Fuelled by spite following commentator shade-slinging over setting Baldur’s Gate 3 speedrunning records by murdering Shadowheart and setting off magical nukes to skip Act 3, a misunderstood genius of the community has set a new record for the All Acts category, clearing the previous one by 12 minutes.
Since Baldur’s Gate 3 was fully released earlier this year, speedrunner Mae has been a constant presence on the scene. They set an early record by completing the D&D RPG in around 10 minutes by essentially utilizing Gale’s bounce capabilities to reach the end of Act 2 quickly before setting off what’s essentially a magical nuke to end the game, skipping Act 3 entirely.
Never content to rest on their laurels, the speedrunner refined the run to under five minutes, partly by skipping heaps of Act 2 by murdering Shadowheart and stuffing her in a box – ‘Shadowboxing,’ if you will.
Mae’s methods aren’t for everyone, apparently, despite the impressive results. As the speedrunner summarises at the start of their latest video, naysayers have dismissed their efforts over various reasons, such as avoiding Act 3 rather than playing it or the Shadowboxing trick taking advantage of something unintended.
"People told me that my Any% speedruns were fake speedruns, so I decided to speedrun the entire game of Baldur's Gate 3," they say. "That means no Gale, no early ending. Every single act, including Baldur's Gate 3's boss fights. Strap yourselves in, because by the time this speedrun is done, we're going to break Baldur's Gate 3 with more glitches, bugs, and exploits than you can count on two hands."
Dare I jinx it, the comments seem to be more positive this around.
Meanwhile, The Baldur's Gate 3 cast created community icon Bing Bong in their D&D campaign, and now the imp has been modded into the RPG as a summon.
