10 Upcoming Games You Can Play All Year Long

Getting excited for a new release, heading to the store for the midnight launch, forking over a solid $60 for the privilege to play, and then finding out the campaign's only 8 hours long; we're all getting a little sick of it. Great games can come in small packages, but if you've only got the dough for a handful of titles per year, it's important to know which ones are going to last you a long-ass time.

Plenty of games are going to claim that they've got infinite replayability thanks to the addition of multiplayer but there's really no way of knowing just how popular a game's going to be, leaving it to chance whether six months down the road you'll be facing down empty lobby after empty lobby. That's why we've done you the favor of finding 10 upcoming releases we're pretty sure are going to deliver a near-infinite amount of gameplay in their single-player campaigns so you can get the most mileage out of your money.

Developer: Techland

Platforms: PC / Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3

Release Date: April 23, 2013

Hate on it all you want for its misogynistic promotions, it won't change the fact that Dead Island: Riptide - like its predecessor - will offer an island full of randomly generated zombies, gear, and more for players to hack and slash their way through. The campaign can certainly be finished, but as long as you're willing to fight for your life on the islands of the Banoi archipelago, you'll have something to do.

It's the character customization and weapon crafting however that will keep the game interesting over the course of the year, offering players plenty of opportunities to discover and maximize new weapon and skill combinations. You'll be able to mix and match your instruments of death as you chop down all those sexy bikini zombies to nothing but a smokin' hot torso... What? Too soon?

Developer: Nintendo SPD

Platforms: Nintendo 3DS

Release Date: February 10, 2013

Alright, we never promised that all of these were going to be mind-blowingly fun all the time. That said, the Brain Age series is designed around consecutive daily play over a long stretch of time and the upcoming Brain Age: Concentration Training is no exception.

With a focus (get it?) on helping improve your attention span, Concentration Training sets itself up for perpetual play by literally making you more driven and capable to self-improve. There's been surprisingly little talk about the game, even though it's been released in Japan since July of last year. My theory is that everyone who got the game has been sucked into a Brain Training vortex as the game both demands and enables infinitely improved dedication.

Developer: Game Freak

Platforms: Nintendo 3DS

Release Date: Q3 2013

So it seems like everyone's pretty excited about Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, and rightfully so. Although Pokémon Black and Pokémon White debuted only two years ago and their sequels Black 2 and White 2 both came out last year, you can never really have enough pocket monsters in your life.

While most of our fondest memories with the series center around multiplayer in the school yard - or online if you're one of those damned young'uns who keep treading on my lawn - but it's important to remember that you could play pretty much any game in the series forever. Catching all 649 (Jesus Christ, that's a lot!) Pokémon is no easy task and neither is mastering all of them.

If that weren't enough to keep you busy, the new screenshots for X and Y hint that there'll be plenty more for us to catch and train before we can call ourselves the very best. The only reason it's not higher on the list is because it won't be out until sometime in October, meaning you'll be playing it far more next year than this.

Developer: TT Fusion

Release Date: March 18, 2013

A lot of sandbox games can be played for a long time, but Lego City: Undercover has the additional benefit of letting you customize and modify aspects of the world with Lego bricks meaning there is literally no limit to the new things you can do in the game.

For parents looking to save themselves from buying stacks of games all year long, Lego City won't be a bad choice as it's kid-friendly and looks to have that particular form of addictive creativity that children get hooked on. It's like crack essentially, but for learning and stuff.

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: Q2 2013

The Monster Hunter series has always been excellent for offering players new ways to perfect their characters, take down gargantuan creatures, and a near-infinite array of loot to collect, but what Monster Hunter 4 brings to the table above its predecessors is more of everything fans have come to love.

A larger world, more monsters, more weapons, and an increased focus on platforming sections means that there will be more things to do in each playthrough of the game and more reasons to do them.

Developer: SCE San Diego Studio

Release Date: March 5, 2013

Sports games are great for replay value, but Madden, FIFA, and NBA2k don't come out until later in the year. So, the sporty-type slot on this list goes to America's favorite pastime with MLB 13: The Show.

Whether you're looking to play through season upon season of your home team, perfecting your roster with each consecutive playthrough or you want to bring a fresh team of player-created rookies through the ranks to form a super team, MLB 13: The Show will let you waste an entire year doing just that.

Developer: Maxis

Release Date: March 5, 2013

The original urban planning simulator is back and it'll be challenging your obsessive compulsive side to design the perfect concrete utopia. Not only is this the kind of game you can get lost in for weeks, but it's also the kind where your individual experience will be dramatically different from everyone else's.

While talk around the water cooler probably won't center around your immaculate suburb placement for optimal energy performance, you'll be able to pat yourself on the back all year long as you hide away from the real world and construct your own imaginary one.

Developer: Blizzard Entertainment

Release Date: March 12, 2013

At first I thought of discounting StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm from this list because it relies on multiplayer for most of its gameplay and you never can be sure how long an online community is going to support a particular title, but who are we kidding? This is StarCraft. Folks will be playing this straight through 2030.

You might be asking what new their is to learn about the game when you've already seen and done it all in Wings of Liberty, but Blizzard wouldn't release a completely empty expansion, right? In addition to a whole new campaign focused on the Zerg, there will be new units for each of the three races which will dramatically expand available strategies.

The Terrans will be getting Hellbats and Widow Mines, the Zerg will be getting Swarm Hosts and Vipers, while the Protoss will be seeing Oracles, Tempests, and Mothership Cores. If that sounds like a whole lot of confusing, don't worry; we're in the same boat.

Developer: Bohemia Interactive

Release Date: TBD 2013

ARMA III may have had a few development setbacks, what with Bohemia Interactive's employees getting arrested for supposedly spying on the Greek military, but that won't change the fact that the game will be the most customizable and modifiable army simulators ever released.

With a fully moddable design and a wide range of militaries, vehicles, and troops to experiment with, the mission editor will provide an endless array of challenges for you to run through until you transform into a brilliant military mastermind.

Developer: Rockstar Games

Release Date: Q2 2013

If there's one company who knows how to make replayable games right, and one series that represents the ultimate in endless gameplay, it's Rockstar Games and Grand Theft Auto. As predicted, the campaign looks to be as engrossing as any of the previous titles, but the kicker here is Rockstar's claims that GTA V's territory will be even bigger than GTA: San Andreas, GTA IV, and Red Dead Redemption's combined.

The map is literally so big that Rockstar has mentioned a Google Earth-style perspective that'll let players zoom out and view the entirety of the game world from on high. Finally, there's been mention of a fully-fledged ecosystem, property purchasing, and more vehicles to explore it all than ever before; this world is gonna be HUGE.

On top of that they're including "nearly every mechanic" from previous games in the series meaning that all the fun missions you loved in the older games will be back. Rockstar's claiming this'll have more side-missions, activities, and challenges to play through than anything they've ever touched before. All that and we still haven't touched multiplayer.