Elden Ring is a colossal game, a sprawling dark fantasy epic that can consume hundreds of hours. For any Tarnished staring up at the Erdtree for the first time, one critical question comes to mind: just how long does it take to beat Elden Ring? The answer isn’t a single number but a spectrum, entirely dependent on your goals, your experience, and your strategy. This tactical breakdown will provide a clear, data-driven answer and a playbook for tackling the Lands Between efficiently.
How Long Does It Take to Beat Elden Ring? The Core Data
To establish a baseline, we look at aggregated player data. These numbers represent the average time investment for different playstyles. Think of them as battlefield intelligence—useful for planning your campaign but subject to change once you’re on the ground.
- Main Story Focus: Approximately 55-60 hours. This involves following the critical path, defeating only the necessary Shardbearers and bosses required to see the credits roll.
- Main Story + Major Side Content: Approximately 95-105 hours. This is the most common player experience. It includes the main quest, major NPC questlines like Ranni’s, exploring optional regions, and defeating most of the memorable bosses.
- 100% Completionist: Approximately 135-150+ hours. This is the ultimate objective for dedicated players, involving finding every item, spell, talisman, and boss, and achieving all possible endings and trophies.
These are averages. A Souls-like veteran might cut these times by 20%, while a complete newcomer could easily add 50% or more. Your personal journey time will be dictated by several key factors.
Factors That Influence Your Elden Ring Playthrough Time
Your final hour count is a direct result of your approach. Understanding these variables allows you to control the pace of your playthrough, whether you’re aiming for a swift victory or a long, thorough exploration.
Your Gaming Experience (Souls-like Veteran vs. Newcomer)
Prior experience with FromSoftware titles (Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro) is the single greatest factor in reducing your playtime. Veterans understand the core mechanics of stamina management, dodge timing (i-frames), and boss “tells” from the moment they step into Limgrave.
A newcomer, by contrast, will spend significant time learning these punishing fundamentals. Dying dozens of times to Margit, the Fell Omen, is a rite of passage that adds hours to the clock. Veterans often overcome such roadblocks in a handful of attempts.
Playstyle: Completionist vs. Main Story Rusher
Do you clear every icon on the map, or do you make a beeline for the next major objective? Elden Ring’s open world is dense with catacombs, caves, and optional bosses. A completionist will spend dozens of hours in regions a story-focused player might ride through in minutes.
This exploration isn’t wasted time; it’s often how you find the powerful gear and upgrade materials needed to make later challenges easier. Learning how to beat a game level or a tough boss often begins with the exploration you did five hours prior to find a crucial weapon or spell.
Build and Class Choice
Not all builds are created equal in terms of efficiency. A powerful Sorcery or Faith build can trivialize many encounters from a safe distance, drastically reducing the number of attempts needed for a boss. For example, acquiring the Meteorite Staff and Rock Sling spell early can neutralize many early-to-mid-game threats with ease.
Conversely, a pure melee build, especially one using slower weapons, requires more precise timing and a deeper understanding of enemy attack patterns. While rewarding, this approach often involves more trial and error, which translates directly into more time played.
Use of Guides and Walkthroughs
A “blind” playthrough, where you discover everything on your own, is a unique and rewarding experience. It is also, by far, the most time-consuming. You will spend hours searching for quest objectives, solving cryptic puzzles, and running into dead ends.
Using a guide for specific challenges—like locating Bell Bearings or navigating a complex legacy dungeon—is a massive time-saver. It transforms a 45-minute search for a hidden lever into a 5-minute task, allowing you to focus your time on execution and combat.
A Tactical Playbook: How to Beat Elden Ring Efficiently
If your goal is to complete the game in a reasonable timeframe without sacrificing the core experience, a strategic approach is necessary. This isn’t a speedrun; it’s a smart, focused campaign. Follow these steps to optimize your journey through the Lands Between.
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Step 1: Define Your Objective
Before you even choose your class, decide what “beating the game” means to you. Is it seeing the credits? Defeating Malenia? Earning the Platinum trophy? Your answer dictates your entire strategy. For an efficient run focused on the main story and key side content, your goal is to defeat a specific list of required bosses and complete a few high-value quests.
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Step 2: Plan Your Build Path
A powerful, well-planned build is your greatest time-saving tool. Instead of spreading your stats thin, focus your efforts. A proven efficient build is the “Intelligence/Dexterity” build using the Moonveil katana or a pure Sorcery build.
Actionable Plan:
- Prioritize Vigor early. Get it to at least 25-30 before significantly leveling anything else. This reduces deaths and time spent on corpse runs.
- Choose one primary damage stat (e.g., Intelligence, Faith, Strength, or Dexterity) and commit to it.
- Research the location of a powerful early-game weapon that fits your build (e.g., Meteorite Staff in Caelid, Moonveil in Gael Tunnel, Bloodhound’s Fang in the Forlorn Hound Evergaol) and acquire it as soon as possible.
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Step 3: Follow the Critical Path (with Key Detours)
The main story has a clear, albeit unmarked, progression. Following this path ensures you are always at an appropriate level for the challenges ahead, preventing you from hitting a wall that requires hours of grinding.
The Efficient Path:
- Limgrave & Weeping Peninsula: Clear this area thoroughly. The gear, levels, and Flask upgrades here are essential and will carry you through the next phase. Defeat Godrick in Stormveil Castle.
- Liurnia of the Lakes: Head straight for the Raya Lucaria Academy and defeat Rennala. Make a key detour to Caria Manor in the north to begin Ranni’s questline, which unlocks crucial areas and another ending.
