The week-long speedrunapalooza referred to as Superior Video games Finished Fast kicks off this weekend with a gap day that features high-speed blasts by way of video games together with Deathloop, Demise’s Door, Useless Area, and Donkey Kong Nation 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest. (That is a number of Ds, huh?)
Video games Finished Fast, for these unfamiliar, is a celebration of speedruns—the artwork of blasting by way of a videogame as quick as attainable. Any sport will do—this yr’s AGDQ contains The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, Stardew Valley, I Am Bread, and Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon R, to present you a way of the breadth on faucet—and runs can have varied guidelines and restrictions, reminiscent of explicit achievement necessities or the power to make use of glitches. However the backside line is similar throughout the board: Get from Level A to Level B as shortly as attainable.
This video showcases how speedrunners make the most of techniques and weirdness to get the place they need to go in a rush:
The speedrunning neighborhood is passionate (and really educated) about its video games, and the entire occasion is a number of enjoyable to observe, too. There’s real pleasure in seeing speedrunners pull these stunts off, particularly after they’re working to finest a file. And it is greater than only a present. Superior Video games Finished Fast can be a fundraising occasion for the Forestall Most cancers Basis, and a really profitable one. Final yr’s occasion earned more than $2.7 million throughout 42,000 donations.
PC-centric highlights from this yr’s schedule embody Deathloop, considered one of final yr’s hottest video games; the “austerely mental” indie puzzler Antichamber; The Typing of the Useless, which I am inquisitive about as a result of I don’t know the way you’d speedrun a typing sport; It Takes Two, as a result of nothing provides stress like a associate; and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, as a result of it is a blindfolded speedrun—actually, a run of the sport whereas sporting a blindfold.
(This may not be the primary time {that a} blindfolded run has taken place, or the primary sport: The Summer season Video games Finished Fast 2021 occasion featured two blindfolded speedruns, for Trackmania Nations Without end and Tremendous Mario 64.)
Superior Video games Finished Fast 2022 will as soon as once more be held solely on-line, and can be livestreamed on Twitch, starting with a preshow set to kick off at 8:30 am PT/11:30 am ET on January 9. The complete speedrun schedule is up at gamesdonequick.com.
