Video Games That Are Better The Second Time Around

What makes a game inherently replayable? Is it the allure of trying out different paths and powers that you never explored or utilized the first time through? Is it simply to get a better understanding of a deceptively complex game's addictive mechanics? Or is it because you wanted the good ending that you just couldn't manage your first time? Whatever the reason, the fact of the matter remains that with some games, one playthrough just won't give you the full experience. We've rounded up the absolute best games for diving into again and again—the adventures that are built from the ground up to keep on giving long after the credits roll.

Vanquish is one of the most fast-paced, high-octane third-person shooters in the genre. Not only does it hand you an insane arsenal of unique weapons to choose from, including but not limited to a high-tech shotgun, laser ray, assault rifle and disc launcher, but it also imbues you with super-speed, insane melee attacks, the ability to slow down time and do insane roll-dodge maneuvers. If that all sounds like a lot to wrap your head around, that's because it is. To make matters worse, the game's difficulty is steep and the entire experience is condensed into a five-hour campaign, meaning that if you're having troubles early on, the later levels are going to be absolute nightmares given how quickly the degree of challenge escalates.

Fortunately, for all of its difficulty, the game is oodles of fun and encourages the player to get better at every instance, meaning after a first run-through, the logical next step will be to up the difficulty, restart from stage one and give the game a second go. The second playthrough is the one where the player will really see the depth of the game's mechanics shine, revealing an entirely different experience than the one they haphazardly blasted through the first time around.

Dishonored 2 grants you more than enough runes, the items used to acquire magical powers, to experiment with a decent portion of Corvo and Emily's supernatural abilities during your first playthrough. However, you won't know the full extent of either of their arsenals if you regulate yourself to just one. That's why, upon completing your first run of the campaign from either protagonist's perspective, you're offered the opportunity to play again in new-game-plus mode.

This mode not only carries over all the runes you collected from your first playthrough, but also allows you to select from either Emily or Corvo's ability pools, meaning regardless of who you pick, all major powers will be available. Couple that with the extra runes you'll collect through the actual missions, and you'll potentially have access to every ability inside of one playthrough, which is not only the most immersive way to experience the game as it'll enable you to explore every single nook and cranny of the various levels, but it also functions as one hell of a cathartic power trip that you'd never get the first time around.

Unlike its predecessor Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which took players on a tour across futuristic depictions of China, Singapore, the United States, Canada and even the Arctic Ocean, Mankind Divided features only one fully-developed region: Prague. But what it lacks in the diversity of its predecessor's varied locales it more than makes up with the inclusion of exponentially more detail.

There isn't a game on the market right now that funnels as much frame-for-frame authenticity into a city as Mankind Divided's Prague. From the metro stations that perfectly depict western Europe's public transportation venues right down to the details on the floor tiles to the impeccably designed TF29 base which features at least a hundred painstakingly personalized work spaces and NPCs, MD's developers try extremely hard to make you feel like you're in a living, breathing world. Unfortunately, the nuances of these efforts, such as the perfectly replicated architectural designs of Prague's various neighborhoods, are typically lost on players just looking to beat the game.

Thankfully, a second playthrough means there's no rush to follow the plot to its conclusion, leaving players to spend more time enjoying the immaculate digital tourist trip Eidos Montreal has prepared. It's one of the only times a video game might actually make you want to travel to the city for yourself—or even pass on a trip since you've already seen it in-game; an even bigger testament to the developers' achievement.

There's no way around it: Alan Wake has a pulpy story with a lot of thick, heavy-handed stylistic nods to Stephen King. What's this translate to in-game? Tons of ambiguous dialogue, subtle plot details, and general foreshadowing that'll breeze past most players during their first playthrough, which will make the heavily bittersweet cliffhanger ending that much more confusing.

The remedy (if you'll excuse the developer pun) for this issue is simple, thankfully: play through the game a second time. Just like with any dense narrative, a rewatch, re-read, or in this case replay will give you a second chance to absorb all the information the game threw at you the first go around, only this time you'll be ready for it. Alan Wake is especially susceptible to this form of decoding, as its riddle-laden manuscript pages and dense, novel-esque backstory make a lot more sense when you know how the story ends and everything ties together. In short, if you want to enjoy the richest possible experience from Alan Wake's exceptional narrative, give it a second run.

Ever try playing a musical instrument, and you're absolutely nailing your insane solo until oops, you plucked the wrong guitar string, blew too hard into the piccolo, or hit the drum off the beat? A crushing wave of defeat leaves you driven to replay the part, this time with every intention of nailing it—and that's Thumper's whole shtick. 

You play as a little metallic beetle trapped on a rollercoaster from hell, tasked with simply tapping buttons in accordance with beat indicators as they appear in the lane ahead of you. The twist? Everything's coming at you at a hundred-plus miles per hour. It's a rock-hard, lightning-fast rhythm game that you'll never, not in a million years, ace on your first try. Given that performing its synth-percussion musical cues perfectly is the entire point of the game, you'll be replaying this one a second time, and a third, and a fourth, until eventually you can ace every act flawlessly and hear its music the way the developers intended.