Super Mario Odyssey cracks top speedruns list

Super Mario Odyssey has become one of the biggest games to speedrun in the history of the sport. The game recently entered the upper echelon of Speedrun.com’s rankings, bested only by Nintendo 64 classics Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time — and at this pace, Super Mario Odyssey could stand to best both of those speedrunning favorites.

1,054 players have registered their playthroughs of the game on the speedrunning leaderboard site, putting Super Mario Odyssey just underneath the massive Super Mario 64 (1,783) and Ocarina of Time (1,309). Players also report that the game has earned its place as the biggest ever in the Any% category, which refers to the most basic kind of playthrough — players need only complete the game, not worrying about reaching 100 percent completion along the way.

More than 1,000 people have logged their Any% run, which is nearly double the amount of Ocarina of Time playthroughs in the same category. The short of all this data is that Super Mario Odyssey is, by nearly all measures, huge. Whether it has the same longevity of Nintendo’s older games remains to be seen, but for now, the Nintendo Switch game remains a favorite.

It’s easy to see why if you take a look at some of the most popular runs of the game. This is the current record, held by user Shaeden. They finished Odyssey in a little more than an hour, which sounds wild to me — but that’s the art of speedrunning for you.