Breath of the Wild Speedrunner Breaks record with 58 minutes

Now, I'm not typically the type of person to report on speedrunning, otherwise known as the practice of trying to beat a game as quickly as possible using any combination of gameplay tricks, bugs, exploits, and good ol' fashioned skill. But The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild offers a unique platform for the speedrunning community that proves fascinating to witness. The game is startlingly open, and there's nothing except common sense and general readiness stopping you from tackling the main boss of the game right out of the gate. This makes it a natural fit for the speed freaks, and while we reported earlier on an impressive speed-run that took place before the game was even released to the public, you might be interested to know that the old record of 1.5 hours has been soundly beat.



The runner, Gymnast86, woke up from his cryogenic sleep and trounced Calamity Ganon in 58 minutes and one second. To accomplish a feat that takes most people dozens, if not hundreds of hours, Gymnast86 used tricks such as "Whistle sprinting", which saves energy and speed by whistling while you sprint. While it's an impressive show to watch from start to end, the runner is convinced (as most speedrunners are) that there are even more ways to shave time off, and we could see runners save Hyrule even faster, in the future. Is is worth noting that this is an any% speedrun, which means the only qualification is beating Ganon, so as different types of runs are invented by the community, we'll see even more variety and talent come forward.

Still, a milestone is a milestone. The bar's been set, future speedrunners: go for it.