The greatest speedrun in Minecraft history.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with speedrun in video games. It is a practice that generally consists of reaching the end of a game as quickly as possible. On games that have been speedrun for a long time, existing methods are pushed to the extreme

And the times achieved thanks to the said method are always tighter, with increasingly tough competition at the top of the rankings, players fighting for mere seconds. And you can imagine that if the players are fighting for seconds, the minutes have a completely different weight.

If on the most speedrunned games, the Grail is to get the world record. There is something even more exceptional. Breaking game history by being the first to pass in the minute before, to break the barrier that keeps speedrunners in their current minute.

And on Minecraft, one of the most popular games of all time and one of the most speedrunned games on the planet, an individual has just smashed the bar that resisted speedrunners until now in one of the most impressive moments in the history of the game.

To understand all this, we’ll have to go back to the basics. For those who don’t know Minecraft, it’s a very simple game. You appear in a randomly generated world made up of cubes that you can break, retrieve and place wherever you want. That’s it. And that’s how the game is usually played.

Alone or with friends, you make some tools. You use some blocks, you build beautiful houses or more, it’s up to you. If you are tempted by the idea of starting an adventure with acquaintances or friends, I can only recommend Minestrator, a minecraft server hosting company

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It is usually launched without a real goal in mind. The limits of the game are the combined imaginations of the players who play Minecraft together. So how is it possible to speedrun this game if it has no ending?

In fact, the game has a theoretical ending that usually never really marks the end of the game, but was planned as such. An ending that consists of killing the so-called Ender dragon, a creature that lives in a parallel dimension. For a normal player not initiated to speedrun,

It can take days to get enough equipment and resources to face the dragon. It’s not just about completing a game very quickly. It’s about finishing a very complicated game very quickly. And it is with this in mind that you should look at what follows. So when you want to speedrun Minecraft,

The timer starts when you create a new world and it stops shortly after you kill the dragon Ender. Between these two points, there are mandatory steps and three dimensions that you will have to explore. The first dimension is the normal world.

You must recover what will allow you to access the second dimension, the Nether in which you will have to recover what will allow you to reach the third dimension. The End. And that’s where the Ender dragon can be killed. It’s as simple as that. There are many different versions of Minecraft

And many ways to finish it. But the category that we’ll focus on is the most popular one which consists of finishing a game of Minecraft as quickly as possible on a specific version, without using a bug on a random world. And that’s the last part of my sentence that makes it extremely complicated.

You arrive in a randomly created world, which you obviously do not know. The structures are not in the same place, nor are the biomes. In short, the challenge for speedrunners, is to finish a game that is never really the same.

And if you think the people who decided to take on this task are crazy… I agree. To me, that’s crazy. An exercise so absurd that it would almost seem silly to try. But there’s something that, despite everything, fascinates me. Because what Minecraft speedrunners do is tame randomness.

They master to perfection the things they can master to perfection and put all their chances aside to tame the unknown, limit the damage caused by randomness. And to show you what it looks like when it’s done by someone who’s fully committed to it,

We will look together at the run that caused this video. Zylenox, an American, former player and creator of Geometry Dash levels who streams regularly on Twitch and this is the case again. That’s why you see this chat on the left and some subscription alerts, but do not pay attention to it.

Zylenox, before we play the game we’re going to watch, is already in second place in the world ranking with a time of 8 minutes and 27 seconds. The only one standing in front of him at this point is another American Doogile, who finished the game in 8 minutes and 15 seconds.

And these two times are absolutely absurd times. It is important to know that at the time I am shooting this video, there are only 6 players who managed to pass the 8 minutes mark. Imagine the run it would take to pass the 7 minute mark. Let’s not think about that for the moment.

The goal for Zylenox is to take the world record. To finish Minecraft in less than 8 minutes and 15 seconds. So let’s go, start of the speedrun and you can already observe the first method used by speedrunners to fight against randomness. If the world you arrive in will determine your time,

Why not just choose a world from the start between 15 different worlds? Here, Zylenox quickly searches for the world that suits him best. He clicks on it and then it can start. The first objective. Get to the second dimension, the Nether, with the right equipment.

And the fastest way to do this is to find a hidden chest that are usually found with a card but which speedrunners locate with a rather complex technique that I will not detail, but it requires pressing F3 which displays a whole list of data

Some of which allow you to locate a whole lot of things, in this case, a chest. And this is the method used by Zylenox absurdly quickly, which allows him to empty the contents of the chest in question. He will then use the TNT that was there to break some blocks

That can still be used and especially a tree with which he makes tools. And you can already see the speed at which he is making them. And no, it’s not accelerated. The goal now is to build a Nether portal to reach the second dimension, which is usually done by breaking the obsidian blocks

And putting them to form a portal. Or for more experienced players, by placing buckets of lava and placing water right next to it, which turns the lava directly into obsidian. But speedrunners are even smarter since they recover their lava directly at the bottom of an underwater fault.

This means that as soon as they put the lava in the right place, the sea water transforms it immediately into obsidian. And it is important to know that the construction of portals is one of the things that speedrunners train very hard for because the blocks are never really in the same place.

