How Long Is Resonance A Plague Tale Legacy

TL;DR – Quick Summary

• Resonance A Plague Tale Legacy has 14 chapters and is the longest game in the A Plague Tale series.
• Story-only run (critical path): 11–14 hours
• Average playthrough (some exploration): 15–18 hours
• Full 100% / Platinum trophy: 20–25 hours
• Focus Entertainment officially estimated around 20 hours for a typical completion — their figures lean toward the average-to-completionist range.
• The longest chapters are Chapter 5, Chapter 7, and Chapter 10 — each easily runs 2 hours or more with exploration.
• The shortest chapters are Chapter 1 (~35 minutes), Chapter 8 (~10–15 minutes), and Chapter 14 (~10 minutes).
• The game is longer than A Plague Tale: Innocence (under 15 hours) and longer than A Plague Tale: Requiem (~17 hours).
• Install size: 58 GB on PS5 / 66 GB on Xbox Series / 76 GB on PC.

Resonance A Plague Tale Legacy is the longest game in the series and how long it takes depends significantly on how you play. A player racing the critical path will finish in under 14 hours. A player who explores every side route, solves every optional puzzle, and finds every blade will land closer to 20. And anyone going for the Platinum trophy with all collectibles and combat trophies is looking at 20 to 25 hours total. This guide breaks down every playtime estimate — story, average, 100%, and Platinum — along with a chapter-by-chapter time breakdown so you know exactly where you are in the game and what’s still ahead. If you want to understand how the dual-timeline structure that makes some chapters notably longer than others actually works, the timeline switching guide covers that system in full.

Resonance A Plague Tale Legacy Playtime at a Glance

• Story-only (critical path, no side exploration): 11–14 hours
• Average (some exploration, most collectibles): 15–18 hours
• Full completionist (all collectibles, Platinum/1000G): 20–25 hours
• Publisher estimate (Focus Entertainment): ~20 hours

These figures come from a combination of the publisher’s pre-launch FAQ, verified post-launch reviewer playtimes, and early player-reported completions. The range is real — puzzle speed, combat difficulty, and how thoroughly you explore are all variables that push playtime up or down within these windows. A player who finds light puzzles intuitive and parries cleanly will move faster than one who retries combat encounters or spends time decoding each puzzle from scratch.

Story-Only Run – 11 to 14 Hours

A story-only run means following the main path through all 14 chapters without deliberately searching for optional blades, lore artefacts, charms, or Resonance Points beyond what appears naturally on the route. You’re solving mandatory puzzles, completing mandatory combat, and moving forward without doubling back.

Early launch players who pushed through at a solid pace reported finishing between 9 and 12 hours at their most direct. Reviewers with preview access, who knew the structure and didn’t need to figure out puzzle approaches, averaged around 9 to 11 hours. Players who take a natural first-time pace — reading text, watching all cutscenes, and taking reasonable time with puzzles without being stuck — land around 12 to 14 hours. If you’re a reasonably experienced action-adventure player and you keep moving, 13 hours is a fair middle estimate for a first-time story-focused run.

The chapters that most commonly extend story-only runs beyond 12 hours are Chapter 5 (four symbol trials, significant exploration encouraged), Chapter 7 (the Black Temple and its multi-stage puzzle sequence), and Chapter 10 (the Parallel Paths puzzle chain). Players who get stuck on any of these without a guide will find those chapters push 2 to 3 hours each, easily adding an extra two hours to the total above what a smooth run would take.

Average Playthrough – 15 to 18 Hours

The vast majority of first-time players land in the 15 to 18 hour window. This is what Focus Entertainment’s 20-hour estimate is broadly pointing toward for typical engagement — players who aren’t exclusively rushing but aren’t hunting every collectible either.

An average run involves exploring most branching paths when you notice them, solving a few optional bull pillar puzzles to find Heroes’ Graves blades, picking up collectibles when they’re visible without extensive backtracking, and naturally engaging with the game’s side content as it presents itself. This playstyle adds around 3 to 5 hours over the critical path total, primarily from optional puzzle rooms, Heroes’ Grave crypt sequences, and the additional exploration time in the larger open chapters.

If you plan to use a guide at all during your playthrough — even just for puzzle solutions when you’re stuck — expect the lower end of this range around 15 hours. If you want to discover everything naturally without external help, the higher end of 17 to 18 hours is more realistic for a thorough first run.

Full 100% Completionist and Platinum Trophy – 20 to 25 Hours

A true 100% run — every artefact, every charm, every blade, every Theseus Echo, and 165 or more of the 200 Resonance Points — combined with all combat trophies lands in the 20 to 25 hour range for most players.

