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- The list of longest video game scripts
provides many examples. - The Elder Scrolls:
- Morrowind:
- The strategy guide for the Game of the Year addition is roughly the size of a Bible. It contains incredible amounts of details about character creation, game mechanics, locations, quests, items, factions, backstory, and just about everything else there is to do in the game.
- The game features over 1500 pages of text in its readable books, with a few reaching full blown In-Game Novel status.
- Oblivion takes Morrowind's in-game book library and expands it further. Someone actually printed them out and bound them into a single Doorstopper◊.
- Skyrim:
- The series' standard in-game books return with even more additions, pushing over 2000 pages.
- The revised and expanded Prima Game guide for the vanilla game is 864 pages (the standard guide clocks in at 655 pages) and that doesn't even cover its DLC.
- The final Legendary Edition Guide contains 1120 pages.
- Morrowind:
- In contrast to western Player's Guides, which resemble thick magazines, Japanese Player's Guides are usually about the size of a paperback novel. This small print format, combined with a general Japanese fondness for elaborate charts and statistics means that a Japanese guide to any game more complicated than PaRappa the Rapper will often weigh in at over 500 pages. If the game's an RPG, it's not uncommon for the guide to be 800-900 pages, or spread across multiple volumes.
- Mark Minasi's Secrets of the Wing Commander Universe, a lavishly illustrated 450 page guide to the entire Wing Commander saga through 1993 (Wing Commander, Secret Missions I and II, Wing Commander II, Special Operations I and II, Wing Commander Academy (the mission simulator video game, not the cartoon) and Wing Commander Privateer, but not Righteous Fire, or any of the games from Wing Commander Armada on) is a tremendous, sprawling love letter to the game complete with painstakingly hand-rendered pictures of every ship that can be flown, protected, or fought in the first half of the saga. It's something to behold, and a treasured part of many Wing Commander fans' collections.
- The Instruction Manual for Sid Meier's Civilization IV gets an honourable mention for being thicker than most normal game boxes. Hence the reason it's kept as a file on the game disc.
- Even Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition had an instruction manual at least as long as Hamlet - comprehensively covering how to install the game, play the tutorial, play the game without the tutorial, play multiplayer, and sub-guides to all of the scenarios.
- Consider the sheer amount of text that goes into something like Mass Effect or Dragon Age. Then consider how much of a typical novel is dialogue and how much is description. Given the amount of Scenery Porn in such places as the Collector base and the Deep Roads, both of those games qualify.
- And when you take into account both these games have VERY extensive codexes...
- And the information entries for EVERY single planet in the Mass Effect games...
- BioWare is largely known for having script-heavy games, but their MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic is stated to have more written (and voiced) dialog than the entire run of The Sopranos. That's one huge script.
- The script for Beyond: Two Souls is 2000 pages long.
- Falcon 4.0's 350-page three ring binder of a manual.
- Common in other study sims of the era. Sadly averted with Falcon 4.0: Allied Force and many other modern simulations like DCS: Black Shark, as the manuals are in PDF form... but those PDF manuals are AT LEAST 700 pages each! Black Shark 's manual can be ordered in print form for an extra $30, which is roughly what the sim itself costs in many places!
- The script for Spider-Man (PS4) is 3,300 pages long. And most of that is just quips! No really!
- Bizarrely, the official guide to Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories is, well, the size of a small phone book. A game guide. Goes to show just how much is packed in that game.
- This fate also befalls most of the other game guides produced by publisher Doublejump Books, possibly because they have a habit of making guides for games with tons of data. After thoroughly "mining" the games for every formula and bit of data therein. They actually call the stats-bearing sections of their guides "The Data Mines". Doublejump's books are also a smaller form factor than normal, sized to fit on top of the game's DVD case without any spillover to the sides, which adds to the page count immensely.
- The hardbacked Fallout 3 strategy guide is an absurdity in terms of size. Even with all optional missions, the game just isn't that long, even if it can be very varied. Even so, over 300 pages for any game is a lot.
- The Game of the Year strategy guide (which also covers the Downloadable Content) clocks in at 752 pages.
- Similarly, Fallout: New Vegas' strategy guides (especially the one for the Ultimate Edition) are very big. Even longer than war and peace.
- The manual for The Witcher is described by Yahtzee as "thick enough to beat goats to death with." It is roughly a cm thick, mostly due to a partial walkthough.
