Baldur's Gate 3 speedrunner completes game's first sub 5-minute run... by murdering Shadowheart

Baldur’s Gate 3 from Larian Studios is proving to be a strong contender for Game of the Year in what is already a stacked 2023.

Released on 3 August 2023 for PC, Baldur’s Gate 3 is said to offer around 200 hours for a single playthrough, according to its developer. What’s more, it is also claimed to have around 17,000 different endings.

Check out the Baldur's Gate 3 trailer below!

However, in the age of speedrunners constantly attempting to outrun their nearest rival, one player blew the 200-hour estimate out of the water by finishing the game in just 10 minutes. Yes, really. Yet, if you thought that time would never be topped, then think again.

As reported by Dexerto, thanks to a glitch called “Shadowboxing”, someone has now finished Baldur’s Gate 3 in less than five minutes. The term Shadowboxing is a method that is said to involve murdering poor Shadowheart and stuffing her remains in a box. Lovely. Unfortunately for speedrunners hoping to use this exploit in the near future, it is expected to be patched out by Larian Studios at a later date.

The latest record-breaking Baldur’s Gate 3 speedrun was performed by YouTuber Mae who clocked in a time of just four minutes and 15 seconds. The process of how the speed run was achieved is detailed in the video below.

It will be interesting to see what speedrun times can be achieved without the use of glitches and exploits with estimated completion times being archived on websites such as ‘How Long to Beat’. At the time of writing, since its release on PC in August, the average completion time is 47 hours for the main story and 129 hours for everything that the game has to offer.

A release is planned for the Xbox Series X|S, but due to technical limitations of the Series S, its launch has been delayed.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is out now on PC and will be released on 6 September for PlayStation 5.