YouTube user Distortion2, who had repeatedly broken his own Elden Ring speedrun record over the past few weeks, has managed to beat FromSoftware’s highly challenging game in under nine minutes, indubitably earning the right to tell anyone who wants to break his new world record to “put these foolish ambitions to rest.”
In the time it would take more than 99% of us to customize our character and get absolutely thrashed by the game’s first boss battle, the mounted nightmare known as Tree Sentinel, Distortion2 has managed to beat Hidetaka Miyazaki’s game in its entirety.
The speedrun you see below is tagged “Any%” which means that the player can use whatever exploits in their possession to beat the world record. Among these exploits is a technique called “zipping,” which allows gamers to traverse great distances in a matter of seconds by essentially teleporting there. He’s also skipping most of the game’s bosses, so for Soulsborne purists who wouldn’t accept anything other than charging each and every one of them headfirst, armorless, and holding only a baton, this might not exactly constitute a traditional speedrun.
Honestly, even if Distortion2 is indeed skipping most of the bosses, it’s still an impressive feat to do everything that one technically needs to do before they can get to Elden Ring‘s credits sequence. And it seems that the fandom is here for it, too. Mere hours after this video was uploaded today, Distortion2 has managed to rope in hundreds of thousands of viewers, which speaks volumes about the kind of impact Miyazaki’s game has left on the gaming community.
I guess the only question that remains is: Will someone be able to achieve an even crazier speedrun by beating the game in under 8 minutes?
