In a Q&A with Arkane Studios' Harvey Smith and Raphael Colantonio it was revealed their forthcoming game, Dishonored, will take around 12-14 hours to complete. Though the game features a hub and spoke game world, with some opportunities for exploration, they say that about 12 hours is the average completion time for Dishonored's core campaign.

These days a lot of attention is paid not just towards the content contained within a major publisher's release, but also the length of that play experience. While Dishonored might take a player who works at a breakneck pace 12 hours to complete, those who like to eavesdrop and adventure could take up to double that time to complete the game.

Harvey Smith took to Twitter to stress that 12 hours is only the bare minimum playtime required to complete the game, and is only possible without any of the exploration inherent to a game like this. Even a 12-hour experience, though, should be commended in a time when the market is dominated by 8-10 hour games. It's a far stretch from the completion time required for publisher Bethesda's other titles, like Skyrim, but 12 hours is nonetheless a respectable run time.

Our live demo of the game at E3 2012 showed two completely different ways to approach a small segment of a single mission — one stealth and one aggressive — which should factor into the completion time considerably. The stealth playthrough, for example, required a much more measured approach — listening in on conversations and avoiding enemy choke points — and will therefore be a little more time consuming.

Given the amount of variation possible with the six active and four passive powers available in the game, it's entirely feasible that a player could breeze through Dishonored in 12 hours and then fire up the game, have a completely different experience, and log another 12 hours. It's hard to believe it, but the game is just that varied.

Regardless of playtime, Dishonored will be one of the more unique gameplay experiences released during this very crowded Fall season. While the new IP draws inspiration from BioShock, Deus Ex, and Half-Life, it is an entirely different entity, and one to keep an eye on.

What do you think of Dishonored's completion time of between 12 and 14 hours? Does anything less than 20 hours feel unworthy of the $60 price tag?

Dishonored releases October 9, 2012 for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

Source: Bethesda Blog