The DeanBeat: What happens to a game's story when it gets stretched too long?

Based on sales estimates, more than 5 million people probably bought Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs. It would be interesting to find out what kind of experience they’re having with open-world cyber-hacking game, now that they’ve had time to spend with it. My own experience has made me think about the topic of trying to make a good story sustain itself over such a long game.

Watch Dogs is long, with anywhere from 25 hours to 40 hours of gameplay. I finally finished playing all 46 missions in the narrative storyline of Aiden Pearce’s saga as a vigilante on the streets of Chicago, where modern technology has put the city under the control of a city operating system (ctOS). And even after I finished those missions, I was only about 32.5 percent done, according to my stats. It has plenty of side missions and bonuses to consume.