Another week, another reminder that speedrunners are not playing games so much as interrogating them until they confess their deepest sins. From utterly unhinged GTA routing to marathon hype and a pile of fresh world records, r/speedrun was cooking this week. Let’s dig in.
🚨 Feature of the Week: GTA San Andreas Has Been Officially Disrespected (Again)
The headline post this week was a monster write-up detailing a newly discovered “skip the entire game” strategy in the original PC release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
What makes this special isn’t just the result—jumping straight to End of the Line Part 3—but how it’s achieved. Unlike Arbitrary Jump in Script (AJS) in the Windows Store and Definitive Edition versions, this route is a grotesque Frankenstein’s monster built from nearly every major glitch the SA community has ever found.
Highlights (read: war crimes against game stability) include:
- Running two copies of the main script at once
- Intentionally going into negative money via stunt jumps
- Using casino bets as memory manipulation
- Driving blind through unloaded interiors
- Holding open a clothing menu for half the run to preserve a cursed input state
- Finishing by overlapping Big Smoke and Just Business so hard the game gives up and loads the final mission
The payoff? Beating San Andreas PC in ~1 hour instead of 3, assuming the game doesn’t crash and you don’t lose your grip on reality first.
This is the kind of route that reminds you why GTA speedruns are legendary marathon material: constant danger, zero downtime, and commentary that can barely keep up. Absolute cinema.
😂 Meme Check: STOP PAUSE BUFFERING
Not much to explain here. If you’ve ever watched a runner pause 400 times in 30 seconds while the couch desperately tries to talk, you felt this one in your soul.
🎉 Event Spotlight: ICE Breaker Marathon
ICE Breaker, hosted by Really Really Longathon, is officially live (or just wrapped, depending on when you’re reading). Running from Jan 30 – Feb 1, the marathon raises money for the Immigrant Rapid Response Fund via the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota.
Hosted by Helix13 (GDQ) alongside the RRLAT crew, this event is stacked with long-form runs and immaculate vibes. If you missed it live, the VODs are absolutely worth your time.
🏆 World Records & Notable Runs
This week delivered a nice spread of records across classic and modern games:
- Super Mario Bros. – Niftski tied the 8-4 IL record twice in a row, because consistency is fake and he’s built different.
- Super Mario Sunshine – inkstar claimed Any% in 1:12:28, a huge showing in a category that never chills.
- Jet Force Gemini – A new WR on Mizar 1 after 10 years. Yes, ten.
- Baldur’s Gate 3 – Solo, No Major Glitches, 34:58. Completely unhinged.
- Bloons TD 6 – #Ouch Black Border speedrun in 2:21:47, which sounds fake until you remember BTD6 runners fear nothing.
🎥 Video Essays, TAS, and Deep Dives
Content creators were busy too:
- A technical speedrun breakdown of someone’s favorite game of 2024
- A history of Mr. Blobby’s Creamless %, which is exactly as cursed as it sounds
- A Pilotwings 64 Outrun Death glitch that might have real routing potential
- A TAS project for Snowboard Kids, breaking every Time Attack WR in one go
- A breakdown of how a terrible horror game (Code Violet) somehow turned into a genuinely good speedrun
This is the good stuff: community knowledge being archived, refined, and weaponized.
🧠 Community Questions & Nerd Stuff
Rounding things out:
- Runners asked about multi-game lockout bingo setups
- Others discussed how to set up bounties to attract new runners
- One brave soul scientifically analyzed golden strawberry grinding, because Celeste players do not know peace
Final Thoughts
Between GTA San Andreas being reduced to a smoldering crater, marathon season kicking into gear, and records falling across genres and eras, this week perfectly captured what makes speedrunning special: creativity, obsession, and a complete lack of respect for intended design.
If this is what January looks like, the rest of the year is going to be wild.
Source: reddit.com