Eight years after its release, Dark Souls 3 still surprises us, especially when it comes to speedrunning. Olzku just dropped a new world record, finishing the game in an insane 24 minutes and 57 seconds. Watching it, I started scratching my head about 75 seconds in, how is this even possible?
Speedruns in games like Dark Souls are a whole different beast. These games are notoriously brutal, and seeing someone breeze through areas and bosses that usually take ages is kinda wild. Olzku’s run starts fairly chill, swiftly dispatching the opening boss Gundyr while dodging most enemies. But soon, it turns into a full-on circus of speed and glitches.
Take Vordt’s area, for example. Olzku moves through it like it’s nothing, dodging slow enemies that just can’t keep up. It’s a classic speedrun move: skip fights because every second counts. Then things get nuts around Wolnir. There’s a cliff drop that unlocks a massive skip by clipping out of the map, letting Olzku bypass a considerable chunk of the game. It’s always wild to see how even the strictest game worlds can be bent with clever tricks.
When Olzku reaches Aldrich, their character goes invisible except for the torch they’re holding, and they start floating mid-air. Yep, video games, am I right? This run beat the previous record by almost a full minute, finally pushing the total time under 25 minutes. How much tighter can this get? Only time and the speedrunning community will tell.
I won’t spoil the rest, but trust me, after watching this, you might not think those bosses are as scary anymore.
