It took ‘six months and 100 resets’
Well, with thousands of people still playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild at pretty much all hours of the day, even years-removed from its launch: a damage-less 100% run was bound to happen at some point! But speedrunner JoeDun can claim to be the first to do it.
Announcing the accomplishment on Twitter, JoeDun has shared how they did it in the below video. Let’s break it down together.
Here is the ruleset that JoeDun says is gleaned from the speedrunning community parameters:
- All heart containers and upgrades
- All sidequests, main quests, and shrine quests, and sidequests
- 100% map completion (shrines, koroks, towers)
- All permanent items in inventory and fully upgraded runes
- Acquire all permanent armor
And here is JoeDun’s “no damage” personal ruleset:
- Any physical damage counts as damage, even a quarter heart or yellow heart damage (with the exception of forced custom damage
- No reloading after taking damage, must completely reset (but you can load as a precaution before damage)
That’s…a lot to get! Note that glitches were fair game though, including the moonjump, heart/stamina orb duping, and time of day freeze bug. But they still need to clear every…single…thing listed above without taking damage. Hyrule Castle is described as a “personal hell,” and is knocked out very early to obtain items like the Hylian Shield and a multitude of bows. It was responsible for roughly 30 lost runs on its own.
Their new video walks you through their strategy to conquer the challenge, and it’s a fascinating watch. JoeDun talks about how they not only want to complete the game “as fast as possible,” but “as safe as possible.” It’s a lot to weigh constantly! And a lot of pressure.
