A new Elden Lord has been crowned. On April 21, Elden Ring speedrunner N1ghtglow, a Chinese player sporting a respectable profile picture of Persona 5's Haru on Speedrun.com, set a new world record for the glitchless any% category of FromSoftware's open-world epic, beating the previous holder, fellow Chinese runner Okkotsu_Yuta, by just four seconds at 52:12. That's how tight the Elden Ring races have become, but this run stands out not just because it's a bit faster, but also because it makes for incredible TV.
The YouTube version of the run mirroring the bilibili video is a one-hour Elden Ring masterclass (run time pauses during loading screens, hence the time discrepancy). Like the other world record contenders, it starts with a mad dash to one of the most overpowered weapons in the game: Death's Poker, a frostbite-stacking weapon capable of deleting bosses in seconds. The Death Rite Bird that drops it rather clumsily and mysteriously falls off a ledge – a running theme for these speedruns.
