Closing Fantasy 14 is not a typical recreation to look at folks speedrun—whereas sure components of the sport do have a speedrunning historical past, and there’s a devoted group operating the sport, finishing it in report time nonetheless sometimes takes hours. These cutscene-skipping blitzes are spectacular, positive, however they do not precisely make for excellent viewing until you are actually into the nuts and bolts of the sport.
If you wish to speedrun for charity, like how avid gamers on the European Speedrunner Meeting (ESA) have been this week, you may be caught on methods to make Sq. Enix’s flagship MMO watchable for hours on finish. Because it seems, all it’s important to do is give viewers the ability to screw you over for 20 {dollars}.
Whereas elevating cash for the Swedish Alzheimer’s Affiliation, speedrunners Nashlax, Metako, Leonis and HabKeineName sat down for a gruelling marathon run of Closing Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn. The one catch is that the run, affectionately named “$20%”, may be derailed at any time by a $20 donation.
So long as they shelled out the money, viewers may give the sport’s poor runners a brand new rule they needed to comply with. Granted, all donations have been pre-screened as per the ESA’s tips, however at any time when a brand new donation was learn aloud, it grew to become legislation. It took them 23 hours to complete.
I’ve solely simply scratched the floor with my trawling by means of this admirable marathon of self-punishment, however listed below are a few of my favorite moments from the VOD:
- Round 23 minutes into the run—a donation calls for the speedrunners and the viewers to alter locations. One casually says “I’ve by no means performed this recreation” as quickly as they sit down.
- On the 1 hour and 10 minute mark, a viewer calls for the runners full the “Triple Crew II” achievement, which includes beating 30 NPCs in Closing Fantasy 14’s collectible card minigame, Triple Triad.
- At 1 hour and 34 minutes, a donator mandates that the speedrunners drop all the pieces they’re doing to search out and pet 10 misplaced lamb enemies in a very completely different zone.
- Lastly reaching the sport’s first dungeon after two entire hours and 12 minutes, a wombo-combo of donator malice mandates that they need to full it with out operating.
- Practically 7 hours in, one donator asks the runner to double the dimensions of their UI. These shenanigans proceed all through many of the run, which might render it unwatchable if it wasn’t so humorous to take a look at.
- After 11 hours, the runners are compelled to show their whole recreation shows sideways.
It is a wonderful instance of the form of punishment individuals are prepared to place themselves by means of for a very good trigger. Speedrunning has a protracted historical past of offering assist for charities, and I am glad to see that proceed in such spectacular vogue—even when I’m a contact fearful as to what 23 hours on the mercy of Twitch chat has completed to those courageous troopers’ minds.
ESC Summer time 2023 will conclude tomorrow July 29, and a full schedule of runs is offered on its web site.
