How Long Does It Take To Beat Minecraft Dungeons?

You really can't ask gamers how long it takes to beat Minecraft. The game is designed to be explored infinitely. Players often have to start over because of a stealthy creeper or their desire to build a pixel-perfect recreation of Westeros from Game of Thrones. Minecraft is not the kind of game you can win, as that would imply it includes an attainable goal or an obstacle. Minecraft Dungeons, however, doesn't share that design philosophy. Sort of.

While the two games are from the same franchise, Minecraft Dungeons is actually a dungeon crawler game with a Minecraft paint job. Dungeons revolves around exploring levels, collecting loot to tackle harder levels, unearthing stronger loot in said levels, and then rinsing and repeating until you call it quits. Can you, in fact, beat Minecraft Dungeons? If so, how long would such a task take?

Unlike vanilla Minecraft, Minecraft Dungeons has a story that begins with the rise of the main antagonist, the Arch Illager. Dungeons' narrative is nowhere near as complex as The Witcher 3, but it is still the driving force for the in-universe characters. And, if you only play Minecraft Dungeons for the story, you're in for a quick ride.

According to PCGamesN, the developers have confirmed players can run through the game in "less than one day." No exploration, no side activities, no repeating levels, just taking the shortest path from start to finish will let you finish the game in one sitting.

If you are a one-and-done kind of gamer who wants a brief trek through hordes of skeletons, zombies, and creepers, you are free to do that in Minecraft Dungeons. Just don't expect to get the most bang for your buck.

As with the original Minecraft, you need to explore to get the most out of Minecraft Dungeons. Except, instead of wandering worlds in search of diamonds and ore, Dungeons rewards players with stronger loot. Even after you finish the campaign, you are encouraged to continue exploring for exponentially more powerful items.

Since Minecraft Dungeons is a dungeon crawler, the meat of the game lies in endlessly (and sometimes aimlessly) wandering through decrepit corridors, slaughtering enemies, and scouring their corpses for swag. The more you wander, the more chests you will encounter. The more chests you find, the more loot you will obtain. The more loot you obtain, the more likely you are to find rare, powerful weapons and armor. It's simple statistics.

In addition, Minecraft Dungeons has multiple difficulty levels. The higher the difficult, the stronger the enemies become. As a trade-off, enemies will also drop stronger and rarer loot at higher difficulties. You might need to grind through levels multiple times if you want to obtain Dungeons' strongest weapons, but that's the point of a dungeon crawler. How long will the process take? As long as necessary since loot drops are determined by RNG. Some players will progress faster than others; it's all the luck of the draw.

If other dungeon crawlers are any indication, players can potentially spend limitless hours wandering Minecraft Dungeons' partially procedurally generated halls.

Minecraft Dungeons is already potentially lengthy given the steps required to conquer the game's most difficult dungeons and snag its strongest loot. However, the developers won't rest on their laurels after the game is released, as they plan to expand on the game. For a fee, of course.

Players can purchase two versions of Minecraft Dungeons: the Standard Edition that comes with the base game and the Hero Edition that also includes DLC. And yes, gamers can always purchase the DLC piecemeal.

While the developers haven't revealed the contents of the two planned DLC packs, odds are good they will include new levels to explore, new enemies to slaughter, and new loot to hoard. Plus, difficulty sliders will likely apply to these DLC areas, so anyone who purchases them can wring even more time and content out of the game.