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The Elden Ring speedrun world record is now 6:59 thanks to an unbelievable run from Distortion2, who broke his own record with the first sub-seven minute clear.
Just yesterday, Distortion2 announced bold plans to pursue a sub-seven run after cutting Elden Ring's any% category – which simply involves hitting the end credits in any way possible – down to a scant eight minutes and change. Speedrun records usually change incrementally, with small discoveries and refinements shaving off precious seconds. But occasionally you'll see comparatively massive leaps, and with how tight this Elden Ring speedrun category has already gotten, Distortion2's latest attempt is certainly impressive.
This run leverages the familiar zip technique, which uses a perfectly timed guard frame exploit to launch players to kingdom come. Distortion2 is able to zip straight to the Four Belfreys and onto Maliketh in Farum Azula, kill him twice over with the same exploit, and then yeet himself through ashen Leyndell. By force-spawning the Elden Beast and essentially dropping it out of the world with another zip, he's then able to access the final area without actually fighting anything.
Distortion2's stream timer clocked his run at 7:01, but that's down to technical limitations and some load times. The in-game timer for his freshly made character confirms the first-ever sub-seven any% clear.
"That was the most cracked run I've ever had in my life," Distortion2 said on stream, later joking that he's effectively "killed" the any% category for Elden Ring barring any mechanical breakthroughs.
The truly mind-boggling part of this run is that Distortion2 ran into a small hurdle setting up the final zip to kill the Elden Beast. The activation frames for this exploit are incredibly tight and it took him a few extra tries to get it right. If he'd failed that last zip even one more time, a sub-seven clear would've been out of reach. But while this does technically mean a faster run is possible with the speedrun community's current understanding of the game, Distortion2 says he's done with this particular race "until new stuff is found."
An isometric tilt-brush delivers a cuter, less hectic out-of-bounds take on Elden Ring.
