Grinding in video games is nothing new. Hitting rocks in the original RuneScape or mining hundreds of linear tunnels in Minecraft in the search for diamonds are some examples of grinding in games done well. Even though it takes you hours to do, there's just something about it that keeps you engaged.
Of course, grinding isn't always done well. Here are some of the games with the most grinding, for better, or for worse. Old and new, these are the hour-eaters, the sort of games that keep you up until 4 AM. One more turn, one more run, just a little bit more.
Updated July 1, 2022 by Ryan Bamsey: Some people find it annoying, some people find it oddly therapeutic, some people find it an easy way to get a hit of dopamine while watching Netflix. We've added some more of the grindiest games known to gamerkind.
15 Final Fantasy 14
In some ways, you can't really blame an MMORPG for having quite the grind, but Final Fantasy 14 takes the cake. There is a bunch of content to explore in the world of Eorzea - as there should be, with four expansions under its belt - and some of them are going to be significant timesinks.
Notable grindfests include the ultimate weapons that come with each expansion that require weeks of grinding to perfect, leveling all of your classes, and climbing the ranks in PvP. And if you want to buy all the MGP items? That's one heck of a commitment. It's true when people say there is always something to do in Final Fantasy 14.
14 Valorant
Nowadays, many multiplayer games contain Battle Passes. For those that don't know, Battle Passes contain various goodies (mostly cosmetic) for players who consistently grind in a game. In essence, Battle Passes reward the grind. Riot's team tactical shooter embraces the grind and Battle Passes in a big way.
When first starting, you only have access to five agents. The remaining agents can be unlocked by completing tiers of their personal agent cards, but the number of experience points need to complete each tier increases. The same is true for the Battle Pass. The more you unlock, the harder it becomes to complete the overall Battle Pass. Luckily, Valorant offers daily and weekly missions to score massive amounts of experience points, and in its recent update, the bonus XP earned through purchasing the Battle Pass.
13 Minecraft
You can't enjoy Minecraft without grinding, the two go hand in hand. Even with the smartest and most intuitive Redstone inventions, the entire premise of the game is to harvest resources. Whether that's digging long tunnels for diamonds or sitting completely still at the base of a mob farm, you won't be able to defeat the Ender Dragon without putting the hours in.
There is no way to cheat the system with microtransactions. Things in Minecraft take time... unless you're on a speed run. With that being said, if you're preparing to dive headfirst into Minecraft, know that you're committing for the long haul. And it seems there are quite a few people who enjoy the grind, as Minecraft is the second highest-selling video game of all time.
12 Path Of Exile
Year after year, Path of Exile holds onto its old players and brings in the new with its seasonal league updates. There's no doubt that Path of Exile is a game of grinding, most action RPGs of its kind (a bit like the Diablo series) usually are. If you love grinding for endless hours, there is no game quite like Path of Exile.
With a multitude of different builds to experiment with, the grind in Path of Exile never really ends. After completing one league, you'll want to start preparing for the next one. And the next. And the next. The game is developed by Grinding Gear Games after all, so that should tell you what's in store playing Path of Exile.
11 Outriders
Looting, shooting, and grinding. Largely influenced by the success of Destiny 2's obsession with loot, Outriders launched in 2021 and tried filling in the looter-shooter hole in everyone. With a release straight to Xbox Game Pass, hundreds of thousands of players dived into the world of Enoch, and all the grinding that comes with it.
Driven by the game's scaling difficulty system, the World Tiers, Outriders is certainly a grind. Enemies are squishy and can take hundreds of bullets to kill. Grinding out the endgame content in Expeditions can also feel repetitive, but that's what this game is all about. Repetitive, but satisfying, combat that slowly scales up with even more powerful gear.
10 Disgaea
The entire Disgaea series is well-renowned for how much grinding is required if you want to experience everything the game has to throw at you. Between super-bosses and almost-endless gauntlets in the Item World, you have a lot of work before you if you want to do everything.
Hell (pun intended), you'll have to grind to get to the grind in some Disgaea games. Taking on the high-level challenges that give you what you need to take on the higher-level challenges is no mean feat. You'll be staring at those isometric, colorful maps for hours. Luckily, it's fun.
9 Destiny 2
Destiny 2 is the titan of the looter-shooter genre. With its newest raid Vault of Glass hitting exactly the right notes, the game has welcomed back a load of experienced players and encouraged some fresh faces to get involved for the first time.
The grind in Destiny 2 continues to split its community, and you can easily spend several hours farming for that perfect piece of gear. With the newest season, the Season of the Splicer, players can now grind to Transmog gear (make one piece of armor look like another), although the grind is a long one. The next expansion, The Witch Queen, is scheduled to launch in February 2022.
