# Bethesda QA tester beats Skyrim in just over 2 hours



## Moonfly (Aug 1, 2008)

Internal speedrun competition yields 2:16:10 playtime for studio's latest sprawling Elder Scrolls fantasy RPG. 








 

The Elder Scrolls franchise has developed a reputation for offering hours of gameplay spread across reaching open-world environments. However, for Bethesda Softworks QA tester Sam Bernstein, "hours" is just barely plural with his speedrun of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

 Skyrim will likely take a bit longer than two hours for everyone else.


With Skyrim closing in on its November 11 ship date, Bethesda recently held its traditional internal speedrun contest, and Bernstein took the top finishing time at 2:16:10. According to a post on Bethesda's blog, that speedrun time is about an hour longer than the top times for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3.

Bernstein and the development team's Jeff Browne were likely candidates for the top of the speedrun charts, as they also clocked the fastest times in Bethesda's previous release, Fallout 3. Although they took totally different routes through the game, Bernstein finished a mere 20 seconds sooner than his competitor.

There are no special rules in play when it comes to these speedruns, according to the Bethesda blog. The only stipulation is that no cheats are allowed.


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## Moonfly (Aug 1, 2008)

When I play these games I dont even get stuck into the main storyline campaign till I have hours and hours and hours of game play already done. Ive no chance of ever beating this time, I get far to engrossed in just mulling about and looking around.


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