SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake hasn't even been with us for a week, but it's already been beaten in under an hour. This comes courtesy of speedrunner Shift, who just secured a time of 58 minutes and 36 seconds, having just had access to the game for a matter of days.
This Any% run involves blasting through The Cosmic Shake's main story and making it to the end credits as fast as possible. Less than a week since launch, Shift already appears to know the game inside and out, perfectly platforming throughout all the levels, and using the in-game abilities to get from the beginning to end much faster than the devs intended. Shift has even managed to make the most of some unintended exploits already, shaving even more time off some sections in the game.
This 58:36 run is the first under the one-hour mark, with Shift platforming and sequence breaking his way through stages with ease. One of the biggest time savers is evident in the first level, as Shift finds a way to glitch SpongeBob across large gaps in the wild west area. This not only skips some of the story cutscenes, but also lengthy platforming segments that could prove frustrating in a speedrun.
The result is finishing entire worlds in a fraction of the time they would usually take. As you can see towards the start of the run, Shift is out of the first level by the 11-minute mark, which I'm only slightly ashamed to say is about one-tenth of the time it took me.
It's not surprising to see Shift take to The Cosmic Shake so well. Over on his Twitch channel, he's best known for speedrunning Battle For Bikini Bottom, holding the world record in both the Any% and 100% categories. Considering how long he and others have kept grinding away on Battle, we can expect The Cosmic Shake to see similar competition. likely bringing the time down even further.