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Within days of its release, several stalwart gamers have already pushed Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom speed runs far beyond a normal play-through of the game. Similar to what we saw with Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom already has a large speed-running community that has come together to discover tricks, tactics, and routes that help push the runs to their absolute limits. So far, although the newness of the Tears of the Kingdom means that plenty of speed-running strategies are still left to be uncovered, the large community, combined with the game’s popularity, should lead to many more speed-running developments for years to come. Until then, here are some of the fastest Tears of the Kingdom speed runs thus far.
As many fans of the series know, Tears of the Kingdom’s predecessor, Breath of the Wild, built up a massive speedrunning community. Players would refine the techniques and routes of the previous game, bringing the speed run down to a little over 23 moments. Although there are no official times posted on Speedrun.com, currently, some of the faster Tears of the Kingdom speed runs are hovering around the 1-hour 30-minute mark. Despite the similarities between the two games, however, many of the glitches in Breath of the Wild do not work in Tears of the Kingdom.
1. Gymnast86 – 1:29:44
Currently, one of the fastest Tears of the Kingdom speed run belongs to the YouTuber Gymnast86, clocking in at 1 hour, 29 minutes, and 44 seconds. Gymnast86 is a 3D Zelda game speed runner and TASer, giving them huge amounts of knowledge of the series. Using this experience, as well as experience running Breath of the Wild, Gymnast86 has been able to quickly formulate routes and tactics that help formulate these early speed runs. On top of this, they have also released an informative guide that details these early strategies for anyone who wants to join the Tears of the Kingdom speedrunning community.
Some interesting techniques used for Gymnast86’s Tears of the Kingdom speed run route include luring packs of enemies in the Demon King’s Army fight and blasting them off the edge with a well-placed bomb arrow or instantly recalling a boulder thrown by the Marbled Gohma to quickly stun it. The battle against Ganondorf at the end of the game is especially interesting since they still only possess four hearts. Mainly, the quickness of the route comes from clean movement and optimizing the path to get to stronger weapons.
Despite all the minor details, watching Gymnast86’s speed run of Tears of the Kingdom is still a sight to behold. Players who are familiar with the speedrunning community or those who simply enjoy Zelda games can both find some level of enjoyment from watching this fantastic run. Although Gymnast86 himself states that there are many improvements and optimizations still to be made, overall, this run is a very promising start for what’s to come later down the line.
2. Vivoxe – 1:27:15
Another runner by the name of Vivoxe has also completed an extremely impressive Tears of the Kingdom run that currently is sitting at 1 hour, 27 minutes, and 15 seconds. Vivoxe’s run follows many of the same routes and techniques detailed in Gymnast86’s run but performs everything a bit cleaner and tighter. Although this doesn’t seem like a massive improvement, oftentimes, speed runners fight for every second they can shave off of a run’s time.
Although from an outsider’s perspective, Vivoxe’s speed run of Tears of the Kingdom seems to be extremely well done and clean. Vivoxe themself claim that the run is a “trash run.” This potentially means that sometime soon, Vivoxe may release a run that puts them far ahead of the current pack, cutting off even more valuable seconds from the speed run.
3. Koroks – 1:29:09
Finally, a runner from Twitch by the name of Koroks has posted a time of 1 hour, 29 minutes, and 9 seconds. Once again, with Tears of the Kingdom being so new, multiple speed runners have already posted times under 1 hour and 30 minutes. Considering that the game can clock in at over 50 hours of gameplay for the average player, these speed runs are an extremely impressive feat.
Similar to Vivoxe, Koroks still points out many places they could improve in their run overall. First, cutting out all deaths will be a major time save in speed runs to come. Next, refining glitches and complicated inputs will allow players to lose less time when performing tricks. Finally, since the game is so new, speed runners can get hung up on techniques and glitches that are currently experimental and unrefined, causing a time loss. Once they are refined, however, fans should expect some major improvements to runs overall.
Tears of the Kingdom Speed Runs Show a Promising Future
Some of these speed runs come from lesser-known YouTubers and Streamers, though players can discover new times, route developments, glitches, and more on the Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom speedrunning Discord server. Here, many of the brightest minds of Zelda speedrunning have congregated and are currently hard at work discovering the most optimal techniques and strategies for the game. Any fan interested in joining this community can follow this link here to join in and get started on their speedrunning journey.
It’s always amazing to see how quickly devoted fans of a series can push a game to its limits, and the first release week of Tears of the Kingdom is no different. From the perspective of a casual fan, watching players demolish a brand-new, 50-hour-long game in under 2 hours is extremely entertaining. In the end, although some may look at speed running as a negative thing that skips over large portions that creators put hard work into, many believe that it is a massive show of appreciation to devote so many hours to learning a game. For Tears of the Kingdom specifically, with such a strong start from people like Koroks, Vivoxe, and Gymnast86, the future is looking bright for speed runners.
