Category: Dungeon Runners

This post was co-authored by Josh Wittmershaus and Kora Burton. The Zelda Runners take a trip down under for this year’s AUS Speedrun Marathon, which was held from July 16-21, 2024 in Adelaide, Australia. This year featured a Friday filled with about 12 hours of Zelda titles, including a 100% run of Skyward Sword HD, a unique tower-based race in Breath of the Wild, and a randomizer race in A Link to the Past. Amidst all the running that happened…

The Legend of Zelda series has few games as iconic in the speedrunning world as Ocarina of Time. Scanning the leaderboards on Speedrun.com, the famous “Defeat Ganon” route’s top ten runners all use GameCube. You’ll also find that many categories, including Any% and 100%, opt for playing it on the Wii Virtual Console (VC).  This is because of the way the console emulates the game, opening the door to a vital glitch called Lightnode Stale Reference Manipulation (SRM in speedrunner…

This post was co-authored by Kristen G. Rosario. This year’s Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ) featured three Zelda titles — A Link to the Past, Twilight Princess, and Ocarina of Time. We here at Zelda Dungeon loved watching the stream, especially since it showcased some of the series’ most beloved titles. But beyond the action on the stream, our team also had the privilege of getting exclusive interviews with the runners from each game. So, kick back and relax (antithetical for speedrunners, we know),…

The enthusiasm of the Zelda community is unmatched, and this mentality translates to its speedrunners. It won’t be long after release until avid glitch hunters and runners find route optimizations and exploits for Echoes of Wisdom. People are already guessing how this might look. Animated sketch comic Matthew McCleskey docked up a laugh-out-loud interpretation of how Echoes of Wisdom speedruns may look in the iconic Joel Haver style. This was a delightful follow-up to his previous installment for Tears of…

Games Done Quick (GDQ), which organizes speedrunning marathons for charity, has released its full schedule of games to be featured at the upcoming Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ) 2024 event. The week-long marathon will take place from Sunday, June 30th through Saturday, July 6th in Minneapolis, MN, and it will be streamed live on Twitch. The schedule includes three Zelda titles — A Link to the Past, Twilight Princess, and Ocarina of Time — and they are all set for Friday, July…

Nintendo’s habit of dropping big news out of nowhere seems to be as strong as ever. Following yesterday’s announcement of “Switch successor” news coming within this fiscal year, the company released a trailer this morning for a new retro-focused title coming soon to Switch. Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition brings the spirit of competition to a collection of classics from the NES era, including The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Metroid, and more. Inspired by Nintendo’s in-person championship events…

Summer Games Done Quick, the annual speedrunning marathon for charity, is set to kick off on July 3. The event’s massive, week-long schedule was recently announced by organizers, and it looks like viewers have a great number of exciting speedruns to look forward to. Among the seven days worth of speedruns, Summer Games Done Quick’s schedule will include runs of five different Zelda games, such as a Glitchless run of Ocarina of Time, a 100% run of Link’s Awakening DX, and an Any% run of A Link Between Worlds…

The beauty of the speedrunning scene for The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, and it’s 3D remake, is that there’s so many different ways for you to speed run the game. There’s 100% and Any% of course, but then there’s also All Masks, 5 Masks, 10 Masks, and All Fairy Rewards routes…

There have been a number of glitches and bugs discovered in Zelda games over the years, with many causing some really strange outcomes for players. YouTube series Did You Know Gaming? recently released an episode examining many such Zelda glitches, providing insight into how these glitches work and how players have exploited them for amazing results. Hosted by YouTube glitch expert A+Start, the episode looks at several Zelda glitches used for speedrunning and more…

There have always been differences in opinion when it comes to Zelda speed running. Some gamers enjoy doing or watching glitched runs because they want to see/play through all the ins and outs of a Zelda game. Others disagree and believe that any form of a time trial-style run of the game should be done in a more traditional, glitchless kind of way. The most recent speed run of a title from the Zelda series will please the latter as a world record has been made on an iconic Zelda game…