When I finished Bloodborne on Sunday afternoon, my playtime was 46 hours, 21 minutes, and 13 seconds. The current world record is, well, way faster. How much faster? Itās 44 minutes!
As soon as Bloodborne was released, people started digging into the game and finding ways to break it. Sometimes, itās glitches that allow you to easily defeat bosses. In this case, itās finding a way into the last third of the game long before youāre āsupposedā to be over there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO0KxiHxK5A
Letās break down a recent run by YouTube user Oginam_tv. This is an any% speedrun, by the way, which means glitches and exploits are fair game.
Anyone playing Bloodborne will be familiar with this jerk from the gameās starting area:
Heās one of the most powerful creatures early on, capable of wrecking you with a single blow. When I first came across him, I was stupidly cocky, died immediately, and didnāt come back until I could fully whoop him. (I did). For Oginam_tv, though, clearing him out is crucial.
Once heās down for the count, itās time for a little jumping action. How come? Just over that fence on the righthand side is a shortcut that most players wonāt unlock until far later into the game, but when done, quickly links you to a creepy place called the Forbidden Woods.
There are two jumps he needs to pull off to make this work.
Thanks for the boost, coffin! (I wonder if theyāll move that in a patch? Hmm.) Once heās up there, thereās another jump required. Next up, the fence.
With that done, he slides down a ladder, navigates through a swamp, and emerges in the Forbidden Woods. If youāre playing Bloodborne like an average player, you wonāt find the Forbidden Woods for many hours. This should be obvious, but this path isnāt recommended!
The big question, then, is how heās able to tackle some of the gameās powerful bosses without having spent hours leveling up. He takes advantage of the item duplication trick that Patricia outlined this morning.
While Iām sure later speedrunners will find ways to defeat bosses without resorting to power levelingāand From Software is sure to remove the item duplication in a future patchāthis lays out an early template for finishing Bloodborne as fast as possible.
In fact, watching this run, itās easy to see how itāll improve. He spends several minutes trying to pull off the initial jump, gets hit too many times, and has to spend precious seconds healing.
As for me, Iām pretty happy with my 46 hours!
You can reach the author of this post at [emailĀ protected] or on Twitter at @patrickklepek
