Speedrunners and glitch hunters are no stranger to finding weird ways to break their favorite games. We’ve seen insane methods for glitching games like writing arbitrary code in one game to warp to the credits in another. Glitches like that are fascinating to watch, but it’s perhaps even more exciting to see the game’s community come together to discover everything they need to know about it. Glitch hunters can sometimes spend weeks — even months — testing and perfecting methods to perform these glitches consistently, all based on potential ideas or known oddities with how the game works.
Sometimes, though, glitches can have the most humble of origins. Case in point: a glitch for Metal Gear Solid was recently discovered that is changing the current speedrun route. The kicker? It was performed accidentally by a Twitch streamer playing the game casually.
The glitch comes courtesy of Boba, a Twitch streamer and member of Yogscast. She was playing MGS for the first time on stream when she accidentally clipped through a locked door in the infamous Comms Tower A stairwell after taking damage from guards. This sent her into the loading zone behind the door, skipping part of the game. See it in action below:
What this glitch means for Metal Gear Solid speedruns
Boba didn’t realize this in the moment, but she skipped the boss fight with the Hind D, the sequence where Snake rappels down a building, and numerous cutscenes. That’s a sizeable chunk of the game casually, but for speedrunners, it shaves about two-and-a-half minutes off the run — which, if you’re unfamiliar, is a very significant time save indeed.
It goes without saying that the Metal Gear community collectively exploded following the discovery of this glitch. As runner preciousRoy showed, speedrunners immediately began attempting to recreate the glitch, now referred to by the community as “Boba Skip” (although Boba herself prefers to call it “Kevin”). According to reports, the glitch is consistently doable and runners were seeing quick results when trying to emulate it.
This is not the first time a casual player accidentally discovered something that is later incorporated into speedruns. But it’s always exciting when speedrunners suddenly have a new tool at their disposal, especially when it comes from an unlikely source. That’s partially what makes this Metal Gear glitch so enthralling.
Already, speedrunners have begun applying the glitch and are seeing tremendous results. Runner NickRPGreen achieved the current Any% Very Easy speedrun world record by incorporating the Boba Skip. It’s a doubly impressive run as it also marks the first time the game was beaten in under 30 minutes. Check that run out below:
The aftermath of the discovery
NickRPGreen detailed more information about Boba Skip on Reddit as runners learned more about it. According to him, other damage sources can also push you through the door and into the loading zone; the fastest method for now involves using chaff grenades. However, it seems that this glitch isn’t replicable for any other door in the game yet. NickRPGreen theorizes that the loading zone for the Comms Tower door is closer than any other location. That might change later down the road, but even with the single known application of the glitch, Boba Skip has already sent Metal Gear speedrunners into a frenzy.
In another unprecedented move, Boba and Yogscast have already started capitalizing off this by releasing a Boba Skip T-shirt. If you want this absolutely legendary shirt for yourself, you can order it here.
And the icing on top of all of this? We know that Hideo Kojima himself is aware of this discovery as he retweeted IGN’s post on the glitch yesterday. If that doesn’t demonstrate how this glitch is spreading like wildfire among Metal Gear fanatics, I don’t know what can.
Want to learn this trick for yourself? Hau5test demonstrates a setup that uses 2 stun grenades and 1 chaff grenade below. This setup works on all difficulties and platforms.
(Note: at present, we aren’t sure if this trick also works on Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, a remake of the game for the Nintendo GameCube. Until we get confirmation otherwise, we can assume it doesn’t — but we will let you know if that assumption is wrong.)
