Even a game as large in scale and story as The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is not immune from the speedrunning community, who are dedicated to blasting their way through all manner of games in record times. While there are plenty of games that beginners can start speedrunning such as Super Mario Odyssey, Skyrim is not one for newcomers to these challenges of rapidity. The more experienced runners, however, will take it upon themselves to take on the role of the Dovahkiin and make their way from the opening moments in Helgen to the final encounter with Alduin as quickly as possible. Sometimes they end up finding new techniques to beat their own times.
In a video uploaded to YouTube a couple of days ago, user nucular managed to beat their Skyrim speedrun, with a now new world record time of 1:12:15. According to a report, this is around two minutes quicker than their previous record, which was sitting comfortably at 1:14:07. The run was also "glitchless" which means the player did not utilize any major exploits, such as going out of bounds, to help them skip large sections of the game or traverse parts of the world in ways that were not intended.
Beating Skyrim in as quick a time as possible is no easy feat. Like all good speedruns, nucular's attempt involves a lot of precision, brought on from likely hundreds of hours of practicing and honing skills. Much of the technique involves knowing precisely where to go, utilizing a combination of sprinting and resting to refill said sprint meter, and even stealing a horse to assist with some of the steeper shortcuts. In general, it's an impressive run, especially given that it beats the previous world record by a couple of minutes.
One of the things that has led to such a quick time comes from a new technique discovered during the A Cornered Rat quest. In this part, the player must approach Byrnjolf of the Thieves Guild in order to progress the main story. However, there is a trick the runner can take advantage of. Basically, it's possible to anger a guard and get them to follow you to the meeting point. Once that part of the quest has been completed, the guard can then arrest the player and take them immediately outside of the location. According to the report, this potentially shaves off a whole minute, which is long in speedrunning terms.
Currently, it seems that The Elder Scrolls 6 is still a long way from completion. As upsetting as this may be to many fans of the series who have been waiting a decade for the next installment, it does mean that people like nucular can continue to challenge themselves and show that there are still numerous ways to get to have fun with Skyrim.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: PCGames N