Stray has an achievement for beating the game in under two hours, but of course, that isn't enough for speedrunners. A few have brought the time below one hour, with YouTuber Erims managing to get an impressive score of 54 minutes. It's not currently live on speedrun.com as it has yet to be verified, but even for verified runs, two have managed to get the time under an hour.
Norwegian speedrunner LooperNor managed to do just that yesterday, bringing the score down by nearly a whole minute from the previous record-holder. They currently have a score of 58 minutes and 55 seconds, and the game has only been out for less than a month—who knows how low it'll get?
LooperNor utilised a new glitch that lets you skip the Slums, bypassing a whole section to bring that time down even lower. They got through the first two sections in only 11 minutes and 58 seconds before powering on to the Flat, the Sewers, the Antvillage, Midtown, the Jail, and then the end. However, they reached Jail at 52 minutes and 24 seconds, while Erims managed to get there in only 49 minutes and five seconds, shaving the time down a whole three minutes.
Unrestricted means all glitches are fair game such as skipping the Slums, but Stray's glitchless category is also edging closer to sub-one hour with the world record holder Morgoth92 currently boasting a time of one hour and 24 minutes and ten seconds. The second spot was grabbed two days ago, nearly catching up with one hour and 24 minutes and 58 seconds.
Only last week, the number one spot for glitchless was held by Bebersf who beat Stray in one hour and 16 minutes, so the time has been shaved by 22 minutes in as little as five days.
It'll be interesting to see where Stray is in even just one month when speedrunners have unearthed new glitches and exploits that let them get through swaths of the game with ease. Until then, sub one hour is here, and count yourself lucky there isn't an achievement for this record. That would be a tough ask.