The main story can be completed in about 20-30 hours if you're focusing purely on critical path missions and know what you're doing. You'll notice speedrunners hitting that 15-20 hour mark, but they're skipping dialogue and using optimized routes through each quest area. For a first playthrough, expect closer to 28-30 hours since you'll probably want to explore those main quest locations and get familiar with the mechanics.

Something worth noting is that quest areas scale pretty well with your character level, so you won't get stuck needing to grind levels between story missions. When you're moving through places like the oblivion gates, taking time to clear out daedra and grab sigil stones adds maybe 1-2 hours per gate but gives you useful gear for later content. The final stretch of story missions gets notably more challenging, so having decent equipment from earlier gates definitely helps there.

Standard playthrough times can stretch longer if you're learning the systems or taking time with dialogue choices, but the critical path itself stays pretty consistent around that 25-hour mark for most players when focused purely on mandatory objectives.