Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-149.12.7.137-20140118111345/@comment-42.98.55.81-20140206122856

It's just natural to have concerns, so had I, but I will try not to jump and conclude that the game is short -- after all it is just how you look at things. If you only intend to play the main story and consider the side ops useless, then it should be around 2 hrs long including play time and cutscenes, and will be even shorter if you are skillful enough to speedrun it in (according to a video commentary) 5 minutes. But then I am optimistic that none of the game testing people played the main game in its full package. Such as, things like finding XOF badges, which something similar can be found in many open world games. I also believe that there is some motivating factors for us to play the side ops, although what they are and how motivative they can be remains unknown.

The only thing that I am more certain to be disappointed by is that the main game playing time alone may be similar to if not less than that of the MGS2 Tanker. I am basing my guess on the fact that Tanker speedruns found on youtubes roughly average at 8-10 minutes, and if you can speed run GZ in 5 minutes, well... we probably don't have a single boss fight at all. Thankfully the cutscenes should be somewhat the length of Act 1 of MGS4, which adding together is about what should be the length of a prologue. Again, if I have a choice, I would rather GZ and TPP come in the same pack at end of the year than this.