Tears of the Kingdom has been out in the wild for a matter of hours, yet someone has already managed to set a very impressive speedrun record. As most of us settle in for playthroughs that will last tens, if not more than 100 hours, exploring every last inch of Hyrule, one player has already raced through the game's story in a little more than an hour and a half.
If you are planning on getting stuck into Tears of the Kingdom this weekend, or at any point in the near future, and you don't want its story spoiled, don't worry, we won't be discussing it here. I'd also advise against watching gymnast86's playthrough below as even though they naturally skip past a lot of what most of us will experience, it does include the game's ending.
Gymnast86's Tears of the Kingdom speedrun clocks in at one hour, 34 minutes, and 33 seconds. An almost unfathomable achievement considering it has been mere hours since the game became readily available. While the Breath of the Wild sequel goes down on the same map as its predecessor, which would have helped, the speedrunner has highlighted a number of the glitches players used to shave precious seconds off their times in the last game have been fixed.
That doesn't mean some of those handy issues don't still exist, just that gymnast86 hasn't discovered how to trigger and make use of them yet. It's also evident from the playthrough that Tears of the Kingdom's fuse ability is going to play a big role when it comes to speedrunning. There will be various tricks waiting to be discovered as even the game's producer, who has played through Tears of the Kingdom 20 times already, admits he hasn't discovered all of the game's secrets yet.
What's even more remarkable than someone already finishing Tears of the Kingdom in 94 minutes is that within a few days, that time will have probably been bettered over and over again. Gymnast86 even admits that, urging viewers to seek out a different video by the time theirs is a few days old as there will almost definitely be a quicker run out there that uses a laundry list of exploits and tricks they hadn't discovered in time for this day one attempt.
As for the target speedrunners will be aiming for in the coming weeks, months, and years, the Breath of the Wild record currently sits at 23 minutes and 49 seconds. There are three times under 24 minutes, all of which were achieved within the last three weeks. Likely speedrunners having one last go at bettering their Breath of the Wild times before exploring Tears of the Kingdom for the foreseeable future.