It takes just over half an hour to complete Baldur’s Gate 3. At least if you master some sneaky tricks and tactics.
With the last major patch, Baldur’s Gate 3 has fulfilled many wishes of the community. There is not only a new, longer ending but also a brand new difficulty – the “Honour Mode” that presents tough decisions. But professionals aren’t deterred by that. The first player even managed to complete the hardest difficulty in under an hour.
What is the Honour Mode? The Honour Mode is the highest difficulty level that Baldur’s Gate 3 has to offer. Not only are the battles significantly harder, but there is also a special restriction: You have only one save file, and if your party is wiped out, the game is over. So “cowardly” things like “reload and roll again” are not possible, you have to live with all consequences at all times.
What kind of record is that? YouTuber Chronos released a video showing his run in the “Honour Mode” of Baldur’s Gate 3 from start to finish. He takes exactly 38 minutes and 8 seconds to complete the game and finish Act 3.
By comparison: Most players will likely not even have finished the tutorial by this time.
How is this possible? Basically, there are a lot of bugs and exploits in Baldur’s Gate 3 that can be exploited. Therefore, Chronos is able to completely skip most areas of the game and simply not play large parts of the story. By skillfully combining spells that increase jump power or by targeting key characters at the right moment, he can skip cutscenes or even completely bypass fights.
Even the battle against Ketheric Thorm at the end of Act 2 is won through an exploit. Because the character is technically “not in combat”, he can attack the boss with weak spells while in continuous fire without the boss reacting in any way.
He even completely bypasses the final battle against the army of the Nether Brain using invisibility, only igniting a lot of fireworks in the core of the brain, which means the boss’s death after just one round.
Whether this way of playing is fun, everyone has to answer for themselves. However, it is impressive how quickly one can rush through this gigantic RPG if one truly applies all means to do so.
Why the game got even better with the patch, we revealed here.
