The Dark Side of Diablo Speedrunning: Grobbo's World Record Fraud

For over 15 years, Maciej "Grobbo" Maselewski held the world record for completing a dungeon run in Diablo, achieving the seemingly impossible time of 3 minutes and 12 seconds buy Diablo 4 gold. However, what seemed like a stunning achievement was nothing more than a carefully orchestrated fraud. Maselewski had manipulated dungeon seeds and spliced together footage from multiple runs to create a world record that wasn’t earned legitimately.

Diablo’s dungeon maps are randomly generated, and players must navigate through them to progress, with stairs appearing on random tiles. Grobbo’s run, though, defied logic. The "next" stairs would often appear immediately after entering a stairway, allowing for lightning-fast progression. To make matters even more suspicious, Maselewski received an early drop of Naj’s Puzzler, a staff essential for completing the run, at an improbable time.

Years later, speedrunning enthusiasts began investigating Grobbo’s run, but not because they suspected cheating. They were attempting to replicate his "lucky" seed using custom tools. However, their efforts revealed the truth—his seed didn’t exist. Even more shockingly, the team uncovered that the run had been spliced together from over 13 different attempts.

This discovery sent shockwaves through the Diablo speedrunning community. Grobbo’s manipulation of the game undermined the integrity of the competition, and after the truth came out, the record was swiftly removed from the Speed Demos Archive buy Diablo 4 gold. The aftermath left a community disillusioned, with many abandoning the category altogether.