D&D: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ World Record Speedrun Fight Shows the Strength of Corpse Hurling
Hurling corpses, giant invisible owlbears, and more play into the latest round in the battle for Baldur’s Gate 3’s speedrun world record.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a sprawling, 60+ hour game with a campaign. It’s full of narrative choices, beautiful cutscenes, and intense combat. Speedrunners have been skipping as much of that as possible. Especially in the last few days, as legendary speedrunners Mae and bisc do battle to be the champion of Baldur’s Gate.
Prior to this week, the world record speedrun for Baldur’s Gate 3 had been sitting somewhere around the twenty-minute mark. And then, earlier this year, Mae, the speedrunner who also managed to be the fastest player to get laid in Baldur’s Gate 3 (taking a little over four minutes), became the first person to break the twenty-minute mark. An intense speedrun battle unfolded.
The Battle for Beating Baldur’s Gate 3
The battle for the Baldur’s Gate 3 world record started about 18 days ago. Mae managed to get the time to clear Baldur’s Gate 3, from beginning to end, down to 19:20. A whopping 20 seconds under the 20-minute mark. This is an extremely impressive feat when taking into account how closely these world records come. And 18 days is an impressive time for a speedrun record to stand for a relatively new game; all the bugs and exploits and glitches likely haven’t even been discovered yet.
Case in point, just two days ago, another speedrunner, bisc, managed to top even that time, taking the new record down to 18:35, a full 44-second drop. And then, as the video you’re about to see will tell you, Mae took it personally:
What follows is 18 minutes and 30.5 seconds of extreme jumps, killing your friends, reviving them, and setting things on fire for what I can only assume are “reasons.” Actually, if you’re curious about all of it, Mae has an amazing presentation explaining the techniques used that played in Baldur’s Gate 3 at this year’s Awesome Games Done Quick.
It’s an hour long video, but it’s well worth the watch. The whole presentation of how the stuff works starts at around the 38 minute mark. At the heart of it, Shadowheart’s corpse is stuffed into a flaming box, only to revive god’s favorite princess and transform her into a giant invisible owlbear so she can take down Ketheric Thorm from the top rope like the champion she is.
Now all that remains is to see how long it will take before this record is shattered. And by whom.
Who knew killing Shadowheart was such a crucial strategy for saving the world?
