Occasionally, amongst the gaming community, someone does something that makes everyone think “wow, but also why?”. Truly, it seems there’s no greater accolade for any gamer to receive than the utmost respect mixed with sheer bewilderment of the rest of the world.
Surely, no achievement fits that criteria better than one speedrunner’s blindfolded run of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Yes, you read that right. In case you missed it, earlier this month, Mitchriz pulled off the incredible feat of completing the game in two hours while completely blindfolded, relying only on audio cues. He did this on stream during Awesome Games Done Quick, an event which takes place in early January to raise money for Prevent Cancer Foundation.
Have a bit of a throwback - check out the trailer for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice below.
In a new video posted by GameSpot, the speedrunner has gone through the run, explaining how he managed to pull it off, and also answering that all important question: why, and how, did he end up playing the game with a blindfold on?
“To get to blindfolded, it basically came down to I started doing challenge runs, and then I wanted to do new challenges but it was like ‘man, everyone’s done everything already’,” he explained. “And I just wanted something new, I wanted something nobody had done before, that I knew I could do, and since I’d seen all the bosses individually done blindfolded, I said ‘I know I can route that out and get a full blindfolded playthough’.”
Speedrunning in general is a really skilled form of playing a game - although professionals often make it look easy, there are hours and hours of planning and practice involved to figure out good routes and pull them off as smoothly as possible. So, to add an extra layer on top of that and just completely remove the ability to see is mind boggling - it’s super interesting to see how Mitchriz managed to figure it all out.
Mitchriz’s incredible run wasn’t the only great success to come out of the event, of course - this year, a whopping $3.4 million dollars was raised for AGDQ. Games Done Quick will be coming back in the summer, with the Summer Games Done Quick event, but the dates for that are currently to be decided. Maybe then we can see Sekiro completed without using hands.
Featured Image Credit: FromSoftwareTopics: Fromsoftware