Elden Ring speedrunner slashes world record to 19 minutes, as community split over patches

pcgamer.com:

Elden Ring recently received a giant patch that, among other things, removed certain glitches that speedrunners had been using to yeet themselves across the Lands Between. Among version 1.03's removals is the important 'zip glitch,' so speedrunners continue to use 1.02 to take advantage of it, and they're getting faster.

Distortion2 is a longtime Souls speedrunner (among other games) and streamer, who recently managed to end a 15-hour stream by zip-glitching the hell out of Elden Ring. The zip is an extremely specific glitch that depends on the player's hardware and some of the background maths of the game, but the outcome is simple: You can warp across the map, skipping giant chunks of the game entirely.

The goal was a sub-20 minute run, but such is the good fortune he gets with the warps that the run ends up clocking in at a remarkable 18:57. This follows weeks of Distortion2, and many other speedrunners of course, setting records that seemed implausible only for them to be smashed days later: at one point, we reported on a two-and-a-half hour run, then all of a sudden the glitches were discovered and you're looking at half an hour.

Anyway: under 19 minutes now. The first time I played Elden Ring I was probably still in the character creation screen at that point.

The zip glitch does make this slightly odd to watch, and it's one of those aspects of speedrunning that is an acquired taste. Some speedruns are purely about skill, beating a game on its own terms with superhuman knowledge and reflexes. Some, such as this, are about using a game's own internal logic against it and glitching like crazy to do things that seem like they should be impossible (which, of course, requires skill itself).

The streamer later broke down