15 Years Later, Players Revealed the Lie Behind Diablo's Record-Breaking Speedrun

15 years later, it turned out that the Diablo speedrun listed in the Guinness Book of World Records was simply a hoax. Players had to check over 2 billion dungeons to catch the cheater red-handed.

In 2009, player Maciej "Groobo" Maselewski posted a video of his Diablo run, which took only 3 minutes and 12 seconds. The record was not only indisputable, but also unattainable, having held on to the very top of the rating for over 15 years. Then a team of especially meticulous speedrunners decided to repeat Groobo's algorithm and discovered that the run was a hoax.

Since Groobo found the teleporting staff "Puzzle of Naja" in one of the locations in his speedrun, the team generated about 2.2 billion dungeons in a few weeks to prove that it is impossible to get the artifact this way. After comparing the results with the record holder's playthrough, the speedrunners were unable to find the same room with the artifact. Moreover, it turned out that the video contained cuts from other playthroughs. Apparently, Groobo simply edited his attempts into one video and passed it off as proof of the record.

Of course, there was other evidence. For example, the copyright date on the Diablo menu screen did not match the version of the game, and the attacks inflicted by a level 12 character were typical for level 26. Having collected all the evidence, the team of speedrunners turned to representatives of the Guinness Book of Records with a request to cross out the playthrough. There has been no response yet.

By the way, a similar scandal involving billionaire Elon Musk recently broke out in the Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2 community. It turned out that the "avid gamer" cheated to get into the list of the best players. We also analyzed the situation and shared our opinion.