Baldur's Gate 3 Player Sets Incredible New Speedrun Record

Baldur’s Gate 3 Player Sets Incredible New Speedrun Record

• Canadian speedrunner Mae beat all three acts of Baldur’s Gate 3 in 19 minutes and 20 seconds, excluding loading times.
• Her achievement marks the first sub-20 minute run in the Any% (All Acts) category.
• Mae currently holds two other Baldur’s Gate 3 speedrun world records.

One incredibly skilled Baldur’s Gate 3 speedrunner managed to beat all three of the game’s acts in about 19 minutes. Apart from being impressive in its own right, this achievement also marks the world’s first complete Baldur’s Gate 3 run that’s in the sub-20 minutes territory.

The speedrunning community has been enjoying Larian’s hit RPG since the game first hit early access in late 2020. At that time, a 7-minute run through Act 1 was considered an impressive feat. Three years later, the Canadian speedrunner Mae achieved a notable milestone by reaching one of the semi-secret endings of Baldur’s Gate 3 in under ten minutes. She continued to refine her technique in the Any% category, ultimately reducing her time to approximately three and a half minutes.

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With that world record under her belt, the player turned to the self-explanatory Any% (All Acts) category. Her efforts have most recently culminated in an astonishing Baldur’s Gate 3 speedrun that was only 19 minutes and 20 seconds long, loading times excluded. As per usual, Mae recorded her attempt and submitted it to Speedrun.com, which subsequently verified it as the new world record in this bracket. The only caveat attached to the achievement is that the run itself is segmented, meaning it features several splits.

None of the techniques employed to achieve this incredible time were new, just executed to near-perfection. For example, the majority of the run features Mae abusing Enhance Leap—which triples a given character’s jumping distance—in order to move around the map as quickly as possible. The speedrunner also made good use of a clever Druid technique that allows Baldur’s Gate 3 players to do a ridiculous amount of damage by transforming a character into a beast, enlarging them twice, and then jumping on an enemy; that’s exactly how she made short work of the Act 2 boss that ended up succumbing to a 5-ton bear that was actually Shadowheart.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Speedrun World Records

Category

Player

Time

Load Removed time

Run Date

Any%

maeeeeee

4m 32s

3m 31s 250ms

September 18, 2023

Any% (All Acts/Explorer Mode)

maeeeeee

21m 33s

19m 20s

January 25, 2024

Any% (All Acts/Honour Mode)

Chronos

25m 46s 480ms

22m 54s 140ms

January 5, 2024

Sex% (Pre-Patch 4)

maeeeeee

2m 21s

1m 58s 680ms

October 20, 2023

Following this turn of events, Mae now holds the world records in three-quarters of the main Baldur’s Gate 3 speedrunning brackets. Those include the joke Sex% category, which challenges players to see who can romance Lae’zel the fastest. The only title she is currently missing is that of the quickest player to beat all three acts of the game in Honour Mode. The Baldur’s Gate 3 Honour Mode world record currently belongs to Chronos, a U.S.-based speedrunner who managed to complete the game’s ultimate challenge in under 23 minutes, loading times excluded.

Time will tell whether Mae’s newly secured world record will stand for long. But what’s clear already is that five months into its release, Baldur’s Gate 3 remains one of the most popular RPGs in the speedrunning community.

Baldur’s Gate 3

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a Dungeons and Dragons inspired RPG developed and published by Larian Studios. Featuring both a single player and cooperative element, players create their character by selecting a starting class, take on quests, level up, and engage in turn-based combat using the D&D 5th edition rule set.

FranchiseBaldur’s GatePlatform(s)Xbox Series X, PS5, PC, macOS, StadiaReleased2023-08-03Developer(s)Larian StudiosPublisher(s)Larian StudiosGenre(s)RPGESRBM for Mature: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, ViolenceHow Long To Beat30 HoursMetascore96Split Screen OrientationVertical OnlyNumber of Players1-4PS Plus AvailabilityN/ALocal Co-Op Support1-2 Players See at Official SiteSee at SteamSee at Playstation StoreSee at Xbox Games Store