How long should a AAA singleplayer game last?

[laggyteabag]

So I completed Shadows of Mordor a couple of days ago, only a day after I had started it, and despite doing pretty much all of the sidequests, the game only took me 17 hours to complete. For a singleplayer game with little to no replayability or other game modes to speak of, 17 hours felt kinda short, especially for a AAA game that was full price. Even the Batman games that have almost identical gameplay, have a challenge mode, as well as harder difficulties, and Origins has a multiplayer mode to boot. With games like Dragon Age Origins or Knights of the Old Republic that took me around 50 hours to complete (with all sidequests), how can you really justify putting up a game that costs the same, but offers less than half the time worth of content. As a person who buys a game at full price, are you happy with pretty much any singleplayer experience as long as it is good, or do you feel like you need to spend at least X amount of time in a game to really justify it's purchase?

Personally, if I buy a game at full price, and the game has no other mode other than the basic singleplayer campaign, I tend to like my games to last at least 30 hours for one playthrough, otherwise I just feel cheated out of my money.

 

[Lifeinsteps]

It depends rather immensely on the genre of video game.

FPS? 10 hours is pretty much enough, especially because I'll start getting sick of it long before that.
RPG? Give me a good 30-40 at least, but more, if it's engaging, is good.
Action/Adventure? 15-20 hours is probably good.

If I had to pick an overall default time, though, I'd go with 20.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

It depends rather immensely on the genre of video game.

FPS? 10 hours is pretty much enough, especially because I'll start getting sick of it long before that.
RPG? Give me a good 30-40 at least, but more, if it's engaging, is good.
Action/Adventure? 15-20 hours is probably good.

If I had to pick an overall default time, though, I'd go with 20.

Pretty much what I was going to say. It depends on the style of the video game.

An open world game like Shadows of Mordor I would expect to see a playtime of around 20 hours, whereas a big expansive RPG I'd expect something like 40+ hours.

And yeah, I'd say a decent length for the average single player campaign would be somewhere around 20 hours. Just long enough to really get you invested in the world without overstaying its welcome.

 

[Brain Tumor]

It doesn't matter how long it lasts, what matters is if you think it was "long" enough to be worth the purchase price. If you are worried about it, then don't buy games day one, wait til they drop in price.

Unless it is an RPG, don't expect incredibly long play times for single player campaigns.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

It depends rather immensely on the genre of video game.

FPS? 10 hours is pretty much enough, especially because I'll start getting sick of it long before that.
RPG? Give me a good 30-40 at least, but more, if it's engaging, is good.
Action/Adventure? 15-20 hours is probably good.

If I had to pick an overall default time, though, I'd go with 20.

Absolutely agree with this assessment. It varies from genre to genre, but 15-20 hours is a good compromise.

 

[Evonisia]

I'd say anywhere in the 12-18 hour range is acceptable for a non-sandbox game. For a sandbox game I guess the main campaign could take that long (assuming that travel time is included) but the content on the whole should be able to be devoured over a longer period.

Shooters that don't have any ideas should probably go for the 10 hour mark, otherwise it would get tedious fast. Other ones can last longer.

Overall I think 15 hours is acceptable as an ideal time to go for. Rushers can finish it in a day or two, and the average person can have it for about a week or more.

 

[Vault101]

17? huh that actually feels fairly generous...at least given how things feel these days

its going to depend on a lot of things, specifically what kind of game it is, I'm not sure 6 is really acceptable under most circumstances....regardless of genre or the online part

while I don't care too much about time given that I have a job and other things I still want to feel like I'm getting my moneys worth

It depends rather immensely on the genre of video game.

FPS? 10 hours is pretty much enough, especially because I'll start getting sick of it long before that.
RPG? Give me a good 30-40 at least, but more, if it's engaging, is good.
Action/Adventure? 15-20 hours is probably good.

If I had to pick an overall default time, though, I'd go with 20.

that seems about fair

 

[Dalisclock]

Same with anything else. As long or short as it needs to be.