So they made training maps for themselves on which they build a loop of portals with always different block layouts, so that they are never surprised when they are at the bottom of a new fault. And you can see here that the training pays off,

The execution is very fast and Zylenox can finally enter the portal to access only 1 minute and 8 seconds after the creation of the world, to the second dimension, the second big step, the Nether. The Nether is the hell of Minecraft. Already, visually, the reference is obvious,

But it is a very complicated area for any player. There are ditches, very dangerous monsters, especially when you don’t wear armor. And there is mostly fire and lava everywhere. No way to extinguish yourself if you’re caught on fire, since it is impossible to put water in this dimension.

It’s very complicated, so there’s a lot to do. The goal here in the second dimension, you remember, is to access the third dimension, the End. And it is in the Nether, that you find ingredients to make the eyes of Ender, the keys to enter the End. And it also contains all the resources

That will allow players to kill the Ender dragon. An essential step. There are two main types of structures in the Nether. The first is the bastion and that’s where we get our first ingredients most efficiently. The Ender’s pearls and other useful resources to defeat the dragon. The second is the fortress

And it is there that we get our second ingredients, the sticks of Blaze. When we mix these two ingredients, we make the eyes of Ender that we use to access the End. It is usually necessary to go through hundreds or even thousands of blocks before coming across these two structures.

Here, Zylenox has a huge opportunity. He discovers upon arrival that very close to him are the two structures in question. And I believe that it is from that moment on that he starts to think that this run can be a very good run. OK, the American starts with the bastion.

There are several types. So he approaches, determines what kind of bastion it is and proceeds as he has learned. The bastion is a place where there are Piglins which are creatures that can quickly become aggressive, but who above all and more than anything else, love gold.

So if you give them some, they may give you other items in return, including pearls from the Ender, our first ingredient. Zylenox does not waste time, he goes down with a boat, breaks a chest to provoke the Piglins which makes them start to pursue him. He maneuvers skillfully in the bastion.

He digs, first, to recover gold hidden in the walls of the bastion and secondly to trap in the same place all the Piglins that are chasing him. He then gives them a large amount of gold and just has to wait

And pray that the Piglins will give him enough of the items he is waiting for. And hoping that they do it soon enough because here again there is a great notion of randomness. Finally, he gets everything he needs quickly, a potion of resistance to fire, threads to make beds, you will understand later.

Obsidian to make portals and especially our first ingredient, 12 Ender pearls, that allow him to leave the bastion very quickly, only one minute after entering it, which is absurdly fast to reach the fortress. And where most speedrunners would have gone up to get back on the right track,

Zylenox, even before entering the bastion, had already mapped the area in his head, which allows him to dig exactly in the right place to join, in the axis, the fortress. An action that doesn’t look like much but that proves his value as an exceptional runner. Ok, now the fortress for the second ingredient.

Zylenox, first of all, takes a potion of resistance to flames to prepare for the coming battle. And then he goes on. You already know that the runner needs Ender pearls which are the first ingredient to access the third dimension. But these pearls have another quality.

You can throw them and appear where the pearl lands. Zylenox will take advantage of this. He does it once to get closer to the fortress. He must now go to the top using a second pearl. Let me remind you that under the fortress is an ocean of lava.

You can’t afford to miss out, but without even preparing, on instinct, Zylenox advances, jumps, sends his pearl and it lands exactly on the small ledge that borders this branch of the fortress behind which he will be able to get the second necessary ingredient. Here you see a spawner.

A block that makes Blazes appear, monsters that do fire damage. And that’s why our runner took a fire resistance potion before entering the fortress. The objective here is to kill the Blazes and get Blaze sticks the last ingredients we need. The Blazes appear in a sort of small enclosure,

An area that does not allow, in fact, to an ideal appearance of Blazes. Then Zylenox uses TNT to break blocks around the spawner and increase the rate of appearance of monsters. All that’s left to do now is to kill the Blazes and get Blaze’s sticks. Once he has pretty much what he needs,

Zylenox makes the keys to the third dimension by mixing Ender pearls and End stick powders. To give, therefore, these famous eyes of the Ender. He then builds a new Nether portal with the obsidian that the Piglins have exchanged with him to return to the normal world,

Because it is there that we find the portal to our final destination, the third dimension, the End. The usual method to find this final portal. The method provided by the game is to throw the eyes of the Ender in the sky moving towards the portal of the End.

Throwing several eyes, allows to triangulate the position of the portal. But here the speedrunners use a small calculator outside the game, but obviously totally legal and used by all speedrunners who aim at the top of the ranking which immediately gives the players the coordinates of the portal. Now Zylenox knows where to go.

The goal now is to get there as quickly as possible. And the problem is that if you go there normally, well, it takes time. Except that you should know that the Nether has a rather surprising peculiarity. When you move a block in the Nether, you actually move 8 blocks in the normal world.

This makes the optimal method of transport over long distances is to make a portal to the Nether, then travel as much as you want, rebuild a portal and go back to the normal world having covered a distance X 8 times faster than if we had stayed in the normal world.

