Among the many objectives found in video games, the main goal for most gamers is to be able to find their way to the ending. While the amount of time necessary to complete a game depends on a number of factors, most players are familiar with the sense of accomplishment once they finish a particular title. However, some players take completing games to the next level by performing speedruns. Recently, one player managed to dash through The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in lighting fast time.
Meant to be a launch title for Nintendo’s popular hybrid console called the Switch, Breath of the Wild was released in March 2017. The game introduced Zelda fans to a new open world that allowed players to explore and progress largely at their own pace. In addition, this open-ended format has encouraged many speedrunners to attempt to complete the game as fast as possible. Recently, one gamer finished Link’s adventure faster than ever before.
On May 15, a speedrunner known as Player 5 achieved the seemingly impossible by beating Breath of the Wild in only 24 minutes and 15 seconds, shaving 34 seconds off the previous best time. This is the world record for the Any% category of speedrun for the game. It is worth noting that the Any% speedrun only requires the player to reach the end of the game without needing to complete any other side objectives. Impressively, this means that Player5 holds the fastest times for four speedrunning categories in Breath of the Wild: All Main Quests(2 hours, 21 minutes, and 59 seconds), All Dungeons (1 hour, 31 minutes, and 49 seconds), a "Damageless" run (28 minutes and 16 seconds), and now Any% (24 minutes and 15 seconds).
For those wanting to see how Player5 managed the world record performance, the gamer has posted the entire speedrun on YouTube. In the video, they sped through the open world, in large part, due to exploiting a number of in-game glitches. However, these glitches in Breath of the Wild are essential to finishing the Any% speedrun in a world record time.
In addition to utilizing glitches, Player5 revealed a trick that they used to shave a few precious seconds off their time in Breath of the Wild. According to the speedrunner, they changed the in-game dialogue to French. Interestingly, they claimed that this allowed them to save approximately 4 seconds during the run. While this might not seem like much, the difference between obtaining a world record time and falling short in a speedrun often comes down to only a few seconds.
This impressive accomplishment by Player5 comes as Zelda fans anxiously await more news regarding The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2. While the game was delayed until 2023, Nintendo could show gameplay at some point during this summer. In the meantime, speedrunners will likely continue to go for even faster times in the 2017 game.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is available on the Nintendo Switch and Wii U.
Source: NintendoLife