How Long Does Resident Evil 3 Take to Beat?

Resident Evil 3 has finally released, and while many people are probably wondering how long the game takes to beat, others have likely already finished up their first playthrough in Raccoon City if they blazed through the game right when it unlocked. The game has a couple of different difficulty modes and some challenges players can impose on themselves to set restrictions on subsequent playthroughs to offer completely different experiences, so the time it takes to beat will depend on a number of factors aside from how familiar you are with Resident Evil games and how much exploring you want to do.

As a starting point for how long it takes to beat the game, players can generally expect to spend about six or seven hours playing through their first venture into the story mode. That's not exactly a lengthy campaign as reviews have pointed out, but the depth of Raccoon City and the interconnected nature of the levels help mask what's otherwise a campaign that's on the short side.

Your mileage will of course vary in Resident Evil 3 depending on the numerous factors referenced previously. My first playthrough of the game for reviewing purposes took just over seven hours on the game's Standard difficulty, and that included clearing out every room of its items and fighting pretty much every zombie that stumbled into view. If you play on Assisted mode where you start with an assault rifle and enemies deal less damage to created a generally easier experience, you may wrap up your playthrough earlier. Play on the game's Hardcore mode instead and you'll have to tread more carefully, but the time difference may be evened out since you'll be more inclined to dodge zombies instead of just fighting everything.

Once you get your footing in Resident Evil 3 and start to learn the layout of Raccoon City, you may be surprised by how quickly you can finish the game. A results screen shown after completing the game shows the requirements for getting an S Rank on different difficulties, some of which ask players to finish the game in no more than two hours. It's entirely possible to finish the game in that amount of time playing legitimately, but if you want to equip yourself with some of the infinite ammo items earnable by completing challenges, you can knock your time down to around one hour for a playthrough if you're going as fast as you can.