10 of Our Favorite Long-Form Gaming Channels

We’ve put together a list of our favorite long-form gaming channels. You’ll enjoy this content whether you’re a casual gamer or a game developer. These YouTube videos range from five minutes to 10 hours, so there’s something for everyone.

We recommend getting an adblocker before getting started. Watching hours of content in one sitting is difficult now that there are more ads on YouTube than ever before. Of course, if you can power through preroll and midroll ads, we won’t stop you.

1. Any Austin

• Video Count: 387 videos

• Subscribers: 1.33 million 

Any Austin makes the best gaming videos. They’re typically 20 to 30 minutes long, so you can finish one while finishing a chore or on break at work. 

If you want to know more about a particular game’s electrical infrastructure, water systems, economies or job markets, check out these videos. They cover hilariously mundane topics like whether you can conduct a census in Red Dead Redemption 2.

In this featured video, Any AUstin explores whether you can live a normal life in Cyberpunk 2077. His goal is to get a job, eat and sleep. He stays in a noodle shop for an in-game week, working 12-hour shifts. His commentary makes it much more interesting than it sounds.

2. Gaming Historian

• Video Count: 144 videos

• Subscribers: 1.1 million

As YouTube channels go, this is one of the best. The Gaming Historian makes in-depth, documentary-style videos on the history of video games. They’re typically around five to 30 minutes, prioritizing quality over quantity. 

The creator is no longer working on the channel full-time, so uploads are infrequent. However, there are still nearly 150 gems like The Story of Super Mario World and The Ultimate Guide to NES Light Guns.

The video here is about when a nine-year-old sued Nintendo in 1989. His favorite players weren’t in LJN’s Major League Baseball game, so he sued Nintendo, LJN and Major League Baseball. Overreaction or justified? Watch the video and decide.

3. Game Maker’s Toolkit

• Video Count: 230 videos

• Subscribers: 1.71 million

Game Maker’s Toolkit is the best gaming channel for game designers and developers. You’ll enjoy watching, even if you fall into neither category, since it gets at the “why” and “how” behind your favorite games. 

These videos cover world design, gaming mechanics and narrative decisions. Some of the more interesting ones include Super Mario’s Invisible Difficulty Settings, The Genius AI Behind The Sims and The Unity Tutorial for Complete Beginners. 

How Games Do Destruction looks at the ingenious game design techniques that make terrain deformation, fire propagation and building destruction possible. It covers multiple games’ dynamic destruction systems. 

4. Ahoy

• Video Count: 305 videos 

• Subscribers: 1.84 million 

Ahoy is widely considered one of the best long-form gaming channels on YouTube. Rather than critiquing games, Ahoy focuses on the fundamental aspects of gaming. While most videos are 10 to 30 minutes long, some are over one hour. 

For instance, a video simply titled “Flamethrower” covers the weapon’s origins, depiction in military settings and eventual integration into gaming within 15 minutes. Similarly, “2000” focuses on the hardware and games released that year.

5. bizlychannel

• Video Count: 43 videos 

• Subscribers: 814,000 +

If you’re looking for more laughs and less analysis, bizlychannel has the best gaming videos. We can’t help but click on titles like Fallout’s Cannibals Are Actually Terrifying or Baldur’s Gate 3 is Way Too Good. 

You can find a mix of playful, reviews, comedic commentary and unserious rankings. It’s not just the content that’s great — bizlychannel goes all out with props, costumes, in-game footage, green screens and editing to make each video as entertaining as possible. 

In Skyrim’s Werewolves Are Really Stupid, he spends 30 minutes detailing his frustrations with the game’s infamous werewolves. While the review is meant to be funny, he backs up his points surprisingly well.

6. Noah Caldwell-Gervais

• Video Count: 101 videos

• Subscribers: 307,000 +

If you like hours-long YouTube videos, then this is the gaming channel for you. It has in-depth reviews and whole-franchise retrospectives, ranging from a 30-minute analysis of Cult of the Lamb to a nine-hour review of the Fallout series. 

Death of the Author: An Alan Wake Series Retrospective is a three-hour video essay on the Alan Wake series. If you’re interested but don’t want to sit through the whole runtime, it includes a table of contents in the description so you can easily jump around.

7. Daryl Talks Games

• Video Count: 108 videos 

• Subscribers: 711,000 +

Daryl Talks Games is a great YouTube channel for video essays. Rather than delivering your typical review week after week, he answers burning questions like, “Should we know if a game has multiple endings?” and “What does artificial romance do to people?” 

If you’re unsure where to start, The Psychology of Reviews: How Game Reviews Affect Your Perception is a great choice. He establishes the self-fulfilling prophecy, discusses the divide between critics and casual gamers, makes a counterargument and offers a potential solution. 

8. Joseph Andersen

• Video Count: 68 videos

• Subscribers: 763,000 +

Joseph Andersen creates critiques and reviews that focus on gameplay and narrative. These lengthy video essays cover popular titles like Super Mario Odyssey, Subnautica, God of War, Fallout 76 and The Witcher. 

Andersen uploads fairly infrequently, but there are around 70 videos on the channel — more than enough to keep us occupied. We recommend starting with The Witcher Critique: The Beginning of a Monster, which is a four-hour review of the entire series. 

To understand Andersen’s dedication — and the long wait times in between videos — you should know he played the games multiple times, read the entirety of the Witcher Saga written by Andrzej Sapkowski and even learned Polish to reread the books in their native language.

9. PatricianTV

• Video Count: 92 videos 

• Subscribers: 192,000 +

PatricianTV reviews both obscure and popular games. In addition to reviews, he delivers long-form analyses and retrospectives. Some of his videos are fundraisers, which makes us feel good about watching his content. 

For example, the video Bikepacking in the Mojave Makes You Wish for a Nuclear War raised $12,574 for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. It was part of a coast-to-coast ride through the Fallout settings.

10. Fizhy

• Video Count: 512K videos

• Subscribers: 5,300 + videos

Fizhy makes some of the best gaming videos on YouTube. His reviews and analyses cover specific games, gaming mysteries and broader gaming trends. We think Investigating Ysolda’s Secret: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was a great watch. 

Lately, Fizhy has been revisiting some of his older videos. The Dark Secret of Aberdeen Pig Farm, Re-Visited – Red Dead Redemption 2 has scenic shots, vivid descriptions and gripping commentary that keep you intrigued for the entire 30-minute runtime. 

Did We Miss Any of Your Favorite Gaming Channels?

These content creators may not be the top 10 gaming channels of all time, but we think they’re interesting, funny and well-researched .

Admittedly, our favorite gaming channels comprise some of the most popular creators in the space. There’s a big chance you’ve heard of most of them, if not all of them. Still, this is only a top 10 list, so we know it’s far from comprehensive.

Besides, what qualifies as the “best” long-form gaming video is subjective. Did we miss any of your favorites? Let us know! Who knows — we might update this list in the future to include the ones we missed.