According to Steam, I have sunk 114 hours into Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition, on top of 61 hours spent in the "Classic" edition. A lot of that is probably AFK time but there is no doubt that I strolled slowly and stopped to smell the roses. Divinity: Original Sin 2 speedrunner AlmostPi, on the other hand, did not.

The new record for speedrunning Divinity: Original Sin 2 is 24 mins 58 seconds. Well done AlmostPi!https://t.co/MChPw4WA1CJuly 18, 2018

AlmostPi was credited by Larian earlier today with blowing through the game in 24 minutes, 58 seconds under the "Any%, Old Patch" rules. That means the only consideration is getting from start to finish as quickly as possible, without worrying about achieving any particular in-game goals or having to use the latest update, which would presumably patch out at least some of the exploits that speedrunners take advantage of when they do their thing.

You can see quite a bit of that in the video of the speedrun: He drops crates and barrels from his inventory to reach otherwise inaccessible locations, for instance, and bypasses just about everything on the map, including ostensibly-mandatory combat. I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again the next time the topic of speedrunning comes up: It's a terrible way to play a game. But it also speaks to an impressive familiarity with Original Sin 2 (imagine the amount of time a person would have to sink into a game to learn and memorize those angles) and how to bend it in ways that Larian never intended.

Amusingly, Larian's tweet about the new record did not stand for long: Speedrunner Semanari beat it later in the day with a run of 23m26s, but AlmostPi quickly reclaimed the title with a time of 23m16s. You can watch that run in all its glory (and in less time than it takes me to create a single RPG character) below.