While we sit here twiddling our thumbs for the next two weeks, waiting for Spelunky 2 to come out on PC, PS4 players are busy playing, finding secrets, and battling bosses new and old. Damn them.
They're also speedrunning the hell out of Spelunky 2. Yesterday the Any% world record was around six minutes. Today that was cut in half by speedrunner d_tea, despite a somewhat shaky start.
You can see the ridiculous run embedded below, but spoiler warning if you're waiting for the PC release and don't want to know about any of the bosses or how the game ends.
The run doesn't seem promising at first. On level 1-1, d_tea robs the shop, grabbing a shotgun and cape, but loses a couple hearts while fleeing the enraged shopkeeper. A collision with a caveman on 1-2 drops d_tea to a single heart, making the run seem in doubt. But d_tea grabs a teleporter from the next shop and then it's off to the races.
Using Spelunky's hand-held teleporter is risky, as you can never be sure precisely how far it's going to blink you through space. You could reappear four tiles away, or eight, or six. In a game where the slightest error can end things instantly, teleporting is a major gamble.
But with great skill and good luck it's excellent for speedruns, and d_tea blips through entire levels in seconds, still with just a single heart of health. The teleporter cuts a huge chunk of time from the Olmec fight as well, as d_tea can blink through the floor and not have to wait for the massive boss to smash through the entire level of stone. There's a fantastic telefrag at 2:35 as well, splattering a foe blocking the exit in level 4-2.
A few well-thrown bombs at the final boss in 6-4 opens the exit, and there you have it. A mere two days after Spelunky 2 arrived it's already been beaten in under four minutes. It's hard to imagine an even faster run, but something tells me Spelunky 2 speedrunners aren't about to stop trying.
