Cyberpunk 2077 How Long to Beat: Story, Side Jobs, Everything

2 min read

The main story is short. What makes the number balloon is that rushing it gives you the worst version of the game.

Cyberpunk 2077 how long to beat depends almost entirely on whether you treat the side jobs as optional. Mechanically they are. Narratively they are not.

The rough numbers

Main story only: around 25 hours
Main story plus meaningful side content: around 60 hours
Completionist: 100 hours and up
Phantom Liberty: roughly 15–20 hours on its own

Why the gap is so wide

The main path is a fairly tight thriller. Nearly everything that gives the game its reputation — Judy, Panam, River, Kerry, the Delamain chain, the gigs that turn into stories — sits outside it.

There is also a hard mechanical consequence. Several endings are locked behind side jobs. Rushing the main quest closes them off, so a 25-hour run genuinely gets you fewer endings than a 60-hour one.

Where Phantom Liberty goes

The expansion unlocks partway through the main story rather than after it, and it contains its own branching ending path. Playing it changes what is available in the base game's finale, so it is best treated as part of the run, not an epilogue.

The realistic answer

A first playthrough that does the side content it stumbles into and finishes Phantom Liberty lands somewhere around 70–80 hours. That is the version of the game the reviews were describing.