so how long to actually beat the game?

[Rosebourne]

So i'm about to pick this game up and wondering exactly about how long does it take to beat the game and see the story, and after hearing how hard the game is about how possible is it to actually beat the game and see the story in its entirety?

[Lin]

That's not really an answerable question for a game with heavy roguelike elements. After you learn how the game works (which should take you anything between some hours and some weeks), you can theoretically go through one of the possible versions of each major story encounter and get to the ending in under 4-6. You can also skip the whole game and go straight for the ending encounter in an hour, and (theoretically) depending on your build and choices, you *may* even come out of it alive - doubtful, but theoretically possible. Then again, you'll have missed actually playing the game or experiencing any of the different hidden variations of the story, but you will have (theoretically) beaten it.

As far as I'm concerned, after more than 250 hours in steam alone (so really 3 times that), the game still regularly beats me. XD

EDIT: Just for clarification: One playthrough will not get you the "whole" story in its entirety. Different paths will give you different tidbits of it. Hope that helps explain it better. :)

[bronch]

The length of the game depends highly on your playstyle. If you're a player who favors a "travel fast, travel light" approach you'll figure out the story much, much faster than someone with a slower, more survival-focused approach.

Without spoilers and a following a slow, do-not-die-at-all-costs playstyle? Could take you hundreds of hours.

[bronch]

Word of warning: NEO Scavenger's approach to story and lore is highly reminiscent of the Souls games. Its "main plot" is relatively simplistic, but figuring out what is really happening and why Michigan is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up is a lengthy, involved process of reading old newspapers, hacking laptops, killing NPCs to steal items, escorting NPCs across half the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ map just to see what happens, searching for data files, trying out different character builds, exploring the landscape, etc. So, while looking up answers on the NEOScav Wiki will make the game much easier and faster, it will unfortunately spoil a lot of the mystery.

I'm thinking of making a "spoiler-free protip" guide. There are a lot of "by the way, you can do this..." tips that will exponentially decrease a new player's death rate without spoiling much of the plot or the game's inner workings.

[Lin]

@NEO Brochacho: Exactly how I feel about the story. :D I'm glad more people appreciate it for what it is! More lore/story guides are always welcome, the only one up is mine and in desparate need of updating (immense amounts of story stuff have changed since I wrote that). I'm in the process of rewritting it these days, but yes, I'd LOVE to see more such guides personally! And since mine is focused on killing you, yours will definitely be a different way to do things. XD

[bronch]

@Lin: I'll admit, I didn't quite like the story at first, mainly because my playstyle is extremely slow (in any game, not just NEO Scavenger) and the first few times I read a, "Player was flagellated to death by an angry Blue Frog..." game over screen it meant I had just ended a ~30-hour long marathon game by choosing one wrong dialog option. This was very annoying.

Eventually, I started worrying less about farming crash sites and Blue Frogs to finance the fancy nightvision eyeballs and started playing looser. That's when I started to really love the game; it works much better when you focus on uncovering plot details and exploring the map as opposed to maintaining an airtight, prepared-for-absolutely-everything-except-instant-death-text-encounters survival strategy.

On instantly dying a lot:

I'd say my main criticism of the game would be the overabundance of catastrophic failure scenarios with the text adventure segments. If you're a slow, methodical player, the game relentlessly encourages you to choose safe, yet boring dialog options over and over because you know a single misstep can (and often will) lead to instant death, exile from an important location, or what have you. This works fine for fast players, but people who drop 10+ hours into each playthrough may never even notice the game has a story at all because they're so scared of choosing any vaguely risky-sounding option during a text encounter.

Basically, I think there should be fewer, "You died!" and "You lost access to <questline/location/whatever>" outcomes and more "You succeeded, but lost items/got sick/were severely injured/encountered some setback" and "You failed. You're not dead, but now you're in a really tough situation..." outcomes.

Faster players would experience the game more or less the same as they do now, but slow, methodical players, who are probably more well-equipped to deal with setbacks and dire survival situations, would be less likely to see their 30-hour playthrough end in instant death.

That's a minor complaint, though. The game is awesome.

[Iced Lenin]

The story is your own and thus, endless

[RedShadow]

Well I got numbers for ya: 67 hours of gaming so far. And I haven't "really" finished the game. Barely scratched the surface of some quests actually.
But that's because I like to experiment a lot, and quests are like secondary to me. I do them when I feel ready. So it takes... time. A lot of time.
My actual personal mission right now is to reveal 100% of the map. Yep. lol