8 Terraria
Ten years old and still going strong, Terraria is one of the largest, most intricate sandbox games ever created. The final update to the game since its launch, Journey's End, finally wraps up the game with a bunch of new content and thousands of new items.
And it's a grind. From killing the same mob several dozen times for that one lucky item drop to exploring the Jungle biome searching for Chlorophyte in the endgame, the depth and breadth of Terraria encourage you to spend their time whittling away at some task or another. For all its complexity, Terraria is grinding done right.
7 NBA 2K22
With the recent launch of NBA 2K22, fans are taking it back to the hardwood. While some want to strictly dominate other lesser-skilled opponents online, the true grind is in MyCareer. This is where people live their NBA fantasies of being drafted to the Association, leading a team to the playoffs, and maybe even securing the Larry O'Brien.
Unfortunately, it's tough sledding upgrading your player. Although you can create a dominant player build that has the potential of reaching a perfect 99 rating, you'll start at a lowly 65. Even if you try to boost your attributes with Virtual Currency, it takes quite a bit to make a sizeable difference (about 71,000 VC equaled an increase of ten for your player rating). NBA 2K22 has various mission quests throughout the City and Neighborhood for you to gain experience points and VC to upgrade your player, but don't expect to be LeBron James when you start your first steps onto the court.
6 Elite Dangerous
To put the grind of Elite Dangerous into perspective, there are ships in the game that cost several hundred million credits. The first ship you'll likely buy costs around fifty thousand credits. The journey from a broke spaceship pilot to running a galaxy-wide trading empire is not a short one.
However, this game rewards the grind. There are several roles to choose from, like ferrying passengers from location to location, or as a miner, where you head to remote floating asteroid fields and blast rocks to pieces. While there is some combat, you can usually avoid anything hectic if you want to.
5 No Man's Sky
No Man's Sky may have had a bit of a rough launch, but in the years following its release, the game has received loads and loads of free content updates. As it stands now, it's arguably one of the best space simulators available, where you can ride alien creatures, fly inside living ships, and build sprawling bases.
The game is also a bit of a grind. Right at the start, you'll spend most of your time gathering resources and upgrading your ship. There are some pretty cool things to aim for, so the time just seems to disappear. No Man's Sky continues to receive quality updates and creator Sean Murray insists that Hello Games is working tirelessly in delivering the type of experience they hoped to achieve.
4 Mount And Blade 2: Bannerlord
Bannerlord, and its predecessor, Warband, have some of the best grinding mechanics in any RPG. The premise is simple: you begin as an empty-handed knight, only capable of leading a bunch of ragged peasants into battle. Over many real and in-game hours, those same peasants are ground into lance-wielding knights.
As well as the soldiers, the character's stats and wealth are also increased by grinding. Heading to and from villages with an inventory full of grain, or hunting down endless groups of Sea Raiders, Bannerlord is one of the best grinds out there. For anyone itching to get their medieval on, this is the grind for you.
3 Marvel's Avengers
Marvel's Avengers launched with some questionable decisions relating to grinding. Sure, enemies have to be a bit squishy to have fights last longer than a few seconds, but people were disappointed in never truly feeling like Earth's Mightiest. On top of that, by the time you finished the main campaign you weren't anywhere close to the max level, meaning there were still plenty of skills left to be unlocked.
Thankfully, Marvel's Avengers has since added items to help expedite grinding by rewarding extra experience points, challenge cards to unlock unique gear for characters, and plenty of endgame content to keep you returning. The missions are still fairly repetitive and the overall environments remain a bit empty, but the recent DLCs added Clint Barton, Kate Bishop, and T'Challa as playable characters to master. The developers believe Spider-Man is still on the docket before the end of 2021.
2 Old School RuneScape
Perhaps one of the first games to really go wild with grinding, RuneScape is famous for its excessive grind mechanics. Even from the very early game, it can take several hours to make a dent on the various skill paths, like the infamous mining grind. Mining at 99? See you in eighty hours.
Despite the relentless grind, RuneScape continues to be a popular game. Original servers are still running since its launch in 2001, players are still shouting about gold in the chat, and there are probably hundreds of people smashing rocks to pieces as you read this. Recently, RuneScape was ported to mobile, adding a plethora of new players to the wonderous grind world.
1 Stardew Valley
The grind in Stardew Valley is what the game is all about. Growing crops, exploring the caverns, and generally managing a farm and everything that comes with it is a bit of a grind. But rather than that being something that frustrates players, Stardew Valley gets the grinding formula just right.
Picking potatoes is relaxing. Going fishing is relaxing. Stardew Valley takes those repetitive tasks and makes them enjoyable. Compared to some of the other high-octane games on the list, Stardew is way more chilled out, and just as rewarding.