How long does it take to play The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim?

Skyrim's main quest takes about 34 hours, but the completionist figure of roughly 232 hours is nearly seven times longer — the widest ratio between "finishing" and "completing" of any major game. That gap exists because the game generates radiant quests indefinitely, so "completion" is partly a matter of when the player decides to stop. Skyrim has been re-released so many times since 2011 that a player could have bought it on five separate platforms. Median times have barely moved in a decade, which is unusual and suggests the figure is stable rather than still settling.

The numbers

Total

34 hours

In hours

34 hours

Non-stop

1.4 days without sleeping

Covers

main story; completionist runs are roughly 232 hours

At a realistic pace

two hours an evening

That works out as

about 17 days

What this assumes

Player-reported medians. The completionist figure is especially soft because the game contains procedurally generated quests with no natural end.

The range across players is very wide; the completionist figure depends heavily on whether radiant quests are counted.

Other games