It’s hard enough grinding through Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild without taking a hit. And finding all 900 Korok seeds is especially brutal. So you can appreciate just how difficult it would be to do both of those things in a single run, especially given such a feat takes almost two days.
I can’t even fathom the amount of meditation and deep breathing necessary to calm yourself for such a feat. A regular “just finish the game” run — commonly known as an Any% — takes just under half an hour. (One Australian, who is one of the top 10 Breath of the Wild speedrunners in the Any% category right now, has gotten their time down to just over 27 minutes.)
Of course, you can’t have Any% runs without Zelda players also trying the ultimate challenge: 100%, runs where players finish every single quest, collect every single item, beat all the shrines, and do all the things.
And those runs still take a fair amount of time. At the time of writing, Japanese runner Rhrakia has the 100% record at 22 hours, 50 minutes and 30 seconds. They streamed the entire thing on Twitch to boot, not stopping to take any breaks throughout. It’s one thing to complete everything, but the endurance necessary to binge the whole lot and retain focus? That’s rough.
But, of course, there’s a catch. 100% runs? You’re allowed to take damage. Hell, most people would think that was reasonable. Of course you’re going to take damage. That’s what happens in a run this long.
That wasn’t enough for runner and streamer Joedun, however, who told Polygon that it took over 100 tries before nailing a No Damage 100% run.
“You see, I failed that run 100+ times, with 3 of those times being 30+ hours in. To keep pushing myself to not give up and not let the game beat me was definitely the hardest.”
I mean … Jesus Christ. I don’t even want to think about the level of fury that would ensue after having to burn a save after several hours. Let alone getting 30 hours in and then having to restart from scratch. That would be enough to make me never play the game again.
But that didn’t deter Joedun, who eventually completed the ridiculous feat after 31 hours, 59 minutes and 9 seconds. As the final arrow sank into Ganon, they leant back, arms folded over their head, enjoying the explosion that ensued in Twitch chat.
900 Korok seeds, 120 shrines, 84 bosses, almost 32 hours. Joedun was surprisingly chill about it all, only starting to get slightly flustered at the sheer flood as Twitch chat processed the enormity of the feat they’d just accomplished.
Of course, that’s not the end of it. Joedun told Polygon that he’s planning on a re-run of Breath of the Wild — but this time it’ll be with The Masters Trials content. Here’s hoping that doesn’t take another 100 runs.
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