You're staring at the download bar or maybe just hovering over the "Buy" button, and the one question nagging at the back of your brain is pretty simple: how long is Sinners? It's a fair thing to wonder. Nobody wants to drop their hard-earned cash on a game that ends before the coffee gets cold, but we also don't all have 200 hours to sink into a never-ending grind fest.
The truth? It depends on how much of a completionist you are.
If you’re talking about Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption—which is usually what people mean when they search for this—you aren’t looking at a massive, open-world epic like Elden Ring. It’s a boss rush. It’s lean. It’s mean. And it’s designed to kick your teeth in repeatedly until you learn the patterns. Most players find that a standard "just get me to the credits" run clocks in at about 6 to 8 hours.
But wait. That number is a bit of a lie.
Why the clock lies in Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption
In a typical RPG, you level up. You get stronger. You find a shiny new sword that does +10 fire damage and suddenly the boss that was giving you trouble is toast. Sinners flips that script on its head. It uses a "level-down" mechanic. To fight each of the seven bosses, you have to sacrifice a part of yourself. Maybe you lose a chunk of your health bar. Maybe your shield breaks easier. Maybe you run out of stamina faster.
Because you’re getting weaker as the game goes on, the difficulty curve doesn't just go up—it spikes.
If you’re a Souls-like veteran who can parry in your sleep, you might breeze through those eight bosses in 4 hours. Honestly, I’ve seen speedrunners do it in less than thirty minutes. But for the average person? You’re going to spend two hours on a single boss just learning why you keep dying. That's where the playtime comes from. It isn't travel time or dialogue tree time. It's "death and rebirth" time.
Breaking down the hours
- Main Story (The Bosses Only): 5-9 hours. This assumes you hit a few walls but eventually climb over them.
- Main + Extra Content: 10-12 hours. This includes the "Cowardice" challenge or trying to unlock different endings.
- Completionist (100%): 15-20 hours. This involves Trial modes and hitting every achievement.
The game is structured around Adam, a protagonist who has to face avatars of the seven deadly sins. Because you can tackle them in almost any order, your experience of how long is Sinners will change based on your strategy. If you save the hardest boss for last—when you've already sacrificed your health, your healing items, and your attack power—you might spend five hours on that final fight alone.
The "New Game Plus" factor
Once you beat the game, is it over? Not really.
The developers, Dark Star Game Studios, added various modes to keep people coming back. There’s the "Trial of Speed" and "Trial of Strength." If you're the type of person who needs to see everything a game has to offer, you’re looking at doubling your playtime. Most people who really dig the combat mechanics end up sitting in the 15-hour range.
It’s a tight experience. No fluff.
I think there’s a lot of value in that. We live in an era where games try to stay on your hard drive for six months by giving you 400 icons to click on a map. Sinners doesn't do that. It’s a weekend game. You start it on Friday night, you get frustrated on Saturday morning, and you feel like a god when you finish it on Sunday afternoon.
Comparing it to the "Big Brothers"
To give you some perspective, let's look at the giants of the genre. Dark Souls usually takes people 40 to 50 hours for a first run. Sekiro is around 30. Sinners is a snack compared to those. It’s specifically for people who love the boss fights but don't necessarily love trekking through a poisonous swamp for three hours just to find the boss arena.
Technical hiccups that might add time
Let's be real for a second. Sometimes a game takes longer because it’s clunky. While Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption is generally well-regarded for its art style (very Souls-esque, very grim), the camera can occasionally be your biggest enemy.
If you’re playing on the Nintendo Switch versus a high-end PC, you might find the frame rate drops during some of the more intense sin fights—like Lust or Gluttony—actually make the fights harder. Harder fights mean more deaths. More deaths mean the clock keeps ticking.
Is it worth the time investment?
If you’re asking how long is Sinners because you’re worried about value-per-hour, you have to look at the price point. Usually, it’s a budget title. Paying $15 or $20 for a high-quality 8-hour experience is a better deal than paying $70 for a 100-hour game that's 80% walking.
The level-down mechanic is genuinely unique. It forces you to think about the order of operations. Do you fight the boss that takes away your invincibility frames early while you still have a lot of health? Or do you save it for later? These decisions don't just change the difficulty; they change how much time you'll spend staring at the "You Are Defeated" screen.
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Actionable steps for your playthrough
If you want to respect your time and get through the game efficiently, follow this roadmap. It’ll keep your playtime toward the lower end of the spectrum and save you some gray hairs.
1. Map out your sacrifices early. Look at the bosses and see what they take from you. If you rely heavily on your shield, don't fight the boss that breaks your shield early on. Save the sacrifice that hurts your specific playstyle for the boss you find the easiest.
2. Don't sleep on the items. You get consumables. Use them. A lot of players try to hoard them like they're playing a 100-hour JRPG. You don't need to. Use the fire pots. Use the lightning. It speeds up the fights significantly.
3. Practice parrying. The game heavily rewards timing. If you try to dodge everything, you'll find some bosses (especially the ones with wide horizontal swings) will take you hours to beat. Learning the parry windows in the first hour will shave three hours off your total time.
4. Watch the "Trial" unlocks. If you're going for the 100%, check the requirements for the extra modes before you finish your first run. Some of them require specific conditions that are much easier to handle if you know they're coming.
5. Check your platform. If you have the choice, play on PC or a PlayStation/Xbox console rather than handheld. The extra stability in the frame rate makes the late-game bosses much more manageable, preventing "artificial" playtime inflation caused by technical lag.
Ultimately, Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption is a distilled essence of a genre. It knows what it is. It doesn't waste your time with cutscenes or filler. It’s a brutal, short, and memorable gauntlet. Whether it takes you five hours or fifteen, the satisfaction of overcoming the final sacrifice is usually worth the price of admission.