Speaking to IGN, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII gameplay director Yuji Abe stated that the game would last an estimated 50 hours. Of course, there will be a countdown clock in the game, ticking away in real time, and Abe has explained how this translates into real world time.
“The way the game moves, one period of 24 hours within the game world itself will take play time in the real world around two or three hours of actual, real time. Having said that, opening menus, customising your characters, talking to some people or just listening to certain things will cause time to stop. So it isn’t quite as short as you’d think.”
“Overall, when I did the test plays during the development period, I played through from start to finish trying to see almost all of the aspects of the game and it took roughly about 50 hours.”
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is currently scheduled to launch on February 12th 2014 in North America and February 14th in Europe for PS3 and Xbox 360.