Nearly everybody who has ever played a video game has played Minecraft before. However, it turns out that less than 3% of people who have played Minecraft have ever beaten the game by killing the Ender Dragon. However, there is a somewhat small community in Minecraft called the speedrunning community, where the goal is to beat Minecraft in as little time as possible. Although a lot of skills can be applied to speedrunning, however, most of it is luck, as a perfect seed is required to beat the game in a short period of time. As of right now, the world record is held by a speedrunner by the name of Illumina, who beat the game in a whopping 13 minutes and 58 seconds. So how do they do it?

To start off, finding the perfect seed and a decent spawn is the most important factor. When hopping on to a speedrunners stream, you will commonly see them reset their seed and load up a new world. This is because people who are going for the world record do not have time to play a seed that is bad (ex. ocean spawn). Some ideal spawns include villages, natural structures, and other things that could save the player some time while still providing adequate resources. Next, skill and efficiency are key. This is where the skill factor comes in, as the player has to be able to defeat mobs and gather resources at a fast pace. Such only comes from practice and skill.

The speedrunning community, although does not have a lot of people who try and join in on the fun, seems to have a massive audience. One such speedrunner known as Dream (who turned out to fake his speedruns) is one of the biggest faces on YouTube today, and is one of the biggest Minecraft Youtubers. His famous Minecraft Manhunt series where he speedruns the game (not nearly as fast as world record pace though) with other players trying to hunt him down and stop him from beating the game, is one of the most popular series on Youtube, with each video racking up millions of views.

Although the amount of speedrunners in Minecraft is slim, the audience for it and the respect that the top speedrunners get whenever they make history is massive. It almost seems as if a new record is broken every week, and who knows how speedrunning may change with the next major update. However, no matter what, the community will stay strong and people will continue to speedrun Minecraft for years to come.

-Jeremy L.