Elden Ring glitches let you beat the game in under 40 minutes

Elden Ring speedruns take the 100-hour adventure and cram it into as little as 36 minutes. 

The speedrunning community has always rallied around FromSoftware games, and Elden Ring is no exception. The difficult game is intended to take around 100 hours to complete, but speedrunners quickly cracked the code to beat the game in under an hour. By using a combination of glitches and extreme skill, the current world record for Elden Ring is 36 minutes, 20 seconds with faster times likely inbound.

The current world record-holder for Elden Ring speedrunning is Distortion2. They originally set the first sub-50 minute run on March 10 and has continued to chop off time every day. 

The current best run included a few mistakes such as a death to the Godskin duo and some bad luck on the Sellia Crystal Tunnel fast drop. Distortion2 or another runner is likely to set an even faster Elden Ring speedrun record in the coming days.

The current meta route for Elden Ring speedruns is to grab the Glintstone Key and enter Raya Lucaria. From there, players drop down into Sellia Crystal Tunnel and teleport to Volcano Manor. After visiting Roundtable Hold, the player uses a teleport stone in Liurnia to go to War Counselor Iji. After a few more checkpoints, Distortion2 uses another teleporter at the Four Belfries to reach Crumbling Farum Azula. 

By abusing another teleport point and a well-timed quit out, players can trick the game into teleporting them to another area of Farum Azula. All that’s left is to fight the final boss gauntlet and finish the game.

Glitches used in Elden Ring speedruns

Elden Ring speedruns actually use very few glitches compared to previous FormSoftware titles. The majority of the run consists of riding to specific locations on Torrent, but there are a few unintended strategies used to speed things up.

The first major Elden Ring speedrun glitch is using a specific enemy’s grab attack to fall down to Sellia Crystal Tunnel safely. Since the player is in an enemy’s grab animation, they will not take fall damage after the drop. From there, the player dies to an Abductor Virgin, which intentionally teleports the player to Volcano Manor. 

The biggest Elden Ring speedrun glitch involves a wrongwarp that sends the player straight to the Crumbling Farum Azula. This glitch involves another Site of Grace in Altus Plateau and quitting the game at a specific moment. After reaching Farum Azula with the Four Belfries teleporter, the player can trick the game into putting them at a different Farum Azula Site of Grace. This basically puts the character right in front of the final five boss fights.

The Icerind Hatchet is the premier weapon for Elden Ring speedruns, as the weapon skill chunks down bosses and applies frostbite. It is used in tandem with the Resolve weapon skill from the Samurai starting class. The hatchet annihilates most bosses including gank fights like the Abductor Virgins and Godskin Duo.