How long is The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom? It's a massive game, but with so much optional content, the length of time to beat the story will vary depending on whether you just want to do the essential stuff, or if you're shooting for 100% completion - and if you're going for the latter, you'll be doing this all for a LONG time. We'll cover all the different lengths of time for how long to beat Zelda Tears of the Kingdom below, from pure story to standard playthroughs to total completion.
How long to beat The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom?
The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, as mentioned, will vary considerably in length and time to beat depending on how much of it you want to do:
- Just Story: 45-55 hours
- Standard Playthrough: 55-70 hours
- 100% Completion: 100+ hours
- Speedrun: Under 5 hours
Clearly these are some pretty big - and pretty variable - numbers, but having played the game to the end ourselves, we'll explain it all below.
Just Story: The story of Tears of the Kingdom itself is a big one, spanning the whole of the game map, with many dungeons, bosses and secrets to uncover. To do all the main quests that lead up to the final confrontation, plus the minimum amount of necessary side content, we estimate as taking between 45-55 hours, maybe lower if you're an incredibly skilled player.
Standard Playthrough: A standard playthrough will probably be somewhere between 55 and 70 hours, though could be a lot longer, as we consider that to be "all the main quests plus enough side content and exploration to never feel underleveled". Again, that number will shift depending on individual skill and how empowered you want to be for the essential stuff and just how much fun you're having!
100% Completion: If you want to do everything in Tears of the Kingdom, that'll take an incredibly long time - 100 hours at a minimum, and probably much longer. There's a huge amount of content in this game, from the hundreds of hidden Korok seeds you'll bring to the iconic Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Hestu character, to finding all of the Bubbul Gems, and more besides. That hundred hours is frankly a low-ball estimate - you should probably expect to be closer to 150 hours by the time you've exhausted it all.
Speedrun: If you want to reach the end credits as fast as possible, like in Breath of the Wild, you can head to the final boss straight away after completing the tutorial and finding all the Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Sky Island Shrines. Admittedly the game won't tell you where the final boss is until you complete the main quests, but they are still there and you can still reach them early to complete the game whenever you want. This is the hardest option, but it is feasible - and those with supreme Zelda skill will be able to beat this massive game in under five hours, having seen almost none of it along the way.
© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission
