How long will it take you to beat Baldur’s Gate 3? The question might pop into every gamer’s mind before immersing themselves in this seemingly daunting turn-based DND-esque masterpiece. The world is layered and has virtually limitless ways of completing the same set of tasks.
With a story so immersive, it might swallow you whole, and with side quests lurking in every corner, you might be in for more than you originally anticipated. But for those daring enough to dive in, let’s look at what kind of commitment you are looking at in Baldur’s Gate 3.
HLTB Beat Baldur’s Gate 3?
While there is no certain way to tell how long it will take you to complete a game with potentially hundreds of outcomes for every quest. Baldur’s Gate 3 (BG3) is significantly more extensive than Baldur’s Gate 2 which took around 60-70 hours for 100% completion.
To give you some perspective, BG3 has 176 hours of cutscenes (Yeap! This isn’t a typo). While you might not come across a plethora of them because of the RNG nature of the game this was just to give you an idea of how much content this game packs.
The average playtime varies significantly depending on quite a few factors; what do you consider completing the game, your skillset, the difficulty you are playing on, and how in-depth exploration you do?
But if we average out all of these factors and have to settle on an estimated number, here is what you would be looking at:
Speed Run
Playtime: 60-70 hours
If you are one of those who are only interested in the main plot and just want to earn the title of “I have played Baldur’s Gate 3” then it might take you around 60-ish hours. It might take you slightly more if you take your time with the cutscenes and you take more than a few tries with some of the harder bosses. Still, your total playtime should fall anywhere in the neighborhood of 75 hours.
Normal Playthrough
Playtime: 90-100 hours
The normal playthrough is what the majority of gamers will be doing – main quest plus some of the side quests they come across along the way. This will take you a fair bit of time as some of the side quests take you deep into the world.
100 hours might seem like a huge chunk of time, but once you immerse yourself into the story, even this amount of time seems insignificant.
100 Completion
Playtime: 150-160+ hours
We get it. You want your whole 60$ worth out of BG3. You make sure you scrape through every piece of collectible, every side quest, and talk to every NPC that too on top of the already ginormous main story. When you get to the end of it all, you will easily have 150 hours and maybe still have some content left.
In the end, Baldur’s Gate 3 is not merely a game – it’s a journey, an experience that is meant to be savored and not rushed. It might take you weeks. It might take you months (if you have a life outside of games).
But how long it is going to take you to complete the game depends not just on the hours but how deeply you want you immerse yourself into the story. Remember, in Faerûn, the real adventure is never the destination but the choices you make along the way.