How Long Does Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Take to Beat?

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the latest game by FromSoftware, and a challenging experience at that. Taking on this Shinobi story is a daunting prospect for many, so it’s no surprise that players are keen to know how long Sekiro takes to beat. The answer to that is going to vary a lot depending on your skills, but in this guide we’ll try to give a rough outline as to long how Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice takes to compete.

Completion time for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice typically varies from 25-70 hours. That’s a huge margin, but this is arguably FromSoftware’s toughest game to date, which means your final time is going to vary a lot depending on how competent you are at the combat. For Soulsborne savants, chomping through Sekiro’s many bosses may be a breeze. For us mortals however, it’s a seriously tough challenge. 

If you consider yourself a Souls master, you might be able to blitz through Sekiro’s story in under 16 hours or less. At the time of writing, Howlongtobeat rates a completionist run at 38 hours, but most players can expect to take a good while longer than that.

Unlike Bloodborne or the Souls games, Sekiro doesn’t have a way to level up your stats outside of beating the game’s bosses, this means that you won’t be able to grind away earning souls against weaker enemies. You can unlock new combat skills by killing enemies and saving up skill points, but these won’t increase your health or damage directly. To that end, Sekiro is a much tougher game to work your way through. If you’re stuck on a boss then you really are stuck.

Before release, FromSoftware communications manager Yasuhiro Kitao said the following to VG247 about Sekiro’s length:

“We can’t give a specific number of hours right now, but we think in terms of game volume, it’s probably not going to be too different from our recent titles. Play-time is very nebulous, it varies from player to player with our old titles as well. Again with this game, in terms of development scope and what we’re trying to create in terms of the world and variety – it’s not going to differ too much.”

Considering the Souls games typically took players between 30-60 hours to complete, it sounds like they anticipated Sekiro tasking players with just as much time, if not more. Overall, we think Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice will take 25-70 hours to beat.