The race to speed through the newest Zelda hits some obstacles
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The world record for fastest completion of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom keeps falling, though post-release changes to the game have slowed players’ progress.
Why it matters: Speedruns of Nintendo’s Zelda games are among the medium’s most compelling spectator sports and a test of the ingenuity of its hastiest players.
- Records for racing through 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild fell year after year, down to just under 24 minutes, as speedrunners found faster, glitchier routes to the end.
- Tears of the Kingdom runners are now on their own rapid journey, using new glitches and, at times, clever exploitation of the game’s new vehicle construction tools, to finish the adventure.
- As they race, they keep protagonist Link in his underwear and without his trusty hang glider — there’s no time to gear up.
Details: The latest world record of 67 minutes, 47 seconds, was achieved by a speedrunner named Trevor on Wednesday, according to listings on Speedrun.com. (Video of the run, like any speedrun, contains spoilers for the end of the game.)
- That record is a lot better than the 55½ hours it’s taking the average Tears of the Kingdom player to beat the game.
- But it’s a bit slower than the sub-one-hour runs players have been achieving in an older, pre-patched version.
Between the lines: Early Tears of the Kingdom speedrunners used a glitch that allowed them to duplicate key healing and combat items so they could survive late-game challenges, while Link is in his early-game state of weakness. But Nintendo’s 1.1.2 patch, issued on May 25, removed that glitch.
- Runners swiftly found a new glitch that lets them duplicate powerful weapons to help race to the finish line.
What’s next: The record will keep falling as players figure out faster routes, but further updates to the game from Nintendo could push runners back.
- The biggest obstacle to pulling the record down is the game’s initial requirement for players to clear a series of challenges on an island floating in the sky. That’s gobbling up more than a half hour in each run. Finding a way to skip it would be a massive breakthrough.
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