Batman: Arkham City can be finished in 8 hours

Batman: Arkham City's Marketing Manager Dax Ginn has told GamerZines that the game can be completed "in about 8 hours" if players stick "to the core narrative path", but that "exploring and trying new things adds a lot to the experience and the game time".

[gillri]

if you speed run most games these days can

[NukaCola]

I finished Arkham Asylum on normal collecting every thing in about 14 hours.

[Yi-Long]

... considering they said the game would be 5-6 times as big as the original.

[antz1104]

Which was a great 14 hours, I think it was around the same for me. Gamers play at different speeds and this holds no weight to me.

[HINDERIZATION]

@NukaCola

I love taking my time during games. Finding secret areas and such is always more fun than just rushing through a game any day.

[bluegreenman]

honestly. look at a game like oblivion. I can finish that story in like 5 hours, but the game has 100s of hours of other content. Thats what he is saying here. The core narrative is 8 hours. I dont like super long games anymore. I would rather have a shorter more action packed experience, than a long drawn out boring one.

[WhiteNoise]

rofl.

Yeah but the trouble with a lot of games these days is that they can be finished that fast with a normal gameplay.

It took me about 15hrs to finish batman AA and I didn't get all the secret riddler challenge things etc.

If I went as fast as possible I might have done it in 12...but 8???? that's just B.S.

I gues it comes down to standards. Console games are used

[paintsville]

Man I'm pumped about this game. The first one was a masterpiece and ran smooth as butter, well at least the 360 version did. I can't wait.
I think that 8 hrs is a bit short especiall given how long we've waited for this sequel. But at least I can play it without a "Mandatory"
install.

[Rage_S90]

wow had to try and have a jab at console gamers didn't you i don't get why your always so angry :S

[kesvalk]

what is the problem with the time? if these 8 hours are great, i don't see a problem...

[Iroquois_Pliskin]

@paintsvile

it runs better on the ps3.

[NukaCola]

@IroqoiuPliskin

Paintsville is troll and a worthless person. he says stuff like God of War III runs better on 360 and DVDs are better than Blurays. just ignore him and hopefully the mods will eventually ban him.

[jriquelme_paraguay]

Welcome to te DLC Era!

[coolfool]

You guys are nuts. He said his QA guys can do it in 8 hours. This doesn't mean that it was in first time play through. And how do you know that the world and collectables and side missions and challenges etc. etc. aren't 5-6 times as big when only the very straight line core narrative path can (not always) be done in eight hours? Factor in deaths and retries as well as all the above and I'm willing to bet that no one will do it in eight hours.

[Chaostar]

I don't know exactly but it took me a while to platinum Arkham Asylum. Took me almost as long as the main campaign to do those difficult challenge mode trophies! That reminds me I need to get some kind of protective rubber case for my DS3 before Arkham City comes out.

[gorebago]

F'ck that - I understand that we're in a recession or coming out of one which usually brings inflation but it seems like developers are giving us half games at inflated cost which is complete bullshit

[EpsilonTeam]

Recession my ass. I predict numerous DLC coming. That's the real reason.

[Yi-Long]

... I'll just wait for the GOTY-edition to come out, like I always do in such cases.

[gorebago]

Yeah that's probably the best option

[Nodoze]

Agreed entirely. Following the trend of releases waiting is the best thing to do. Most games fall 20 dollars within a few months. Add to that the DLC releases and it makes up for the initial release.

Not to mention the bugs most developers work out right after the release.

Waiting is the best thing to do. Why do you think they try to encourage pre-orders as much as they do? They want sheeple to pay full ticket. The smart ones wait a couple of months and pick it up at a significant discount.

[EpsilonTeam]

Yi-Long most of us just can't resist. Sigh!

[NukaCola]

Well to be fair the first batman game had only 1 DLC pack and it was like $3. Every other one was free and the PS3 even got the Joker DLC free as well. Rocksteady didn't screw anyone. They did a phenomenal job.

[ExitToExisT]

damn if a dev says it takes 8 hours.. than its 4-5 hours mostly

[Silentmerc3nary]

If you read the article, you would have noticed that that's just essentially a speed run, doing the core path. Collecting everything and emploring everything will be 20+.

[ExitToExisT]

i did read the article and i won't be collecting collectibles for 12 hours. if there are side missions lets say they take 2 hours=10 hours still shorter than arkham asylum

[Grimhammer00]

EpsilonTeam is dead on the money!

[MidnytRain]

Wasn't there another story from the actual developers at Rocksteady that quoted them saying that the game was 25-30 hours long? To be honest, it is more likely that the game will be around the eight-hour range as is the norm for games, but then again, I'd trust the word of a developer more than the marketing manager.

[YodaCracker]

So... about average?

[earbus]

Ha i still havent finished the first game playing on pc and 360 love the game but i get bored playing a game more than a hour at a time in singleplayer ill get there its not a race.

