10 Lengthy Video Games That Were Absolutely Obliterated By Speedrunners

Speed-running; the art of blasting through a video game as quickly as possible. It's been a constant fixture of the medium for decades and has reached peak popularity in recent years with organisations like "Awesome Games Done Quick" raising thousands for charities across the world. These events are widely attended and adored by the community, plus it showcases the best talent around who make a living absolutely destroying our favorite games.

Even titles that would take the average player forty plus hours to complete are sometimes polished off in under three. It's a shocking and humbling experience to watch glitches and exploits cut experiences in half, and the skill and memory required to pull off even one of these shortcuts would make many of us cry.

And while we might arguably have a "better" experience taking our time and uncovering secrets at our own leisure, there's no denying the power of these players when it comes to obliterating titles for world records.

The first title on the list needs no introduction; as one of the most popular games of the last decade, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim provides players with literally hundreds of hours of gameplay thanks to it's overwhelming amount of quests and side activities to take part in.

In terms of length, Skyrim is easily the longest entry we have; because of the endless push to boost your character, countless number of play-styles and considerable mod support, each playthrough is comprised of hundreds, potentially thousands of real-time hours. However, this hasn't stopped players from exploiting the many bugs within its code to cut that right down.

Whether it's five minutes to complete the Dragonborn questline or twenty-five to finish the main quest, speed-runners have torn this sprawling RPG asunder. In a game that's meant to last you thousands of hours, blazing your way through in less than the time it takes to bake a sweetroll almost feels like disrespect.

Two main records are currently held by YouTube user "Waz" with times of 22:58 and 5:19 minutes for the main and dragonborn quests respectively. By skipping across entire portions of the opening game, rapidly traversing the map and glitching through gaps in the terrain, he was able to make these achievements at a rapid rate.