If you've been paying attention to the Kugane Tower speedrunning race in Final Fantasy 14—and not, say, watching football or touching grass or something—you might've seen Pint, a known streamer, strive to conquer the world record back in 2023. The video in question was impeccably edited, very funny, well worth a watch, and basically immediately scuppered by the prior record holder, Em0_oticon, in less than 48 hours as they achieved a new world record.
It seemed, however, that Pint wasn't to be deterred—as seen in the video above, Pint refined his strategies based on his competition, and succeeded at claiming the world record again, beating not just Em0_oticon's record, but that of a third party—Azura Stargazer, who smashed Em0_oticon's new WR before Pint had even thought to take a second pass.
This new time of 38.31 seconds was less than a second faster than Em0_oticon's—but as any speedrunner might tell you, when you get to the upper echelons, shearing off even a fraction of a second becomes a vicious climb. Only, being a streamer, Pint might've wanted to—you know—make another video about it before posting it online, for silly things like 'paying rent' and 'justifying the many months it took to get to this point'.
Thing is, Stargazer is actually a Pint fan—and so his pre-emptive hints and bragging motivated them to crush the record, which they did, in this 37.716s run. They'd even managed to be quite magnanimous about it, revealing that he'd been unsure "if I should upload since Pint hasn't posted his," adding that he wanted to "give him a chance to fight back if his best isn't up to par."
While this sets the stage for another heroic triumph, uh, Stargazer continued to break the digital sound barrier. First knocking it down to 36.400 seconds, and then 35.650 seconds, and then—in an offhanded comment to Emo_0ticon—stated that they'd "broken the 35 second barrier". You can see that searing video below.
At which point, after seeing a separate run where Stargazer also managed to land exactly on a sadistically-placed lamppost on the street below with pinpoint precision (required for a sightseeing log, by the way) Pint did what any reasonable person would. He gave up.
That's not to say this isn't a victory for the streamer, though—in his own words, the reason he climbed in the first place was to boost "the competition it fostered, the stories it made". Sometimes you've just got to pass the baton on to the stargazing savants of this world—which, in a game whose lengthy story has a lot to say on gifting the world to future generations, seems very appropriate.
