It's going to take you over 500 hours to 100% complete Mewgenics, according to creator Edmund McMillen

By the time I came to post my Mewgenics review, I had over 100 hours logged in the game—and I knew I still wasn't completely done. Now, at about 115, I can at least see the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to finishing off the main questline, but apparently I've still got a long, long way to go before I hit 100%.

According to creator Edmund McMillen, speaking in an AMA on the Steam Deck subreddit, "It will take an average player about 200+ hours to 'beat the game' and 500+ hours to 100%". Hoo boy.

What exactly he means by "beat" here I'm not sure. Based on where I am right now I don't think it'll take me another 85 hours to hit what seems to me to be the end of the final quest. But the game does essentially have a new game+ type feature, where you can replay levels and bosses on a harder difficulty—if he sees clearing all of that as part of beating it, then 200+ hours does start to seem more likely.

Of course it is also possible someone could progress a lot slower than myself. I won't make claims of being an elite gamer or anything, but I did pretty much live and breathe Mewgenics for about three weeks solid—a rather more intense run through than the average person is likely to have. With longer gaps between runs you may not learn the game's quirks as quickly and ultimately have more failed runs to slow you down.

Regardless, 500+ hours to 100% is the more intriguing part to me. For perspective, at 115 hours played, I'm currently at 83% completion, according to the save screen. Is that last 17% really going to take almost another 400 hours?!

Some of what he's referring to is obvious, at least—for example, beating every level on both difficulties with every class to get all of their unlocks, that will take a while. But I suspect there must be some seriously hidden secrets beyond that to account for all that playtime he's predicting, and the fact that I've still got over 100 hidden achievements yet to unlock is certainly intriguing.

One thing that might play a big part is "cryptid cats". These are certain special cats that can appear at your house, like shinies in Pokémon—but they're so ultra-rare that across the whole community of game reviewers and content creators playing Mewgenics in the run up to launch, I'm only aware of one person who found one. If there are achievements or progression elements tied to finding those, that could definitely take a while.

Whatever the truth behind those numbers is, I can certainly believe there are deeper, weirder things buried in Mewgenics that I haven't even scratched the surface of yet. What I know for certain is that it's an absolutely huge and wonderfully layered game, and after 115 hours and my review completed and filed, I'm still just as obsessed as ever. I can't wait to see what the wider community ends up discovering once it's finally set loose on the general public later today.