It’s easy to see how long it will take you to watch a movie or TV show, since each film or episode has a set runtime. But video games are different, since the time they take to beat depends a lot on the player.

But you don’t have to be in the dark when you wonder how long it will take to beat a certain video game. Let’s look at online resources that let you find out the approximate length of any title.

1. HowLongToBeat

If you only visit one website to check how long a video game will take to complete, make it this one. As the name suggests, HowLongToBeat (HLTB) is dedicated to cataloging video game lengths. It’s user-driven, meaning that you see how long other players have taken to beat games.

You’ll see trending titles on the homepage, or can search for any game you’re interested in. Upon visiting a game’s page, you’ll see four play styles listed. These are as follows:

• Main Story: Doing only what’s required to reach the end credits, while skipping optional content.
• Main + Extras: Taking your time to explore and complete some side objectives, without worrying about doing every little task.
• Completionist: Playing 100% of what the game has to offer, including additional modes.
• All Styles: A blend of the other three play styles, designed to give an average estimate.

HLTB includes a scale to show how accurate its estimates are. As the site receives more submissions for a category, the color changes from red to purple to blue. Keep in mind that more obscure games won’t have as much information, so those results aren’t as accurate.

If you’re interested in more information, HowLongToBeat has plenty. Scroll down on a game’s page to see how many times have been submitted for each category, along with the average and highest/lowest times. The Retirement percentage shows how many players started the game but didn’t finish, giving you an idea of how common it is to quit the game early.

The bottom of the page shows what platforms others played on. And if you click Completions at the top, you can look over individual submissions, along with any notes the user included.

To go further, you can make a free account on HLTB to track your games. This lets you place games in categories like Backlog and Retired, making it easier to estimate how long your collection will take to complete. Of course, you can also submit your own times for games.

2. GameLengths

GameLengths doesn’t have nearly as many submissions as HLTB, but it’s worth visiting for another opinion. Search for a game to see the Average Time, Minimum Time, and Maximum Time based on user submissions. For a better breakdown, choose Time Distribution to check individual runtimes.

Unlike HLTB, which has a separate category for speedruns, GameLengths doesn’t distinguish between these and casual runs. There’s also no option to choose your play style. Thus, a few of the times might be ridiculously short or long. Speaking of this, see our guide to RNG if you’re interested in learning about speedrunning tactics.

Other than this, you can browse by console and genre at the top, and view comments if anyone left those with their time. You can add your own times if you make an account. It’s basic, but you might appreciate visiting this site from time to time.

3. Reddit, GameFAQs, and Other Forums

The above two sites, especially HLTB, should be enough to help you estimate how long a game will be. If you don’t care for these averages, another option is to look on forums dedicated to the game. Reddit and GameFAQs are the two best places for this.

You can run a search on a game’s subreddit or GameFAQs board, but it’s easiest to search “how long is Breath of the Wild Reddit” or similar on Google. For major games, you might even find articles on gaming websites discussing their length. Whether these come from resources like HLTB or the author’s personal experience will likely depend on how new it is.

Reading these discussions can give you a more personal touch to game length discussions. Someone on a forum might include more info about themselves, like which types of games they’re best at, how long the game held their interest, and similar. In that way, it’s like talking to a group of friends about a game.

Game Length Is Not an Exact Science

Remember that you can’t perfectly estimate how long a game will take. Someone who’s more skilled than you at a certain genre might beat a game far faster than you will. If a game requires you to be attentive in order to find everything and you tend to miss those clues, you might miss out on hours of gameplay.

For some titles, there’s more fun to have from playing the game multiple times and getting better every time. Games like Dishonored are replayable since they allow for multiple approaches.

We should also mention that a game’s length does not correspond to its quality. There are short games that offer memorable experiences, while many long games are tedious and will make you want to stop playing long before the credits.

If there’s a game you want to play but you don’t think the price is worth it, check out the best sites for video game prices alerts. You’ll get a notification when the game goes on sale, so you can grab it at a price that makes sense to you.

Learn How Long Any Game Takes to Beat

With these resources, it’s easy to estimate how long a game will take you. Whether you’re on a budget and want to check how long your next purchase will last or are trying to prioritize your backlog, this is useful information to have.

Be sure to pay it forward by submitting your own times once you’re done! While you’re playing, you should take breaks to avoid overdoing it.