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How Long Does It Take to Complete a Mario Game?

Mario completion time depends on the game and your goal. Compare community-based estimates for the main story, extras, and stated 100% checklists in two Switch games.
Length3 min Posted Quest giverVGSources Team
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There is no single completion time for a Mario game. The title and your goal matter: reaching the ending is usually quicker than playing optional stages or pursuing a game’s specific 100% checklist. For two recent Switch examples, estimates range from about 7.5 to 10 hours for the stated main goal and from about 20 to 23.5 hours for the stated completionist goal.

How long do the two games take?

The figures below come from player-submitted HowLongToBeat data, either displayed by another site or reported by it. They are estimates, not Nintendo completion-time guarantees; individual times vary with pace, skill, exploration, and what each player counts as finished.

Game Main story or stated main goal Main goal plus extras or post-game 100% or completionist goal Source and date context
Super Mario Bros. Wonder About 10 hours for the main story About 14 hours for main story plus extras About 20 hours for 100% HowLongToBeat figures displayed by Acclaimed Video Games; page accessed October 8, 2026. The page evidence reviewed does not state a publication year, and community submissions can change.
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury Average 7.5 hours for Nintendo Wire’s stated main goal; its reported faster/slower estimates are 5 and 13.5 hours Average 13.5 hours with post-game worlds; reported faster/slower estimates are 9.5 and 20 hours Average 23.5 hours for its stated 100% goal; reported faster/slower estimates are 15 and 35 hours Nintendo Wire’s February 2021 report of HowLongToBeat submissions. Treat the figures as that article’s snapshot, not a current guarantee.

These are useful examples, not a universal Mario average. The two sources use different dates and describe completion goals differently, so the numbers are not a perfectly like-for-like ranking.

What counts as “complete”?

Reach the ending

A main-story estimate usually means following the central route to the game’s ending. It does not necessarily include every optional course, collectible, character-specific objective, or post-game area. The 7.5-hour figure for Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is Nintendo Wire’s average for its narrower stated main goal.

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Play extras and post-game content

Optional content adds time, but the category depends on the game and the source. Nintendo Wire’s 13.5-hour estimate for Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury includes the post-game worlds: World Star, World Mushroom, World Flower, and World Crown.

In Super Mario Bros. Wonder, courses can include Wonder Flowers and hidden Wonder Flowers, and the game supports multiple characters and local or online play. Those features can invite exploration beyond a direct story route, but the cited source does not give separate time estimates for them. Nintendo’s UK game page describes these features and lists the Switch release date as October 20, 2023; it currently also promotes a Switch 2 edition, so check the edition and territory when considering a listing.

What a 100% estimate covers

“100%” is not a shared checklist across Mario games or playtime sources. Nintendo Wire’s stated completionist goal for Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury includes all 12 worlds, Green Stars, stamps, reaching the top of each level’s flag with every character, finishing Bowser’s Fury, and collecting all 100 Cat Shines. Its 23.5-hour average applies to that described checklist—not to a universal definition of 100%.

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How to use these estimates

  • If you only want the ending: use the main-story or stated main-goal column.
  • If you want to see more of the game: use the extras or post-game column, while checking what that source includes.
  • If you want every listed objective: use the completionist figure only when its checklist matches your own target.
  • Allow for personal variation: these are player-report estimates, not guaranteed runtimes or results from a controlled test.

Before comparing games, check whether the estimate covers a single game or a bundle, what its categories mean, and when the source compiled its figures. That context matters as much as the number.

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