10 Current Gen Games With the Most Bang for Your Buck

It’s an unfortunate truth, but not everyone has thousands of dollars to spend on every game out there. Most will want to get all they can out of what they spend, and so we’re here to help with a list of 10 current gen games with the most bang for your buck.

10 Current Gen Games With the Most Bang for Your Buck

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

A title that many still point to as one of the best open world experiences in existence, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has enough content in one package to fill out an entire trilogy.

As the titular monster hunter, Geralt of Rivia, players can travel a fully realized fantasy world full of problems to solve, mysteries to uncover and townspeople to interact with.

Some can lead to simple and straight forward tasks, like killing a particularly pesky monster for a small village. Others can span days to complete, tasking players with uncovering the true meaning of a foul curse that plagues a baron or king.

That’s to say nothing of the game’s main quest, which sees Geralt travel across a continent in search of his adopted daughter before the Wild Hunt can claim her life and powers for their own.

It’s a massive undertaking to be sure, but one that is enrapturing after you’ve found a good groove. It’s sure to be a game that’ll stay in your console for months on end.

10 Current Gen Games With the Most Bang for Your Buck

Yakuza 0

The Yakuza series has always been host to a deceptively large amount of content in its games, but Yakuza 0 takes it to a new level.

Combining the origin stories of the series’ two most iconic characters, Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima, the game presents players with two fully fleshed out cities to explore in the form of Kamurocho and Sotenbori.

Each is littered with quests and missions to take part in, whether that means uncovering a plot to control all of a city’s real estate or rescuing a young girl drawn into a nefarious cult.

If you want a palette cleanser, you’re free to take part in a slew of mini-games that range from darts and pool to karaoke and disco music. Any and all of them can be played for fun or for special rewards that can benefit you later on.

Other facets of the title, like its expansive leveling system, diverse combat mechanics and enthralling story, only bolster this sense of immersion, ensuring it’ll stay at the top of your play rotation well past the hundred-hour mark.

10 Current Gen Games With the Most Bang for Your Buck

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

The last entry in the iconic series helmed by renowned game creator Hideo Kojima, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is easily the most content-packed entry in the series.

Played from the perspective of the scarred and broken Venom Snake, the title offers players a bevy of options for tracking down the black-ops group who wronged them and exacting revenge.

They can stick to the main mission, pursuing leads across the world and sneaking in and out of military outposts for information on their next destination; or, they can take their time, amass a new army and build up their base to construct better equipment.

Heck, if all you want to do is explore each portion of the open world for secrets and resources you can do that too. Each section is full of content to uncover, including small bits of story and lore that wouldn’t be found otherwise.

This freedom and choice of gameplay, while intimidating at first, amounts to several entries worth of content for you to uncover, and plenty more reason to stay in the game’s world as long as possible.

10 Current Gen Games With the Most Bang for Your Buck

Grand Theft Auto V

Despite being released on the dividing line between two console generations, Grand Theft Auto V has remained a title well worth the price of admission all these years later.

Offering three unique main characters to take control of at will, the game sets players loose in a satirical recreation of California in the form of Los Santos.

Each region in the world teems with activities and missions to take part in, with everything from bank robberies and tracking down conniving thieves to visiting a theater or doing yoga.

Many of these missions and activities expose players to new elements of the world as well, making it all the more enticing to explore and play as much as possible.

This doesn’t even cover the game’s online component, which allows players to run wild with friends across the whole of the game world and vie for resources against other players as they see fit.

10 Current Gen Games With the Most Bang for Your Buck

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age

Dragon Quest games have always had a reputation for being massive JRPG experiences, but Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age takes it to a whole new level.

In addition to a sprawling main story that sees a chosen hero try to save the world, there are dozens upon dozens of side activities players can do to stay immersed in the title’s fantasy world.

They could spend their days aiding the many townspeople with requests, from killing a ferocious rare monster to tracking down hard to find ingredients; or, they can search for hidden treasure, tucked away in dungeons and cities alike.

Once players clear the main game, the selection of bonus content only increases. A true ending is held back for only the most committed players to see, and they’ll only be able to earn it by fully understanding the game’s world and mechanics.

Granted, the title is a JRPG through and through, with tropes and absurdly difficult completion requirements for certain aspects of the game.

All the same, it’s an experience that’s hard to put down once you start and can fill many a play session with entertainment for months to come.

10 Current Gen Games With the Most Bang for Your Buck

Stardew Valley

When it comes to simulation games, few are as perfectly designed as Stardew Valley.

