During a $10,000 Elden Ring speedrun contest, the “holy grail” of glitches emerges as speedrunners learn to run across the sky

Speedrunners are, to me, among the closest our world has to wizards. Through hours of devoted study, they’re able to casually slip the bonds imposed by their simulated reality. When a new technique appears, it can be like watching mages trade around a new cantrip—a locked door clipped through here, an enemy forced to despawn there. But some methods, like a newly-discovered Elden Ring speedrun tech that lets the player walk through the air, are like watching the high art of sorcery advance in real time.

Where the average Elden Ring player has to toil through a world of lethal terrors, the new exploit allows the speedrunner to look at all that and say, “Nah, I’ll just go over it.” It’s called the “Legasus” glitch, a play on “Pegasus,” on account of the flying, and “leg,” on account of doing it with your feet. The portmanteau is among the speedrunner’s greatest loves.