The 5 fastest Breath of the Wild speedruns
To the average viewer, the antics of speedrunners inspire awe. For those unfamiliar with the concept, speedrunners try to beat games in as little time as possible, taking advantage of skills, glitches, and community support to test the limits of the games they play. A skilled speedrunner can cut a large, sprawling game like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which normally takes around 50 hours to finish, down to a mere 30-minute sprint.
What makes the top runs entertaining isn’t just that these players flex technical prowess, although it is always fun to watch someone good enough at fighting to beat the final boss in Link’s underwear. It’s that they change how we see the world of the game itself. By watching them play, we can see that Hyrule Castle isn’t some impregnable fortress. Its walls are made of code, not stone, and as a result, the best players can simply glitch their way through to expose a vast interior space filled with absolutely nothing. A tool like a bomb isn’t used to blow up walls and enemies, but to soar across the entirety of Hyrule with a flick of Link’s wrist.
Because of new discoveries and people improving their craft, speedrunning inBreath of the Wild is constantly changing. This list will round up the top Breath of the Wild speedruns as of spring 2023, but we will occasionally update it as new runs emerge. To make it more specific, we’ll only look at “Any%” world records, meaning that players are able to use any glitch at their disposal to beat the game from start to finish, without needing to complete any of the tasks that you would for some of the other run categories (like All Dungeons, All Main Quests, 100%, etc.). Here are the five fastest Breath of the Wild Any% speedruns.
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