10 fastest game speedruns of all time

One of the benefits of gaming is being able to play at your own pace. For some this means stretching out an epic RPG for as long as possible, while for others it means trying to beat it in a record time.

Speedrunning is an activity that involves players using skills, trickery and certain exploits to clear a game or level in the shortest time possible. Typically, this means dedicating a massive amount of time to learning the game and practicing each run repeatedly. Speedrunners usually have hundreds or even thousands of hours logged in the game.

We’ve partnered with the National Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, to highlight the differences between speeding in real life versus going as fast as possible in-game. Speedrunning is for gaming, not on the roads.

But what are the fastest game speedruns of all time? We’ve brought you ten any% speedruns that we feel are some of the most impressive times ever displayed, as recorded on Speedrun.com. Any% means that speedrunners can complete the game with any level of completion.

10. Hollow Knight Any% – 31m43s

A typical Hollow Knight playthrough can take anywhere between 30 and 80 hours. Due to its maze-like world design, tough bosses and hidden secrets, there’s no guarantee how long you’ll spend in Hallownest. But speedrunner Skate_King has cracked it in 31 minutes and 43 seconds.

For this speedrun, Skate_King plots out a route to the final boss that requires only a minimal amount of enemy encounters while also being as speedy as possible. This means beating the first few bosses to acquire some essential abilities, before heading straight to Resting Grounds to get the Dream Nail and start the final stages of the game. Altogether the run is very impressive for a game that is so tough.

9. Celeste Any% – 25m37s

Next on our list is secureaccount’s Celeste Any% speedrun that clocks in at 25 minutes and 37 seconds. Celeste is an indie gem famous for its brutal platforming difficulty, to the point where each chapter also keeps a record of your deaths due to how much you’ll be experiencing it.

Despite this, secureaccount’s run is awe-inspiring due to their careful and precise movement throughout each room. Every bit of this speedrun is cleverly routed and leaves very little room for improvement due to how perfectly it’s mapped out. You may want to watch this at half speed, because there are many moments where they move so quickly that you’re left wondering what just happened.

8. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 Any% – 12m59s

One motto synonymous with the Sonic the Hedgehog series is “Gotta go fast”, and that’s absolutely the spirit embodied by eandis’ run of Sonic The Hedgehog 2, in which they beat the Sega Genesis original in 12 minutes and 59 seconds.

For years, Sonic The Hedgehog 2 speedrunners had slowly been chipping away at the total time. For the longest time it felt like a sub-15 minute run was impossible. And now eandis holds the world record at just under 13 minutes, setting a new reputation for the blue blur.

7. Super Mario Bros. 3 Any% No Wrong Warp – 10m41s

As some of the most iconic games of the 1980s, the Super Mario Bros. trilogy is well-regarded by speedrunners for the fluidity of Mario’s movement as well as the short total length of each level. And for Super Mario Bros. 3, the world record for Any% No Wrong Warp category has barely shifted by ten seconds in the last decade.

Nonetheless, speedrunner Kuto1k set a new record for the classic Mario game last October, clocking in at a whopping 10 minutes and 41 seconds. While the previous record holder also held this time when they logged nearly two years ago, Kuto1k’s run is around 700 milliseconds faster, making it the new world record.

6. SUPERHOT VR Any% – 9m25s

Sure, speedrunning a game using a controller or a keyboard can be impressive. But you know what’s more impressive? Speedrunning a VR game. ScamHallOfFame put their fitness to the test when they submitted a run for Superhot VR, a game about shooting bad guys where time only moves when you do. You kill all the bad guys, you move onto the next room.

What’s most impressive about this run is it belongs in the “No Guns” category, meaning ScamHallOfFame only defeated bad guys using melee weapons and throwables. All while dodging bullets fired their way. We don’t even want to think about how tired they must have been after this run.

5. Super Mario 64 0 Stars – 6m20s

Super Mario 64 is one of the most speedran games and for good reason. This was the game that blew our minds in 1996, standardising many features still seen in 3D games today. This makes it the perfect title for speedrunning due to how exploitable it is. The objective of the game is to collect stars to unlock new levels.

While full 120 star speedruns can take just over an hour and a half to complete, Any% runs of Super Mario 64, also known as ‘0 Star Runs’, are much shorter. Runner GreenSuigi proves this with their 6 minute and 20 second run of the game, in which they collect no stars at all and hightail it to the end of the game.

4. Portal Any% – 5m53s

If you’ve ever watched a Portal speedrun, you’ll be aware of the kinds of physics and exploits players use to bypass certain levels. It’s an attribute of the Source Engine and Havok physics engine being the way it is, that allows players to break levels in ways you won’t ever believe.

Take Can’t Even’s Portal world record for instance, in which they are able to gain out of bounds on the level geometry and fire portals to areas that appear much later in the game. There are loads of ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ moments in this run and it’s an impressive feat.

3. Minecraft: Bedrock Edition – 5m25s

Minecraft is an open-ended game, and thus you might not even know there is an ending to the game. It involves travelling to a realm called The End and defeating the Enderdragon to see the ending. And this is what a majority of Minecraft speedruns are centered around.

In Danny15’s glitched speedrun world record, in which they gain a time of 5 minutes and 25 seconds, they accomplish this within a short space of time. In fact, due to glitches, they don’t even end up fighting the Enderdragon at all.

2. Ocarina of Time Any% – 3m50s

One of the most popular games to speedrun is Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. This is due to its age, being over 25 years old, meaning that speedrunners have poured in countless hours to learning how the game functions and finding ways to exploit it for their gain.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a long game, but thankfully some speedrunners have found ways to trim it down. And speedrunner Murph has successfully completed an Any% run of the game in just under four minutes. Considering the amount of time that went into discovering these glitches, it’s an incredible feat.

1. Minesweeper Beginner – 0m01s

Minesweeper on beginner mode is perhaps the most surprising, yet also unsurprising, entry to our list of the fastest speedruns recorded. It’s a simple game of clicking various squares on a grid, and using numerical clues to determine which squares have bombs on them (thus ending your game early), and which reward points. The game ends when you have cleared all possible squares.

Runner SheenSimpson uploaded a video to their YouTube channel in which they are seen repeatedly starting new games in order to get a decent grid. At the 25 second mark, they are able to finish a game of Minesweeper using only two clicks, for a total time of 1 second.