It’s no secret that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild can be beaten pretty quickly if you know what you’re doing. Thanks to the open-ended nature of the game, skilled players can skip basically everything after The Great Plateau and leg it straight to Hyrule Castle to face the final boss.
At a recent Switch 2 Experience event in Tokyo, Japan, that’s exactly what speedrunner Ikaboze managed to accomplish with the new Switch 2 Edition of the game (thanks, VGC). Well… we say “exactly”, but given the 10-minute limit on the demo, a standard speedrun which includes The Great Plateau wouldn’t be possible.
So instead, Ikaboze loaded up a save just before the final encounter with Ganon, removed all equipment from Link, and managed to reach the end credits in just 7 minutes.
As you’ll no doubt see in the above video, he was greeted with applause from a gathering audience, all of which (we assume) had not yet seen such a feat accomplished on the Switch 2 version of Breath of the Wild. In fact, we might go so far as to say that Ikaboze might well be the first person to beat the final boss on Switch 2.
It’ll be interesting to see whether the improvements in the new release actually make any tangible difference to the proper speedruns come 5th June 2025. The game on Switch 2 boasts revamped performance and resolution, with additional content provided via the ‘Zelda Notes’ app.
Those who are subscribed to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack will get access to the new release at no extra cost (provided you already own Breath of the Wild on Switch, of course), but for everybody else, the upgrade pack will cost an additional £7.99 / €9.99.