- The old Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego? game shipped with a full desk encyclopaedia which served double duty as the lynchpin of the game's Copy Protection.
- The manual for Baldur's Gate II, a 300+-page comb-bound affair, is essentially a reprint of the 2nd Edition AD&D Player's Handbook.
- Planescape: Torment contains 800,000 words. Not the guide. The game itself. You might not be able to stop a door with only 4 CDs, but damnit; the game's longer than Atlas Shrugged and reads like a Choose Your Own Adventure book; it deserves an honourable mention at least.
- The guide to Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne is advertised as "a 400 page monster." The game itself meanwhile is almost the complete opposite, being very sparse with words.
- Pokémon Platinum's official strategy guide is 624 pages.
- The Platinum guide does include the full Pokedex; most of its length comes from it. Diamond and Pearl's guides were split into two books with mostly the walkthrough of the the game in one and the Pokedex and other additional info in the other.
- Pokémon Black and White and its sequels split their guides into two books as well, with the first consisting of the main walkthrough of the game and the second featuring the Pokedex, additional information, and post-game activities.
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky's strategy guide is about as thick as an average phone book.
- Even older than this, a complete first generation guide book in Japan dubbed The Pokémon Encyclopedia, is about 700 pages long. 300 is for the Pokédex alone.
- The Platinum guide does include the full Pokedex; most of its length comes from it. Diamond and Pearl's guides were split into two books with mostly the walkthrough of the the game in one and the Pokedex and other additional info in the other.
- There's a PSX Gamer's Guide which is a generally not-very-detailed walkthrough for a plethora of different PS1 games. The guide has 688 pages and 270 games covered, though, so you can't say it doesn't have that going for it.
- The manual for Master of Magic was 154 pages, complete with 40 pages of appendices, and took up most of a large box. The official strategy guide was another 478 pages of detailed tables and descriptions of every spell, race, unit, building, status, combat action, and their interactions, plus an errata listing (some of which were fixed in later patches).
- Square Enix's Ultimania for the Final Fantasy series (as well their other RPGs like Dragon Quest) are known for having a BOATLOAD of details that range from interviews, concept art, game stats, and strategies.
- Sometimes, they'll include incredibly important plot/world/character details that settle huge fandom debates or explain major plot holes. And they're never released outside of Japan. Everyone else has to rely on translators and scans.
- Speaking of, the manual for Dragon Warrior 3 (the US release of Dragon Quest III) is about the size of a small book, with a little over 100 pages. This is because the manual spends 15 pages on the game mechanics, and the rest of the book on a complete, spoileriffic walkthrough, up to and including the plot twist and True Final Boss. ALL of the secrets as well.
- Working Designs published a strategy guide for their localization of Arc the Lad 1 & 2. It is 572 pages long, hardcover, and comes with 2 bookmark tassels, a reversible book-jacket, 3 sheets of stickers, interviews with the games' creators, and a (long since expired) poster offer. It does not however offer any info whatsoever on Arc Arena which uses the save data from Arc the Lad 2, nor any info on Arc the Lad 3, both of which were sold alongside Arc 1 & 2 in Arc the Lad Collection.
- The encyclopedia for The Legend of Zelda, Hyrule Historia, is also preposterously large, spanning 247 pages at an A4 size with hardback cover. As such, it's also very heavy.
- The deluxe version of Dangerous Waters comes with a 570-page monster of a manualnote , and unless you're already an expert you'll need it, for the game is a highly realistic, hardcore naval battle simulator.
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, and the overall Trails Series rival several visual novels for sheer length. Individually not too crazy, FC clocks in over 416000 words. It's sequel SC however turns up the dial to 740000, and that's not putting their lengths together, if that were done, it would outpace the Mass Effect trilogy. That's not including the Third which is smaller than the first two, but still a respectable 260000. Putting in the related The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel and its sequel, it would go head on with Dragon Age in sheer length and meticulous Worldbuilding. No wonder why it's so difficult to translate and get into.
- The collaborative Interactive Fiction game Cragne Manor has over 500,000 words in total, i.e. on par with War and Peace.
- Tricks of the Doom Gurus, a reference manual for editing games that use the Doom engine, has 886 pages.
- An updated edition, 3D Game Alchemy, is 758 pages long.
- An updated edition, 3D Game Alchemy
