Bethesda’s highly anticipated game, Starfield, is said to be so long that even Bethesda’s head of publishing, Pete Hines, has lost all sense of time. During a Bethesda MainStream event at Gamescom 2023, Hines revealed that it took him 50 hours to complete the main quest of the action role-playing game, after already spending 80 hours on side quests.
Hines stated, “80 hours in, I went from doing one game to a completely different game where I started really focusing on the main quest, and then I got so caught up in the main quest, that I spent the next 50 hours just doing that. I’m here to tell you that this game doesn’t really even get going until you finish the main quest.”
The sheer length of the game is evident as Hines emphasized that playing Starfield for 40 hours tells you nothing about what the player has actually accomplished.
While 130 hours might seem like an intimidating amount of time to invest in a game, Hines reassured players that it might not take them as long as it took him to reach maximum speed in the game, where it turbo-blasts blue light directly into the players’ eyeballs and brains.
In 2022, Starfield director Todd Howard estimated that the main quest of the game would take players around 30 to 40 hours to complete. Although it is not much different from Hines’ 50-hour experience, it does allow players to have some additional time for other activities, such as going outside or playing Crash Bandicoot.
Despite the varying estimates, Hines is certain that Starfield will consume a significant portion of players’ time. In another conversation during Gamescom, Hines mentioned that he hasn’t even come close to completing the game after spending around 150 to 160 hours on his current playthrough.
With such a time-demanding game, players should start clearing their schedules. Early Access for Starfield will be available for Premium or Constellation Edition buyers starting September 1, with the game officially releasing for Xbox Series X/S and PC on September 6.
In the meantime, fans can’t help but anticipate the immersive experience that Starfield is expected to deliver, as Bethesda continues to build anticipation for the game’s release.