It's been over two years since The Elder Scrolls 6 trailer debuted, and with more news likely years away, many players are returning to Skyrim to get their fantasy fix. But how much can a player expect to get from the last game before the next installment arrives?
It's a complicated question, and one with many variables depending on playstyles, but a fairly accurate estimate has risen to popularity thanks to the game being out for so long.
How Long Does it Take to Beat Skyrim?
How Long to Beat lists Skyrim’s main story as taking 33 hours to complete. If a gamer were to play from 9 am to 5 pm every day, a standard workday, then by the end of Day 4, they could have easily completed the main quest and defeated Alduin. But as any Skyrim players know, the game’s main quest is far from the highlight of its sprawling sandbox experience.
The Elder Scrolls 6 could learn a thing or two from Skyrim's factions. The world is brimming with different groups vying for power. After completing the quest chains for the Dark Brotherhood, the Companions, the College of Winterhold, the Thieves’ Guild, and one of the armies in Skyrim's Civil War, most players will have spent around 108 hours in Tamriel, which would take about 13 and a half average workdays.
The player would then find themself the simultaneous leader of a secret group of assassins and murderer of the emperor, a general in the army ( possibly belonging to that same emperor), a great thief, a power wizard, a werewolf, and barely closer to the release of TES 6.
At this point, a newly dubbed Dragonborn might decide to take their business to the game's add-on expansions. Being a vampire slayer is always in style, but 20 hours and a few thousand crossbow bolts later, the Dawnguard DLC will be completed as well, assuming the player didn't pause to download the mod that lets them play as Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.
Luckily for them, a much-needed vacation to the island of Solstheim for the Dragonborn DLC is an option, and once completed, adds another 23 hours played, taking players to 151 total hours of content, enough to fill about 19 working days. In theory, a gamer playing 24 hours a day could complete this every single main quest line in the game by noon on the final day of their first week.
The Elder Scrolls 6 Teaser and Potential Release Date
The Elder Scrolls 6 teaser was released on June 10, 2018. If a player started replaying Skyrim the moment it debuted, they could have completed all the major quest-lines in the game by June 29, with an extra 6 hours to spend decorating their house in the Hearthfire DLC.
Fans don’t know when TES 6 is due to release, but it’s coming after Bethesda’s next big project, Starfield, which is also still awaiting a release date. If The Elder Scrolls 6: Redfall leak is to be believed, we won’t see TES 6 until at least Q4 of 2024. Taking that as a ball-park estimate, for now, it's possible to predict how many more times a player could complete the game before TES 6's release, though the Redfall is almost certainly false.
Playing Skyrim Before The Elder Scrolls 6 Releases
By the start of their second week, a player could have saved the world multiple times, established themself as a leader among all Skyrim's factions, and undergone several transformations into creatures of the night. That leaves players with trying to complete every side quest in Skyrim. It's no small task - the shorter quests fill out the game, making it one of the longest open-world RPGs.
A side-questing Skyrim player can taste-test mead, escape from mad alchemists, and make pacts with Daedra. On average, a completionist run of the game takes 228 hours, which translates to 28 and a half days of playing Skyrim 9 am to 5 pm. A player who started when the trailer was released could have comfortably completed every quest in the game by July 9, 2018.
723 days later, on July 1, 2020, a player keeping that pace could have completed every quest in Skyrim another 25 times. If the player decided to play for 10 hours a day instead of 8, they could have completed the whole game in just 23 days, bringing their total to 32 total playthroughs since the TES 6 teaser.
Increasing their time played to 12 hours a day, and they would be nearing their fortieth complete playthrough in 2 years. In fact, it is likely they would have completed the game even more times, as this calculation assumes that the player takes the same amount of time for each playthrough. Subsequent playthroughs are likely to be quicker, however, with some players even dedicating themselves to figuring out how to speedrun Skyrim.
But as any Skyrim player knows, TES 5 isn’t just about completing quests. The world is full of unexplored caverns, ancient tomes, weapons enchantments, and flowers to pick. Some players enjoy slaying dragons, while others prefer calming hikes through mountains. A particularly scholarly player might spend their time reading one of the many books scattered throughout the province.
Some players have even dedicated themselves to reading all 337 books in Skyrim. Interacting with the world in these ways can subtly increase the time played. There are 316,000 words total in Skyrim's books, and taking the average reading speed to be 225 words per minute, this could add up to 23 hours of extra game time, spread out over any given playthrough. Of course, not all books are created equal, and there are fan favorites. A single-minded player could have used the time since the trailer release to read The Lusty Argonian Maid 540,000 times.
It’s unlikely that such extreme measures will be necessary, but at this point, there’s no way to tell when the next Elder Scrolls game might be arriving. No release date is confirmed, and with Skyrim’s 10-year anniversary approaching in November of next year, the future of Bethesda’s flagship franchise seems unclear. Skyrim isn’t a game known for its depth – some even say Skyrim ruined the RPG genre entirely.
It is a game, however, that owes its longevity to its breadth, and a world made for those looking to get lost exploring ancient Dwarven ruins or climbing titanic mountains. Fortunately, despite the numbers, few players will ever truly find themselves “completing” Skyrim – there’s too much to explore, too many rabbit holes to fall down, and adventures to discover, and that's not to mention the mods that can make Skyrim feel like a completely different game.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is in development.
Time Source: How Long to Beat