A generous estimate of how long it would take the average player to beat Elden Ring is around 60 hours. Realistically, most players will give up even before they reach this point, and those that don’t will have easily logged at least a hundred hours before all is said and done. What we’re saying is that Elden Ring is a difficult but fair game that will suck up days if not weeks out of your life.
Of course, because Elden Ring is a FromSoftware title, speedrunners couldn’t help but spend every waking moment of their lives to find a way to break it in ways most players can’t even imagine.
Just a few weeks after launching to rave reviews speedrunners appears to have completely figured Elden Ring out.
Using a combination of skill, wit, luck, as well as traditional speedrunning methods and taking advantage of the game’s open-world design, Distortion2 now holds the record for the fastest Elden Ring speedrun. Just hours after LilAggy set the record at just half-a-minute shy of 1 hour, Distortion2 went ahead and undercut him by 10 minutes at 49:29. Then, Distortion2 tried again, and again, and again, and again, going from 37:15 to 36:20, 33:55, and finally, 28:59.
One thing that most Elden Ring runs have in common is starting the game as a Samurai class and picking up the Icecrind Hatchet. However, what makes Distortion2’s run so clean, efficient, and fast is that he takes the extra time getting the Royal Knight’s Resolve Ash of War, granting a massive damage boost on a player’s next hit, that allows him to cut down enemies faster.
Unfortunately, these world record Elden Ring runs aren’t official yet. Speedrun.com has closed the Elden Ring leaderboards until March 18 to give “verifiers enough time to create a proper ruleset, as well as to decide which timing method and categories are appropriate.” Then again, we shouldn’t expect anyone outside of Distortion2 and LilAggy to nab the top spots once the leaderboards open. These two could submit an even shorter Elden Ring run for verification by then.
For now, fans can expect speedrunners to keep on finding ways to break Elden Ring more consistently to cut down on their runs.
Be warned though, speedrunners effectively do this for a living. You can’t just expect to be able to pull off the things that they can in Elden Ring with little to no practice. These highly skilled players have speedrunning down to a science.
If you’re new to Elden Ring, you’re better off checking out our beginner’s guide or class guide or reading our guide on how to make 50,000 runes a minute without fighting.
