FromSoftware was very far off in its estimate of how long it would take players to beat Elden Ring, so it’s refusing to say how long the upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree is.
Back in January of 2022, about a month before Elden Ring took over everyone’s lives, FromSoftware’s Yasuhiro Kitao shared that the game’s main story would take about 30 hours to beat. That, as we all found out, was a load of malarkey, as Elden Ring was an absolutely gargantuan game. Yeah, sure, maybe on a second playthrough you could beat the game that quickly (I know I put 10 hours into the game before I even beat Margit), but a first playthrough was never going to go down that quickly. Now, in a recent interview with Chinese outlet Bonfire (translated by swordandflower on Twitter), game director Hidetaka Miyazaki wouldn’t say how long Shadow of the Erdtree precisely because they got it wrong with the base game.
“For play time… I shouldn’t be the one to answer this question,” Miyazaki said. “During an interview I’ve said that the Elden Ring will take around 30ish hours to finish the main game but after it was released, everyone told me that I was lying and that’s not remotely enough time haha! Well, as developers, we continuously playtest and iterate on our games, so we know all there is to know regarding the game. And because of that, our playtime isn’t a good reference point.”
I imagine that, considering the DLC itself will set you back $40, it will be quite a lengthy experience, though obviously not as big as the base game itself. Luckily, you don’t have to worry about putting aside even more time for a hypothetical second expansion, as FromSoftware also recently confirmed that Shadow of the Erdtree will be the game’s only piece of DLC.