It’s been nearly ten years since the original release of Mass Effect 3 and even longer since the first two games in the trilogy came out. As a result you may find yourself wondering how long it will take to complete the upcoming Mass Effect: Legendary Edition which bundles all three games together with most of the trilogy’s downloadable content as well. In this guide, with the assistance of HowLongToBeat we’ll help you figure out how much time you should expect to spend playing the remaster.
More Mass Effect:
- Cosplay Played a Role in the Lack of New Aliens in Mass Effect: Andromeda
- Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is Altering the Infamously Terrible Miranda Butt Shots
- Bioware Breaks Down Gameplay Changes Made to the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
How Long to Beat Everything in the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition?
How long a playthrough takes obviously depends on how much content you usually play. Just the main stories of the trilogy titles will set you back around 65 hours, but add in all of the DLC and that number does jump a fair bit.
- Just the Main Story (including all DLC): About 90 hours
- Playing All Side Stories (including all DLC): About 120 hours
Even if you aren’t a completionist and just want to play all of the available side quests, you’re looking at spending another 100 hours in the Mass Effect universe. As a fan of the original trilogy, that doesn’t sound too bad at all.
Time to Beat on a Game by Game Basis
If you want to divide your effort up by title, here’s what you should expect. The original Mass Effect is easily the shortest with the second two games about equal in their running time.
- Mass Effect 1: 15-30 hours depending on playstyle.
- Mass Effect 1 w/ DLC: 17 – 32 hours.
- Mass Effect 2: 24-35 hours depending on playstyle.
- Mass Effect 2 w/ DLC: 33 – 45 hours.
- Mass Effect 3: 24-35 hours depending on playstyle.
- Mass Effect 3 w/DLC: 37 – 50 hours.
Completionist Info
Now if you’re looking to do absolutely everything and get every achievement or trophy that’s where things will differ wildly. We don’t yet know how BioWare is handling these for the Legendary Edition. Since it’s a single title, they very well may be limited to a smaller number of these than the original games. Because of this, we don’t expect it’ll take nearly as long to get 100% completion. For example, the original Mass Effect had achievements which required at least four playthroughs if you were maximizing your efficiency. This has likely been improved, but who knows, BioWare could have added an in-game achievement tracker with goals identical to the original title.
If they’re similar, expect to spend around 175 hours to complete the trilogy.
It doesn’t seem like all that long comparatively, does it? Thankfully these games come from a time before every game had 100 hour long runtimes if you want to do everything it has to offer. Heck, Mass Effect: Andromeda had an average completionist time of nearly 100 hours alone!
Once again, thanks to HowLongToBeat for being an excellent resource for anyone looking to get a grasp on how long games take to complete.
