Less than a week after Baldur’s Gate 3‘s latest patch brought the introduction of its new Honor mode, someone has already managed to successfully complete a speedrun of it—and in less than 40 minutes to boot.
On Dec. 1, speedrunner Chronos uploaded a YouTube video of what is possibly one of the first attempts at an Honor mode speedrun. While the run does make use of glitches and exploits to skip large chunks of the game, it’s an impressive feat regardless considering how difficult Honor mode is and how reliant it is on good dice rolls.
Honor mode not only makes enemies stronger and gives them more health, but it also includes new Legendary Actions for boss fights and other modifiers. On top of that, you are restricted to a single save file (so no save scumming), and if the entire party is wiped out, you’re forced to start all over again. Yet thanks to some lucky rolls, Chronos managed to complete the run by the skin of their teeth, setting a record of 38 minutes and eight seconds.
The idea of an Honor mode speedrun sounds incredibly daunting, but it may be the best way to attempt it since, as Chronos has demonstrated, you can feasibly get it done in an hour as long as you know which exploits let you skip portions of the game. I imagine many fans who just want that fancy golden dice skin you get for beating Honor mode will follow Chronos’ example.
This isn’t Chronos’ only Baldur’s Gate 3-related achievement, either. On Nov. 30, he set the world record for an any-percent, all-acts speedrun of the game, clocking in at 25 minutes and 18 seconds. Admittedly, this one made use of exploits too. In fact, there so far appear to be no attempts at a legit speedrun without exploits, though that’s obviously because a regular playthrough would take many, many hours.
