Final Fantasy 16's director, Hiroshi Takai, has revealed that it'll take around 35 hours to complete the game, which can then be brought up to 70 hours by completing side content.
The latest issue of Famitsu (as translated and pointed out by Twitter user aitaikimochi) includes an interview with Final Fantasy 16's director, Hiroshi Takai, and the producer, Naoki Yoshida, giving us a range of new info on the game. Alongside revealing that there'll be a leaderboard where players can compete with one another for "endless gameplay", Takai also confirmed the average playtime for Final Fantasy 16, which is around 35 hours for a normal playthrough.
Takai said, "FF16 is a story-driven game that will take you on a roller coaster trip. You’ll see the entirety of Clive’s way of life, and the game will probably take about 35 hours to clear. If we include side content, it can be double that amount". Takai then said that he'd previously been questioned about whether there'd be many side missions with such a clear focus on the main story, to which he confirmed there were plenty in the game.
Yoshi-P followed this up by saying that he wanted gamers to be able to "at least aim to complete the story", noting that gamers are "really busy with other things". The game's initial run time was around 20 hours during this stage of development, but more content was added, leading to around 15 more hours. Takai agreed that the initial vision was around 24 hours to make sure that players could see everything, but it seems that the team couldn't help but make it bigger.
Interestingly, Yoshida also clarified a recent statement that revealed there'd be around 11 hours of cutscenes, noting that it doesn't include cutscenes that happen in the middle of battle or cutscenes from side quests. It seems like Final Fantasy 16 is going to have a lot of dialogue compared to other games in the series.