Palworld speedrunners are criminally beating the first boss in 3 minutes

Speedrunners in Palworld are beating the first boss in just over three minutes by capitalizing on a loophole that gives you some outside assistance.

Palworld has enjoyed meteoric success since launch, becoming only the second game ever to hit over two million concurrent players on Steam, and it was only a matter of time until speedrunners turned their attention to the title—and they’re already achieving staggering results.

Records collected by Speedrun.com show the fastest time is a remarkable three minutes and three seconds to defeat Palworld‘s first boss, Zoe and Grizzbolt, with several other players clocking in times of under four minutes.

These records are unrestricted, allowing you to capitalize on loopholes in the game, which have made these times possible. The tactic is to earn a wanted level by attacking NPCs and venturing to the Tower Boss. When you enter, you’ll retain your wanted level and NPCs will spawn into the area.

From there, it’s all down to relying on your unlikely allies to deal the damage to Zoe and Grizzbolt while the player, who is massively under-leveled at this point, avoids all the attacks—you don’t even need to have caught any Pals.

If you prefer sticking to the rules, you’ll be equally impressed. The fastest time for beating Zoe and Grizzbolt in Palworld without taking advantage of any exploits currently stands at 18 minutes and two seconds, which is again remarkable considering the players will have needed to have built basic resources and potentially caught a few Pals to help them.

Even more impressive is the fact the player with the current fastest speedrun time unrestricted is Okia, from Australia, who also boasts the second-fastest restricted time of 18 minutes and 59 seconds—agonizingly leaving them just under a minute short of boasting both records outright.