How Long Is Disco Elysium and How Many Days Are There?
We take you through the length of Disco Elysium and how many days the game covers.
Disco Elysium is a big game, with multiple areas to explore, dozens of tasks and long days in which to conduct your investigation or just explore Martinaise. But how long is it exactly, and how many in-game days are there? We'll go over these basics here.
How Long is Disco Elysium?
Obviously there's no clear standard for the length of a game, as different people will play the same thing in different ways. That goes double for Disco Elysium, where so much of what's in the world is optional or at least separate from the main mystery. Aside from looking for the killer, you can start a nightclub, hunt for insects, sing karaoke, investigate a local curse, become a communist revolutionary, or just get drunk and fall into a gutter somewhere. You don't have to do any of these things though, and consequently there's a big variation in different playtimes.
But let's get into numbers. A post from the developers' blog said a playthrough of the game would last 30 hours if you're rushing it, 90 if you're doing every little thing, and averaging at about 60+ hours for most people.
Speaking personally, that seems pretty generous. As somebody who did what felt like a fairly comprehensive playthrough and most of the side-missions I could find, an end-to-end playthrough took a bit more than 20 hours. I'm certain I missed a lot of stuff that later runs will catch, but I didn't feel like I was rushing it. On the contrary, I was trying to soak everything in, shine a light in every corner to see what I could find.
That being said, I am going to try other playthroughs, because the experience is clearly versatile enough, and those will probably be another 20 hours or so. Bearing this in mind, it feels fair to say yes, Disco Elysium is probably going to offer 60 hours of gameplay, but that's not for one playthrough - that's all of them totalled.
How Many Days Are There in Disco Elysium?
Disco Elysium has its own in-game calendar in which events change from day-to-day, whether it's the weather, the location of particular characters or the accessibility of certain areas.
In terms of a maximum amount of days programmed in, however, it's reported to be 10, taking you from Monday in the first week to Wednesday the following week. That being said, certain plot-related events will make particular days shorter than others, such as journeys from one location to the next taking several in-game hours.
Regardless, by my experience 10 days seems like more than enough time, especially with the developers stating that those who take their time won't be punished, nor will the game suddenly end on you. The average playthrough seems to end on or around day seven, but the game can be rushed to completion at least a couple of days earlier than that.
