A speedrunner has set a new world record for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with an impressive run utilizing the game’s many tricks. Perhaps unusually, the developers of BOTW allowed some known glitches to remain in the game for added entertainment value, which has become a great boon for speedrunners who often take advantage of such bugs to save time.
Speedrunning is a unique pastime that has only grown in popularity over the years. Participants from around the world will compete against each other to see who can complete a given game (checkout this list to view some options) the fastest, while at the same time sharing tips and tricks to improve each other’s times. The community is both competitive and very welcoming to newcomers, with users only needing to record their playthrough and share it online in order to attempt a record-breaking speedrun, or show off newly-discovered tricks. Furthermore, the community at large is not afraid to have some fun with new and unusual challenges. The latest mainline adventure of Link and Zelda has spawned a range of different challenges, including one in which BOTW speedrunners raced to bake bread.
Much like in athletics, even a single second can represent a major improvement in speedrunning. By that metric, speedrunner Player 5 has just made a gigantic leap forwards, having managed to break Breath of the Wild‘s Any% world record by a full 34 seconds. The record, seen on Speedrun.com, now stands at an outstanding 24m 15s. An Any% run, for those unfamiliar with the term, simply means that the only objective is to complete the main game. Side quests and the like are purely optional; hence the term Any%, which refers to a game’s completion rate. In BOTW, the clock stops when a player delivers the final blow to Dark Beast Ganon; the ending cutscenes and credits are not included in the time, which avoids meaningless inflation. As with many speedruns, the new record was achieved through the use of several popular BOTW glitches like shield clipping to move quickly through the game.
Other tactics used by Player 5 to achieve their BOTW record included the judicious use of the paraglider and, strangely enough, a change in language. According to the streamer, playing Breath of the Wild in French actually shortens the dialogue throughout the game slightly, for a cumulative total of about four seconds saved. It is worth noting that the record is far from Player 5’s only achievement in the game. According to Speedrun, they currently hold the record for an incredible 11 different speedrun challenges, proving they’re a force to be reckoned with within the community. Player 5’s other accolades include records for ‘All Main Quests,’ a ‘Damageless’ run, and even BOTW‘s very silly ‘Become Monke%’ speedrun, a hilarious race to have Link imitate a monkey in the Faron Jungle.
Player 5’s new Zelda: Breath of the Wild record is without question an incredible achievement, and a true testament to their skill in the game. It obviously takes an incredible amount of familiarity with the ins and outs of a title to complete a speedrun like this, and any gamer who reaches this level of play should be rightfully proud of themselves. Of course, the ever-improving nature of speedrunning means that this is probably not the best run possible, and others could very well surpass this record in the near future. It may even only be a matter of time until a new record-breaking Zelda glitch is found that changes things altogether. But for now at least, beating Breath of the Wild in 24 minutes and 15 seconds is a very impressive record indeed.
Source: Player 5/YouTube, Speedrun.com
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Author: Matthew Wilcox
