Pokemon Scarlet and Violet speedruns are in a different league on Switch 2, with a day-one attempt already coming in around half an hour faster than the old world record
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It's officially Switch 2 launch day, and although fans around the world have only had their hands on Nintendo's new console for a few hours, the souped-up hardware is already proving to be a huge deal for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet speedrunners.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet received a free update on Switch 2 to increase frame rate, draw distance, and more, and it's clear that the improved performance thanks to this update and the new hardware has made a massive difference to the time you can complete the RPGs in. Spotted by Pokemon content creator PulseEffects on Twitter, "Within just one hour of gameplay, speedrunners have already saved five minutes on Scarlet/Violet Speedruns by using a Switch 2."
PulseEffects points to a stream by Japanese V-tuber and speedrunner Carolio, who, a few hours ago, began speedrunning Pokemon Scarlet on Switch 2. It's important to note that according to Speedrun.com, the world record for a glitchless Any% run of Scarlet/Violet on Switch 1 (a run that just sees you get to the end of the game as fast as possible) is five hours, 19 minutes, and 25 seconds – or five hours, 21 minutes, and 30 seconds in a Japanese copy of the game. Carolio still shows up in second place on the Japanese leaderboard, with a time of five hours, 21 minutes, and 47 seconds.
Clearly though, we're going to need a whole separate Switch 2 leaderboard, because Carolio's latest speedrun ended up being around half an hour faster than that. They didn't just shave off five minutes in the first hour – those time-saves kept accumulating, with their time at the end of the credits coming in at four hours, 51 minutes, and 40 seconds.
Even if the entire speedrun was only five minutes faster than usual, this would have been massive news. But half an hour? Holding second place on the old leaderboard shows that Carolio knows their stuff when it comes to Scarlet and Violet speedrunning, but given that the Switch 2 has only just launched, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the community manages to achieve even faster times in the upcoming weeks and months.
In a (machine-translated) tweet posted following their run, Carlio even calls their performance "sloppy compared to my personal best," but notes that they could feel a significant difference in the performance of the game itself.
Elsewhere, we're already seeing shiny hunters take advantage of the increased draw distance in the Switch 2 update, which allows even more Pokemon to spawn at the same time, speeding up the process of looking for rare, sparkly 'mons. So, there are some huge benefits all around – it's genuinely great to see some positivity around the Paldea region games.
Interested in the new console? Be sure to check out our Switch 2 review to find out all about it, as well as our roundup of the best Switch 2 games.
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