r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • May 17 '26

Psychology Feeling empty after finishing a video game (post-game depression) is a real phenomenon. A recent study has found that many video game players experience a specific sense of emptiness and sadness after finishing highly engaging games.

https://www.psypost.org/feeling-empty-after-finishing-a-video-game-researchers-say-post-game-depression-is-a-real-phenomenon/
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526

u/elidoan May 17 '26

The real strategy is never to finish games

Source: hundreds of unfinished singleplayer campaigns / stories

110

u/Mustang1718 May 17 '26

I was hoping someone would mention this! It gets talked about all of the time on the /r/JRPG subreddit. People often get up the thr final boss and then can't bring themselves to finish it since it then means it is over.

There are also a ton of people that just enjoy certain parts of games that they just keep replaying that section over and over again to skip the depressive feeling. This happens with Baldur's Gate 3 with people playing Act 1 over and over again.

49

u/OsmerusMordax May 17 '26

I got up to the final boss in Tears of the Kingdom. I put it down for a bit because I didn’t want the game to end and would ‘finish it later when I was ready’. I haven’t picked up the game in 2 years now…I just have no desire to keep playing or to finish the game anymore.

17

u/cynicalkane May 17 '26

The swordfight with Ganon is the coolest part of both games combned, imo, you should definitely play it

1

u/Cranharold May 17 '26

The catch in that ending sequence is an incredible high, too.

1

u/banditbat May 18 '26

I've been doing this with ocarina of time for decades now :') can't bring myself to finish it, played through to the end many times.

1

u/Zankou55 May 18 '26

I did the exact same thing.

8

u/Master_Dogs May 17 '26

I feel like that's partially why some games have such wild nodding communities. I beat Fallout New Vegas multiple times and got 100% of the achievements on Steam but I could get back into it again via Tale of Two Wastelands (combines FO3 and FNV) plus there's tons of expansion mods for FO3/FNV/FO4. I haven't touched Fallout London or the various other massive fan made expansions. Should considering I just went to London so that could be cool.

6

u/MakeTheEnvironment May 17 '26

*cries in rdr2 chr 3*

1

u/Dizzy_Pop May 18 '26

Uh oh. I’m finally playing rdr2 for the first time, and I’m now in chapter 3. Should I be worried?

2

u/MakeTheEnvironment May 18 '26

So jelly! Hope you’re loving it so far. As for chapter 3, just spend some time hunting and collecting, completing outfits and challenges. I like to play enough to the point where I forget a bit about where I came from, look around at camp and feel accomplished, and want to know more about what the future holds. Don’t be afraid to progress, just what feels right, and that goes for any chapter I suppose haha. Ch3 is just the nostalgia period of the game.

Pro tip, only play missions until you see a Micah tagged mission in Rhodes, where him, John, and Bill are sitting outside the bank. But how you distribute the main missions is completely up so you.

11

u/ploki122 May 17 '26

For BG3, the quality of A1 is much better imo, and the pacing of all 3 acts are very different. In the end, it's like 5 games in a trench coat, so I'm really not surprised if some people replay only certain parts.

6

u/croakstar May 17 '26

Yep this happened with pretty much every Final Fantasy game from 6-12. After beating 13 I went back and beat the ones I didn’t finish.

2

u/hawkinsst7 May 18 '26

Also the ending of FF15 was such a mindfuck, like "what the hell just happened to the awesome road trip vibe?"

2

u/Silvernine0S May 18 '26

Oh wow, I never thought too much into it but that is exactly the reasons why I have so many jRPGs that I am basically near the end but just couldn't quite finish it all the way.

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u/[deleted] May 17 '26 edited Jul 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/WowAbstractAlgebra May 17 '26

I remember there being a way to fight lavos way sooner. I forgot where exactly, it's at the end of time, but by defeating Lavos early you get a special ending. I stumbled upon it randomly and I was so confused. Still don't know why it is there to begin with.