Starfield is out, and the stars have been split wide open for players to explore, exploit, and excavate with your trusty mining laser. But while most players are taking in the sights, digging through every corner of the galaxy for ten thousand foam cups of what have you, others have their eyes firmly on the clock. Every second counts, every motion measured. For the Starfield speedrunners, a constantly developing race to slice minutes off the hour is the real reward.
We've covered these personal-best pioneers and servants to the stopwatch before. Many times, in fact. The early days of a major game's release is a hub for excitement, not least among the small horde of speed freaks with sights set on uncovering skips and glitches. While the existence of sub-hour new game plus runs and fresh save files taking down the main story in less than 10 are article-worthy on their lonesome, the method behind creating these absurd time trails is where the gold is buried. At least, in this writers' opinion.
So, I wanted to dig into the process some more on one of the more spectacular bits of tech discovered in the few days since Starfield's release. Believe it or not, by the time I reached out, the community had just discovered an absolute banger. A single skip, able to cut out four main story quests altogether, came as a result of several days' work picking apart the game. It starts, however, with the discovery of zipping.