- Caelid (Early Detour): After Liurnia, venture into Caelid to defeat Starscourge Radahn. This is necessary for several quests. While here, grab any powerful items your build requires.
- Altus Plateau & Leyndell, Royal Capital: Progress through this region to the capital. This is a massive area, but for efficiency, focus on the main path toward the two required bosses.
- Mountaintops of the Giants: A more linear area. Proceed through to the Fire Giant.
- Crumbling Farum Azula & Ashen Capital: The final stages of the game. These are linear and will guide you toward the final bosses.
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Step 4: Prioritize Essential Upgrades
Your character’s power comes more from their gear than their level. Focusing on upgrades is the fastest way to increase your effectiveness, reducing the time spent on each combat encounter.
Key Priorities:
- Weapon Upgrades: A +15 weapon is far more impactful than 15 points in Strength. Always prioritize finding Smithing Stones. Look up the locations of Smithing-Stone Bell Bearings to unlock unlimited purchases at the Roundtable Hold.
- Flask of Wondrous Physick: Find key Crystal Tears that suit your build, such as the Cerulean Hidden Tear (infinite FP for a short time) or the Opaline Bubbletear (negates one instance of damage).
- Flask of Crimson/Cerulean Tears: Actively hunt for Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears. More healing and mana directly translates to longer survival and fewer resets.
Elden Ring Completion Time by Playstyle: A Detailed Breakdown
Let’s examine the different player profiles more closely to understand where the hours go. This will help you identify which category you fall into and manage your time expectations accordingly.
The Main Story Rush (45-60 Hours)
This playthrough is clinical and focused. The player ignores most optional caves, catacombs, and field bosses. They use Spirit Ashes to manage difficult encounters and may look up solutions to environmental puzzles to avoid getting bogged down.
The primary pitfall of this approach is becoming severely under-leveled or under-equipped for the late-game bosses. A player rushing the story might arrive in the Mountaintops of the Giants with a +12 weapon and 30 Vigor, making encounters there incredibly difficult and time-consuming, paradoxically adding hours back to their “rush.”
The Standard Playthrough (80-120 Hours)
This is the intended Elden Ring experience. This player explores regions as they discover them, completes the questlines of interesting NPCs, and fights most of the bosses they encounter. They aren’t trying to find every secret but are actively engaging with the world’s content.
The bulk of the time here is spent on organic discovery: finding a new area and spending a few hours clearing it, attempting a difficult optional boss like Malenia multiple times, and piecing together the game’s cryptic questlines. This is where the 100-hour average comes from.
The 100% Completionist Run (130-200+ Hours)
This is a monumental undertaking. The completionist is not just playing the game; they are dissecting it. This involves using checklists and guides to track down every last Legendary Armament, Sorcery, Incantation, and Talisman for the associated achievements.
Time sinks for this playstyle include farming for rare armor sets, completing convoluted quests with missable steps (like the Dung Eater’s or Goldmask’s), and methodically clearing every single dungeon on the map. The final 10-20 hours of a completionist run are often a “clean-up” phase, hunting down the last few items missed during the main journey.
FAQ: Your Questions on Beating Elden Ring Answered
Here are answers to some of the most common questions related to Elden Ring’s length and difficulty, providing further tactical clarity.
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Can you beat Elden Ring in under 40 hours?
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Yes, but it’s not a typical first-time experience. This timeframe is usually achieved by players on a second playthrough who know the optimal routes and boss strategies. It requires skipping all non-essential content, using a powerful and optimized build from the start, and having a high level of mechanical skill. Speedrunners, of course, can beat the game in under an hour by using complex glitches and exploits, but this is a completely different style of play.
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What is the fastest way to level up in Elden Ring?
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The most famous and efficient rune farming spot is the Palace Approach Ledge-Road Site of Grace in Mohgwyn Palace. Players can access this area relatively early by completing White-Faced Varré’s questline. From this grace, you can shoot a giant bird across a chasm, causing it to fall to its death for over 11,000 runes. You can rest at the grace and repeat this process indefinitely. This method can save dozens of hours of grinding for players who hit a difficulty wall.
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Does New Game+ (NG+) take as long to beat?
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No, not even close. A New Game+ run can be completed in a fraction of the time, often in 15-25 hours. In NG+, you retain your level, weapons, spells, and most items. You can sprint through early-game areas, destroying bosses in seconds that once took you hours. The primary reason to play NG+ is to experience different endings, collect any remaining items, or simply enjoy the power fantasy of being an unstoppable Lord.
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Which parts of Elden Ring take the most time?
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For most players, the biggest time sinks are: 1) The first 10-15 hours, spent learning the game’s mechanics in Limgrave. 2) Major optional legacy dungeons like the Haligtree, which is long and filled with difficult enemies. 3) Extremely difficult optional bosses, chief among them Malenia, Blade of Miquella, who can single-handedly add 5-10 hours to a player’s clock due to the sheer number of attempts required to learn her move set.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the answer to “how long does it take to beat Elden Ring” is defined by your personal mission. A focused, story-driven campaign can be completed in a busy work week, clocking in around 55-60 hours. A more standard, exploratory playthrough will likely take you around 100 hours of rich discovery and challenge. For the dedicated few aiming for total mastery, prepare for a 135+ hour odyssey.
The Lands Between are vast, but they are not infinite. By defining your goal, choosing an efficient build, and executing a smart strategy, you can conquer this masterpiece on a timeline that works for you. The victory screen is waiting.
Be sure to comment below if this article helped you!
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