It seems like almost every other day where we're reporting that players of Elden Ring have discovered something which breaks the game wide open.
Just ten days ago we reported that one runner, Distortion2, had already beaten FromSoftware's latest epic in under 30 minutes. That feat is impressive in its own right considering the game is taking the majority of players somewhere nearing one hundred hours before they even get to cast their eyes upon the final boss. Yet the king has been usurped as a new runner steps up, with a devastating new trick.
If you like many others are struggling with some of Elden Ring's hardest bosses, you can check out our easy win strategy in the video below.
Players of Elden Ring were more than a little disappointed when the 1.03 update released last week, nerfing some of the game's best weapons. Gone are the days of the overpowered Mimic Tear, and Sword Of Night And Flame, and crucially to the speedrun, the Icerind Hatchet's weapon-art the Hoarfrost Stomp, which had some of the game's highest damage output.
Speedrunners don't care though. Playing the game on the original version going for the axe is still the optimal strategy. However, it's not the big boy stomp that helped HazeBlade take the top of the leader boards, but a never before seen trick.
Calling it The Zip Glitch, they skip large parts of the map by going out of bounds and performing wrong warps - unintended movement to various new areas. While this is nothing new in speedrunning, the discovery within Elden Ring means that HazeBlade was capable of shaving several minutes off the previous record, which is no small task in a run which is already under 30 minutes.
Whether other runners will adopt the Zip Glitch and use it to push the time even further is yet to be seen, but for now we can look with a tear in our eye at what others can achieve while we die again and again.
Topics: FromSoftware, Elden Ring