on completing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the first two games pioneered the role-playing game genre in many different ways. Despite differing wildly in gameplay and storytelling style, The Witcher franchise has many hours of gameplay in each installment, taking days to complete the series entirely.
The Witcher and The Witcher: Assassins of Kings don’t have the massive open-world of The Witcher 3. Instead, each of the first two games is home to sandbox areas that avoid restricting players to linear storytelling. While this decreases their playtime compared to the latest Witcher game, each has a sizable number of hours for players to invest their time in. Different playstyles result in different completion times, with each title’s main story, side quests, and completionist playthroughs influencing the content available.
The Witcher was released in 2007 on PC with no official DLC, but the title was re-released a year later with an Enhanced Edition that fixed bugs, overhauled gameplay systems, corrected dialogue, upgraded character models, and added two new adventures to play through. The Witcher: Enhanced Edition is currently the only purchasable option on Steam and CDPR’s website and is the standard for the game used in judging gametime. According to HowLongToBeat, The Witcher: Enhanced Edition’s story takes 35.5 hours to complete on average. Completing the main questline along with side quests increases playtime to 45 hours on average. Completionist playthroughs describe playstyles that experience everything the game offers, including collectibles, main story, side quests, and compendiums, and takes an average of 63 hours to complete.
The Witcher 2 & 3 Feature More Content And Larger Maps
Like the first Witcher game, The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings doesn’t feature proper DLC. Instead, CDPR added new content with another Enhanced Edition that added four hours of gameplay, an arena mode, a new tutorial, and 36 minutes of cinematics, including an intro and outro for the main story. This is currently the only version purchasable and will be used to judge the gametime for each playstyle. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition offers 24 hours of gameplay for its Main Story, 34 hours for story content and side quests, and 54 hours on average for a completionist playthrough. Though The Witcher 2 takes less time to complete than its predecessor, it utilizes newer technology and offers a more seamless experience than The Witcher 1.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is likely the most well-known and most-played Witcher title in the series, bringing the franchise into the spotlight of the gaming industry. The Witcher 3 has the most content of the trilogy and includes two sizable DLCs. The base game’s storyline contains an average of 51 hours of content, with side quests and extra activities doubling its size to 102 hours. Completionists can experience more than the two playstyles combined, obtaining an average of 174 hours. The Witcher 3’s DLCs are Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, each adding dozens of hours of content to the base game. Hearts of Stone is much smaller than its companion, offering 10 hours of story content, 14 hours of extra activities, and almost 19 hours for Completionist playthroughs. Blood and Wine is much larger, featuring 15.5 hours of the main story, 28 hours of side quests and extra activities, and 40.5 hours for completionists.
CD Projekt Red hasn't announced Witcher 4, giving fans of the franchise plenty of time to complete the existing trilogy. Combined, players only looking to experience the main stories of the trilogy (and its DLCs) can experience 140 hours of content. Playing through the trilogy’s main stories, side quests, and other non-vital activities increases playtime to 228 hours. The Witcher’s most dedicated fans are in for a serious time commitment, with an average playtime of 350.5 hours to complete The Witcher trilogy and its DLCs.
Source: HowLongToBeat
