Breath of the Wild Trick Could Shake Up Speedruns

Ever since its launch, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has made for one fascinating speedgame. Being that the game is based on various physics systems, there are a lot of possibilities for runners to do things that weren’t intended. Recently, a new exploit called the Super Speed Launch may shake up quite a few speedrun categories. We talked to Breath of the Wild runner Kaitlyn Molinas, known as “Orcastraw” online, about the launch, how it works, and if it’s viable in routing out new runs.

To get the basics of this launch, this is a combination of a few things that basically turns a Stasis launch (using the Stasis power on an object, hitting to build up energy, and then hopping on for a quick lift) into something far greater. The distance that can be achieved with this trick is something that will allow runners to cover vast distances in seconds. This appears to be caused by lag frames, which mess up some numbers in the game’s coding, allowing for this explosion of travel.

We initially learned about this due to a bunch of Tweets on the move, as well as this Reddit post from iZant that tries to explain how it works. As far as the setup for the trick goes, Orcastraw explains, “You just pause once you can pull glider during a stasis launch, and press B and X right after each other by sliding your fingers from B to X. This exits the pause menu and pulls glider immediately upon exiting the menu, which triggers the glitch. And it just be done in a laggy area, like Kakariko Village.”

She then shared some clips of experimenting with the glitch and getting it consistent. All things considered, this trick doesn’t look too hard to pull off.

Orcastraw did admit that there has to be a lag source, some way to slow down the game. We then asked which categories this could affect. She said it, “will likely affect all categories, allowing for All Dungeons to reach Rito Village faster, allowing for All Main Quests to go all the way from Death Mountain to the Kokiri Woods in one glide, and it would affect Any% as well.”

A theoretical route is also in the works and could develop into a regular part of the fastest runs. Of course this mostly goes for runs that allow the use of amiibos, but there is potential.

Wrapping up our talk, we asked Orcastraw why she keeps coming back to Breath of the Wild. She replied with, “It's a fun game to study and break down, and it's satisfying to do runs and enjoy the game. The tricks are fun, the combat is engaging, and it's a good time all around.”

How long before the Super Speed Launch is incorporated into a full run? Time will tell, but for now keeping an eye on Breath of the Wild runners could make for some amazing moments.