What are some games you actively have enjoyed but after you've beaten it once you have no desire to return to it despite liking it a great deal?
Far Cry 4 and 5.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a sucker for a Far Cry game. FC2 and 3 are some of my favourite FPS of all time, and I can't say I didn't like 4&5 whilst playing them, but they're so benign, so average so... routine, that playing them again would be the video game equivalent of purgatory.
Metro 2033: Great game, loved the story, don't feel a desire to replay it. Actually, you know what? I'm just going to pre-empt myself and say MOST story driven single player FPS I will likely never play again in my life. Exceptions are games like Dishonoured, which is really more of a stealth game than an FPS. Moving on from these...
This War of Mine. A lot of the emotional beats lose all their punch seeing them again. Seeing a woman being dragged into a backroom to be sexually assulted by soldiers the first time is horrific, the second time I'm planning before I've entered the building to stab the soldiers and steal all their gear. Even on the harder difficulties, TWoM never challenged me skill-wise, so without the story, it's got nothing.
Phantom Doctrine: Really cool ideas, but it was too easy to optimise the fun out of the game, and not playing optimally meant more heat, more lost agents, more problems. Playing well was effectively a punishment. Learning to play well was real fun though.
Ghostrunner: Alright, sue me, technically speaking another FPS, I'd really group this into the Hotline Miami style of live fast, die fast, respawn fast. The new 'Hardcore' mode feels like banging your head against a brick wall, except once the brickwork begins to chip you realise there's a titanium layer underneath. The story is so bland, basic and barebones I'd figured it out before the third mission had ended, and the worldbuilding is interesting, but too shallow for me to care that much about it. As viscerally enjoyable as finishing a hard level was the first time, when all the game has to throw at you is 'more enemies positioned to kill you even more cheaply than before,' it's not worth it to me.
