The time it takes to create single-player games these days has blown out compared to what it used to be. A big part of that comes down to length.
Classic games like “Bioshock,” “Dishonored,” “Dead Space,” “Uncharted 2,” “The Last of Us,” “Batman: Arkham City,” “Mass Effect 2,” “Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag,” “Fallout 3” and more all clocked in with 12-25 hour campaigns with many able to double their playing hour count with sidequests and extras.
These days, games running that length often find themselves rebuffed by certain players who won’t touch anything that runs under 40-50 hours (or at least not until it goes on sale). At the same time, expanding a game to run for 40-50 hours not only requires much more development time but also may alienate audiences who don’t have the time to devote to a lengthy game.
In a new interview with Game Informer, Bethesda’s Studio Design Director Emil Pagliarulo says that when the company finally delivers “Fallout 5,” something that isn’t expected to happen until years after “The Elder Scrolls 6” arrives, it’s going to be long… real long. Asked about the goal of the games, he says the developers:
“[Want to] give fans a story that they can get into and systems that they love and really just an experience that they play not for 20 hours and not for 100 hours, but an experience they can play for 200, 300, you know, 600 hours.
My hope going forward: Keep doing what we’ve done, and also to evolve. And evolve in a way that is where the industry has gone and where players have gone, so you’re not stuck in the past.”
The comments don’t necessarily suggest a longer campaign than past entries, but certainly a more fleshed-out world and systems that allow for much more time spent in that ‘world’.
The last mainline entry, “Fallout 4,” takes around 30 hours to complete its campaign, but completionists can end up playing around six times that amount. Even then, some people still go back for more.
