Elden Ring speedrunner finishes the game in under 9 minutes

Elden Ring is a big game. Before its launch, developer FromSoftware said the main story would take around 30 hours to complete — a number that seems frankly laughable at this point. Even so, the speedrunning community adopted the Soulsborne game quickly.

Speedrunner Distortion2 has been at the forefront of the Elden Ring rush, conquering the game in under 30 minutes less than a month after launch. Distortion2 then broke their own record by beating the game in just 14 minutes. The record has been smashed yet again, as they have now rolled credits in under nine minutes. You can see the speedrun below:

How is this incredible time possible? First off, Distortion2’s video is an “Any%” speedrun, meaning just about anything within the game is allowed — your only goal is to see credits. A pinned comment from YouTuber Sketchy explains the glitches that Distortion2 uses in detail, the biggest of them being “zips.” By guarding then walking forward at a specific time, you can teleport your character around the map, as Distortion2 does by zipping from the game’s opening zone to Stormveil Castle (home of Margit the Fell Omen and Godrick the Grafted) within mere seconds. This continues through the endgame areas and bosses, which we won’t spoil here.

FromSoftware has released a few patches for Elden Ring already, fixing questlines and other bugs. The studio typically doesn’t remove speedrun glitches like this, so expect speedrun times to continue shrinking.