How long to beat Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is the first big game of 2024, but being a MetroidVania, you might already have expectations for how long it takes to beat it. Most games of this ilk like December’s Cookie Cutter are 10-15 hours, with a few more if you want to mop up all the collectibles, but Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a surprising game in so many ways, including how many hours you’ll need to see the credits.
This is a “triple-A” title within the genre, and as such it’s far bigger than most recent MetroidVania titles we can think of. There are major side-quests, a ton of collectibles, upgrades, and more, while the story itself takes plenty of hours to get through as well.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown – How long to beat?
Even halfway through the game, you might be thinking you’re nearer the end than you are, but the map is enormous (one of the biggest we’ve seen in the genre for a while, actually), and even when you think you’ve seen it all, you haven’t.
If you decided to mainline the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown story, and forgo finding secrets and upgrading your amulets, you could see credits in around 20 hours, or up to 25. But that would possibly require a lot of dying and retrying as the upgrades are essential to some of the boss fights. On the regular difficulty, however, that’s how long it’ll take to beat the game, though you will be nearer, or slightly under 20 hours on the easiest level of difficulty.
It took us an average of 23-25 hours to complete, and most of the team hit 60-70% of completion with that figure.
What are the factors which determine how long it takes?
We’d heartily recommend upgrading your weapons as you play the story, and this requires you to search out Damascus as that’s the material needed to upgrade them. These are very well hidden, and even at around 50-60% completion will leave you missing out on a good chunk of them. If you waste them early, too, it’ll limit your upgrades even more.
Side quests often reward you with new amulets, as does exploration, and these are regularly good for the upcoming boss battles. Basically while it may seem you’re skipping content to get to credits quicker, you’re essentially making the game harder, and thus longer, by rushing it. If you’re playing to 100% the game, you can expect 30-40 hours, depending on if you use guides for collectibles, or want to discover it all yourself. A lot of the later items require the later powers, obviously, so you can’t get some things early.
