What do you think is the longest campaign in terms of consistent storytelling, not including filler content.

Do you count DLCs or expansions in the tally? If you do, I'd probably have to say TES: Morrowind by a long shot. Just exploring the main game and doing the plot-related quests to completion should take you 80-100 hours. Add in the Solstheim and Mournhold expansions and you're way over 100 hours without ever going off an a truly unrelated sidequest.

With the official expansions, Fallout: New Vegas is also a very long campaign. And at least two of those expansions are really, really good. I think F:NV probably takes over 100 hours with the 4 official DLCs.

Absolutely, especially when they relate to the plot. Baldur's Gate 2 and its expansion Throne of Bhaal can be considered one long continuous campaign, although ToB is pretty much a campaign on its own.

I don't know if this counts, but Dungeon Siege FEELS like the longest. :P

https://howlongtobeat.com/stats_more.php?s=Longest_Games

Morrowind is up there.

As a single stand-alone game, I would say Dragon Quest VII. The game exceeds 100 hours with no side quests, and unlike the Elder Scrolls series in which the games can be beaten in a few hours or less Morrowind world record in 3:14. Skyrim in 46.20 you can't do that in DQ VII. The story has to be followed, you can't just get gear, a few spells and levels and skip to the end.

Mass Effect was a trilogy spanning three games, but was kind of a mess.

The Diablo series, 1 through 3, All follow a single story line, but the story is pretty thin.

Dragon Quest 1-3 are stand alone games that are related to each other, same with 4-6 in the series.

But perhaps, the Witcher series is the largest. Each of the three games are huge stories and all three are connected with the ending in each game leading into the beginning of the next, so it is basically the story of Geralt of Rivia.

I'm not sure if it does count, I heard there are massive breaks in the plot. I'm looking for a lengthy story over lengthy playtimes, regardless if it's good or not.

No filler? Then games like Fallout NV, etc and the Elder Scrolls (Oblivion, Skyrim) are right out. Bethesda has this awesome ability to make shorty, crappy main quest lines and amazing side quest/DLC ones.

Mass Effect 1 had a pretty long main story line I think? Most of the side quests related to the main one b/c it was the way you needed to recruit people to your team.

I know people have played Mount and Blade for hundreds of hours and not "finished". but that's more of a choose your own adventure thing, so....

Now if you want to count MMOs into the mix, well then, nothing beats them ;)

My first thought are the infinity engine games, perhaps BG2 above any of the others. Neverwinter Nights also has a pretty long campaign, as does its sequel.

In a totally different genre, Thief 1 and 2 have pretty long campaigns, and though there isn't necessarily much in the line of a story, the storytelling I think is pretty consistent in between levels. Thief 3 perhaps as well. I can't remember the story exactly, but at the time I thought it was pretty cool. And disturbing.

And if it counts, Sunless Sea has a very long campaign. I don't think any of the islands can really be considered filler content, because you don't know where to go to find what you're looking for. So you try to follow the story of each island as far as you can, which involves a lot of reading. Luckily the writing is incredible. As good or better than Planescape Torment.

RTS wise, Starcraft 1 + Broodwar is pretty much one very long story spread across 6 episodes.

totes

Well then Dragon Quest VII will run you 130 hours, DQ VIII and IX will get you to 100 without major breaks in the plot.

The Witcher series will get you north of 200 hours as a whole, pretty easily, and all the content and story will probably get you around, if not more than 300 hours.

It took me 10 years to get through that game! Mainly because it's boring and I lost interest quickly.

If you want to include MMOs that can be solo'd, Guild Wars.
Generally not a fan of PvE, but the story in that game hooked me.
I've ran through that on one char' solo & I've had the game years & am still clearing parts of it.

I love Oblivion but are you insinuating that 5000 mines are "filler"? :P

Good lord, if you ran just the plotline and story quests (not the FedEx/grind ones) from World of Warcraft from vanilla 1.0 to whatever they're up to now, you'd be like a thousand hours in.

And then you'd reroll to see the other side's story.