How long is Assassin’s Creed Shadows? Time to beat explained

Assassin's Creed Shadows protagonist Yasuke — (Image credit: Ubisoft)

How long is Assassin’s Creed Shadows? The game's time to beat and general length will be somewhere between 35 and 50 hours for most, but that's a very elastic number that will heavily depend on the way that you play the game. Assassin's Creed Shadows is a game that's generally on the shorter side of AC games, but that's not saying much when compared to Valhalla and Odyssey. If you want to know more about what's ahead of you, here's how long to beat AC Shadows, whether you're a completionist or just in it for the story campaign alone.

How long to beat Assassin's Creed Shadows?

Assassin's Creed Shadows Naoe perched on top of pagoda spire overlooking Osaka — (Image credit: Ubisoft)

Here's how long we reckon it'll take you to beat AC Shadows based on how you play:

Main quests only: 25-35 hours
Standard (main quests + some side activities): 35-50 hours
100% completionist: 60+ hours

More AC Shadows guides

Assassin's Creed Shadows Canon Mode
Assassin's Creed Shadows Immersive Mode
Assassin's Creed Shadows Naoe and Yasuke differences
Assassin's Creed Shadows roadmap

As I've said, the time it takes to beat Assassin's Creed Shadows will vary massively depending on how much you engage with the open world activities, how you approach combat, and how much time you spend generally exploring the huge map. If you're try to blast through the main quest line, focusing almost exclusively on assassinating the main Shinbakufu faction and switching Assassin's Creed Shadows characters when necessary to pursue their personal quests, you can reach the credits in around 30 hours.

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However, given the density of the game and the number of side quests and activities split across both protagonists, not to mention the Hideout base building and management mechanics, it's likely that it'll take you a fair bit longer than 30 hours. The author of our Assassin's Creed Shadows review saw the end of the game in about 40 hours, having pursued some side activities along the way. Finally, if you want to be thorough and mop up everything AC Shadows has to offer, you're looking at spending at least 60 hours gallivanting across Japan.

Bearing our Assassin's Creed Shadows tips in mind should give you a nice head start to get through the early stages of the game a bit faster, and we've got a guide to help you with the first notable infiltration challenge: knowning how to retrieve the box in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

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Will Sawyer is a Guides Editor at GamesRadar+ with over five years of experience in writing online guides, news, and features, and has a BA (Hons) in Journalism. Starting as a freelancer, Will contributed to startmenu and Game Rant before joining the GamesRadar+ team in August 2021. Since then, he has written hundreds of guides about a huge range of games, with shooters and action games being his areas of expertise. Outside of writing about games, Will hops between multiplayer shooters with friends, such as Darktide and Helldivers 2, and delves into whatever has been on his backlog for far too long. He also tries to get through his never-ending Warhammer pile of shame of grey Tyranids, Aeldari, and Chaos Space Marines.