From casual players struggling to outrun the cops to the most hardened cybercriminals, outlaws speeding through the streets are part of Grand Theft Auto‘s DNA. But while the average player spends dozens of hours exploring the sprawling city, specialist speedrunners have found ways to complete Rockstar‘s magnum opus in a fraction of that time.
In one legendary run, top speedrunner szau managed to finish a complete GTA 5 100% run in an astonishing 5 hours and 56 minutes – over 80% faster than the average over 31 hour playtime. Today, we‘re going to break down exactly how he accomplished such an unbelievable feat and appreciate gaming virtuosity at its highest level.
So Why Speedrun GTA 5 At All?
Before analyzing szau‘s world record run, you may be wondering why anyone would want to blitz through such an expansive open world adventure instead of soaking in all the slow-burn chaos. Well for speedrunning diehards, GTA 5 represents the ultimate exam of game mastery and route optimization skills across a massive interactive sandbox.
Memorizing the entire Los Santos map layout, perfecting physics to chain fluid vehicle control, researching obscure exploits, and meticulously scripting the optimal mission order requires fierce mental exertion. But for top tier talents who long ago exhausted normal gameplay pleasures, optimizing efficiency and racing against the clock provides endless motivation to keep improving times by mere seconds or minutes.
The thrill stems not just from besting reasonable expectations of minimum play duration, but breaking perceived limitations of a game world to achieve something previously considered impossible. Discovery of new minute-saving tricks also maintains intrigue even for veteran runners revisiting the same title for years.
| Category | Avg. Playtime | Any% Record | 100% Record |
| ————- |:————-:|————-:|
| Main Story | 33 hours | 0:48| 5:56 |
| Completionist | 73 hours | 3:00 | 7:52 |
Speedrun target times across different GTA 5 categories
While only gaming savants possess the skill to achieve utter dominance racing through GTA 5, some universal lessons emerge for anyone interested in testing their speedrun talents:
Practice Fundamentals First: Strong platforming or driving aptitude must become second nature before optimization strategies can enter the picture. Mastering control basics opens up mental bandwidth to focus on planning the perfect route order.
Favor Current-Gen Hardware: Modern console or PC hardware provides advantages for faster load times and higher frame rates to input more precisely compared to laggy legacy systems.
Catalog Tricks In Note Form: Mapping out optimal paths, vehicle selections, combat shortcuts, and other tricks visually allows greater focus on clean execution instead of relying on memory.
Introducing GTA 5 Speed Maestro szau
A relative newcomer only bursting onto the wider speedrun scene around 2019, young Hungarian gamer szau has quickly proven himself arguably the top GTA 5 speed specialist on Earth across single segment categories. While also dabbling in speed attempts on various Need for Speed, FIFA, and Bully titles, it‘s szau‘s consistent world record setting mastery throughout GTA 5 that has deservedly built his reputation to elite status.
Digging into the numbers displays exactly how peerlessly optimized szau‘s performances stand against prior convention. According to historical data from Speedrun.com, before szau joined the scene the established Any% record for completing GTA 5‘s critical story path stood around 1 hour. Szau has since driven that down by over 20% to an awe-inspiring 48 minutes.
The prestige 100% all content category held at 8 hours for years until szau captured the crown in 2020 with a shocking sub 8 hour completion. After incrementally chipping away seconds, he now sits at an seemingly untouchable 5 hour 56 minute benchmark for future runners to chase.
An Inside Look at History-Making Strategies
Obviously blazing through the sprawling GTA 5 experience over 5 times faster than average requires far more than just prodigious talent. So let‘s analyze szau‘s revolutionary run to reveal exactly how he accomplishes truly optimized greatness:
Perfect Routing
GTA 5‘s flexible mission structure seems like it would throw unpredictability into a speedrun, but szau flashes genius route planning that sequentially chains required tasks perfectly. Weaving between Trevor, Franklin, and Michael, he expertly queues up mandatory missions and intersperses side content only at convenient geographical detours.
AI Manipulation
Lengthy NPC interactions with no skipping can force undesired slowdowns. But szau displays masterful awareness to avoid these delays, like intentionally aggravating police AI behavior to skip long arrest animations entirely.
Mastery of Physics
No vehicle seems too unwieldy for szau to utterly dominate. His driving lines maintain insanely blistering momentum speeds ranging from nimble supercars to lumbering 18-wheelers. And all while barely avoiding devastating crashes against unforgiving Los Santos traffic.
Szau demonstrating pinpoint big rig control at extreme highway speeds
Mental Map Internalization
The sprawl of Los Santos and Blaine County comprises one of gaming’s largest open worlds ever constructed at time of release. But the layout poses no problems for szau, who has clearly committed absurd details of the fastest geographical routes directly to memory. This allows minimizing reliance on fickle GPS guidance systems while avoiding fatal hesitations or wrong turns.
Frame Perfect Input Mastery
Veteran GTA fans often criticize the game’s traditionally loose and drift-prone character controls. But szau‘s movements demonstrate precision more akin to a rhythm game high score chaser than a chaotic sandbox. Every scroll wheel weapon swap and strafing cut translates thought into on-screen action instantly.
Relentless Exploit Hunting
Part of speedrunning legitimacy means avoiding obvious glitches that crash the game or break sequences entirely. But szau still manages to repeatedly bend expected limitations of gameplay through newly discovered corner case exploits the developers likely never considered. His fence clipping out-of-bounds detours and parachuting stall skydives certainly defy reality.
Pushing The Limits: How Low Can It Go?
Astonishingly, even after capturing world records across all categories for years, szau believes he can still push GTA 5 single segment times lower thanks to new tricks still being pioneered every month by the game‘s passionate speed community. He also must actively fend off rival runners studying his past routes to implement further optimizations. This fierce drive for excellence will likely continue forcing GTA 5 speed barriers downward for a long time.
GTA 6 releasing seems inevitable in coming years. And with each new series iteration comes technological leaps that layer on more complex world simulation and dynamics for intrepid speedrunners to digest. Based on the profound physics and AI improvements displayed already in Red Dead Redemption 2, exploit hunting in Rockstar‘s next flagship open world could prove more challenging than ever.
But for now, no one denies szau cementing his GTA 5 legacy as the present master of speed and efficiency across Los Santos. Both casual joyriders and fellow time attack veterans likely can’t help but admire his best-in-class talent pushing open world limits far beyond any reasonable expectations. The clock never lies.
