In an extensive new interview, Elden Ring producer Yasuhiro Kitao reveals how long it will take most players to beat the open-world title’s main route.
“This will differ significantly by player,” Kitao says in response to a question about approximately how many hours it takes to complete Elden Ring. “In terms of the targets set during development, the idea is that the main route should be able to be completed within around 30 hours.”
Kitao goes on to note that those who really want to see everything that Elden Ring has to offer can expect to spend much more time with FromSoftware’s upcoming open-world RPG.
“The game as a whole is quite massive,” Kitao says. “[It} contains many dozens more hours worth of gameplay, but if we are talking about the main route only, it shouldn’t take much longer than that.”
I recommend any Elden Ring players who aren’t trying to go into the game completely blind check out the full interview, but the question about the game’s length starts at around the 32:57 mark in the video below.
As Kitao mentions, it’s a little difficult to know exactly what we should think about that completion estimate until we know more about how a player’s skill level will impact Elden Ring‘s runtime and how expansive the game’s sidequests and other open-world activities really are. If you’re curious, though, then here’s a brief breakdown of (roughly) how long it takes to beat FromSoftware’s Soulsborne titles (based on player completion averages compiled by the How Long to Beat website):
Demon’s Souls – 30 hours
Dark Souls – 42 hours
Dark Souls 2 – 45 hours
Dark Souls 3 – 32 hours
Bloodborne – 34 hours
Based on those figures and Kitao’s own estimate regarding Elden Ring‘s length, it seems like the “main” part of Elden Ring won’t be quite as long as the first two Dark Souls games but will be fairly close to Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls 3, and Bloodborne in that respect. That makes a lot of sense given that FromSoftware has been aiming for slightly shorter “main game” experiences since some pointed out that Dark Souls 2 may have run a bit too long.
What about other open-world games, though? Well, that’s a broad category, but there is how Elden Ring‘s runtime stacks up against some of the more notable open-world titles in recent years.
Grand Theft Auto 5 – 32 hours
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – 37 hours
The Witcher 3 – 52 hours
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 50 hours
Again, there are a lot of factors that complicate these estimates and make it impossible to treat them as the definitive word on this matter, but if we treat all of those figures simply as estimates, then it’s easy to come to the conclusion that Elden Ring‘s main story won’t be quite as long as the campaigns in the largest open-world games but will be at least roughly as long as many of FromSoftware’s previous titles. In other words, it’s about as long as we previously suspected based on vague statements from FromSoftware in the past and data mining reports.
Having said that, between various hints regarding the true scope of Elden Ring‘s world, the fact that you can replay the game in many different ways, and Kitao’s confirmation that Elden Ring will feature some kind of New Game+ mode, I think that it’s safe to say that anyone who wants to spend the next few months (or longer) with Elden Ring will certainly have the chance to do so.