Between hunting for weapons, fighting bosses, and completing Hyrule’s many side quests, gamers who choose to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in its entirety can spend upward of 50-100 hours preparing for its final boss. Of course, some players choose to abandon the game’s guidance and instead speedrun beating the final boss without preparation, and that’s exactly what Twitch streamer Player5 did — 50 times in one day.
On January 15, Player5 managed to beat Breath of the Wild 50 times in just under 23 hours. The full stream is replayable on his Twitch channel, where they also claimed the current Any% world record for Breath of the Wild speedruns.
“I decided to do it early January, although a friend of mine TheRealNoman had the idea probably ~1 year ago,” Player5 told IGN. “I also had seen Simply run SM64 1200 star (10 120 star speedruns in a row) pretty recently, so I figured it would be a fun challenge.”
I just beat BotW 50 times in 24 hours ? Thanks everyone who stopped by and kept me awake for this! pic.twitter.com/YBZXnQBez0
— Player 5 (@Player5SR) January 15, 2023
As pointed out by GamesRadar+, Player5’s fastest completion time during this marathon was 24:16, with a relatively similar average time of 25:23. However, achieving this precise timing wasn’t easy.
“The hardest moment was trying not to get annoyed by the small mistakes I was making around the 18-20 hour mark,” they said. “I knew I was capable of much better, but getting tilted just makes everything worse.”
Player5 was confident in the consistency of an Any% run through Breath of the Wild, and their marathon challenge run only served to prove it.
“I guess I also learned that I’m still able to play well even after 20 hours of constant playing,” they said.
Player5’s impressive run is the latest addition to Breath of the Wild’s long history of speedruns and challenges, which includes this player who completed the game without crossing their path once and this YouTuber who opened a chest that no other player could open for four years.
Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN who loves all things indie and Nintendo. Outside of IGN, they’ve contributed to sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.
