A newly discovered glitch in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild gives a one-finger salute to gravity, opening up fresh possibilities for speedrunners to beat the game as quickly as possible.
As reported by Kotaku, speedrunner LegendofLinkk recently shared a new glitch on Twitter that allows Link to fly around the map as they please – and explained how to achieve it with relative ease:
Unpause, Aim your Bow and cancel with B, head over to a ledge link will climb up, start holding B and climb the ledge, if you go neutral on the control stick or stop holding the B button link will start falling normally.
— LegendofLinkk (@iLegendofLinkk) September 4, 2021
Previous means of getting around the map in the air have been affected by both gravity and stamina bars, whereas this new glitch allows players to remain at a consistent height as they travel freely above Breath of the Wild's open-world landscape.
The glitch is new enough not to have a formal concensus around its name – although some have taken to calling it bow lift smuggle sliding (BLS Sliding) – but it's already being widely hailed as a game-changer for speedrunning in the game. YouTuber and speedrunner JoeDun, who managed to complete a 100% no damage run of the game earlier this year, made a video on the new BLS Sliding tactic, saying it "might be the start of something amazing" for the speedrunning community.
JoeDun spoke further in the video about how the changes could affect different areas of speedrunning within the game. "What does this mean for Breath of the Wild speedrunning?" he says. "Well, a lot […] my favorite category 100% might actually be changing a lot just due to this trick alone. Since you can basically use anything you can pick up to start this trick, things like the letter quest and Ruta will be super easy and fast". JoeDun went on to speak about a number of other popular speedrunning categories that could be opened up to new possibilities following the discovery of the glitch.
Twitter user @RicitosDeCaoba further suggested that BLS Sliding could even bring about its own speedrunning category in the game as it's used by more and more players, suggesting that this would be similar to "no limit" runs attempted by players in the game.
And I believe that new category will be the same as the "no limit" runs but including the new glitch, so… I don't know, time will tell. Depending on how broken is comparing to bomb launch.
— ☀️Helienne☀️Se pronuncia /E-lién/ (@RicitosDeCaoba) September 7, 2021
How truly useful the new glitch is will likely be found out over the coming weeks, as speedrunners across the community look to integrate it into their runs. For now, it seems that members of the community are getting to grips with the new skill and enjoying exploiting it for every grain of time it saves.
Some more speed! pic.twitter.com/7xXJ1aF5SH
— Ferrus Cube (@Ferrus_Cube) September 4, 2021
For more on Breath of the Wild, you can check out our dedicated page for the game where you'll be able to find a range of the latest news and clips surrounding the title and catch up with the story so far.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.