In many cases, when someone says that a game is grindy, they mean it as a bad thing. It’s often used to criticize games for trying to pad out run time with meaningless content that is only there to increase the length of the game.
However, for some people, grinding is a fun and relaxing activity. If you’re like us, you might be looking for even more games that you can spend hundreds of hours grinding away in. Luckily for you, we have just such a list, and grinding in any of these games is a worthwhile activity that improves the overall experience, or is outright a core feature of the game.
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Grinding is a staple of every Monster Hunter game, but it applies perfectly to Rise, more so than the newly released Wilds. Going through the story of Monster Hunter often only takes a couple of hours or so, at which point you’re free to progress in any way you choose.
The grind in Monster Hunter Rise comes in the form of repeatedly fighting giant monsters, hoping to get rare drops that will let you craft a new piece of armor or a new weapon. Crafting just one set of armor will take at least a few hours of grinding various monsters, but the combat is so fun and rewarding that it never feels like a chore.
Warframe is a free-to-play shooter that competes most directly with Destiny 2, but provides a much more meaningful grind. There are hundreds of different items to grind for, from weapons and new Warframes to mods to customize them, and everything in between.
You can easily sink a thousand hours into the game and still have tons of stuff to do, and the best part is that it’s all worth doing. Every piece of gear you level up contributes to your Mastery Rank, which dictates when you unlock new content. This means there’s always an incentive to grind out and experiment with new equipment.
MMORPGs are all filled with various different grinds, and Guild Wars 2 is no different. However, what sets it apart from others like WoW or FFXIV is how the time you spend grinding something never feels wasted.
This is due to the game’s horizontal progression system, where instead of constantly upgrading your gear for better stats, you’ll be seeking out things like mounts, fashion items, quality-of-life trinkets, or any number of other pieces of side content. In fact, getting the best equipment can be done within a few hours or so after hitting max level.
Nothing you do in the game is ever lost or becomes outdated, so there’s a great feeling of visible progression tied to an account you’ve had for a long time.
Old School RuneScape is the gold standard when it comes to games that get the grind right. The whole game is centered around grinding up 23 different skills, which each unlock different parts of the game’s content.
What makes the grind so satisfying is how these skills interact with each other. For example, to train your Ranged skill, you’ll first need to make a bow and some arrows, so you’ll need to use your Fletching skill to craft them. But before you can do that, you’ll need to gather the wood to make the items, so you’ll also need to use Woodcutting. But then to do Woodcutting, you’ll want to make a better axe, which then uses Smithing, which then needs ore gathered from Mining, and so on.
This loop feeds into nearly every skill in the game. Even if you get sidetracked from your original goal, you’ll always be making progress towards one skill or another, so nothing you do ever feels pointless.
In many ways, Fantasy Life i works very similarly to Old School RuneScape, but in a single-player game. It has the same intertwined skill system, called Lives, where each one feeds into the other, so there’s always another goal to work toward.
Plus, there’s a fully open world map to explore, with areas divided into regions that each need to be leveled up separately by completing activities in each. When you want to take a break from the grind, you may also build your very own town, similar to Animal Crossing, although you may just find yourself grinding out resources for furniture recipes there, too.
The Disgaea series takes grinding to its absolute limit. In this series, Disgaea 5 included, you’ll be grinding for character levels, grinding stats on your items, going inside of your items to grind other items, and reincarnating your characters endlessly until you’re doing billions of damage with each attack.
There are dozens of different classes to play around with, and a fun story that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Combat is strategic turn-based, but the goal is to grind your characters so much that you don’t need strategy to beat each stage.
Last Epoch is a Diablo-like ARPG that sends you on a time-traveling journey, collecting loot and killing thousands of enemies. All the aspects of the formula that you would expect to be here are expertly implemented, with a satisfying leveling curve, tons of gear to sort through, and hundreds of different builds to experiment with.
What makes Last Epoch so great is the freedom to develop your build however you want, and they’re almost all viable in some way. If you’re coming from games like Path of Exile, where you’ll hit a hard wall without following a build guide, Last Epoch will feel like a breath of fresh air.
