In this economy, it’s difficult to justify paying full price for some video games, let alone the $80 price tag that some are now charging. Luckily, if you only buy games on sale, you can get enough to last you until the newest ones are on sale, too.
However, if you’re looking for cheap games that you can spend hundreds of hours on, you’ve come to the right place. The definition of cheap can vary from person to person, so we’ve included games at a few different price points, but nothing more expensive than $30 USD.
For the low cost of free, you can spend thousands of hours in Warframe. This action RPG has you play as a Tenno, a warrior with the ability to control biomechanical weapons of war, known as Warframes. The game is entirely free to play, and you can even earn the premium currency, Platinum, by trading with other players for items earned in-game for free.
So, without spending a dime, you can easily put in hundreds upon hundreds of hours into the game. There are hundreds of weapons, Warframes, and other pieces of equipment to level up, dozens of quests to play through, and so much content you may never see the end of it.
Terraria is a 2D side-scrolling survival crafting game that, at first, looks like a 2D version of Minecraft. However, the similarities in graphics and initial premise end there; Terraria is much more focused on its action combat, massive boss fights, and fun loot.
The world is procedurally generated, so each new world has different locations to explore. Of course, you can also spend your time building a massive structure and recruiting every NPC to live there. There’s endless replayability in Terraria, and the extensive modding community has only added more to do.
Oxygen Not Included is a colony simulation game where you set up a civilization in an alien space rock. Underneath its charming aesthetic, Oxygen Not Included hides one of the most complex colony sim games out there, with dozens of interconnected systems to manage to ensure the survival of your colonists.
The game is very difficult, so just learning how to play it will take quite a bit of time. It’s not unreasonable to expect Oxygen Not Included to last for thousands of hours, if you’re able to put the brainpower into figuring out how each of its mechanics and systems work.
Path of Exile is a Diablo-like ARPG that has you control one of seven different Exiles, prisoners who have been banished to the grimdark land of Wraeclast. As you might expect from an isometric ARPG, running through dungeons, collecting loot, and building your character are your central concerns in Path of Exile.
The best part is that the game is absolutely free. You can spend your money on cosmetic items, but these are by no means required to enjoy the hundreds of hours of content available in the game. Plus, Path of Exile is routinely updated with new Leagues, which are essentially fresh-start servers with a new mechanic to play around with.
If creature-collecting, dungeon-crawling, team-building, and number-crunching are words you would use to describe your ideal game, prepare for Siralim Ultimate to completely take over your life. This turn-based RPG has an absurd amount of depth, from its hundreds of creatures to tame, interconnected systems to work out, and endless dungeon floors to explore.
The goal is to build a team of monsters that synergize with each other, using various systems and equipment to make them stronger, then explore a randomly generated dungeon for new loot and creatures. All of this will help you upgrade your equipment and monsters in order to take on greater challenges. There are easily hundreds of hours of content here, and it’s all well worth exploring all of it.
Stardew Valley may not have invented the genre, but it definitely kickstarted a rekindled interest in cozy farming sims. Burnt out at your corporate job, you move to the boonies and take over your grandfather’s farm. From there, you can really take the game in any direction you want to go.
Of course, the core of the gameplay is planting, watering, and harvesting crops, but you can also build relationships with other villagers, explore the mines for treasure, and revitalize the defunct Community Center.
With several different farm layouts to choose from, and over 30 characters to raise your friendship with, there’s tons of replayability in the game. Some players even choose to just live on the same farm for hundreds of hours, spending each day working to make it as beautiful as can be.
Similar to Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire is the roguelike deckbuilder that popularized its genre. There have been many that came after, but no other roguelike deckbuilder offers quite the level of depth and replayability found in Slay the Spire.
Beating the game for the first time will unlock Ascension levels, of which there are 20 to conquer. Each Ascension level adds an additional challenge to the run, such as making Elite enemies stronger, making bosses drop less gold, making normal enemies deal more damage, and so on. These all stack together, so each new level will get progressively more challenging.
Your cleared Ascension levels are different for each of the four characters, so if you want to prove your mastery over the game, you can expect to put in well over a hundred hours.
