Speedrunning (beating a game as fast as one can) has become a staple of the video gaming medium. It got its start in the late 90s but didn’t become truly popular until the early tens. Nowadays, plenty of games like the recent hit indie game Neon White encourage speedrunning. Games will often nowadays feature timers or challenge modes that incentivize speedy play.
For the longest time though, this wasn’t the case and speedrunners would play plenty of series that didn’t emphasize speed. However, nowadays there are games specifically designed to become the bread and butter of the movement going forward and there are a few franchises that are the most associated with the craft.
DOOM
Doom from 1993 is often called the first FPS, although it actually just popularized it. Similarly, it also popularized speedrunning, though time trials had been in racing games for years. It might be surprising that a game about a bulky space marine mowing down demons would be fast, however, the game ran smoothly and quickly, allowing for a speedrun culture to be cultivated.
Doom was heavily modifiable, and one such modification players found was the ability to record “demos” of themselves playing the game. Players would then share these demos with each other and eventually began competing for the fastest time. Many early speed-running sites were based around sharing Doom times. It’s unlikely the craft would have taken off without Doom‘s influence.
Quake
Another classic horror-themed FPS game from the 90s was Quake. In a lot of ways, it was the fully three-dimensional counterpart to Doom so it made sense that it also pushed the speedrun medium forward. Just like Doom, demos could be recorded which would create the first speedrun categories, as both 100% completion and any% demos were possible.
This was also where the first speedrun events came into being. The website Nightmare Speed Demos created a series called Quake Done Quick. This was a collection of collaborative speedruns broadcast together. Eventually, the series was so popular that the host website turned into the Speed Demos Archive, one of the first early hubs for speedrunning all games.
Metroid
It was perhaps inevitable that Metroid would be considered a speed game. The entire gameplay loop of the series is learning the map and being able to traverse it easily. Every game ends in a sequence where you are forced to traverse it quickly while under a timer. Super Metroid in particular became popular due to its ability to sequence break the intended path.
This allowed for quicker completions of the game than intended and early emulation in the Aughts also usually came with the ability to share these sequence breaks with other players. This launched some of the earliest discussions of techniques in speedrunning. Glitches would go on to be an essential part of all speedrunning scenes, as before this they were usually seen as “cheating.”
Super Mario
As Super Mario is one of the most profitable video game series of all time, it was going to get into speedrunning sooner or later. The easy-to-learn gameplay actually caused it to be one of gaming’s fastest-growing speedrun scenes as the games were easy to blaze through and tricks were learned fast. The original Super Mario Bros, World, and Yoshi’s Island were all great early-speed titles.
However, Super Mario 64 was the king and is still one of the most popular games to speedrun. There are tons of different categories and it was another early console game where video and glitches were accepted by speedrunning communities. While other later 3D Mario titles like Super Mario Odysseyhave become popular speedrun games, none matched 64 in popularity.
The Legend of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is often called one of the best video games of all time. Players loved exploring Ocarina of Time and finding its hidden details, and just like Super Metroid, this resulted in players finding ways to sequence break it. Running backward and clipping through walls resulted in one of the most reduced times-to-beat in gaming, and it’s all been well-documented due to the game’s popularity.
Besides Ocarina, other titles in the series have enjoyed speedruns. The original NES game of course was popular, as were its sequels on SNES and Game Boy. However, Breath of the Wild stands as perhaps the most impressive game besides Ocarina in terms of speedrunning. Because it operates on simple physics, it’s easy to manipulate the game and make it to the endgame immediately.
Dark Souls
Dark Souls was a series known for its tough difficulty. Challenge runs are common in its fandom, so getting the game under twenty minutes was considered a goal for a while and the “Kiln Skip” became famous for allowing the skip of the game’s second half.
The unforgiving nature of the games was considered an incentive to speedrun them. Also, as the games aren’t always well optimized, skips were common in their speedrun scenes. Despite not technically being Dark Souls games, other Souls-like games like Elden Ring and Bloodborne are similarly beloved for speedrunning.
Spelunky
Spelunky is an indie platformer from 2008 that was remade in 2013 for the Xbox. It’s a roguelike, which means that every level is actually procedurally demonstrated which made it a unique challenge for speedrunners. Typically speedrunning is accomplished through memorization, but the random nature of this game series forced an entirely different mindset on the craft.
The game’s randomly generated caves are quite treacherous. Players need to recognize patterns in the world generation and play optimally to have successful speedruns. Some try to only play with favorable random “seeds” or generation patterns but through years of perseverance, the game’s time was brought down to under two minutes.
Cuphead
Cuphead is another tough-as-nails platformer, although it’s more focused on precise design over randomness. Cuphead‘s tough boss fights are well-known, being done in rubber-hose style animation and requiring precise movement even when speedrunning isn’t involved. Playthroughs at Awesome Games Done Quick in 2018 helped solidify the game’s speedrun popularity.
The game is notable for the wide variety of categories it has in speedrunning as well as its multiple difficulty modes. For those that find the “expert” difficult too easy, there are also runs that restrict the player to only one kind of weapon. Despite being a fairly linear game, Cuphead shows the full variety on offer in modern speedruns.
Minecraft
Minecraft is the most popular game in the world, but most don’t actually know it has an ending. This has allowed Minecraft speedrunning to be relatively niche until the success of YouTuber Dream in his speedrun a few years ago. Like Spelunky, Minecraft is randomly generated, and luck plays a big part in the run. Defeating the Ender Dragon is usually the goal of a Minecraft speedrun, though there are other categories.
Building as high as possible, obtaining certain items, or completing all achievements are common alternative categories; but another thing that makes Minecraft so complex to speedrun is its high number of variants. There are console ports, Java versions, and demo versions to consider and all of these versions have runners who only like to play on that version. Additionally, the game has developed a notoriety for the high amount of cheating suspected in its speedrun community. Hopefully, core enthusiasm for the game will keep it clean and fun to speedrun in the future.
