Guidelines on “Time without Loads"

These are the rules on what count as a load in Horizon Zero Dawn Speedrunning. Time is not being counted while the loading screens listed below are on screen during a run. We encourage every runner to read these guidelines and try to learn how to time their own run without loads.

Why are HZD Speedruns timed without loads?

Leaderboards are timed without loads because having different hardware (PS4 with an SSD, high end PC, ...) speeds up your loading screens. So in order to have a more fair playing field for all runners we time runs loadless.

What counts as a load

Loading screens are the orange/red screens with the “Loading...” text in the bottom left corner. The text is different depending on the text language you play on.

There are also 4 cutscenes with loading screens at the beginning of the game. These are cutscenes that can be paused, but can not be skipped immediately. The “Loading…” text will appear in the bottom left corner when the cutscene is paused. When the game is done loading the cutscene can be skipped. It only counts as a load when the cutscene is loading. You can see the status when you pause the loading screen. You don't have to pause for the memory based load remover on PC to detect the load.

The 4 cutscenes are:

• The second cutscene between “A gift from the past” and “Lessons of the Wild”
• The training montage cutscene where Aloy becomes an adult.
• The intro cutscene to “The Proving”
• The cutscene right after the “The Proving”

*Note that the first two cutscenes listed above do not appear in New Game+ (NG+) because the Childhood section is automatically skipped in NG+.

How do I time my loads?

On PC you must use the memory based load remover to time your loads. On console you can use the video based load remover. The best and most accurate way to retime it manually, is to take the video of your run and put it into a video editing program. Cut the video to exactly where the run starts and ends. Then cut out all the loading screens. Once that is done you can see how long the video is and that will be your “time without loads.”

You can also time all the loads and subtract that from your “time with loads” to get your “time without loads.” It is important if you do this to be as accurate as possible.

Common questions about loads

Does it matter how a loading screen happens?

No, as long as the loading screens listed above appears, it counts as a load. The reason as to how the loading screen appears does not matter. If the loading screen is there, its a load no matter what.

If my game crashes/blue screens does that count as a load?

No, only the loading screens listed above counts as loads. If you close the game or it crashes mid run it does not count as a loading time.

If you have any questions after reading this then the best place to ask in on our community discord server. You can find a link to it on the top of this page. If you don't use Discord then you can ask questions on the forum.