Deceptively simple in its premise of rebuilding an old family farm, the game embraces the tedium of everyday activities in a way that feels meditative. Each action provides a sense of growth and progress that builds off of every other action you take.

Cultivating crops allows you to sell them for funds. These funds can then be used to buy upgrades or supplies for your farm, which then allows you to plant more crops.

Selling more crops allows you to branch out in what you buy, and meet more people who can become friends and clue you into how you can make your farm even better.

It sounds repetitive – and in many ways it is – but it becomes almost meditative after a while. Repeating these processes is cathartic, offering a sense of accomplishment with each new step forward made even after dozens of hours played.

10 Current Gen Games With the Most Bang for Your Buck

Persona 5

Even by JRPG standards, Persona 5 has an almost insane amount of content.

As a high schooler with a criminal record thanks to a wrongful accusation from an adult, players are tasked with stealing the hearts of the wicked by entering their minds and doing battle with their inner demons, or Persona.

Doing so requires carefully exploring the dungeon found in each person’s mind, uncovering secrets and special defenses that need to be overcome to claim each villain’s heart.

Doing so requires the player to strengthen the Persona they control as well, which in turn requires them to build up social bonds with friends and family in their spare time. This might mean hanging out every evening or simply lending an ear in times of need.

If this sounds like a lot, it is. A typical playthrough lasts anywhere between 100 and 120 hours, and even then it usually doesn’t cover a 100 percent completion play through.

And yet, it’s a blast to get lost in the game for so long. Meeting every new character, unlocking Personas and exploring dungeons can be endlessly entertaining, and thanks to the stellar visuals and music, it’s just as enrapturing the second or third time around.

10 Current Gen Games With the Most Bang for Your Buck

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Despite being a launch title for the Nintendo Switch, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is anything but lacking in polish and quality content.

Tasked with reclaiming the world from Ganon after a calamity annihilated the heroes that would stop him, Breath of the Wild places players in an open world rife with possibilities for adventure.

Players could spend their time hunting down Ganon’s calamities. Doing so requires them to delve into dungeons, solve puzzles and gain unique tools they’ll need to take down these threats and weaken the land’s dark ruler enough for a final showdown.

They could also spend their days exploring. Most every region has equipment, collectibles, and secrets to uncover, many of which bolster the players’ stats to help them better survive the world’s many hazards.

Even if players don’t want to do any of that, they can spend hours upon hours just surviving in the game’s world.

Mechanics like hunger, extreme temperatures, and equipment degradation all keep the players on their toes constantly, but in a way that makes each new adventure harrowing and exciting at the same time.

It’s a new high point in the Zelda series, and one that even the staunchest fan can’t deny has a wealth of fun to be had from it.

10 Current Gen Games With the Most Bang for Your Buck

Red Dead Redemption 2

It’s easy to get lost in Red Dead Redemption 2’s world, but that’s only because it has so much for players to experience packed into it.

As the outlaw Arthur Morgan, players travel through an impossibly complex recreation of the Wild West in its dying days. Chaos and chances for thievery still exist if you know where to look, but the progress of civilization pushes ever harder against them.

Because of this though, there are any number of interactions, quests, and secrets to uncover while traveling across the game world’s sprawling map.

A photographer may need help showing the world the wild beauty of vicious predators. Lawmen may need your assistance in taking down violent offenders, and weapon dealers might hide valuable secrets behind the back doors of their shops.

Better yet, most of these moments happen at random as you explore, making each new playthrough feel unique even when they clock in at over 100 hours each.

It’s a magnum opus of this generation, and with an online component on its way sometime soon, there’s little doubt people will be playing it well into the next console generation.

10 Current Gen Games With the Most Bang for Your Buck

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is, without a doubt, the culmination of the series’ nearly 20 years of progress.

Touting a full roster composed of all 74 characters from across its history, players begin the game with only the original eight mainstays and must fight to bring the other 66 into the fold.

Of course, even after they unlock this massive slate of characters, there’s still the rest of the game to take in. The story mode is the most comprehensive to date, spanning hours while providing special scenarios and jaw-dropping moments to experience.

There are likewise the new spirit battles that put a twist on the usual clashes, with special conditions like flattening extra small characters or evading jets of flame that aim to scorch careless combatants.

All of this, alongside the trademark matches players can compete in against friends and strangers alike, makes for a game that won’t be leaving players’ rotations for years to come, or at least until the next entry is released.