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One Zelda Tears of the Kingdom player completed a speedrun that Kentucky Fried Chicken created and got a chicken trophy worth roughly $10,000. KFC ran the competition around the world in partnership with Speedrun Espanol and called it The Recipe Run, a nod to the speedrun’s requirements and the restaurant chain’s “secret recipe” motif (thanks, VGC).
The goal was to see who could cook a fried drumstick the fastest, though there were a few stipulations to keep things interesting. Players had to prove they started the run empty-handed, with no clothes, no ingredients – nothing. The next step was traveling to Goron City and speaking with Gomo, a Goron chef who Zelda fans dubbed the Colonel Sanders of Hyrule as soon as they laid eyes on him.
After that, they were set loose in the open-world game to find 11 herbs, oil, and a drumstick for the recipe. The 11 herbs bit was literally just a bit, since you can only use five ingredients in a given recipe, and the only thing contestants were able to purchase was the oil. You can’t actually find or create oil in the wilds of Hyrule. They were free to fast travel using any active waypoints or get around with Zonai devices, but glitches and other unorthodox methods weren’t allowed.
Dozens of influencers and speedrunners took part, scouring the land for Hyrule Herbs, Spicy Peppers, Armouranth, and unsuspecting birds, but French speedrunner Kreuss ended up setting the record in 1:07:80. For their fast fowl work, they earned a golden drumstick trophy valued at nearly $10,000, while other contestants won free KFC food.
Whether the Recipe Run becomes a permanent fixture of the Tears of the Kingdom speedrun scene remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the current fastest record for finishing the entire game is quite a bit shorter, clocking in at 43 minutes. Not that speed is everything. One player recently beat the entire game without ever leaving the Sky Islands until the final battle.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF