Remaining Fantasy 14 is not a typical sport to observe folks speedrun—whereas sure components of the sport do have a speedrunning historical past, and there’s a devoted neighborhood operating the sport, finishing it in document time nonetheless sometimes takes hours. These cutscene-skipping blitzes are spectacular, certain, however they do not precisely make for nice viewing except 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 is likely to be caught on methods to make Sq. Enix’s flagship MMO watchable for hours on finish. Because it seems, all it’s a must to do is give viewers the facility 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 Remaining Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn. The one catch is that the run, affectionately named “$20%”, might be derailed at any time by a $20 donation.
So long as they shelled out the money, viewers might give the sport’s poor runners a brand new rule they needed to comply with. Granted, all donations had been pre-screened as per the ESA’s tips, however each time 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 way of this admirable marathon of self-punishment, however listed here 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 vary locations. One casually says “I’ve by no means performed this sport” 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 entails beating 30 NPCs in Remaining Fantasy 14’s collectible card minigame, Triple Triad.
- At 1 hour and 34 minutes, a donator mandates that the speedrunners drop every thing they’re doing to search out and pet 10 misplaced lamb enemies in a totally totally 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 have to full it with out operating.
- Almost 7 hours in, one donator asks the runner to double the dimensions of their UI. These shenanigans proceed all through a lot of the run, which might render it unwatchable if it wasn’t so humorous to have a look at.
- After 11 hours, the runners are compelled to show their whole sport shows sideways.
It is a wonderful instance of the sort of punishment persons are prepared to place themselves by way of for an excellent trigger. Speedrunning has a protracted historical past of offering assist for charities, and I am glad to see that proceed in such spectacular style—even when I’m a contact anxious as to what 23 hours on the mercy of Twitch chat has achieved to those courageous troopers’ minds.
ESC Summer time 2023 will conclude tomorrow July 29, and a full schedule of runs is accessible on its web site.
