The Ascent: Full mission list and how long it takes to beat it

With most RPGs, fans want to know beforehand what they’re in for. A common question before a player buys a new RPG is “how long does it take to beat?” After all, it’s worth it to understand what you’re getting into before spending a good amount of money on a game. 

The Ascent featured the same questions before and after it launched on 27th July. Fans are still wondering how long it takes to fully beat the game. Another familiar question that pops up along with this inquiry is “how many missions are there in the main story?” This is a great way for players to see how much progress they’ve made in the story without spoiling too much for themselves. 

In this article, we’ll go over both questions, giving a rough estimate for completion and listing every main story mission available in The Ascent. 

How long does it take to beat The Ascent? 

As with any RPG, your time in The Ascent is fully based on how much side content you decide to partake in. The world that Neon Giant has built inside of The Ascent is quite large and filled with activities you can get lost in aside from the main story. 

Along with the side quests, there are numerous side areas with loot that you can easily miss if you just breeze through the story missions. If you get enough of this loot, then you can spend even longer crafting new gear and swapping through countless weapons to see which one suits you best. 

Finally, the last aspect that makes it harder to narrow down The Ascent’s time to complete is how many times you are ambushed/die. The encounters in The Ascent are random, so one player might sail right through an area while another will spend extra time fighting a random ambush. 

However, even with all of this taken into account, a standard playthrough will take around 20-25 hours. A fast playthrough that just focuses on the main story will take less than 15 hours. And last a completionist playthrough will eat up around 40-50 hours. 

The Ascent full main story and side missions list 

For players looking to see how far along they are in their progression through the game, the full mission list is featured down below. Both the main story and side quests are featured on two separate lists. 

Main Missions:

1. Arcology Blues

2. Mutual Dependencies

3. Trading Places

4. Empowerment

5. Data Miner

6. Foreign Code

7. Trace Protocol

8. Syntax Error

9. Recompile

10. Board Meeting

11. Root Access

12. Unhandled Exception

Side Quests

1. Gear Up!

2. Anabolic Express

3. Balls Deep

4. Bubble Trouble

5. Double Charge

6. Humidity Doctor

7. Silicon Optics

8. One More Rep

9. Lost and Found

10. The Dark Horse

11. Exotic Dinner

12. Prison Break

13. Wash-N'-Go

14. Casino Courier

15. Gen 9 H20

16. You Snooze You Lose

17. Plug & Play

18. The Recipe

19. The Champ

20. That Guy

The Ascent is out now for PC and Xbox, costing $29.99 on Steam and the Microsoft Store. Note: at the time of writing, The Ascent is on sale for $26.99 on Steam.

• Read more: How to fix The Ascent multiplayer not working bug

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