If something feels like parts are missing or it just feels rushed, it's too short.
If something drags on and on without interesting things happening, or if the gaps between things driving the story and developing character and building atmosphere are too long, it's too long.

If you keep wondering why a mission/section exists and dread playing that mission, it usually points too the game being too long and it could have easily been cut.


And occasionally there are the rare pieces of work that are both too short and too long, with the worst of both worlds. Things take too long to happen with too much nothing in between while leaving a lot unexplained and what's there is slapdash and hurried.

For example, COD4 is something like 4 hours long. And it feels perfect. There's just enough game to be varied and tell the story while short enough not to feel like anything is overstaying it's welcome. It was far shorter then COD2(which was like 10-15 hours long) but felt overall more satisfying.

I like COD2 but I've played through it twice and it always feels like it's a little too long and drags at times(I was starting to get awfully sick of Stalingrad by the end, and was thankful that the next visit to Stalingrad in WaW was short). Not to mention there are other parts of the game that feel...off.

 

[TrevHead]

I agree with 1st post I'll just add that shorter than the norm is fine or even preferred if it's highly replayable (skill depth / highscore).

 

[jamail77]

Even the Batman games that have almost identical gameplay, have a challenge mode, as well as harder difficulties, and Origins has a multiplayer mode to boot.

Well, I somehow managed to play 500 hours of Batman Arkham City before I stopped. While I do judge a game on the time it takes to complete in addition to depth of content and all that, maybe it's better if I don't add to the discussion as I clearly can't limit myself to solely just completing the content as intended...

 

[geizr]

Same with anything else. As long or short as it needs to be.

If something feels like parts are missing or it just feels rushed, it's too short.
If something drags on and on without interesting things happening, or if the gaps between things driving the story and developing character and building atmosphere are too long, it's too long.

If you keep wondering why a mission/section exists and dread playing that mission, it usually points too the game being too long and it could have easily been cut.


And occasionally there are the rare pieces of work that are both too short and too long, with the worst of both worlds. Things take too long to happen with too much nothing in between while leaving a lot unexplained and what's there is slapdash and hurried.

For example, COD4 is something like 4 hours long. And it feels perfect. There's just enough game to be varied and tell the story while short enough not to feel like anything is overstaying it's welcome. It was far shorter then COD2(which was like 10-15 hours long) but felt overall more satisfying.

I like COD2 but I've played through it twice and it always feels like it's a little too long and drags at times(I was starting to get awfully sick of Stalingrad by the end, and was thankful that the next visit to Stalingrad in WaW was short). Not to mention there are other parts of the game that feel...off.

Pretty much this. There is no set amount of time for any game. The only real question is whether the game leaves you satisfied at the end. Back in the day, many 15 minute games were more satisfying and had a greater sense of adventure than a lot of games that dragged on for 40+ hours. A good game developer will try to set the pacing and density of the game to achieve a certain mood, emotion, and gameplay intensity at various points in the game in accordance with the story of the game, and they'll let the game be however long it turns out to be.

 

[Rednog]

Having played Shadows of Mordor...I honestly wish some games were shorter. Open worlds are great and all but for me I honestly could not give a damn about all the repetitive side mission nonsense that is common in open world games. Shadows of Mordor is fun...but a giant chunk of the game is doing repetitive side missions where the story is basically a sentence of hey these guys stole some grog free the prisoners. Or this guy is having a feast go kill him. That's not interesting gameplay that's padding.

What happened to introductions into side missions like in Saints Row 1 and 2. At least give me something interesting to keep me going when I'm doing the same thing over and over.
I want a solid 6-10 hour game that keep me entertained, I don't want another game where I'm just faffing about doing the same thing over and over or just running around looking for pointless collectibles. I don't get why people just look at "it takes me X hours to complete" as a scale of how good a game is. I know people who have like 200 hours in Skyrim, but I'd wager that maybe 20-30 hours are solid interesting gameplay while the rest is going through the same copy pasted tombs and camps over and over.

