The Legend of Zelda came out years before speedrunning was popular, but that didn't stop the classic adventure game from attracting a hardcore crowd of competitors nearly 20 years after its release.
YouTuber and speedrunning historian Summoning Salt took a deep dive into the speedrunning scene of the 1986 NES game The Legend of Zelda, chronicling how one runner managed to hold the record for nearly a decade and how the scene shifted into a new, unique category, igniting a months-long, back-and-forth race for first place.
