It was a long wait, fellow gamers, but we’re finally here, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has become available for purchase on Nintendo Switch. The reviews seem to indicate that we’re in for another masterpiece of epic proportions, but many fans are wondering how long it’s going to take them to finish this sequel. More specifically, most of us want to know how many hours of content await us in this chapter of Hyrule when we finally plug in that cartridge after more than six years of waiting.
Tears of the Kingdom is a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild and builds upon that game’s mechanics and world design. Even the world map remains the same, so much of what we see in this follow-up is an expansion of what came before, with Nintendo introducing many compelling elements like explorable floating islands and item fusing to shake things up for long-time fans of the franchise.
The story is also going to pick up where Breath of the Wild left it, depicting the franchise protagonist Link as he races to save Hyrule from yet another existential threat. All of that is dozens and dozens of fun, entertaining hours in the making, but how long is Tears of the Kingdom, exactly?
Tears of the Kingdom‘s runtime from start to finish
According to several reviews, Tears of the Kingdom is much like its predecessor in terms of length, delivering up to 100 hours of content if the players are really keen to see everything. If you stick to the narrative, though, it will take you somewhere around 40 to 50 hours to finish the game, and a little longer if we consider the side quests.
Of course, taking different playstyles into account, this length may vary greatly from player to player. Some might wish to take their time exploring Hyrule, or even go back through many previously unearthed areas to scavenge more loot. And some might be tuning in just for the story, in which case they could probably speedrun through the game in 30 hours or so.
Ultimately, Tears of the Kingdom is an open-world role-playing title set in a rich fantasy world, so you’ll definitely be investing many more hours into it than your typical linear adventure game.