The 20-hour end applies to players following a guide from Chapter 1, collecting everything during their first playthrough without needing Chapter Select cleanup, and farming the remaining combat trophies efficiently via checkpoint restart afterward. The 25-hour end applies to players doing a blind first run, using Chapter Select to return to missed collectibles, and spending additional time on the trickier combat trophies like Untouchable and Excessive Force.

The Platinum-specific considerations are: the Like a Warrior trophy (165 Resonance Points in a single playthrough — these don’t carry over via Chapter Select) adds the most time pressure and requires systematic collection during the main story run. Everything else — artefacts, blades, charms — can be cleaned up afterward and typically adds 1 to 3 hours of Chapter Select work depending on what was missed. Combat trophies farmed via checkpoint restart on dedicated encounters add roughly 30 minutes to an hour on top of that. Our all trophies and achievements guide covers the fastest farming locations for every combat trophy.

Chapter-by-Chapter Playtime Breakdown

Here is an estimated playtime for every chapter in the game. These are story-paced estimates — players who explore thoroughly or struggle with puzzles will run longer in the heavier chapters.

• Chapter 1 – Blood Ties: ~35 minutes. The tutorial chapter. Introduces combat, movement, and the first taste of the island. Short by design — it’s a prologue as much as a chapter.
• Chapter 2 – Felons: ~1.5 hours. The Venice heist. Introduces the Grapnel, the carnival section, and the Faro boss fight. Paced well with no major sticking points for most players.
• Chapter 3 – Those Before Us: ~1.5 hours. First proper exploration chapter on the island. Six artefacts make this a rich chapter for collectors. The turtle and first ruins sections take time to explore properly.
• Chapter 4 – From Hell It Rose: ~2 hours. The first major trial. Six puzzles including the Minotaur Arena finale. This is the chapter most likely to push past 2 hours for players who find light puzzles challenging — the Minotaur Arena specifically often takes 20–30 minutes on a first pass.
• Chapter 5 – Desolation It Wrought: ~2.5 hours. The largest and most collectible-dense chapter in the first half. Four symbol trials, eight major puzzles, and significant optional exploration. Players who find every optional route will push this toward 3 hours.
• Chapter 6 – What Lies Beneath: ~1.5 hours. The underground creature chapter. Evasion-focused. The pacing feels slower because of cautious movement, but the actual chapter length is moderate. The Sica blade puzzle adds 15–20 minutes if you choose to do it.
• Chapter 7 – Death It Sowed: ~2 hours. Black Temple, beach combat, Theseus gauntlet, Cercyon boss, and Chapter 8 combined feel like the game’s most content-packed stretch. Story-only players still spend significant time here due to the multi-stage temple puzzle and boss fight.
• Chapter 8 – Resonance: ~10–15 minutes. A pure story interlude. No combat, no puzzles, no collectibles. Follow the thread of light. This chapter is deliberately brief as a breather before the final stretch.
• Chapter 9 – Night Has Come: ~1.5 hours. Darkest chapter in terms of light availability. Stealth sections and new enemy types (Puppets introduced in Chapter 11, but the creature is very active here). Moderate length.
• Chapter 10 – Parallel Paths: ~2 hours. The puzzle-heaviest chapter in the second half. Daedalus’ Workshop and the final mirror chain puzzle push total chapter time. The Xiphos blade crypt adds 15 minutes.
• Chapter 11 – Patera: ~1.5 hours. Factory and mine sections. Puppets appear for the first time here. Two major crank puzzles contribute to the chapter length alongside combat sequences.
• Chapter 12 – Fading Light: ~1 hour. Combat-heavy with less puzzle density. King Minos boss fight at the end. Faster-paced than most second-half chapters.
• Chapter 13 – As One: ~1.5 hours. The finale. Labyrinth chase, Asterion three-phase boss fight, and the story’s closing sequences. The Labyrinth sub-chapter is the most disorienting navigation challenge in the game.
• Chapter 14 – What Remains: ~10 minutes. The epilogue. No combat, no puzzles, no collectibles. Purely a short story landing for Sophia’s arc.

How Long is Each Playthrough Type – Side by Side

• Speed run / critical path only: 9–11 hours (experienced players who know the layout)
• Story first-timer (no guide): 12–14 hours
• Average player (some exploration): 15–18 hours
• Thorough blind run (most things found naturally): 18–20 hours
• Guided collectible run (following a guide): 18–22 hours
• Full Platinum / 100% (guided, Chapter Select cleanup): 20–25 hours

