New Any% Speedrun World Record Set in The Wind Waker

Speedruns of The Wind Waker continue to be some of the biggest endurance challenges in Zelda speedrunning, with the current best times clocking in at just under four hours. Speedrunner Cha0ticAce (or simply Ace) has proven his endurance and skill several times over the past several months by continuing to improve on the game’s Any% world record. His most recent achievement occurred yesterday, with the runner completing The Wind Waker in 3 hours, 56 minutes, and 53 seconds.

Ace’s time of 3:56:53 — the first Any% world record for The Wind Waker of 2016 and the first one under 3 hours, 57 minutes — is an improvement over his previous record of 3:57:59. Considering speedrunners typically aim to shave mere seconds off a best time, the fact that Ace bested the previous record by over a minute is definitely impressive. The runner has been incrementally breaking his own records over the last several months, having broke a record by runner Demon9 last October with a time of 3:59:43. Ace conducted the run on the Japanese version of The Wind Waker.

Any% speedruns in The Wind Waker are some of the most entertaining to watch in terms of their escalation. The run begins as a fairly standard playthrough of the game with minor optimizations thrown in, but escalates greatly when Link starts flying across the Great Sea at high speeds thanks to a glitch called the “Wind Waker Dive.” Further glitches and sequence breaks help to keep this run exciting and tense, all the way to the climactic battle at the end.

Any% is a speedrunning category in which runners must complete a game as quickly as possible, with no additional completion requirements or restrictions. Glitches and exploits found in the game (not those produced by a cheat device or hacking) are completely acceptable in this category.

What did you think of the run? Share your thoughts with us in the comments! Please be aware that glitches are an accepted practice and please be respectful to those who enjoy these types of speedrunners.

Source: ZeldaSpeedRuns

Rod Lloyd

Rod Lloyd is the Editor-In-Chief at Zelda Dungeon, overseeing the news and feature content for the site. Rod is considered the veteran of the writing team, having started writing for Zelda Informer in 2014 as a Junior Editor. After ZD and ZI officially merged in 2017, he stepped into the Managing Editor role and has helped steer the ship ever since. He stepped up to lead the writing team as Editor-In-Chief in 2023.
You can reach Rod at: rod.lloyd@zeldadungeon.net