First 'Elden Ring' Sub 19 Minute Speedrun Is A Sickening Display

You know, no matter how many times I hear about a new Elden Ring speedrunning record, I never get any less impressed. You’d think it’d kind of lose its shine after seeing a new time set basically every day, but no. 

Folks, we’ve finally gone below 19 minutes. Not even a third of an hour. You could probably fit that in during your breakfast if you wanted to. This record comes courtesy of the legendary speedrunner Distortion2, who’s really risen to fame online over the past few weeks with his super skilled runs of FromSoftware’s latest. 

We might not be able to offer you speedrunning tips, but if you wanna farm runes fast, we have the guide for you - check it out below.

“WORLD[’]S FIRST Any% Elden Ring in under 20 minutes!! Changed a flight and did a 15h stream for this, almost gave up hope, but in the end I prevailed,” the streamer tweeted. “Thank you everyone who was there and supported me during this insane stream.”

WORLDS FIRST Any% Elden Ring in under 20 minutes!! Changed a flight and did a 15h stream for this, almost gave up hope, but in the end I prevailed. Thank you everyone who was there and supported me during this insane stream <3 pic.twitter.com/I32a4BzA9q

— Distortion2 🕐 Elden Ring (@Distortion_2) March 28, 2022

To be precise, this run clocked in at 18 minutes and 58.35 seconds. As for how it was even remotely possible, he used a newly discovered glitch that the community have been referring to as “The Zip” - basically, massive parts of the map can be totally skipped, using the power of out-of-bounds and forcing the game to warp you to the wrong place. Similar tricks were used before, of course, but this one seems to be even more efficient - a different speedrunner, Hazeblade, temporarily took Distortion2’s crown last week doing just this, but it obviously hasn’t taken long for the king to reclaim his throne.

Viewers have been congratulating Distortion2 on his new record: “Simply the best. Congratulations. Watching your stream for hours was worth it,” wrote @comfortinghours. “Jesus[,] Dist. You never miss do ya?” tweeted @TheSigurdr. 

Since The Zip is still very new, there’s no doubt that speedrunners are going to find ways to refine it further for even faster records, although you’d think we’d be reaching the limit of how much time you can actually cut out before just glitching your way to the end credits immediately upon starting the game. …That’s going to be a thing, isn’t it?