Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom speedrunners are breaking open the game with nothing but an apple and a piece of wood

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
(Image credit: Nintendo)

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom speedrunners are utilizing incredibly lowkey setups to speed through the new game.

It's not uncommon to see speedrunners setting themselves up with a host of real-world controllers and tech to hack their way through a game in record time. That's not really the case for the latest Zelda game though, where it turns out all you need for tearing through Hyrule is a plank of wood, an apple, and the Autobuild feature.

Yep, that's literally it. The speedrunning veteran on Twitter above explains that by cancelling the Autobuild, and then reactivating the main in-game menu as soon as the cancel occurs, you effectively cancel out the function inputs for an item taking place. In this case, that's a wooden plank with an apple Fused to it.

Then you need to press against it, and the wooden plank will repeatedly attempt to bind itself back to you, which is what creates the energy here capable of moving the plank at a million miles an hour. It's mind-blowing to see Tears of the Kingdom's physics already broken open like this, considering it's barely been out for 10 days.

As we reported earlier this month when the new Zelda game first launched, the Tears of the Kingdom speedrunning record sits at 94 minutes. That could seriously change though if we see more hacks and glitches like this one above uncovered, and as with any player-generated creations in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, this speedrunning race should be truly glorious to witness unfold.

Check out our guide on how to get the Master Sword in Zelda Tears of the Kingdom to see how you can quickly get your hands on the Godly weapon.

Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.

Read more
The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
After a tough eight-year battle, a series of new glitches completely changed The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker speedruns
Botw
The Switch is the one console with a controller that splits in two, but these AGDQ speedrunners still cuddled up to break Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is at the front line of the debate over the Nintendo Switch 2's computing power, because if the Switch 1 can load three worlds at once, imagine what its sequel can do
Super Mario 64
Super Mario 64 speedrunners thought a trick that requires landing on a spot "the width of a red blood cell" was virtually impossible - now it's been done blindfolded
Mario
New Super Mario Bros Wii speedrunner gets AGDQ's standing ovation by playing the entire soundtrack on piano while beating the game with controllers strapped to his body
Super Mario 64
Behold, Super Mario 64 speedrunners can do "an absurdly lengthy and precise series" of 41 button presses to make Mario stand underwater: "This has no known practical purpose"
Latest in Action
Death Stranding 2 Collector's Edition
Hideo Kojima reveals Death Stranding 2: On the Beach release date, and the Collector's Edition includes exactly what I predicted it would
Former Xbox boss says GTA: San Andreas and its infamously NSFW Hot Coffee minigame "signified a maturing of the industry" and put games "on par with movies and music"
Death Stranding 2 PS5 screenshot
Death Stranding 2 pre-orders are estimated to go live this month, and will reportedly include a $230 collector's edition that I pray doesn't come with another creepy baby statue
Assassin's Creed Shadows Claws of Awaji expansion Naoe and Yasuke in Awaji forest
Assassin's Creed Shadows roadmap, DLC and future content
Grand Theft Auto 3
A GTA streamer is trying to beat every single 3D entry without dying, and in 33 hours he's made it as far as San Andreas but keeps getting caught in Vice City purgatory
The Last of Us 2
Naughty Dog has done it: it's remastered the PS5 controller with a Last of Us-themed DualSense announcement 24 hours after Neil Druckmann dashed our hopes for The Last of Us 3
Latest in News
Balatro
Balatro creator started "properly playing the game myself about a week before launch" and had "a pretty emotional moment" where he realized it's "actually fun"
Death Stranding 2 Collector's Edition
Hideo Kojima reveals Death Stranding 2: On the Beach release date, and the Collector's Edition includes exactly what I predicted it would
Kingmakers
Kingmakers is a strategy game about taking on medieval armies with a gun, but its devs thought the giant mech was too much
The Witcher 3 lead says "not many games" were trying to match the RPG back in 2015, and that meant "there was a risk" to making it in the first place
The Blood of Dawnwalker
The Witcher 3 dev says his new vampire RPG Blood of Dawnwalker wants to challenge genre conventions, but only if "we're changing them to actually achieve some goal"
Daredevil recap: The Defenders
Marvel fans are discussing which of the Netflix series characters would have survived the Blip