Elden Ring Speedrunners Declare ‘RIP Speedruns’ After Latest Patch [IGN]

The current world record holder, Distortion2, tweeted (below) “RIP Elden Ring speedruns” in response to a reduction in power for Hoarfrost Stomp (a previously extremely powerful ice spell).

Elden Ring’s first major patch made a number of changes in favour of certain playstyles – such as improving buff length time and making it easier to upgrade weapons – but other nerfs to the Icerind Hatchet and Mimic Tear spirit ashes will definitely make certain approaches harder, including speedrunning.

Rip Elden Ring Speedruns pic.twitter.com/cHzI91yEBX

— Distortion2 🕐 Elden Ring (@Distortion_2) March 17, 2022

Distortion2 isn’t the only person expressing dismay at the new patch, as Elden Ring streamer Elajjaz, who’s currently trying to complete the game with all Remembrances (major bosses) as quickly as possibly, tweeted: “Miyazaki, what have you done to my boy. RIP all Remembrance speedruns for now. Time to come up with a brand new route.”

A popular Elden Ring YouTuber called Syrobe also broke down the changes in a video, commenting that, while the Hoarfrost Stomp nerf was “necessary” and would improve PVP, it’s “going to kind of hurt speedrunners”.

He said: “Shout out to all the speedrunners that got sub 30 (minute) runs. That might be changed a little bit now unfortunately.”

Distortion2 holds the current speedrun world record, which currently sits at 28 minutes and 41 seconds, and has continued to chip seconds off his time since the game launched on February 25.

The speedrunning strategy will seemingly have to change, however, with the power of these key items now reduced. That’s not to say it will never be broken again though, as the speedrunning community regularly devises new strategies and techniques to complete games in ridiculously quick times.

In Dark Souls, for example, one of FromSoftware’s earlier titles, the speedrun world record (21 minutes and 17 seconds) was set last year, despite the game being released more than a decade ago in 2011.

The Elden Ring strategy that used these now-nerfed weapons therefore won’t be the last wildly complicated method that players use to beat the game in record time.

For a detailed breakdown of everything included in the patch notes, be sure to check out a breakdown in IGN’s Elden Ring updates guide.

The game continues to dominate the gaming sphere, topping sales charts in the United States and Europe, amassing to more than 12 million copies sold worldwide.

Just as many wacky stories have come out of Elden Ring’s success, such as players discovering a pair of fancy underwear hidden in the game. The game’s speedrun record is also being broken over and over, an infamous hacker is hunting down innocent players, Bandai Namco has made an insane advert, and it even has its own candy.

In our 10/10 review, IGN said: “Elden Ring is a massive iteration on what FromSoftware began with the Souls series, bringing its relentlessly challenging combat to an incredible open world that gives us the freedom to choose our own path.”

To make those choices with the best available information, check out our full guide that features everything you could ever hope to know about Elden Ring, including collectible locations, boss strategies, and more.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.