Breath of the Wild speedrunner beats all 120 shrines without using runes
A new speedrunning trick involving a Korok was key to the accomplishment
A Breath of the Wild speedrunner has accomplished something never before achieved on record: beating all 120 shrines without using a single rune from the Sheikah Slate.
As Eurogamer reports, Breath of the Wild speedrunner Limcube livestreamed his entire 28-hour mission and condensed it into a more digestible half-hour video chronicling the main beats. Limcube used a variety of popular methods and exploits to get the bulk of the shrines completed, but eventually became stumped and had to experiment.
Some of the trickier shrines to beat without runes required the use a well-known trik called the Shrine Coordinate Warp (SCW), which Limcube says lets you "store the cutscene of Link entering one shrine and take it somewhere else to enter a different shrine instead." Limcube also used a combination of the SCW and what's known as "pause buffering" to enter a couple of shrines that wouldn't have otherwise been enterable without runes.
Still, Limcube found himself stumped as to how to complete the final remaining shrines, which couldn't be solved using SCW and pause buffering together. Thankfully, his faithful community had tipped him off to a trick that apparently had never been tried before. It involves using SCW, pause buffering, and a Korok hanging out near the Shoqa Tatone shrine, and it seemingly introduced a new trick to the whole Breath of the Wild speedrunning community. Limcube was beside himself as he realized the discovery he'd just made.
In the long, long wait for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, it's achievements like these that keep the original game fresh. And yet no matter how many new discoveries are made, it seems an endless amount of secrets are still waiting to be uncovered.
In the wait for the sequel, here are some games like Zelda to check out if you want an adventure.
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After scoring a degree in English from ASU, I worked as a copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. Now, as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer, I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my apartment, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.