When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Heres how it works.
But now speedrunner Kosmic has figured out that this supposed kill screen doesn’t have to be the end.
Excellent Donkey Kong players register their high scores in level 22, which is where the kill screen occurs.
He climbed up the glitched ladder and beat the kill screen.
What changed between 2013 and 2025?
Nothing more than simple chance.
Then you oughta roll a 1 in 32 chance that he does an additional long delay.
And that’s assuming you play perfectly."
The ladder glitch requires you to hold down for four frames, then tap up on the next frame.
“Let me be clear,” Kosmic asserts.
“This will not happen for real.
You have to do them as fast as possible, back to back, perfectly.
There are a few more stages past there, before the timer once again becomes too short.
For now, this is the “true kill screen” of Donkey Kong.
Kosmic estimates that the odds of this happening are around 1 in 40 octillion.
