Baldur's Gate 3's leading speedrunner sets a new world record on the RPG's hardest difficulty, and it's only 12 seconds slower than the easy mode

A leading Baldur's Gate 3 speedrunner has not only set the world record in both Honour mode and Explorer mode, but they've managed to do it with only a 12-second difference between the two.

Speedrunner Mae, who currently holds the world record in several categories on Speedrun.com, has recently managed to beat the RPG on its hardest difficulty in just under 20 minutes. This would be impressive on its own, but the Baldur's Gate 3 fan has managed to only take 12 seconds longer than they did completing the game on the game's lowest difficulty mode.

This isn't the first time we've covered this player's speedrunning achievements. Previously, Mae was one of the first Baldur's Gate 3 players to beat the game in under 10 minutes - just 11 days after it was initially released - and, just a few months later, was the first person to set the Baldur's Gate 3 speedrunning world record to less than 20-minutes. Needless to say, Mae knows Baldur's Gate 3 pretty well now. 

In Mae's latest run, the one which earns them the crown for the Baldur's Gate 3 Honour Mode (Any% - all acts), they decide to use "WWE Strats." You can see this method in action via the video above, but let's just say it involves entering Baldur's Gate 3's dev rooms and letting an 11,000-pound bear perform The Rock's signature finisher move, The People's Elbow, on Ketheric Thorm - a technique this speedrunner has used before in previous runs. 

Bagging the speedrunning world record in Honour Mode didn't come without a few setbacks. In the video, at the 18 minute and 12 second mark, Mae quits to the main menu and reloads a save due to hitting a softlock where Jaheira couldn't use any actions. Since this is the only way to fix the situation (you're allowed to quit to the main menu during an Honour Mode speedrun so long as you load the same character), Mae has no choice but to lose a few seconds to reload the game. 

In other exciting news, Baldur's Gate 3 patch 6 is right around the corner. The "hefty" update is expected later this week, and includes everything from new Legendary Actions in the Honour Mode, a few bug fixes, and most importantly of all, new kiss animations - which Larian Studios shared a sneak peek of yesterday. 

Take a look at our Baldur's Gate 3 difficulty guide to find out just how much more tricky or easy the RPG can be.