I feel it depends on the game, but for the most part, I would like stories to be stories, not some adventure with 20 missions before you get to the place that matters. This is something that I struggled with in TLOU2, I loved the gameplay and the more intimate moments between characters. But the story struggled massively with it’s pacing and do this, do that mentality where you could spend way too much time doing things you just don’t care about. This actually led me to turn on listen scanning for items so i didnt have to spend time looking in every crevice and corner in the game. I really think the game could have been 5 hours shorter just by filler and it would have made pacing and all that much better. I still really enjoyed the game but it was a bit of a drag at points.
Now God of War made great use of it’s allotted story time where combat was great and different through out the game and the father/son dynamic really hit home. To think the whole game is about carrying ashes to the top of a mountain but it does it with great twists and turns probably because you know the games ending. Of course there are games like What Remains of Edith Finch where you can play it and beat it by accident in a sitting but still a great story.
I would say that for purely story driven games you should try to aim for 10+ hours for a full priced game but don’t just put filler in by making cutscenes into gameplay (when you walk with an AI as they give you the rundown) or making it side mission after side mission on a linear story game (like doing something for someone else to get something for someone else).
