained, but he is single-minded in his determination.

Unfortunately, the security guarding the facility is equally determined. Guards and guard dogs will quickly give way to surveillance robots and even more dangerous threats. The deeper you go, the more surreal things become. What this facility does only becomes murkier as you progress, with strange experiments and otherworldly technology around every turn. All the while, you’re solving tricky physics-based puzzles that play off of these strange phenomena. For a game that lasts less than 5 hours, Inside is jam-packed with content, ensuring that you’ll speed towards the finish line in short order.

Journey

A Gorgeous 3D Platformer With Stunning Multiplayer Integration

How Long to Beat: 2 – 5.5 hours

Plenty has been said about Journey, and between its reputation and its blink-and-you’ll-miss-it runtime, most gamers have already played it and spent the time since singing its praises. If you’re an outlier in that regard, let this entry be the thing that pushes you to try this game out. From the stunning visuals to the smooth gameplay, it’s a worthy investment of a couple of gameplay hours.

Journey is very simple. You can jump, run, and chirp, a single note that means nothing and everything. You use these skills to traverse a desert, pushing towards the massive mountain in the distance and its elusive peak. As lonely as this quest is, you don’t have to undertake it alone. During your playthrough, another player can occasionally show up and join you. You can only communicate through chirps, but that’s kind of the beauty of it. They may only stick around for a bit, or they may undertake the entire adventure with you. It’ll be a short acquaintance either way, but that’s what makes it so special.

Despelote

An Autobiographical Adventure Set During Ecuador’s Qualifying Run For The 2002 World Cup

How Long to Beat: 2 – 2.5 hours

There aren’t many games out there like Despelote. It’s a semi-autobiographical story that follows the life of its developer, Julian Cordero, chronicling his childhood in Ecuador. Simultaneously, the country caught football fever as the national team competed for a spot in the 2002 World Cup.

Fittingly, you’ll interact with the game world largely through a soccer ball, kicking it at dumpsters, knocking over traffic cones, and passing it to NPCs to engage in short narrative scenes with them. Despelote leans heavily on organic storytelling, where things happen in the world without your prompting, making it feel alive. For a quick 2.5-hour jaunt, it’s a very affecting game, earning lots of critical and player praise in 2025, and even a nomination for Best Debut Indie at the Game Awards.

Portal

An All-Time Classic Puzzle Game With A Brilliant Central Mechanic

How Long to Beat: 3–10.5 hours

What more needs to be said about Portal? Valve’s experimental sci-fi puzzle game, released as part of The Orange Box collection, was seen as an afterthought when placed alongside Half-Life 2 (plus Episode 1 and Episode 2) and Team Fortress 2, yet it quickly became the standout game of the bunch. This weirdly comedic game grew to iconic status in no time, from its villain, GLaDOS, to the infamous missing cake.

There is just one main mechanic in Portal: the titular portal gun. It can shoot a blue portal and an orange portal, and when both are in place, they connect, creating an impossible doorway through space. You use this mind-bending tool to solve a variety of puzzles that test both your lateral thinking and your timing. Portal has been lauded for nearly two decades now, but it’s still a great way to spend a weekend. If you really love it, there’s also a sequel that’s arguably even better (albeit longer, too).

A Way Out

A Co-Op Only Narrative Adventure About Escaping From Prison

How Long to Beat: 6.5 hours

Hazelight Studios has made its name on co-op games, and not optional co-op either. You have to have a partner to play these games. While that may sound restrictive, games of this ilk are a significant rarity in modern gaming, and Hazelight has perfected the formula. While It Takes Two and Split Fiction take the lion’s share of the limelight, if you’re looking for a game to beat in a weekend, you can’t go wrong with A Way Out.

Starring Vincent and Leo, a pair of convicts, your goal is to work with your co-op partner to escape from prison and then go on the run. While it is mostly linear, there are still plenty of diversions to take part in, from mini-games like arm wrestling to collectibles. If you don’t have a couch co-op partner, the good news is that you can play A Way Out online, even with someone who doesn’t own the game, thanks to the Friend Pass system.

What Remains Of Edith Finch

A First-Person Walking Sim About Uncovering The Mystery Behind A Family Curse

How Long to Beat: 2–3 hours

Walking sims get a bad reputation for being “boring” or “not real games” because they don’t feature complex mechanics. Let What Remains of Edith Finch set the record straight: these games can be deeply affecting, incredibly fun, and the kind of experience that you’ll never forget. They may not challenge your gaming skills, but they might just change your life.

What Remains of Edith Finch follows an unnamed character who, upon reading the journal of the titular Edith Finch, travels to her childhood home, the same trip Edith made as a 17-year-old. The last surviving member of her family, Edith believes that a curse was placed upon them, causing their untimely deaths. You’ll then take control of Edith as she explores her ancestral home and uncovers the mysteries within. This is a quick flashbulb of a game, but boy does it hit hard. From the sense of grief that permeates everything in the Finch home to the family’s tragic history, What Remains of Edith Finch evokes feelings in its players in a way that few other games can, all in a quick 3-hour playthrough.

Sayonara Wild Hearts

A Full-Length Music Album In Rhythm Game Form

How Long to Beat: 1.5–9.5 hours

How long does it take you to listen to an album? On average, probably about 90 minutes, although some can run longer or shorter. That’s pretty much how long it will take you to complete Sayonara Wild Hearts. Not only can this phenomenal rhythm game be completed in a weekend, but it could be completed in a single sitting, although rushing through the experience isn’t necessarily the way to go.

Each level is set to a song, and you complete them by riding through each neon-colored setting, collecting hearts and defeating enemies along the way. There are even boss battles, and they are a visual spectacle not to be missed. As stated earlier, your first playthrough will go relatively quickly and won’t put up a ton of pushback. Still, if you hop back in to chase down hidden collectibles, you’ll be faced with a much steeper challenge, encouraging you to master the game’s mechanics to get that 100% completion. With great music, gorgeous visuals, and a razor-sharp sense of exactly what it’s trying to be, Sayonara Wild Hearts is one of the most unique ways to spend a weekend gaming.