How Zelda Speedrunners Defeated Wind Waker's Barrier

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Skipping the barrier in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker was a seemingly impossible holy grail for speedrunners. This is the complete story of how it was found in both the Gamecube original and the HD remaster!
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[@LunaticJ]

Play War Thunder for free on PC, PlayStation or Xbox: playwt.link/lunaticj Don't miss the limited time offer for new and returning players that haven’t played in 6 months across all platforms. Offer includes multiple premium vehicles, the exclusive vehicle decorator “Eagle of Valor”, 100,000 Silver Lions and 7 days of premium account!

[@PhazonEnder]

Wow, hearting your own comment. If you're be a shill for one of the worst mobile games ever, at least have the decency to be honest about it.

[@irritated_name]

​@@PhazonEndergotta respect the hustle man, its just a comment

[@theiceknight4457]

I remember the quest to beat barrier skip. Such fun times. I love when skips are found just randomly and sometimes not even by speedruners but just random people playing.

[@mlpfimguy]

I remember it was so infamous that there was a bounty for it: the first person to pull it off would get a reward, with an even higher reward if it could be used in a real-time speedrun. The person who found it never got paid.

[@Cascadiawoodchippersociety]

Reminds me of the metal gear tower door skip, the user who discovered it, wasn't trying to even do it. 😂

[@gareththorn4356]

Beat barrier skip? How do you beat a skip?

[@RiekeLt]

I remember running TWWHD in that time, and that moment that Barrier Skip got found. Handed logs over to dragonbane, and 24 hours later... we had a setup. I learned that setup, and showed it off at a speedrun marathon, BSG, 2 weeks later. This was awesome

[@Glitches0and0stuff]

There's a lot of interesting history from around 2010 where we were trying to get under or over the barrier. We knew you could get past it if you windwaker dive off the railing after cancelling the damage barrier (as that resets the voidout coordinates). But then of course you're miles under the map, so even though you're technically past the barrier it's not very useful. I put out a video showing you could wind waker dive with 0 hearts (the idea being we could zombie hover back up to land afterwards) but the issue was that it was impossible to set that up with the damage barrier disabled, so a few frames into your zombie hover you get knocked away. I would love to see a way to hover under the barrier, I think that would be a really cool achievement

[@LunaticJ]

I hope you enjoyed the video! You've contributed a lot to 3D Zelda and I wanna thank you for all your contributions to glitch hunting for the past 15+ years!

[@Glitches0and0stuff]

Keep up the good work :)

[@azer67]

I recall that if there was a mailbox in hyrule then you could store talking to the mailbox and activate the mail spitting cutscene during the hover to successfully cancel the knockback barrier by advancing text, but there's no mailbox in hyrule lol.

[@LaytonsGal]

Dude this is so weird, I was just playing WW earlier today, got to Hyrule for the first time and thought "I need to rewatch an explanation of barrier skip"- And look what we have here 😂

[@waxwinged_hound]

I find it hilarious that, despite how incredibly exploitable WW glitches are, the Hyrule barrier is one of the most stubbornly stable things in all of Zelda. I've heard it referred to as the "Super-Extendo '**** You' Shield" which is still what I call it sometimes.

[@Valientlink]

What's really crazy is that Moon Warp was the Holy Grail for Majora's Mask Any% and they were both found in the same year, with Moon Warp I believe being confirmed possible the same month as Barrier Skip. Both of them seemed unthinkable and were basically a joke for years. "When's Barrier Skip, when's Moon Warp" because it seemed so impossible.

[@SimplySnaps]

Great video! The most common question among speedrun audiences is "how could anyone find this???" and you've created a very useful resource for folks who want to learn more about one of Zelda's greatest skips.

[@wawe5557]

Miss snaps knows Zelda games other than TOTK??!?!1!? /j

[@Lanoman123]

Barrier Skip has to be one of my favorite speedrun glitches, the sheer hype when it was finally found was awesome

[@mariotaz]

As someone who watched Cosmo back in 2012, the barrier skip was the holy grail.

[@OmegaVideoGameGod]

“ This is but one of the legends of which the people speak...”

[@TepidCritic]

I can't believe how hard i was cheering for Girtana1 during this video haha

[@NIX-FLIX]

Wow so that’s where SMG4’s “I did it” sound came from 13:00

[@awsmrs]

Was thinking the same thing 😂

[@Gameboy2007-Official]

Lmao same

[@JazzyDK5000]

Same 😄

[@Neoicecreaman]

it was JUST A THEORY god damn that man, he's gonna live in our heads rent free.

