The world record for beating Super Mario Bros. has just changed hands. Super Mario Bros speedrunner Kosmic just managed to surpass one of the hardest barriers in speedrunning history: completing Super Mario Bros. in under 19 minutes.
Super Mario Bros. is one of the most sought-out games among the speedrunning community, with records being broken in many cases by shaving one second or even less from the former champion’s playthrough. The remarkable thing here is that Kosmic shattered a Super Mario Bros. world record that was upheld for over 12 years.
The popular Super Mario Bros speedrunner managed to achieve this completion time after losing three previous runs to Bowser at 18:59. His warpless run is the first ever that is under 19 minutes. His reaction at the end of the video is priceless, as he hopes that the recorded time is real, right down to the crucial milliseconds.
Kosmic’s speedrun fits into the Warpless category, which means that a player isn’t allowed to use any warp pipes. While the Super Mario Bros. Any Percentage category reports top times of less than five minutes, Kosmic’s Warpless run took him 18:59.856 to achieve. His tweet shares the feat with the community, with Speedrun.com acknowledging the record.
Kosmic says that he sees “humans taking warpless down to at least 18:54 some day in the future.” He doesn’t think that it will be his case, but he hopes that he is able to reach “at least 18:58 and maybe 18:57 and beyond.”
Breaking a new world record in Super Mario Bros. is an incredible triumph, but other speedrunning accomplishments manage to amaze the world in several different ways. Take the case of a blindfolded Super Mario Odyssey speedrunner, for example, who managed to finish the game in under five hours, showing a grasp on Nintendo’s game that many would have deemed impossible.
