Bloodborne speedrun world records are primed to drop thanks to a secret early game glitch that skips half of the game.
This Bloodborne glitch had been hidden in plain sight for years. | Source: From Software
Shifty speedrunners have discovered a secret Bloodborne glitch that skips half of the game, opening up the possibility of skimming even more time off an impressive set of world records.
Streamer GiantCookieJar discovered the glitch by sheer accident earlier this week when testing out clipping through walls in the early game First Floor Sickroom in the Iosefka’s Clinic area.
By luring the very first scourge beast at the very start of the game to the top of a flight of stairs and letting it attack-grab while spamming specific controls, the player can glitch through the walls of the clinic. From there, it’s a case of navigating the level’s out-of-bounds geometry to reach the courtyard behind Iosefka’s Clinic.
Performing the glitch opens up a direct path to the mid-game area, Forbidden Woods, bypassing a substantial chunk of Bloodborne.
Another speedrunner, YouTuber Distortion2, has published a tutorial video that details how to perform the glitch. Here it is below.
For a game that holds few secrets thanks to a dedicated community that has scoured it from top to bottom, the new glitch is big news.
How it will affect speedrun timings exactly is still a mystery. Speedrunners will need to test how it factors into existing paths, determine what character builds it can unlock, and evaluate how they can use it to save time.
What’s clear is that the glitch will ignite a flurry of Bloodborne speedrunning activity.
Speedrunner Romanticore already incorporated the glitch into a world record Any% (Current Patch) run yesterday, bringing his in-game time down to 26 minutes and 39 seconds. In a post on the Bloodborne Reddit forum celebrating the new world record, Romanticore says he’s aiming to hit the 25-minute mark this week.
Developer From Software has a history of patching out glitches, so there’s a possibility all the excitement may be short-lived.
Ideally, the studio is too busy working on Elden Ring – or, if we’re being optimistic, Bloodborne 2 – to notice.