The future of Xbox Live Gold and its Games with Gold program is uncertain, as it is ostensibly beaten on every side including its own. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gives players access to online play (and thus GwG) as well as Game Pass proper, which is highly regarded as the best value service in gaming today. In direct competition, the games don't typically hold a candle to PS Plus despite the two services being the most comparable. That's likely due to a lot of reasons, with one of those being that Microsoft has more of a future with Game Pass than it does Games with Gold. Throw in the free games made available on Epic Games Store, Game Pass via PC, and more, and Games with Gold is hardly a talking point anymore.
At the end of the day, though, free is free. Many may very well claim the Games with Gold if only to return to them later when clearing out the backlog or looking for something small and simple to play. Xbox Live Gold's game selection is perfect for small and simple, so for those curious, it's worth looking at how long each game takes to beat.
Xbox Games with Gold List 2021
First, it should be noted that a game is not defined by how long it takes to beat. Some may make the argument, one way or the other, if a $60 game has a better length at 4 hours to beat or 40 hours to beat, but that's entirely subjective. Some may prefer longer epics like Skyrim, while others may enjoy smaller games that are more enjoyably-paced. Again, that's a subjective matter, but the aggregate website HowLongtoBeat exists for a reason—players want to know how long a game they want to play takes to beat for a variety of reasons.
At the same time, knowing this is a handy tool when attempting to get all achievements for a game. Some may just want to play the meat of the game, while others may get lost in a game that takes a few hours to beat for several beyond that. For simplicity's sake, the below Xbox Game with Gold games are listed by their release month accompanied by the time completion for Main Story—ignoring how long it takes to complete extras or even do everything. As such, every time list below should be considered the average play length of a game.
- Little Nightmares (January) — 3.5 hours
- Dead Rising (January) — 11.5 hours
- The King of Fighters 13 (January) — 3 hours
- Breakdown (January) — 10.5 hours
- Gears 5 (February) — 10.5 hours
- Resident Evil (February) — 11 hours
- Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition (February) — 6.5 hours
- Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb (February) — 12 hours
- Lost Planet 2 (February) — 10 hours
- Warface: Breakout (March) — N/A*
- Vicious Attack Llama Apocalypse (March) — 4.5 hours
- Metal Slug 3 (March) — 1.5 hours
- Port Royale 3 (March) — 15 hours
- Viking: Wolves of Midgard (April) — 16.5 hours
- Truck Racing Championship (April) — 10 hours
- Dark Void (April) — 7.5 hours
- Hard Corps: Uprising (April) — 5.5 hours
- Armello (May) — 1.5 hours
- Dungeons 3 (May) — 26 hours
- Lego Batman (May) — 10 hours
- Tropico 4 (May) — 40 hours
- The King's Bird (June) — 10 hours
- Shadows: Awakening (June) — 24.5 hours
- NeoGeo Battle Coliseum (June) — 37 minutes
- Injustice: Gods Among Us (June) — 5 hours
- Planet Alpha (July) — 5 hours
- Rock of Ages 3: Make and Break (July) — 7 hours
- Conker: Live and Reloaded (July) — 11 hours
- Midway Arcade Origins (July) — 6 hours
*Warface: Breakout is online PvP only. Therefore, there is no main story time to calculate available on HowLongToBeat. Some may spend dozen or hundreds of hours in this game or just a handful.
As a quick breakdown in addition to this list, it's worth mentioning Xbox Games with Gold has provided 1 Xbox Series X game, 14 Xbox One games, 11 Xbox 360 games, and 3 original Xbox games so far.
Total Playtime of Xbox Games with Gold As of July 2021
Total: 285 hours and 37 minutes.
Average: roughly 9.8 hours
In total, it would take about 11 days of the year to beat every single Xbox Game with Gold release so far this year, with the average coming down to just shy of double digits. Overall, this sounds like a reasonable number when looking at the games made available this year. It seems Games with Gold skews toward smaller, shorter games, but that also makes a lot of sense. If it's a big get for Microsoft, it's likely to be directed toward Game Pass instead of Games with Gold.
Most months feature at least one game that only takes a handful of hours into itself to actually beat, with the month with the "longest" games seemingly being May 2020. Between Tropico 4, Dungeons 3, and the others, players got about 78 hours worth of game time there. Again, though, how long it takes to beat a game is just one indicator in a vast sea of possibilities of why one game may be better for one player than it is another, and Games with Gold seemingly walks that fine line between the short and sweet, and the long and endearing.
Xbox Games with Gold subscribers can typically claim 4 games every month.
Source: How Long to Beat