Cr1tikal's third $10K challenge shaken up by 1.5 hour skip on day 1

MoistCr1tikal has returned with his highly-anticipated third $10,000 speedrun challenge after a three-month hiatus. If you're new to the challenge, here's what you need to know: Following the success of his first challenge, Cr1tikal announced that he planned to make it a regular event, with a monthly occurrence if possible. He also revealed that in each challenge, $1,000 would be awarded to the person who discovered the most impactful glitch, in addition to the $10,000 prize split among the top three runners at the end of the two-week period. That means first place takes home $6,000, second place gets $2,500, and third place receives $1,500.

The game

The selection process appears to have been quite challenging, which explains the lengthy gap between challenges. Here’s what Cr1tikal had to say:

“When we did Exodus from the Earth (EFTE) as our second one, I don't think we realized just how good of a speedgame it turned out to be and I don't like going backwards. So like, Exodus from the Earth was amazing - I wouldn't want to just choose another stinker kind of like Amok Runner was.” (The game from the first challenge) -MoistCr1tikal

This brings us to game number 3, The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard! TESAR is an action/adventure game much like the others in the famous Elder Scrolls series, however, this one is unique in that it’s the only title where you play as a pre-determined character (Cyrus the Redguard) with a forced third-person perspective.

Similar to EFTE, before the challenge was announced TESAR had just one runner - Solitaan. In 2018, Solitaan themselves managed to bring down the record from nearly 3 hours to just under 2 hours with a few new skips and much better gameplay, with the idea that a time of 1:55:00 should be doable with the route at the time.

The skip(s)

Fast forward to the announcement of the challenge yesterday, May 3rd, 2023. Cr1tikal’s announcement video gets 1,300,000 views in less than 24 hours and almost 2000 new members join the Challenge Discord.

With this kind of exposure, it was only a matter of time before some serious tech was discovered.

Around 3pm EDT (just one hour after the announcement of the challenge), top contender from previous challenges Zach discovered that you were able to clip through objects when getting attacked by enemies. Nothing could make use of this yet, but the day was only just getting started.

Many other new small skips were found, and even one that was confirmed to save around 35 minutes by Gizmovor which was found at 7pm EDT.

However, between 8:34 and 8:46pm EDT glitch hunter ontrigger posted these messages, sharing screenshots of the final boss.

As it turns out, ontrigger had found an incredible spot to use the enemy clipping method from Zach - one that would cut the 2-hour run down to just 15 minutes.

In the old 2-hour route, players had to visit different locations to collect resources such as gold or key items. The primary goal was to obtain N'Gasta's Amulet and deliver it to Governor Richton at the Palace. However, after handing over the amulet, Richton betrays the player and sends his guards after them. This event leads to the player spending the majority of the rest of the game trying to get back to the Palace to seek revenge on Richton.

In the new route, with ontrigger’s clip, you simply need to clip through a door next to Richton in the Palace and the game allows you to pick up the rest of the main questline from that point - saving a whopping 1.5 hours.

Here’s the first recorded successful clip from mickyyyr

For audio, watch the Twitch clip here

Runner and glitch hunter SabulineHorizon would also find a faster, easier, and more consistent setup for this clip by 10:30pm EDT in the same night.

As of now, I am writing this just 25 hours after the announcement of the challenge and this is what the leaderboard looks like - with plenty more runs still awaiting verification!

And here’s a sneak peek at the “History” feature with TESAR WR’s! History will enter beta in a future update ;) [Note: This will not replace WR History charts]

With such impactful activity on this leaderboard in the last 25 hours - who knows what the next 13 days of the challenge will look like?

Big thanks to a bunch of the people in the Challenge Discord who helped me sort out information and make sure this article was as accurate as possible! Huge thanks to Ellie, Artemis, ChristianRoyle, BobToad, CreamSock, ZumoDePapaya, Letanda, and the rest of the Challenge Discord! You are all absolute legends :)