Dark Souls 3 is one of those video games that most players end up throwing their controllers at because of its difficulty.
However, one gamer, Distortion2, still managed to pull off the impossible: he completed Dark Souls 3 in just little over an hour.
This wasn't just any ordinary gamer, though: Distortion2 is a speedrunner, meaning that he knows all the ins and outs, as well as the cheats and tricks, in how to get through a game in record time. That means he probably played Dark Souls 3 over and over until he got that gameplay down to a speedy science. For Distortion2, that time was originally one hour, 12 minutes and 46 seconds. However, he then beat that record by knocking a minute off of that.
What makes this even more impressive is that Distortion2 got through these playthroughs and still managed to defeat all the game's bosses (which isn't required). That means he spent a lot of time optimizing his fighting style to quickly take out those difficult opponents.
Here's video of his most recent speedrun: watch as he blows through each boss without even blinking.
Distortion2 did use some important strategies during gameplay: because the animation of a door opening and closing is relatively slow, he discovered that it's faster to actually close the game and reload it when using doors. He also played the game on the PC, which means that the fps rate is higher than on a console: no waiting around for things to load properly. He obviously also has a high-end PC with an excellent graphics card, which Dark Souls 3 ultimately requires. Finally, he took advantage of the spook spell that allowed him to take shortcuts from point A to point B by jumping off cliffs without damage.
Speedrunners take delight in learning about all these little techniques that get them through games faster, and as there are quite a few speedrunners, don't expect Distortion2's record to last for long: someone out there is already working on being better and faster.
Dark Souls 3 released on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on March 24 in Japan and April 12 everywhere else. The title quickly became a bestseller, and its release gave Bandai Namco its most successful video game launch to date.
