It took me almost 40 hours to beat every boss in Dark Souls 3. It’s taking speedrunner Distortion2 just over an hour, and he’s cutting off minutes every single day.
There are few things more enjoyable than watching another person blast through a Souls game after you’ve endured its tortures. Granted, any Souls game is easier the second time around — the surprise is gone — but the way speedrunners bend and exploit the game to shave off time is awe-inspiring.
The frontrunner for setting Dark Souls 3 records right now is Distortion2, who you can follow on Twitch and YouTube. Though his current record is one hour, 11 minutes and 43 seconds, that time is shifting every run. Just yesterday, his record — the previous world record — was one hour, 12 minutes and 46 seconds.
Here’s the previous record:
And here’s him shifting that record down by a little over a minute:
It’s very early days for Dark Souls 3 speedrunning; people are only beginning to map out the optimal routes, weapons and buffs to make it through the game as soon as possible. Plus, Distortion2 is doing a very particular type of run: all bosses must be defeated. If Distortion2 were to do an any% speedrun, which doesn’t require beating every boss, he’d be able to beat the game even faster.
Key to Distortion2’s run are a few things:
- When a heavy door is opening, he actually quits the game and reloads; apparently it’s faster than waiting for the door to open.
- He shaves off time by playing on the PC; having a solid 60 FPS is key.
- The spook spell allows him to nullify fall damage, letting him roll off cliffs and other areas that would otherwise kill him.
- Though he never dies in either run, he does make mistakes; this is far from a perfect run, and it will likely be defeated in days, if not sooner.
As someone that struggled mightily with some of the bosses in Dark Souls 3, it’s particularly tragic to watch Distortion2 tear through enemies that took me more than an hour. The Crystal Stage was an early struggle in my playthrough…
Damn.
Comments
14 responses to “Watch This Speedrunner Crush Dark Souls 3 In Just Over An Hour”
It’s not faster to reload than open the door, he stops the clock while it’s loading. Seems like a bit of a cheat way to cut time off.
Edit: He also stops the clock when using a homeward bone, when he dies (stuffed it right next to a bonfire and went down a chasm) and when he quits and reloads to reset enemies away from him. I’m probably being overly militant purist but of you’re abusing the load screens and resets to make your run easier and faster shouldn’t they count towards the time?
As per the speed running rules on speedsouls.com
“Because of significant discrepancies in load times on all the platforms, the official run time is counted as the In-game time (IGT), displayed when the Save & Quit option is used after skipping the credits and going to the Load Game screen in the main menu.”
This is why the time stops when doing these actions as they don’t count it in the official run time (some runners though do record their “real time” which would include these times)
Probably just as well I could watch this entire speed run inside some of the loading times I’ve encountered so far
Thats the thing though, dark souls speed runs, well all souls/borne speed runs are counted with in game time, so its not really cheating when quitting and reloading, and its not him stopping the clock, the only thing he does manually is splits, like after defeating bosses. I do agree that its a bit cheap, but thats the nature of the beast.
I don’t know how anyone could say that quitting/reloading to reset enemies so you don’t get killed by them isn’t cheating… And nearly every time they do it for a door opening there are also enemies chasing them at the time.
And this is coming from someone who actually enjoys watching a few speedrunners of these particular games.
But you’re ok with other glitches? I mean if its the same rules for everyone whats the problem?
It doesn’t bother me greatly that they do it, but to say it’s not cheating closing/opening a game to reset enemy hostility, locations, and to not die, etc, is pushing it. If you’re going to die, one should have to adjust their methods… Not just close and re-open the game.
I see that as an aspect outside the game being used to alter aspects within the game, as such I simply don’t think it should be allowed.
And beyond a couple of location skips, largely achieved with some creative jumping and/or spell usage there’s actually not much else I’ve seen used that’s really a ‘glitch’ far as Dark Souls 3 goes.
The records are based off in game time so whatever his in game time is, that’s what will be used. He has his Splits timer synced to his in game time so that’s why it pauses when he exits game. Yes, save quitting on long doors will skip the animation and equate to like 1 sec of in game time elapsing when you load back in.
Makes sense. Wouldn’t that allow some to theoretically take a break as well? (assuming you just don’t reload straight away)
No beccause the in game play time doesnt count load screens
I beat my first playthrough in 25 hours but I’ve been speedrunning the game whenever I had the chance in the last week. I managed 56 minutes up until Pontiff so far. I’m doing an any% run and my Astora Straight Sword is only +3 for the fight, instead of the All bosses route of it being +10 by that fight (or Anri’s Sword +5). So it’s a tough fight still. Distortion will only do an any% run if he can glitch it. He had the DS2 WR for any% because he just glitched straight from Benhart all the way to Drangleic Castle. Then he just glitched his way into the Throne Room for final two boss fights. It was sub 13 minutes if I remember correctly. He doesn’t hold the any% current patch run for DS2 because all the major glitches got removed.
All bosses run is way different from any%. Any% you don’t go to Archdragon Peak so you can’t get the Titanite for your Astora Straight Sword to be +10 and for your Anri’s Straight Sword to be +5. All bosses uses a luck build atm, exploiting the synergy with Anri’s Straight Sword (scales on luck) and bleed damage (which has an easier time activating based on luck). Anri’s Sword makes the last third of boss fights cake. On the any% run, you don’t get +10 on the Astora Sword, you only get to +8 by Dragonslayer Armour because there’s no convenient or efficient way of collecting a Slab and the remaining Titanite Chunks need to upgrade the weapon to +10. Pontiff fight: Astora +3 any% vs Anri’s +5 all bosses. 1k on riposte dmg (any%) vs 2k (all bosses). Fights take twice as long on the any% because of Anri’s Straight Sword (+5) being way better than the Astora Straight Sword (+3 to +8).
Right now there are a lot of inefficiencies with both runs since the game just came out a month ago (JP). Any% WR is about 1:06 and the all bosses is about 1:12. However the all bosses run is way more efficient than the any% just because Anri’s sword makes last handful of boss fights so fast, whereas any%’s Astora sword doesn’t fare so well late game. It’s all interesting stuff but yeah, speedruns are intense and a joy to watch when someone can just blast the game like 1 million times faster than we did on our first go.
Crystal sage…15 tries or so, refused to summon!! But when I got it it was pure elation! Recorded it and man it was sloppy but I didn’t give a fuck!
Oh man having a terrible run right now, I’m in that snow town and just beat the lizard in the lake , after 5 tries, then saw the bonfire but thought nah I’ll go check out these tunnels first only to run into a black knight who smashed me aaarrrggghhhh
Crystal Sage has a really nasty habit of occasionally spell comboing you in phase 2 through pillars/walls I’ve noticed. And if I’m being honest, I think most fights are easier solo than with summons.
I tried summoning people for Abyss Watchers on my second character, only to have them fail miserably and get killed before phase 2… So then I went and killed it first attempt when solo. The increased HP on bosses for summoning people can actually make it much harder on a lot of fights than if you just went in solo.
Yeh I’ve been trying to help people out and a few times they’ve got themselves killed and I’ve missed out on the spoils! I’m really punishing myself by trying to do all the bosses solo though…I’ve got to figure out what kind of build I want cos I like to play around with everything ( no magic except for some minor healing miracles ) at the start usually.
Pulled an all nighter ( not all on this area btw ha )and banged my head against the wall for hours on that fucking pontiff boss. Then I fully geared down, took off my shield even, and with the extra attack speed I beat him that go. I tell u what though, the slowdown for the bosses is a bit of a downer, really makes it harder and when watching videos I made it looks like I have no clue what I’m doing lol