How long should Cyberpunk 2077 be? Let’s take a look at some of the facts to see if we can arrive at a number.
Asking someone how long a game should last is a tricky thing. For some, the response of “I wish it would never end” is not hyperbole, but for most of us, we want to arrive at a happy ending (or at least some sort of ending) before too long. We’ve got other games to play.
The Witcher 3 is famous for having a lengthy campaign and numerous side quests for the player to get lost in for dozens, or even hundreds, of hours. However, CD Projekt Red recently revealed that a longer game - even one as critically acclaimed as Witcher 3 - isn’t necessarily a better game.
According to CD Projekt Red’s senior quest designer Patrick Mills, a “tremendous number of players” never actually finished Witcher 3. Sure, they enjoyed it, but they never got to the end to see how the story played out.
That sort of sucks for a game designer that puts their heart and soul into a story. So, for Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red wanted to make a campaign that everyone would finish. Mills said that the campaign in Cyberpunk will be “slightly shorter” than Witcher 3’s.
He didn’t provide any concrete numbers, but not to worry - we’ve got that figured out.
How Long Was Witcher 3?
To get some concrete data, we must first head to HowLongToBeat.com, a website dedicated to telling gamers how much of their lives they can expect to waste on any particular game. For the Witcher 3, you can blitz the main story in about 51.5 hours, do most of the side quests in 102 hours, and if you’re a completionist, you should expect to spend at least 172 hours fishing for every lost artifact and easter egg available.
But as Mills already mentioned, The Witcher 3 proved to be a bit too much for most gamers. So if we trim that down a bit, we can get a rough idea of what to expect from Cyberpunk 2077. Let’s say… a blitzed campaign of 40 hours and a completionist run of around 150 hours, just to attach some numbers to it.
Even 40 hours might seem daunting to some players, so I decided to dive deeper into how long a game like Cyberpunk should be with the help of friend, psychologist, and fellow gamer, Dr. Courtney Plante.
How Long Should You Make A Game?
Dr. Plante offered several insights into how long a developer should make a game. First, you’ve got to consider how taxing the core gameplay will be. A game like Doom Eternal is constantly putting the player under stress as they fend off hordes of angry demons, and making that drag on for 50 hours would be exhausting. Something between 6-12 hours is more suitable for an intense first-person shooter like that.
Second, consider the player’s immersion. A game with a beautiful world to explore, where every alley can be walked down or every mountain journeyed to, can afford to be a bit longer in length since the player is already inclined to just wander around and see the sights.
Third is repetition. Some gamers like doing the same thing over and over again ad nauseam, but most don’t. A game where there tons of new things to do, new mechanics to try, new weapons to craft, and new side quests to find, is likely going to keep a player engaged.
Fourth, and perhaps most important for a game like Cyberpunk, is freedom. A linear story where events happen one after the other without any deviation shouldn’t be too long. Why? Because nobody likes being told what to do forever. But a game that’s more open-ended, where the player can choose the sequence of events and its outcomes, can afford to be longer since the player is empowered to make their own decisions.
So How Long SHOULD Cyberpunk 2077 Be?
We know that Cyberpunk will have some pretty intense combat, but it’ll also have plenty of gorgeous Night City to explore as well. We’re not sure how often the city’s many gangs will try to jump you, but hopefully it won’t be so often that it feels like you’re fending off the legions of Hell.
We also know there will be tons of side quests, customization options in the forms of cyberware and cosmetics, a weapon and equipment crafting system, an RPG-style leveling system, mini-games, romance, and multiple endings. You won’t even need to complete the main story to complete the game, which is a bit confusing, but shows just how dynamic Cyberpunk’s quest system will be.
Openness, variety, and flexibility are all factors working in Cyberpunk’s favor if CD Projekt Red wants to extend the campaign even further than they did with Witcher 3. Frankly, it might even be a mistake to cut the campaign length down. On the plus side, CD Projekt Red does plan to add both free and paid DLC in the future, so players that can’t get enough Cyberpunk will at least have those to look forward to.
So, with these rules in mind, how long should Cyberpunk 2077 be? That ultimately just depends on how compelling what’s there is. We’re excited to find that out, come November.
