Narcissa Wright sets Breath of The Wild World Record

May 6, 2017

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Narcissa Wright is one of the people who made speedrunning what it is today, famous for her work with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, co-founding SpeedRunsLive, and accumulating tens of millions of views on her Twitch channel.

Unfortunately, wrist injuries began to prevent her from speedrunning, as well as ending her high level Super Smash Bros. Melee play. Worse, when she came out as a trans woman she was subject to harassment and ostracisation from the community. She even briefly deleted her Twitch channel in April of last year. After that, she began to focus on art streams and games like Super Mario Maker.

But with the release of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Narcissa was excited to come out of retirement, saying that the non-linearity of the game appealed to her and that she wanted to focus on “chill, comfortable” streams of the game.

And just two months later she has achieved the world record for the fastest completion of the “all main quests” category, finishing the game in a little under four hours.

A work in progress

What with the fast moving, iterative nature of speedrunning, this record isn’t likely to stand for long. Nonetheless, it marks a triumphant return for Narcissa. And it may well be her who breaks her own record – her Patreon states that she’s focusing on developing and improving the run as she and the community learn more about the game.

I look forward to watching her run once I finally beat the game myself!

Editor’s note: Narcissa was once popular under her deadname – i.e. the name that she used before she came out. We ask that you refrain from using this name in the comments as it is a considered transphobic act and will lead to your comment being deleted. Thank you for keeping the comment section constructive!

Bio
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Jay Castello

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Jay is a freelance games writer specialising in intersectional feminist critique, how to improve games and use them to improve the world, and cute dogs. She loves inhabiting digital spaces in all their forms, and being constantly surprised by just how weird and wonderful games can be.

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Comments

5 responses to “Narcissa Wright sets Breath of The Wild World Record”

Greg Micek

May 6, 2017

I’m so torn on speedrunning, especially modern titles. I get that there’s a lot of dedication and skill required, but It’s such a curious way to enjoy a game.

Also, my Xbox achievement addiction is in the past, and TOTALLY DIFFERENT! 😉

Reply
1. Gizensha
  
  May 6, 2017
  
  I, meanwhile, understand the appeal of Speed Running, even if I don’t share it myself – It’s a form of Games As Mastery, which while not a motivation for playing games I personally have, it isn’t an uncommon one.
  
  Reply
  1. Greg Micek
    
    May 6, 2017
    
    ‘Games as Mastery’ is a great way to put it. Thinking I should check out some more speedruns to better understand them!
    
    Reply
2. Helen L.
  
  May 6, 2017
  
  Not an expert myself, but my understanding is that speed runners learn about games in a really intimate way through their exploitation of glitches and other tricks. And with Narcissa in particular, I get the sense that she now understands games differently from most people, which allows her to create cool stuff like the Mario Maker level discussed in this article: http://kotaku.com/mario-maker-stage-is-a-hellish-maze-with-seemingly-no-e-1732616660 🙂
  
  Reply
Gizensha

May 6, 2017

Impressive.

Honestly these are the sorts of speedruns I tend to be more impressed by than the usual Any % (For BotW, that apparently currently stands at a little under 40 minutes with Amiibo, about a minute slower and just over 40 minutes without Amiibo) you hear about, since those tend to eventually wind up being ‘Who can exploit the known glitches the fastest’ and ‘what weird ways are there of breaking the game’ though also tend to be the headline records people in general talk about. Which is, for me, ‘ok, cool, but… Meh’

Reply