‘Darbian’ Sets New Super Mario Speedrun World Record

I love nothing more than kicking back and taking my time to enough a game, see as much as it has to offer and explore. Of course, I’m not a speed runner, who’s main aim is to find every trick, glitch and loophole in a game and exploit it to allow them to get to the end credits as quickly as possible.

People have been speed running Super Mario for many years, but with nearly 22k recorded sessions, Brad Myers is one of the most prolific masters of Super Mario. Myers, better known online as darbian, set a new speedrun world record earlier this month of just 4.56.878, taking the speedrun crown.

It’ll be interesting to see how long the record remains, as people will copy his technique and refine it further, and no doubt he’ll be doing the same too. Just look at the chart below, where you can see times have been steadily falling, with 30-seconds being cut since 2004 alone. How much further can the game be pushed? We’ll have to wait and see.

“Everything in my run, so many people contributed so much knowledge at various points in the game’s history,” Myers told fivethirtyeight. “Now someone can come along and use that as their starting point.”

Check out the robotic playstyle of darbian below. Think you can beat his time?