As of March 28, while the internet was discussing the strange eventualities of the Oscars, the speedrunner Distortion2 broke the world record live Elden Ring finishing the main campaign 18 minutes and 57 seconds. Of course we talk about the disciplina any% —that is, “anything goes” to get to the end, including exploiting glitches in the game—with several core areas cut or omitted.
To complete this feat, Distortion2 took advantage of various teleportation techniques that allowed him to easily reach key dungeons such as Raya Lucaria’s academy, or Farum Azula. Apart from this, he also had to use the war ash “frost stomp” which comes equipped by default with an axe, to defeat Maliketh and the beast of Elden: of the three bosses he has had to face, with these two there was no cheating possible. Just accurate measurements of damage.
The record is doubly interesting if we take into account that until now no one had managed (in public, at least) to reach sub-20 times and this one has not only improved on that, but it’s also an under-19′. “I almost lost hope during the final stretch, but I’m very glad I made it” acknowledges the player in the description of the video on YouTube.
Needless to say, these kinds of triumphs involve a long preparation process, 15 hours in this case, plus a perfect execution with the extra pressure of the live show. All this, without counting on the meticulous knowledge of all the objectives of the game, how it behaves before certain inputs and the like. Elden Ring is available from February 22 on PC through Steam. It has sold at least 12 million copies in its first few weeks, though the numbers haven’t been updated for a while.