[@staysterling]

Imagine, if the skip was found before HD was released, its possible if not probable that the devs would have patched it out. It may have taken a long time, but the i think it worked out for yhe best in the end

[@AroundTheBlockAgain]

This showed me a terrifying vision from a darker timeline. Maybe I have too much faith in glitch-hunters... maybe they would have found a way to get past the "patched" HD Barrier... but it might have taken another decade of hunting or spawned an unbearable setup. I'm glad we're in this post-HD-barrier-skip timeline lol

[@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena]

@@AroundTheBlockAgain Watch Nintendo's answer for it being a 3rd barrier layer just for that cracked spot

[@minimini352]

awesome video man. i'm proud to have been a (small) part of this story. I gotta stop sneaking my way into your videos though

[@sheamy7172]

"It was just a theory ☹️ A glitch theory 😉 The search for barrier skip was at an impasse 😢"

[@Aaa-vp6ug]

13:03 so that’s where the meme audio comes from

[@fotnite_]

It's kinda weird thinking back on all the videos back in the day about how Barrier Skip would be the holy grail of the speedrun, I remember a particular video that argued that barrier skip would never happen because of all the safeguards put in place. And now, we have multiple barrier skip glitches that have been discovered since then.

[@kirigherkins]

Link spending ten years trying to skip a barrier instead of just saving Hyrule is hilarious

[@gareththorn4356]

No one's playthrough is 10 years old...

[@biscuitslash5443]

Before Barrier Skip was even found, I imagined the concept of an extra failsafe in place where if you didn't already have your Master Sword awakened, you wouldn't be able to deal the killing strike against Ganondorf. It's probably something I would have suggested be done if I were in the dev team, but admittedly I'm happy it wasn't done. I'm really happy for all the speedrunners who finally got to skip the barrier!

[@caliburnleaf9323]

Any game dev would tell you that check is a terrible idea. You shouldn't be letting the player get that far in the first place. The real solution is making the loading zone for the final dungeon predicated on viewing the barrier cutscene. Before that, it just plain wouldn't exist.

[@biscuitslash5443]

@@caliburnleaf9323 Honestly I agree, especially due to the real possibility that someone might break into the endgame accidently and maybe even softlock themselves in worst case scenario. For the sake of speedrunners, it good that the devs had plenty of faith in that barrier, and understandably so.

[@issholland]

It's not really dumb, it's one line of code that makes sense from a common sense perspective and a story perspective

[@caliburnleaf9323]

@@issholland Except there should never be a situation where the player gets that far without the master sword to begin with. If they did, something already went seriously wrong, and penalizing the player who somehow ended up in that state with a confusing softlock condition is not a good experience for the player.

[@issholland]

So somehow a soft lock in a part of a game you're not supposed to be in, in the first place, is worse than programming a solid game that worked as intended?

[@Jonathan_T]

Seeing toon link doing the barrier skip with the music from Metal gear solid special missions is priceless. Thanks for the video !

[@Srelathon]

10:55 Oh shit item sliding was discovered on my birthday? I never knew that

[@andrewferguson6901]

DOXXED

[@robotortoise]

okay i finally got around to this video after a few weeks of hectic game jamming. This was fantastic! I really loved how you told the story and explained why so many skips were found that advanced the meta further. I also liked how people had to specifically fill up a memory bank - by a certain point, speedrunners are just debuggers that aren't paid to fix the bugs, I guess!

[@thecamster451]

A video about barrier skip was what got me into watching speedrunning content uears ago. So glad to see you cover it, and go a lot more in depth!

[@Glitcher2000]

And here I am still waiting for a barrier skip in Twilight Princess. Who needs Midna to shatter it?

[@EJ125_]

Great video, really enjoyed how in-depth and accurately you went into stuff on the SD side of things. Appreciate the effort put into the research to tell our community’s journey of optimizing barrier skip.

[@trainerlsw]

13:00 So THIS is the origin of the meme

[@wylierichardson1567]

As explained, the barrier was very through to try to prevent players from getting past. They should have not loaded collision past the barrier until getting the master sword.

[@mhfsilver_]

It was a wild time to watch all of this unfold firsthand. I was in those streams watching as barrier skip was performed for the first time. This game's story will always be a personal favorite of mine even though I never personally ran the game.

[@ExalinExcels]

In a perfect world someone will find the true Hyrule Castle early a week from this video for Twilight Princess

[@jobot0114]

I wonder who would win in a race: Toon Link with Item Sliding or Mario with Backwards Long Jumping 🤔

[@MakusinMeringue]

young link with a singular bottle, no diff

[@OyVeey]

It depends on the race track. Mario can't BLJ on a flat surface, so a typical stadium-style track wouldn't work.

