Zelda: Breath of the Wild speedrunner blazes through Trial of the Sword in under 44 minutes
And 54 minutes on Master Mode.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's recent Master Trials DLC adds a three-part series of combat arenas called the Trial of the Sword. This 51-level obstacle course provides a stiff challenge that took roughly four hours for anyone to conquer upon its launch a week and a half ago. Now that it's been out for a bit, people have taken to speedrunning it with impressive results.
At the moment the record seems to be held by YouTuber Loloup, who has bested this arduous challenge in 43 minutes and 45 seconds. Given that a handful of the levels are rest-stops, the Trial of the Sword consists of 45 actual combat challenges, meaning they blazed through each one in less than a minute on average. That's very impressive when you think about it, especially when some of the later arenas are filled with multiple Guardians.
"I know I can still save a few more minutes on my run," Loloup said of this record. "Sub 40 should be possible in a few days."
The Master Trials DLC also includes a new extra hard difficulty setting called Master Mode and Loloup seems to have the world record for speeding through the Trial of the Sword on this difficulty as well.
On Master Mode it takes them a bit longer at 54 minutes and 36 seconds. The major differences here are that enemies deal more damage, have more health, and regain their HP if you leave them alone for too long.
"I feel like the time can be very similar to normal mode with a little bit more optimisation, sub 50 should be pretty easy," the speedrunner stated.
A big part of what makes Trial of the Sword so difficult is that you can't carry an of your gear into it. You begin as Link in his skivvies without a sword, shield, bow, or mushroom to his name and must collect your goods on-site. The only stats that carry over are your health meter and stamina wheel, along with any time-sensitive status effect you have from scarfing down food or potions before entering the arena.