Never doubt the ability of speedrunners to make a big game seem small. Crimson Desert might be a huge, fantastical playground, but the record for hitting credits is already down to sub-12 hours, and there are a couple of players already competing for top place in the rankings.
As of now, the world record on Speedrun.com is 11 hours, 26 minutes, and 14 seconds. That's the pace set by harpo669, a Crimson Desert fan based in Quebec, Canada. He clocked this run only a couple of days ago at time of writing, on May 4, rolling credits over 50 hours faster than the average story-focused player on HowLongToBeat, and trimming almost a full hour off the time of his nearest speedrun rival.
I say that like the leaderboard is stacked. So far, only one other runner has clocked in, GuryDub from the good old United States of America, who broke the seal on Crimson Desert speedrunning, with an impressive best time of 12 hours, 20 minutes, and three seconds. For such a large game that's been out less than two months, these are impressive times.
"Good run overall, need more practice for the Tank bosses and bad robot fight," Harpo669 modestly says in the description of his winning run submission. He doesn't add much else to his stream, other than palpable exhaustion and relief once he's actually done. After nearly 12 hours of constant play, I can imagine he was wrecked, but it sounds like he's not done trying to improve his record.
This is the longest game he's run by a wide margin, his last being the JRPG Trials of Mana, his highest time on which is two hours, 49 minutes and two seconds for No Major Glitches, winning him second place in that category. Before that, it's all SNES and NES games – not libraries where you find many releases that'll take you 12 hours to beat in a single sitting if you know what you're doing.
For their part, GuryDub believes the final boss in Crimson Desert doesn't live up to the rest of the game. "Even for a 12-hour run, this is so unfulfilling," they say as they complete the story. I'll leave out other details, because spoilers, but Pearl Abyss, you need to step it up next time, it seems.
You can read our Crimson Desert review to find out why it's one of the most popular new games for 2026.