 

[OpticalJunction]

Around 20 hours is reasonable. If they are all costing minimum $60 then they should have a standard minimum gameplay time, too.

 

[Piorn]

As long as it takes. Padding hurts a game as much as cutting corners.
If you can make a compelling game that takes 10h to complete, that's fine, as long as it feels like it's finished and was a fun ride.

Personally, I feel that a strong indicator for the correct length are the variety of uses for the established gameplay elements. Many games either introduce X for one part then completely forget it, or add X and it's single use to an ever growing list of gameplay elements that just repeats.
Alice:Madness Returns is a great example of that. The game has many gameplay elements, but they all either have one very specific use, or are abandonned after a short part. This means you do the same thing a million times with short intermissions of random gimmicks, and it just drags on and on.
Other games are so short, you don't get to play around with the gameplay elements at all, making you wonder if they're even properly fleshed out, or just entirely scripted for that specific moment. They're over before you know it. I would've liked an entire game based on the Rex/Ray fight in MGS4, but as it was, it felt like padding and cut corners at the same time.
I feel positive examples for game length would be B:AA/AC, Psychonauts, and SotC. Every item or move you get can be used in a variety of ways, so you can grow with your character by learning to utilize them in creative ways. And when it eventually ends, you can feel like you didn't just "apply X to win". The game should end just when you feel like you get close to knowing it all, the little tricks and stuff, but not so late that you know literally everything. I don't know maybe that's just me.

Also on an unrelated note, in RPGs, I love those moments when you get a while to relax, get to appreciate how far you've come, and actually realize how far you've come. Always gives me goosebumps. That should usually be the half-way point of your epic adventure, before things get dark.

 

[Scootinfroodie]

Honestly, for me it's less "how long should the main quest line last" and more "how many hours do I see myself putting into this overall?"
I try not to go over $2/hr for any game. I also don't typically buy AAA's on release though, especially dedicated single-player FPS'

Like Rednog pointed out though, padding doesn't really cut it. I've spent a lot of time in Skyrim, but a lot of that was trying (and failing) to fix the game through mods.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Eh, 17 hours isn't too bad. It cost me 30 quid on PC, so that's still under £2 per hour of entertainment. Much less than I'd pay for a CD or movie at full price.

 

[Maximum Bert]

As long as it needs to in order to give you a satisfying experience that provides value for money obviously this will differ for each game and genre and what each persons expectations are. Make it to long and some will complain make it to short and some will complain basically there is no right length but I think more would complain about lack of content than too much.

For me personally length isnt anywhere near as important as the quality of the experience although obviously if I payed 40 pounds and only get 2 hours of gameplay those two hours better be absolutely mindblowingly amazing or im not gonna be happy.

 

[hermes]

Depends on the genre:
- FPS: 10 to 15 hours.
- Action adventure games: 15 to 20 hours.
- RPG: Over 30 hours.
- Open world games: Over 40 hours.

17 hours for an open world game does sound a little shorter than what is expectable...

 

[Casual Shinji]

It depends rather immensely on the genre of video game.

FPS? 10 hours is pretty much enough, especially because I'll start getting sick of it long before that.
RPG? Give me a good 30-40 at least, but more, if it's engaging, is good.
Action/Adventure? 15-20 hours is probably good.

If I had to pick an overall default time, though, I'd go with 20.

A pretty decent assessment. Though with action/adventure I would be willing to go with 10 - 15 hours.

It all depends on how a game paces itself. Sure RPGs take way longer to complete, but they also take way longer to get started, plus suffer from a lot less satisfying action and controls. Even a game like Zelda, which is an action/adventure and can clock over 25 hours, still has less intuitive action and controls than, say, a God of War, which is about 10 hours or so. And despite this difference in playtime, a game like God of War or Half-Life 2 will satisfy me just as much as a game like Fallout: New Vegas. Probably even more so, since those games don't overstay their welcome like almost every RPG.