What takes less than 24 minutes to do? Cook a meal for friends? Watch an episode of your favourite TV show? Meditate? How about complete the main quest in Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic adventure, Fallout 3?
No matter how massive and seemingly infinite a game’s depth and storyline is, someone will always find a way to clock the main quest in record time. There are a slew of gamers out there who are dedicated to finding the quickest path to a story’s conclusion, and Fallout 3 is no exception.
Reportedly setting a new world record, Youtube user BubblesDelFuego managed to finish the epic game in 23 minutes and 55 seconds. It may sound like an impossible feat given Fallout 3‘s immense size, but it’s worth noting that the video is subtitled as an “any% speedrun,” meaning all the player needed to do was complete the main quest as quickly as possible.
How is such a task even possible without cheats? There are numerous techniques involved in speedruns, and before anybody screams “fake!” at the screen, you can read an FAQ of how it was done here.
The concept of “speedrunning” a game has a history dating back to the mid-90’s when PC gamers would record demo footage of themselves completing various Doom maps. By 1997, people began to do entire playthroughs of id Software’s follow-up title, Quake, which made way for the Quake Done Quick project and led to the popular speedrun website, Speed Demos Archive.
Check out the Fallout 3 speedrun video above and let us know if you’re as impressed with it as we are.