Dimas Ibnu06/08/2026
6 min read
Four Minecraft bosses, one permadeath world, and no announced finish line. Darren “IShowSpeed” Watkins Jr and Kai Cenat go live on Friday 7 August at 5:00 PM EDT with a Hardcore marathon that only ends once the Ender Dragon, the Wither, the Elder Guardian, and the Warden are all dead. For New Zealand viewers that slot lands at 9:00 AM NZST on Saturday 8 August. Speed posted the announcement on 5 August alongside an official trailer titled Return To Minecraft, and as of Thursday 6 August neither streamer has put a cap on how long the attempt is allowed to run.
When The Minecraft Hardcore Stream Starts In New Zealand
Kai Cenat broadcasts on his Twitch channel and IShowSpeed runs his side on YouTube, both covering the same attempt from their own perspectives. Speed pinned the direct watch link underneath the trailer.
| Timezone | Start Time | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) | 2:00 PM | 7 August |
| Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) | 3:00 PM | 7 August |
| Central Daylight Time (CDT) | 4:00 PM | 7 August |
| Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) | 5:00 PM | 7 August |
| British Summer Time (BST) | 10:00 PM | 7 August |
| Central European Summer Time (CEST) | 11:00 PM | 7 August |
| Indian Standard Time (IST) | 2:30 AM | 8 August |
| Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) | 7:00 AM | 8 August |
| New Zealand Standard Time (NZST) | 9:00 AM | 8 August |
Because the broadcast opens on a Friday evening in the United States, New Zealand and eastern Australia are the only listed regions where the start falls on a weekend morning rather than a weeknight or the small hours. For NZ viewers that means the opening run of the marathon is a Saturday morning watch, and any progress made through the American night will already be on the board by the time most of the country wakes up on Sunday.
All Four Bosses Speed And Kai Have To Beat
Hardcore mode locks the difficulty on hard and removes respawning entirely. A single death by either creator wipes the world permanently, forcing both back to an empty spawn point with nothing carried over.
| Boss | Where It Is Found | Needed To Complete The Game |
|---|---|---|
| Ender Dragon | The End dimension | Yes |
| Wither | Player-summoned anywhere | No |
| Elder Guardian | Ocean monuments | No |
| Warden | Deep Dark caves | No |
Only the Ender Dragon sits on the critical path of a standard playthrough. The Wither has to be built and summoned by the players themselves, the Elder Guardian is tucked inside underwater monuments, and the Warden lives in the Deep Dark, a biome large numbers of players never deliberately enter. The pair’s 2024 marathon ended the moment the dragon died, which means three of the four targets on this run are ground they have never covered on Hardcore.
The permadeath rule compounds that. Every boss killed is progress that a single mistake anywhere else in the world erases, so a Warden fight late in the run puts the Ender Dragon, the Wither, and the Elder Guardian all back on the table at once.
The 106-Hour Marathon That Started All This
The 2024 run began on 17 August and finished five days later, taking over 105 hours of live play and 42 deaths between the two streamers before the Ender Dragon finally went down. Speed crossed 28 million YouTube subscribers during the broadcast, and Kai Cenat hit 13 million Twitch followers.
The worst single loss came at The End, where a world roughly thirteen hours deep was wiped after both creators died to the dragon within seconds of each other. Kai Cenat sat with his face in his hands before explaining that he had destroyed the crystals on top of the End Spike towers, which he had believed guaranteed the kill.
“I hit all the towers. Nobody told me what to do after that! Nobody told me what to do!” he said, before picking up his chair and launching it across the room.
The Fortnite Run That Shows They Will Not Stop Early
The strongest evidence for how long this can drag out is not the Minecraft run at all. On 27 December 2024 the pair began a Fortnite marathon in Ranked Duos with one rule, that the stream continued until they won a match. It took 57 hours, 12 minutes and 45 seconds, and 206 losses, before they took the win on the 207th attempt.
They had a victory in hand before that. A Fortnite OG win on 28 December was thrown out by the streamers themselves after they learned a stream sniper had cleared the lobby for them, and they went back on for another day rather than accept it. That decision is the useful precedent here, because it shows the pair treat the rule set as the actual finish condition rather than the clock.
The final match came down to a 2v1 with Kai Cenat and Speed holding high ground. Kai was knocked but not eliminated, which kept the run legal under their own rule that both had to still be alive, and Speed shotgunned the last player standing.
What Other Streamers Are Predicting
MrBeast replied to the announcement with a runtime estimate that reads as a joke and is not obviously one. “This will take a month if they don’t cheat,” he wrote.
This will take a month if they don’t cheat
— MrBeast (@MrBeast) August 6, 2026
AMP member Din “Agent 00” went further on his own stream, arguing the format has no realistic exit if either streamer refuses to quit. “You’re never going to finish this, bro,” he said, predicting the run could stretch toward two years and adding that he expected to feel sorry for Speed after three weeks.
Felix “xQc” was less generous about the motive, responding to the announcement with a jab about ad revenue before walking it back. “Farming ads, I see. I’m just kidding,” he said. The four-boss target does extend the guaranteed runtime well beyond a single dragon fight, which is the part of his read that the announcement itself supports.
Why Speed And Kai Are Going Back To Minecraft
The 2024 marathon was not just viral, it was competitive with tier-one esports. <a href="https://streamscharts.com/news/kai-cenat-ishowspeed-minecraft-marathon” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>Streams Charts recorded 18.8 million hours watched across both channels, a figure comparable to every LEC Summer 2024 broadcast combined and close to double the total for LCS Spring 2024. Kai Cenat peaked at 381,200 concurrent viewers, the fifth highest of his career, while Speed peaked at 351,900, his second highest ever.
Two men failing at a decade-old survival game outdrew a full season of a major League of Legends league, which explains why the format returned before the game did. Neither streamer has spent 2026 on Minecraft. Speed spent the middle of the year streaming FIFA World Cup 2026 matches from inside stadiums, and Kai Cenat has been running Streamer University 2026 since his return to broadcast.
The Hardcore world opens at 9:00 AM NZST on Saturday 8 August with four bosses standing and no stated end date, and the only condition either streamer has committed to is that the stream does not close until all four are dead.
IShowSpeedKai CenatLivestreamMinecraftMinecraft HardcoreMojang Studiosstreamingtwitchyoutube