[@brodooski]

Oh God you mentioned storage it's only a matter of time before Linkus7 shows up

[@Gameboy2007-Official]

It's only frame perfect

[@Linkus7]

Did someone say storage? 👀

[@termsypoo]

@@Linkus7i love you linkus please don’t die

[@inthefade]

This is one of those moments that we all love the internet for.

[@simonedmondson8875]

@@Linkus7hahahahha

[@もちの花]

Barrier skip is crazy, so I always wanted to know the specifics behind it

[@Rotomoo]

I remember the day Barrier Skip was discovered. I knew it was a legendary day.

[@Savestate]

great and needed video

[@LuigiInfinityVideos]

windwaker graphics are fire tho

[@LunaticJ]

I prefer the gamecube artstyle to the HD version tbh

[@LuigiInfinityVideos]

@@LunaticJ true

[@LuigiInfinityVideos]

still fire

[@yukino4636]

I was there when gymnast learned it, crazy how it's been so long now

Now we just need to break Twilight Princess's Barrier

[@AroundTheBlockAgain]

So we can still joke about "when's Barrier Skip" as long as it's about Twilight Princess, good to know lmao

[@benjaminnewell5214]

i've been looking forward to this one

[@Doktario_Mystario]

13:00 ahh so this is where that came from

[@HinkHall]

I’m convinced 50% of intentional Wii U purchases were for wwhd, with the other 50% for splatoon players

[@jtown2909]

the current wind waker sd barrier skip is so similar to an oot setup, I love it

[@robertgraaf6875]

Ima tell you I sure did miss this video and got here from you saying if you missed this video about barrier skip

[@RipVanFish09]

Ooooo!! Lunatic video :)

[@McMuffins42]

24:31 Watchya doin yoshi?

[@Tobiichi]

Why is this man so close to 100k and not there yet, come on people, we need more good content creators in the speedrunning scene, specifically uh, I guess speedrunning historians? lmao. No for real though, lets get this champ to 100k!

[@OmegaVideoGameGod]

Very nice thank you for making this :)

[@4203105]

I did not remember that the clip in HD was before successful actor unloading in the original.

[@spaghettiking7312]

I remember when this was thought unthinkable.

[@Attard73]

Love the vids, always a great watch! But please watch your audio levels - the dudes screaming at the first barrier skip blasted my ear with earphones in.

[@Dinoober]

great video as always

[@dsouth7754]

I don't know why I feel like I casually did the barrier skip in 2005-06 since I replayed this game a lot (poor kids don't have a lot of games to choose from, lol). I couldn't have possibly, I suppose, if hardcore speedrunners hadn't found it for years using specialized tools and data. That bomb drop displacement feels so familiar though; I did similar tricks in Sunshine with fruit. More likely my brain is mashing together breaking the barrier as intended with my own attempts to bypass it when I was sixteen. There's just something so satisfying seeing players circumvent barriers devs put in.

[@nyon7209]

Given that the eventual skip was to bypass the damage barrier (which seems to be done by just walking into it fast enough after taking damage) then drop a bomb while facing the wall, at approximately it's center point, It's something a stubborn kid *could* accidentally pull off. Especially because it seems they didn't notice the misalignment until someone found it in the Wii U version, and after that it seems like they only tried clipping with bombs a few times. Most of that time and energy was spent attempting more complex and technical ideas. But it's so precise that it's tough to believe someone actually did. It's far more likely you're conflating your attempts in Wind Waker, the eventual story progression, and clipping through walls in Sunshine (which is much easier and a similar idea)

[@azer67]

@@nyon7209 In the case of barrier skip in the original version, the bomb drop is so ridiculously precise there is actually no chance of finding it by accident. You have to use maths or scripting to find it. Not only is the position absurdly precise, but the bomb drop is frame perfect (it works once every 60 frames) and the angle range required is very small. Every bomb drop frame makes Link's displacement vary in both distance and angle. It looks easy but it's hard to explain how precise it really is. In HD it's easier due to the nature of item sliding and it makes sense to have been found there first.

[@nyon7209]

@@azer67 I believe that. It looks like the kind of thing a child would try, but I believe it being so tight no one would find it by chance.

[@JD3Gamer]

“I did it” Classic

[@Ty-Jack]

8:21 missed opportunity to yell “a game theory”.

[@DiegoG2004]

My favourite barrier skip is the one where you skip having to do barrier skip.

[@peanutfish94]

Nothing is impossible, it just hasn't been broken yet

[@chefbdull]

Date error around 5 minutes. Good video.

