Video Games

xQc beats Forsen’s Minecraft speedrun

Record breaking performance by the former pro gamer

Marco Wutz

xQc beats Forsen’s Minecraft speedrun
xQc beats Forsen’s Minecraft speedrun /

Félix “xQc” Lengyel has finally broken a Minecraft speedrun record established by Sebastian “Forsen” Fors. The two former professional gamers may have switched into professional streaming, but their competitive spirit is quite unbroken. Over the years, both of them have repeatedly beaten each other’s milestones in Minecraft, often by mere seconds.

While Minecraft isn’t exactly known as an esports game, speedrunning through the title has become a beloved pastime for many more competitively minded players ever since the game got an actual ending. Requiring not only the best Minecraft world seed, speedrunning also needs game knowledge, perseverance, and sheer mechanical prowess.

Forsen, who is a former StarCraft 2 and Hearthstone professional, held the best time between the two ever since April 2021, completing the game in 20 minutes and 38 seconds. Former Overwatch pro xQc, who had long given up on speedrunning, then finally beat this time on January 4, 2023, requiring only 20 minutes and 5 seconds to make it over the finish line – a gap of 32 seconds is quite an impressive feat.

The Twitch streamer, who is often embroiled in controversies, seemed quite relieved after the successful run, exclaiming that he was now “done with this shit.” Considering he previously took a break from speedrunning, one has to assume he’d be ready to jump in again if Forsen managed to one-up him. The Swede has not yet reacted to his record being broken, though xQc gleefully informed him of that fact on Twitter – a ritual both of them have always stuck to.

The ball seems to be in Forsen’s court now. Will he rise up to the challenge, or can xQc call himself the Minecraft speedrunning world champion for good?

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Marco Wutz
MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg

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