Baldur's Gate 3 left early access on PC on August 3, and already, one speedrunner has managed to roll credits in just over 10 minutes (10 minutes and three seconds, to be exact). I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that that’s astonishingly fast.
Larian Studios’ latest (and potentially greatest) RPG is absolutely enormous. Prior to the game’s release, the founder of Larian, Swen Vincke, told IGN that it was estimated that an average run of Baldur’s Gate 3 would probably take anywhere between 75 and 100 hours, with completionists expected to double that time.
So then, how on earth did speedrunner Mae manage to complete it so fast? I can tell you, but there's one slight problem - explaining the method involves discussing some spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 3, and in particular, significant events in Act 2. Needless to say, if you don’t want to be spoiled, scroll far away now, and live on with the knowledge that someone has finished a vast game in an extraordinarily short amount of time, and that’s really neat.
Okay, this is your final spoiler warning. Have you scrolled away yet? Good. As PC Gamer reports, this entire strategy centers around Gale. Long story short, without getting too spoiler-heavy, it’s possible to get an early ending if you have Gale in your party at the end of Act 2 because of a certain choice that he’s able to make. If you’ve already gotten to this point in the game, I’m sure you'll know what I’m talking about, and why this is usually a pretty bad choice as far as the game itself goes, but enacting it means that you can get to the credits far quicker than usual.
Obviously though, the speedrunner still had to get to the end of Act 2 in the first place. They skillfully used Misty Step to skip the fight with Ketheric Thorm, and also made use of the Enhanced Leap and Sanctuary spells to move faster and ignore some more encounters.
It’s a wild way to get to the credits, but in the speedrunning world, a win is a win.
Need more juicy video games in your life? Be sure to take a look at our lists of the best PC games and best RPGs.
