How Speedrunners Beat Hollow Knight in under 5 Minutes: A (Brief) History of Any% All Glitches

This video details one of Hollow Knight's most interesting speedruns; Any% All Glitches, and the journey to beating the game in less than five minutes. Particularly, this is a story of two crucial discoveries that allowed runners to take the category to the next level.

CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Introduction
01:46 - Background: Patch 1028 and the 10 minute route.
02:52 - Breaking down a common misconception
03:47 - Main Menu Storage: The Crux of AG speedruns
06:40 - Godseeker MMS
12:09 - Explaining Current Patch Room Duplication
18:05 - The WR progression
19:55 - Finishing thoughts.

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Credits + Shoutouts
Footage used:
I may have forgotten someone in which case i will fix it in post lol

SONGS USED:
Hollow Knight - Pale Court
Hollow Knight - Crossroads
Hollow Knight - Reflection
Hollow Knight - Queen's Garden
Hollow Knight - Kingdom's Edge
Hollow Knight - Crystal Peak
Ori WotW - The Ancient Wellspring
Ori WotW - A Shine Upon Inkwater Marsh
A Short Hike OST by Mark Sparling

[baummger]

I remember seeing my first any% ag run I understood nothing but now after I saw many glitched runs I still dont understand anything sadly

[brennanruiz]

I always love people who’ve never done speedrunning saying that glitched runs - or speedrunning in general - “disrespects the game”. Like, my man, these people _love_ this game and put more time into figuring out all of its little quirks than you ever would just playing casually.

[wta]

The game be like "Okay, so you got all the Dreamers: Monomon the Teacher, Monomon the Watcher, and Monomon the Beast".

[TryinBin]

I think people who think "glitches are cheating" don't understand how game code works or how rules work. In a "no glitches" run, glitches are breaking the rules, and are thus considered cheating. In a "glitches" category run, it is not cheating. Being able to creatively exploit glitches in the code and game, especially for such a well-bolstered game like hk, is very very impressive. Glitches aren't inherently bad, they're just an unintended way of playing the game

[DokuDoki]

I kind of miss the times when the final boss strat was to load THK into a room at Crystal Peak and let it kill itself on the spikes, that was the peak Any%AG for me... but this NG+ method might just make the category more popular than it ever was

[fivebrane]

Someone who should also get some credit is SpringSylvi, who did a ton of the routing of the dupe, and was one of the first to get a leaderboard run with the room dupe route!

[herorhim]

13:43 As someone who has watched the entire Mario 64 ABC Challenge series I LOVE in depth glitch and game mechanic analysis. I’ve been waiting for so long for someone to do a video about AG so thank you for doing this!

[marxciethestreamer]

So glad to finally see this coming out! I’m glad folks have been able to make use of the silly glitches I found/helped find ❤

[Blomsom]

i really think it deserves to be mentioned that prior to the competition with ghmms in any%ag, ghmms was a major revolution in teag due to the noclip + starting with voidheart. it took a little while (ie many many months of teag being the most popular glitched category) for us to realize this was optimal for any%ag as well (the result of us discrovering dream gate noclip which allowed us to keep noclip for the whole run instead of losing it after monomon) and any% was basically a dead category during that time, while we were making major revolutions in the ghmms route through everyone running teag
(also, you should still run agag 🥺)

[calvindang]

I finally understand room dupes due to this video. I had a basic understanding before (connected at bottom left, oldest room deloads, etc), but that clip about how movement works was what made me finally get it

[jobot]

I find All Glitches speedrun categories absolutely fascinating, as a tale of how dedicated fans of a game will scour it for broken lines of code and exploit them until the game is nearly unrecognizable from its base.

Plus they're just cool as shit to watch.

[golonka]

genuinely all major glitches runs are some of the most enjoyable speedruns to watch, especially when you have an outside perspective, literally at any point in time there is something just stupid going on that does not make sense even if you have played the game before

[magtea]

thanks for the vid Blue!! I love watching glitched runs but had trouble understanding how transitions work and what new route is. Glitched runs really deserve more explanation videos like this aimed for casual players, so that more people can enjoy watching them. Glitches (and speedrun strats in general) are fascinating

[raglock]

this video was so well put together

really good script, editing, easy to understand

best hollow knight channel ive seen

[kevinmcgarry]

Love the vid as always Blue! Hope you're doing well. Even got a sensible chuckle from the "Wonderer's Journal" joke. Anyone who didn't laugh must live in Egypt since they are in denial of a good joke!

[Energistx]

I think that Glitchless speed runs are more fun to watch, mainly because you can see the skill and relate it to your own. While any% runs are so far above that you don't realize the skill involved to get the any%. I will say that history of any% videos are usually my go to as a first watch. I want to hear the story of how one person found something that monumentally changed how the speed run was done and how it went further than that.

[lunasleonas]

Watching glitched runs (and TASs too) is always insane to me. Love this game, love this community, love Blue, thanks so much for making this vid <3

[ikebirchum]

"Glitched speedruns are cheating" is like saying that all basketball players are cheating because soccer doesn't let you use your hands

[Windette]

Blue Vid! Blue Vid! Blue Vid! GOOD CONTENT!!! and well scripted with regards to what to talk about and at what point

[elizabethleo]

Thanks for another great vid! You always pick interesting topics for these. Appreciate you!