What Makes the Game Longer or Shorter

Things That Add the Most Time

• Light puzzle difficulty. If the Minotaur Arena in Chapter 4, the mirror chain in Chapter 10, or the symbol pedestal puzzles in Chapter 5 take longer than expected, these chapters alone can push total playtime up by 2 to 3 hours over a smooth run. Players who find these intuitive will be near the lower end of every estimate. Players who regularly get stuck will be near the upper end.
• Finding all optional bull pillar Heroes’ Graves. Six optional blades each require locating a hidden bull pillar and solving a light puzzle. These aren’t on the main path. Seeking all of them out adds 30 to 60 minutes of combined exploration and puzzle time.
• Collecting all 165+ Resonance Points. Resonance Points are hidden throughout every chapter and systematic collection requires checking every dead-end path and corner. Players collecting thoroughly add 2 to 3 hours over a player who ignores them.
• Difficulty setting. Playing on Hard or Nightmare extends fights — more retries, slower kill speed, and more deliberate combat pacing. A Hard playthrough averages 2 to 3 hours longer than the same playthrough on Narrative.
• Theseus sections and creature evasion sequences. On a first playthrough, the creature evasion chapters (6, 9, 13) typically take longer than expected because players test the limits of what the creature will and won’t tolerate. Once you understand the light mechanics, these sections are fast. On a first run, they’re often 20–30 minutes longer per encounter than on replay.

Things That Make It Shorter

• Playing on Narrative difficulty. Combat encounters resolve faster, enemies are less aggressive, and there’s less retry time per fight. Narrative can shave 1 to 2 hours off a Hard playthrough of the same story content.
• Knowing puzzle solutions in advance. Following our Ancient Minoa puzzle guide for the harder puzzles eliminates the 10–30 minutes per puzzle that first-time players spend figuring out the solution independently. Over all 14 chapters, this can save 2 to 4 hours compared to a blind run.
• Skipping optional content. The six optional Heroes’ Grave puzzles, the Theater Enthusiast and Sea You Later detours, and most Resonance Point collection can all be ignored. Pure story progression ignores all of these.

How Resonance Compares to Earlier Plague Tale Games

Resonance is confirmed by Focus Entertainment to be the longest game in the A Plague Tale series, and post-launch player times bear that out.

• A Plague Tale: Innocence (2019): Story completion in under 15 hours for most players. A full completionist run lands around 20 hours. Shorter than Resonance on both measures.
• A Plague Tale: Requiem (2022): Story completion around 17 hours. Completionist around 25 to 30 hours. Requiem is roughly comparable to Resonance for completionist play, though its open chapter structure adds more total content for 100% than Resonance’s more linear design.
• Resonance A Plague Tale Legacy (2026): Story completion 11 to 14 hours. Average with exploration 15 to 18 hours. Platinum 20 to 25 hours. The longest story-only run and the fastest Platinum in the series, because the linear chapter structure makes collectible cleanup via Chapter Select more efficient than Requiem’s open areas.

The comparison is worth keeping in mind if you’re coming to Resonance from the earlier games expecting similar pacing. Resonance moves differently — it’s more action-forward, puzzle-dense in specific chapters, and less drawn out between major beats than Requiem was. The shorter Platinum estimate relative to Requiem reflects the more controlled collectible design rather than fewer things to find. For more on how the games compare as experiences, the Resonance vs Requiem comparison covers what changed and what stayed the same across both titles.

Install Size and Technical Information

For players planning storage space before downloading:

• PlayStation 5: ~58 GB
• Xbox Series X|S: ~66 GB
• PC (Steam): ~76 GB

Resonance runs on Asobo Studio’s proprietary Zouna engine — the same engine used for Flight Simulator, which is known for high-fidelity environmental rendering. The larger PC file size versus console reflects uncompressed textures and higher resolution assets available on PC. For a full breakdown of PC hardware requirements and expected performance at different settings, our PC requirements guide covers everything from minimum to recommended specs.

Is Resonance A Plague Tale Legacy Worth the Time Investment?

Whether 15 to 20 hours feels like the right length depends entirely on what you want from it. As a linear, story-driven action-adventure, Resonance sits in the same tier as Uncharted 4 or the recent Tomb Raider trilogy — a cinematic experience that has enough content to feel substantial without overstaying its welcome into open-world territory. Reviewers who appreciated the focused design praised exactly this length. A handful who found the puzzle-to-combat ratio uneven felt the longer chapters could drag, but this was a minority view.

For series fans, the 15 to 18 hour average playthrough covers one of the most narratively rich entries in the Plague Tale universe — Sophia’s full origin story, the ancient Minoan mythology, the Macula’s prehistoric roots, and the island’s secrets from Daedalus’s engineering to Asterion’s identity. If you want to understand where Resonance sits within the full A Plague Tale story from Innocence through to this game, the A Plague Tale timeline explained traces the complete picture. And if you’re deciding whether to start here or with the earlier games, our guide on whether you need to play the previous Plague Tale games before Resonance answers that directly.

The game is available on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S — and on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate from day one. More at the official Focus Entertainment site.

Frequently Asked Questions