Two Decades Later, Zelda Speedrunners Are Hacking Wind Waker With a Camera and a Bush
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
Speedrunner EJ125 smashed records at Awesome Games Done Quick by beating The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker in under 28 minutes using complex memory manipulation and an in-game camera.
Two decades after its original release, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is still finding new ways to baffle the gaming community. During this year's Awesome Games Done Quick event, speedrunner EJ125 completely shattered previous records by beating the classic Nintendo adventure in just over 28 minutes. For a game known for legendary skips that already shave hours off the intended runtime, this new milestone cuts last year's AGDQ finish time precisely in half.
The run relies on a staggering combination of memory manipulation and sheer technical wizardry that feels more like software engineering than casual gaming. After using an opening glitch to hypercharge Link's swim speed off Outset Island and grab the Picto Box camera early, the runner executes a pixel-perfect photo of a specific bush. That snapshot holds the exact values needed to build a code payload, which is then sent through a second controller to rewrite screen data. By feeding commands into the game from the inside out, players can warp straight from the starting island to the final credits after stepping through a single door.
Beyond just breaking the main campaign in record time, the exhibition showed off the sheer extent of Arbitrary Code Execution within the aging engine. EJ125 managed to access hidden debug menus and developer test areas, and even snapped a live photo of the AGDQ audience to import directly into the game world. It is a stunning reminder of how dedicated gaming communities continue to push vintage software past limits the developers never could have anticipated. You can watch the full archive over on GDQ's YouTube channel, as reported originally by Polygon.
Tags: Speedrunning, Nintendo, The Legend of Zelda, AGDQ, Retro Gaming
Original article: Polygon