Speedrunner breaks Super Mario Bros world record by the thinnest of margins

After years of attempts, speedrunner Kosmic broke the warpless world record for the original Super Mario Bros, finishing the game with the quickest time ever recorded. 

Super Mario Bros has a couple of speedrunning categories. First, there are warps, in which players are allowed to use the pipes to skip stages. Then there’s warpless, where the player must go through every stage in the game flawlessly.

For over 12 years, every other record was over 19:00 minutes, but that all changed when Kosmic finished the game with 18:59.856. This is the first time in history Super Mario Bros has been completed in under 19 minutes.

“For over 12 years the World Record for beating Super Mario Bros. Warpless has been 19:XX, but TODAY THAT CHANGED. I finally did it! I got 18:59.856!!! First 18:XX ever!!!” an excited Kosmic tweeted on August 14.

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The entire run was something to behold as it requires near flawless execution throughout with the smallest error ruining the whole attempt.

Upon completion, the new record-holder’s reaction was priceless. “Did I do it?!” he shockingly asked his stream. “Did I finally do it, dude?” (Timestamp 19:18 for mobile users)

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“I don’t know for sure,” he added, staring at the timer. When it comes down to runs like these with every fraction of a second counting, you can never be too positive. “I really hope it’s a .9 as it says.”

“We gotta re-time it to be sure, but I think we finally got the 18. Holy cow…”

Eventually, the freshly-crowned king of Mario speedrunning realized the clock is right and after years of attempts, it happened.

Kosmic, however, isn’t done trying to lower the record even more. “This isn’t the end of the line though. I see humans taking warpless down to at least 18:54 some day in the future. I don’t think I’ll take it that far, but I will be taking it down to at least 18:58 and maybe 18:57 and beyond! Tune into my twitch stream to watch my attempts live!” he wrote on a YouTube video of the incredible run.

Prior to this, the best record 19m 00s 954ms set by GTAce99 on August 10.