A significant portion of the speedrun was dedicated to completing the tutorial, accounting for approximately one-third of the entire run.
A speedrunner of Tears of the Kingdom, a Zelda game, managed to complete the entire game in less than two hours. Surprisingly, the tutorial section alone accounted for a third of the total run time. YouTuber gymnast86 shared a video of their record-breaking run, clocking in at 1 hour, 32 minutes, and 33 seconds. They later released another video explaining their strategies and techniques.
It’s unclear whether gymnast86 used a leaked copy of the game, but their familiarity with Tears of the Kingdom shortly after its official release strongly suggests so. It’s worth noting that the video contains spoilers regarding the story and encounters.
The speedrun involved skipping dungeons and side content, except for a brief detour to collect high-level fusion materials for powerful weapons. The final part of the run consisted of facing all the dungeon bosses, which were not previously defeated, culminating in a showdown against Ganondorf.
Although the tutorial section took a significant amount of time, gymnast86 mentioned that Nintendo patched out some beloved speedrunning tricks from Breath of the Wild, such as the BLSS glitch for flying and the whistle glitch for stamina-free running. However, they believe there is still room for further improvement and anticipate their record to be surpassed as more players explore the game and discover new exploits.