[@DFWHoppe]

2:15 loving the Metal Gear music

[@LuigiInfinityVideos]

windwaker barrier skip is the cartoon version of the mario 64 blj

[@funkopotamuswes]

Gamers are amazing! Great video Lunatic :)

[@sahilhossian8212]

Lore of How Zelda Speedrunners Defeated Wind Waker's Barrier momentum 100

[@sonictrain1]

Great barrier was as simple as door all along 🥲

[@AroundTheBlockAgain]

Incredible. An immovable object (Barrier) meets an unstoppable force (gamers and glitch hunters). I would put my bets on the gamers every time... just give them some time...

[@Irsu85]

What about TP barrier skip? Has that been theorised as well already?

[@caleb_z]

Great video!

[@cupajoe99]

great breakdown!

[@gamingwithahandicapreviews]

You don’t need to do the triforce quest to obtain the iron boots, you just need to get them from Ice Ring Isle

[@LunaticJ]

Yeah but you can’t go back down to hyrule with the iron boots unless you collect the triforce (unless you do barrier skip), since you can’t get Fire and Ice arrows until after the second Hyrule visit

[@gamingwithahandicapreviews]

@@LunaticJ that makes sense, I didn’t even think about that :) great video man on one of my favorite games!

[@JeremyMKWii]

buh i got war thunder and i cant stop

[@Wookis]

wow im super early to this lol, 100k soon?

[@jtown2909]

same lol

[@ghb323]

Bombs break the game once again

[@whtiequillBj]

I've heard of storage and in this video you talk about it a lot, but what kind of glitch is it? a on technical level. If it was stale-reference. that tells programmatically what is actually going wrong. But Storage doesn't sound like its a stale-reference. and the final question to ask is: is more optimal more fun for the player and the viewers?

[@MementoMoriv2]

Windwaker speedrun explained when??

[@IHazRhythMIW]

Hey LunaticJ. I'm having trouble finding girtana's original wwhd barrier skip video. Would you happen to be able to direct me in the direction of where to find it?

[@prototype9000]

did it oncelet the barrier knock youback and have a bomb where it knocks toyback explode atthe point yougetknocked back and it forces you through the barrier

[@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena]

Is barrier skip able to be done on the English version of the game? I don't feel like buying a Japanese GameCube and a Japanese copy of the game when i already have a English GameCube and game

[@WolfyW]

early. I LOVE WIND WAKER SPEEDRUNS BABYYYYYYYYY

[@kingmeprime]

Sad to see this video of yours do so poorly. I still watched anyways just to give the view. And a matching comment to boot

[@GamesintoMovies]

Do portal speed run

[@LuigiInfinityVideos]

item sliding is the blj

[@JohnPaulBuce]

I DID IIIIITTTTTT!!!!

[@arciabrats5897]

Screw this barrier bro

[@jddilli1]

🎉

[@LuigiInfinityVideos]

this. video. is. fire.

[@LuigiInfinityVideos]

mario 64 121st star and Mew in og pokemon and door in hyrule are under the truck in the S.S ANNE

[@glitchy_weasel]

What a wall breaking community, heh 😅

[@Coffeemancer]

can you advertise for me?

[@kennycarter5682]

please put audio warnings in your videos. at 14:50, watch out everyone.. oh and 22:29 should have a seizure warning

[@dontworry4945]

was about to say this. not properly mixed at 14:50 that's just too dam loud its excessive and jarring

[@kennycarter5682]

@@dontworry4945 true that

[@user-kw2ro3ce7x]

First

[@enrique2395]

I really dont understand why someone would enjoy playing a game for the sake of beating it in the shortest amount of time.

[@dontworry4945]

14:56 very rough footage. extremely jarring and loud. otherwise extremely interesting video

[@FatalHog]

Its almost like live reactions are unscripted and can be a tad crazy

[@icemaster-]

Wouldn't it be easier to just... PLAY THE GAME?

[@DragonBallUltra2024]

just so you know, you are wrong about obtaining the iron boots towards the end of the game. you can get them early, after you beat the tower of the gods, you can talk to the fairy child who gives you the ice and fire arrows. You can go get the irons boota then.

[@LunaticJ]

You can’t warp to mother and child isles to get the fire and ice arrows until after the second visit to Hyrule. After which, you wouldn’t normally be able to access hyrule again until clearing the earth and wind, temples, as well as collecting all the Triforce shards

[@DragonBallUltra2024]

@@LunaticJ Yes you can, i forgot to mention you got to defeat the tornado dude first.