After Nearly 15 Years, Barrier Skipping is Possible in The Wind Waker

For as long as video games have been around, there have been people trying to beat them in the fastest time possible. This has led the speedrunning community to find the craziest glitches, exploits, and tricks. In the case for The Legend of Zelda franchise, these findings culminated in tricks such as Back in Time for Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword, Wrong Warping in Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, and even Arbitrary Code Execution in the original The Legend of Zelda. However, The Wind Waker seemed so perfectly coded in the sense that Sequence Breaking just wasn’t possible, leaving many runners dead in their tracks while searching for a rumored Barrier Skip.

Barrier Skip is the Holy Grail of The Wind Waker glitches, as it would let you bypass the barrier surrounding Hyrule Castle immediately after pulling the Master Sword. This would allow runners to skip the Wind Temple and Earth Temple, immediately enter Ganon’s Tower, and beat the final dungeon of the game. In The Wind Waker SD (a slang term some runners use when referring to The Wind Waker on the Gamecube), Barrier Skip was not possible, as it extended infinitely in height and width. However, with the use of another glitch discovered in The Wind Waker HD called Item Sliding, runners could build up enough speed and aim at the perfect angle to push Link outside the barrier.

This discovery was 15 years in the making, and could be seen as one of the biggest skips found in any Zelda game. For comparison, the current world record for The Wind Waker HD is 1:35:57, a full 2 hours ahead of the previous world record before Barrier Skip was discovered and implemented, which sat at 3:38:24. What do you guys think? Are you overjoyed by the discovery of a Sequence Break thought to be impossible? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: Nintendo Prime