I've spent the past weekend playing Zelda Breath of the Wild and while I enjoy the game so far, the shortness of its days (daytime+night) stood out to me enough to be a niggling annoyance. They seemed too short and it kinda affected my pacing throughout the game. I timed the day-length and it came out to be 24 minutes real time = one full game day, split evenly for daytime and night (a rarity for open world games). Turns out that Zelda's day-length was shorter on average when compared to this collection of generally modern open-world games with proper day/night cycles. I've limited each entry to one title per franchise, but of course in-game day-length could differ from one game in a particular series to the next. (note: when I say "day-length" I am referring to a full day. I will use "daytime" and "nighttime" when I need to be specific about those time-spans).
[x] mins = one full in-game day
Don't Starve - 8 mins
Minecraft - 20 mins
Zelda BotW - 24 mins
Sea of Thieves - 24 mins
Xenoblade Chronicles - 24 mins
Mafia 3 - 48 mins
RDR2 - 48 mins
GTAV - 48 mins
Watch_Dawgs - 48 mins
Sleeping Dawgs - 48 mins
Dragon's Dogma - 48 mins
Monster Hunter World - 50 mins
Just Cause 2 - 60 mins
Rust - 60 mins
Dying Light - 64 mins
Skyrim - 72 mins
Fallout 4 - 72 mins
Metal Gear Solid 5 - 72 mins
Ghost Recon Wildlands - 72 mins
Far Cry 5 - ~72 mins
The Witcher 3 - 96 mins
Kingdom Come: Deliverance - 96 mins
Elex - 120 mins
State of Decay 2 - 120 mins
The signifcant similarity I've found is that in the overwhelming majority of these games, the daytime length is much longer than nighttime. Zelda is one of the rare open world games that has an even 50/50 split between daytime and nightime.
In my completely (not) scientifically sound research I've found that 48 minutes seemed to be a common sweet spot. Don't take this as 100% accurate but I made sure to double-up on sources for each title to get as accurate a time count as I could without digging into each game myself, which I don't have time for.
Wondering why some of your favorite games aren't listed? Well either I couldn't find any day cycle info on
them, I couldn't test it myself, or they don't have traditional day/night cycles (Spider-Man, Shadow of Mordor, Infamous, Assassin's Creed, Dead Island, etc)
random fun facts:
Far Cry 3-4's in-game time is movement based. Stand still and the time stands still.
No Man's Sky - dependent on planet
Animal Crossing - real time (24 hours per day)
So what do you think? Do you prefer short days to long ones?
[x] mins = one full in-game day
Don't Starve - 8 mins
Minecraft - 20 mins
Zelda BotW - 24 mins
Sea of Thieves - 24 mins
Xenoblade Chronicles - 24 mins
Mafia 3 - 48 mins
RDR2 - 48 mins
GTAV - 48 mins
Watch_Dawgs - 48 mins
Sleeping Dawgs - 48 mins
Dragon's Dogma - 48 mins
Monster Hunter World - 50 mins
Just Cause 2 - 60 mins
Rust - 60 mins
Dying Light - 64 mins
Skyrim - 72 mins
Fallout 4 - 72 mins
Metal Gear Solid 5 - 72 mins
Ghost Recon Wildlands - 72 mins
Far Cry 5 - ~72 mins
The Witcher 3 - 96 mins
Kingdom Come: Deliverance - 96 mins
Elex - 120 mins
State of Decay 2 - 120 mins
The signifcant similarity I've found is that in the overwhelming majority of these games, the daytime length is much longer than nighttime. Zelda is one of the rare open world games that has an even 50/50 split between daytime and nightime.
In my completely (not) scientifically sound research I've found that 48 minutes seemed to be a common sweet spot. Don't take this as 100% accurate but I made sure to double-up on sources for each title to get as accurate a time count as I could without digging into each game myself, which I don't have time for.
Wondering why some of your favorite games aren't listed? Well either I couldn't find any day cycle info on
them, I couldn't test it myself, or they don't have traditional day/night cycles (Spider-Man, Shadow of Mordor, Infamous, Assassin's Creed, Dead Island, etc)
random fun facts:
Far Cry 3-4's in-game time is movement based. Stand still and the time stands still.
No Man's Sky - dependent on planet
Animal Crossing - real time (24 hours per day)
So what do you think? Do you prefer short days to long ones?
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