Despite how quick speedruns are, they take hundreds of hours, if not more, and sheer dedication in order to try and perfect each move and shave off valuable seconds and frames. There are a multitude of games that newcomers can attempt to speedrun and set their own personal bests, or even break world records. With that, a video emerges which shows one fan managing to glitch their way through The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, zooming through the majority of the game and story, and setting the bar even higher for other runners.
In a video uploaded to YouTube on New Year's Eve 2021, user DezmoneSpeedruns gets to the final moments of Oblivion in just over two and a half minutes, setting a new world record. While the video length itself runs for 4:10, the in-game counter stops the run at 2:34. This is due to the timer not including any stoppage, such as load times. In general, it's an impressive speedrun, one that shows a great degree of knowledge in how to exploit the game's physics in order to progress to the end as quickly as possible.
Elder Scrolls 4, released in 2006, is a fondly-remembered entry in the series with some notable elements of it, such as the highly-praised Dark Brotherhood sidequest. Unfortunately, none of that is seen in the speedrun, as DezmoneSpeedruns spends the majority of the run glitching through the game's opening tutorial, before finding themselves in the Oblivion's gorgeous Imperial City and, again through glitches, manages to reach the final point of the main quest involving Martin Septim.
The run has also been registered on speedrun.com, where it sits at the top of the "ANY%" category, suggesting that this attempt has been verified and is, indeed, a new world record. There are plenty of Elder Scrolls world record speedruns out there, though many of them tend to opt for Skyrim these days. In general, though, it seems as though it's a series that is simply screaming out for fans to blast through in minutes, perhaps due to the incongruity of the games being rather hefty in terms of world and story.
Oblivion is often considered one of the best Elder Scrolls games out there, with the likes of Morrowind being equally beloved. Speedruns like this show that there are plenty of fans out there who still find joy in the almost 16-year-old game. It may be a huge title with a lot of lore and exploration to offer players, but fans like DezmoneSpeedruns seem content to get through all that in record time.
The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is available on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.
Source: Speedrun.net