This is obviously what Zylenox will do. Once the coordinates are in his pocket, he resumes his portal. He immediately uses a technique called “pearl hanging”, which consists of throwing an Ender pearl with which he can teleport in the right direction and then go into his parameters and lowered the distance of his game,

I.e. the distance that the game will continue to load around the player. Anything outside the established zone simply does not exist anymore, until the player moves or re-increases his distance. What it does here is that the pearl sent by Zylenox is now in an area not loaded by the game.

This means that it no longer exists until this area is reactivated and that Zylenox for the moment is not teleported. That gives him time to get a few more sticks of Blaze which will allow him to make even more eyes of the Ender to reach the End.

As soon as he finishes his collection, he increases his distance, which reactivates the previously deactivated areas, and in particular the pearl that was there which can now land and transport Zylenox to his location. Once he arrives, the American checks his coordinates to see where he has to go.

Where he has to go is obviously in a lava lake. Then Zylenox throws his pearl which teleports him into the lava. He drinks a fire resistance potion very quickly to avoid taking damage. The pearl toss is almost perfect. The runner only has to run through a few blocks in the lava,

Which he does before building a new portal that will bring him back to the normal world. There, just like that, Zylenox covered the distance that separated him from the portal of the End much faster than if he had traveled in the normal world. Finally, the portal, he still has to find it.

There, Zylenox is in a Stronghold, an underground building, a real labyrinth that he must go through to find the portal that will lead him to the End. The runner presses F3 again, uses a scanning technique again which sends it more or less in the right direction.

And all he has to do is look for it, which he does very quickly. Now aware that the world record is within reach. He wanders around for a few seconds, enters a new room where, while falling, he sees the portal on his right.

He hurried to the gate, positioned himself in the middle of the gate, and places very quickly by spamming his right-click the eyes of the Ender that he has made in the Nether, in the receptacles provided for that purpose. And then he is teleported. Here we are.

The third dimension, the very last one, the End. The only objective now, to kill the Ender dragon. Zylenox places blocks to reach the main island. Anxious and not only because he knows that the world record is within reach and that he has no right to make mistakes.

Above all, he knows that the final test requires a great deal of luck. The most effective way to kill the dragon, is to use a particularity of this dimension to its advantage. The developer of Minecraft, not wishing that players can sleep in the End,

Has made sure that as soon as an individual puts a bed in this dimension and tries to sleep in it, the bed explodes. And the speedrunners, smart as always, have understood that the power of the explosion is such that if you implode enough in a row, near the dragon,

You can simply kill it. And that’s why in the bastion, Zylenox also wanted to get threads in exchange for the gold he gave to the Piglins. He had to be able to make enough beds to kill the dragon.

And to be able to put them close enough to him, the dragon must stop flying and land in such a way that the explosions can damage it. And that’s the angst of all Minecraft speedrunners. The moment the dragon decides to land is random. It is supposed to land.

It is provided by the game, in a particular place, a bedrock structure, which means that the player does not need to follow the dragon. He just needs to wait and it’s terrible because there’s almost nothing to do. In a context of world records,

The only thing that can influence the landing of the dragon in a vaguely significant way, is to be positioned in the north-south axis of the island. That’s it. And then we wait. And then we pray. Zylenox, after arriving in the End in 6 minutes and 15 seconds

After a run that can see him take the world record, and more, a run so monstrous that he could finally break the 7-minute barrier. Zylenox can see all his efforts destroyed by a dragon who would decide to take his time before landing. And Zylenox can do nothing.

Then he positions himself in the right place. He looks at the dragon and waits. 7 minutes 45. Between the creation of the world and the death of the Ender dragon on a randomly generated map, it took 7 minutes 45 seconds and it’s completely crazy. Totally crazy to train for hundreds of hours

On a game that for no reason, driven only by randomness, can destroy your run. Crazy to compete with other monsters on a game that rolled the dice at the creation of your world. Completely crazy to start new games over and over again hoping to be offered worlds that allow the record.

And yet despite everything, I can’t help but admire the perseverance of players who combine mechanical, learning and adaptation capacities so monstrous. Players who have decided to repeat a technique on a block pattern and then another and then another hundreds of times. Players who have decided to compete in a field that requires analysis

At each game launch, the world that was given to them and make dozens, hundreds of decisions in a loop, small or large, it doesn’t matter. Players who can’t make their runs robotically, it must be fluid, they need to understand each problem of each variation and solve them in the moment. It’s awe-inspiring.

And for Zylenox more than anyone else. It is important to know that at the time I am shooting this video, he has the best world time, the second best world time and the fourth best time in the world.

You might as well say that he is currently living alone on top of his mountain. I still have approx 300,000 subscribers before reaching my goal of 500,000 by the end of the year. If you want to congratulate me for the few videos you have seen,

This is by far the best way to do it. So don’t hesitate. A big thank you to MathoX, a French speedrunner and streamer who corrected everything I was going to tell you. He regularly streams his speedruns on his Twitch channel. Feel free to check him out.

In the meantime, take care and see you soon! Tchuss !