[ramiuk1]

this GEN is DLC-GENERATION.

look at the amount of games thats got DLC on marketplace or PSN before the game is out.
or announced DLC before release date.
people still buy it so they gonna keep doing it.

[Kahvipannu]

Sounds good, can't remember how long it took me to finish first one. I just finished UC2 in 11,5h, and I would say the lenght was just right, tought I wished the game would never end, heh. With B:AC im guessing it has replayability value too, like first one. Quality over quantity. By the way, these two games are maybe my favourite games on consoles at the moment, and they are pretty similar in many ways. Can't wait B:AC!

[andron]

Well if people did read the article and not just jump to conclusions, you'd would get the whole picture.

Arkham City is more open than Arkham Asylum with more ambient stuff to do. So if you rush through the games primary missions you can finish it in 8 hours. If you want the complete AC experience it will take longer...

[FAGOL]

I played Arkham Asylam on hard and got all the riddles etc. I was satisfied with the amount of time that took to complete. If Arkham city is like that then i'm ok with it.

[CaptainPunch]

Well I'm going for 100%

[Ima9er4Life]

Fuck, why are devs so gotdamn lazy these days. But some work in fellas. Dont make a DLC for more stories, make a game at least 12hrs long then add some DLC.

[theonlylolking]

Disk space is also the key factor.

[Objective]

Don't think so, KZ3 runs from blu-ray and was pretty short too.

[anonym]

Does anyone read past headlines anymore? Their game testers--the guys who have played it 30 times already and know exactly what to do--can get through the main story arc in eight hours. If that's how a game's length is measured, then Oblivion is a 10 hour game.

Keep in mind that eight hours means no exploration, no Riddler, no side-quests, and no challenges. With all of that included, their estimation of the game's length is 20-24 hours, on par with Assassin's Creed 2 or Mass Effect 2, and significantly longer than Batman: Arkham Asylum. Even if that estimation is generous (which, to be fair, it probably is), it's still likely to be in the same range as Uncharted 2, which I thing is a very good length for an action game.

The ironic thing about all of this is that the guys who complain about the game not taking up enough of their time are the same ones who apparently don't have 30 seconds to spare on reading the article.

[hellzsupernova]

yeah the devs that made fallout 3 had a contest to see who could complete the game the fastest and the faster was under an hour, i htink it was something like 45min which is hilarious

[anonym]

Ha, that's awesome.

[Kon_Artist]

aren't sequels usually longer or bigger in most cases. specially if its a single play only game.

anyways, ill probably wait until it goes down to $30 like the last one or game of the year edition

[dkgshiz]

The first game was about the same length. Still this game should have way more content then this. We will see when it finally comes out.

[Kon_Artist]

i hope it has more replay value too

[Rageanitus]

Remember the days where xbox fanboys bashed the ps3 for havinng short games..... wake up call its not about quantity but quality.... this is why you see MANY ps3 games nowadays with cinematic videos to help enhance the experience....

[ReBurn]

That's like 8 months for me.

[dkgshiz]

I'm sure it will be a great game. I'm still going to rent it though just like the last game. I see no point really in spending $60 on something that lasts me 8-10 hours.

[IHateYouFanboys]

to be honest, i dont care.

ive finished games in 1 hour that have been the best games of my life - sonic the hedgehog 2 for mega drive, for example.

Limbo was only a few hours but was absolutely brilliant the entire time. i had more fun playing that than i had in many games ive played for 5 times as long.

how many hours a game is does not equal how much fun youll have. while i completed Uncharted 2 in 7 hours and never touched the single player again, i know people who took 10+ hours to beat it, and have beaten it again 3/4/5/6+ times. good on them. just because it only lasted 6 for me doesnt mean that someone else wont get 50+ out of it.

quality over quantity has always been what i prefer. 8 hours of great gameplay is better than 30 hours of rubbish.

i would say this quote from the article:

"I would say for a normal player who knows their action adventure games, between 20-24 hours."

is more on the money for most people that will actually play the game how its supposed to be played.

[SSKILLZ]

As long as it's awesome I don't care

[DolfZigglers]

I'm sure that it'll still be a worthy buy. I'll savor it and make it last longer.

[Eternus]

For me, if it is an amazing 8 hours of main story, then I have absolutely no problem with that, which it probably will be. I feel like people expect these 20-30 hour experiences from every game nowadays, when I feel that some games are better shorter.

And then there are always extra missions. Also, let's not forget that it was basically a speed run by a dev, someone who had a part in the creation of the game, I'm pretty sure they would be faster than the average person on their first run.

[theroadtoruin]

ouch, i was hoping for atleast a 10 hour story.

i thought they were going bigger with this one.

[SlxTeN]

They most likely where talking about DLC when they said 'Bigger' :D

[Jonah_Reese]

I read about this earlier the dev said the game is 8 hours if you know the game's entire layout, you don't do the side missions; if you don't collect anything and if you're a ninja, apparently most gamers are ninja's and just plan running through the damn thing. Kind of like how most people did with this article, just read the title. Not to mention they want to put things in the game to make you replay it.