The Gold Split - Week #4: Is ULTRAKILL the best speedgame?
Week #4 (July 25th): ULTRAKILL; Elden Ring Challenge; Another Path of Exile Record; SMB Milestone; Marathon News; New World Records: Spongebob, Ocarina of Time, Half-Life 2
![A screenshot of the speedrun.com website shows the six most active games: ULTRAKILL, Super Mario 64, ROBLO: Tower Defense Simulator, Celeste, Chained Together, Hades 2 A screenshot of the speedrun.com website shows the six most active games: ULTRAKILL, Super Mario 64, ROBLO: Tower Defense Simulator, Celeste, Chained Together, Hades 2](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffeb3b026-9149-4f08-a986-23f8c38d2be3_852x252.png)
A boomer shooter in Early Access since 2019 being the most active game on speedrun.com in 2024 ahead of evergreens such as Celeste, Super Mario 64 or… *checks notes*… ROBLOX: Tower Defense Simulator wasn’t part of any of my bingo sheets, but here we are. In this week’s Gold Split, I’ll give a short overview of the status quo, how we got to that point and attempt to answer the question why ULTRAKILL is as popular as it is.
Contents
Up to Speed ⚡️
I’d like to cover much more, but many great stories remain confined to the communities for a specific game or series and rarely get out. I encourage you to think about what happened recently in the communities you are a part of. If there are any stories, articles, glitches, events, or other topics I should cover, please go ahead and submit them here or in the Gold Split Discord! 📨
Story of the Week
ULTRAKILL is a “fast-paced ultraviolent old-school first-person shooter”. This string of words might be enough for 90% of my readers to stop right here, but there’s more!
While the graphics adopt a pixelated style with a red colour palette, the gameplay intentionally takes the best parts from Quake and Doom and throws some Devil May Cry into the mix for good measure. The domain devilmayquake.com leads to the game’s Steam page and was part of the initial promotional campaign.
A demo version of the game’s prelude was published in August 2019, and its first leaderboards were established on speedrun.com in December of the same year. In September of 2020, ULTRAKILL launched on Steam in Early Access.
Fast forward to today: at the time of writing, ULTRAKILL is the most active game on speedrun.com. And that’s not just a cherry-picked snapshot either. It has been consistently at or near the top for well over a year, since June 2023, ahead of speedrunning heavyweights like Celeste or Super Mario 64.
At the time of writing, ULTRAKILL has:
Total Runs 21,460+
Total Players: 5,460+
Active Players: 911
Most of those runs were done for individual levels, but the full game category also gets a decent amount of love.
Right after its Early Access release, ULTRAKILL maintained a modest but consistent player base. This changed in August 2022 with an update that added Act 2 and Layers 5 and 6. Player numbers spiked to more than eight times the previous peak. And they did so again following the “The Wait of the World Update” in March 2023.
![A graph of the ULTRAKILL player count between August 2022 and May 2023, showing two large spikes: one in August 2022 and one in March 2023. A graph of the ULTRAKILL player count between August 2022 and May 2023, showing two large spikes: one in August 2022 and one in March 2023.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F29052c76-d7f8-4a4c-b705-5400ef76b83d_934x370.png)
And it was at this time that submissions to the speedrun.com leaderboards for the game increased significantly. Three months later the game was already near the top of the most active games on speedrun.com.
Why exactly the period following this particular update caused people to develop so much more interest in the speedrunning side, I cannot say. However, there are a few factors that make it a great game to speedrun:
There’s a built-in timer. It’s accurate, doesn’t get in the way and tracks other things like kills, style points and secrets. This lowers the barrier to entry significantly and makes picking this up as a speedrun much more accessible.
It’s fast. ULTRAfast even. There’s no downtime. The “full” game takes good players under 30 minutes, but most of them focus on individual levels which vary in length from a few seconds to just over one minute long.
There’s a ton of intentional and unintentional tricks to master. All of the weapons have a purpose. This raises the skill ceiling and adds variety, preventing the experience from becoming stale.
The developers are actively encouraging this by not removing certain glitches or unintended behaviour through patches.
Early Access may be a boon. Regular patches mean regular new content, again adding variety and regularly being a new experience even for the existing playerbase.
On top of that, speedrun.com held a challenge contest for ULTRAKILL in March 2024 with prize money for the top 3 finishers. This caused another spike in active players on the site.
Now, I hope you’re at least mildly curious about what ULTRAKILL actually looks like. While it isn’t a good showcase of what your first playthrough might look like, the Any% run of the current “full” game demonstrates just how ridiculously fast it can get. Check a look:
I’m really looking forward to seeing how the player base develops as the game nears its full release. It’s in an incredibly healthy state already and we’ve seen other games in much worse shape shoot up after leaving Early Access. Only the sky is the limit for ULTRAKILL.
I’m no expert and the first to admit it. If I got anything wrong or if you’d like to provide some further context or feedback, please get in touch!
Up to Speed
💯 Path of Exile levelling: 1 to 100 (maximum) in just over 30 minutes (4 minute read & 35 minute video)
Remember two weeks ago? Just this week, Havoc, together with Team Focus, set another milestone in Path of Exile: going from level 1 to 100 without any restrictions in just over 30 minutes real time. Back in 2013 Havoc was the first player ever to reach level 100. It took 74 days at the time. A brief explanation as well as the video to the full run is available in the post.
🏔️ GSA announces GSA Speedrun Summit from Sept. 27th to 29th (3 minute read & 1 minute video)
The event will bring several popular content creators together for three days of challenge runs, party games but also IRL content while raising money for Urban Arts. Confirmed to be featured so far are cheese, ZFG, SHiFT and Trihex. Eight more will be announced in the coming weeks. A limited amount of VIP tickets is publicly available.
💰 Distortion2 announces $10,000 challenge within the Elden Ring DLC (2 minute video)
Participants are challenged to defeat all remembrance bosses in the Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree. Several restrictions, such as remaining at level 1 and only using weapons from the DLC, are imposed to keep the power level low and encourage players to innovate. The challenge will run through August 11th and you’ll find leaderboards and further info on a dedicated Discord server.
Marathon News
Finished:
Australian Speedrun Marathon 2024 raised $30,470+ for Cure Cancer
The Fastest Place on Earth 2 raised $600 for PRISM
Running:
Until 27 July 2024: ESA Summer 2024, raising money for Alzheimerfonden (Schedule)
Upcoming:
Starts in 2 hours: Lady Arcaders Super Showcase 2024, raising money for CARE (Schedule)
This Week’s Top Times
🥇 First Place:
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom (Any%) in 00:41:42.000 by SHiFT
Video • Twitch • YouTubeA Difficult Game About Climbing (Glitchless) in 00:03:27.629 by orzy (Any/All)
VideoThe Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (100%: No SRM) in 03:44:56.000 by glitchymon
Video • TwitchChained Together (Any% NoWings: 1 Player, Unrestricted, v1.7.3+) in 00:41:50.000 by Lockness06
Video • TwitchClustertruck (Any%) in 00:11:12.482 by EmilySailor (She/Her)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeHalf-Life 2 (New Engine: Any% No Voidclip) in 00:37:44.159 by PenPerson
Video • Twitch • YouTubeS.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (Any%: Novice) in 00:08:48.000 by Anarch1st (He/Him)
Video • TwitchFreddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator (Mediocrity Ending: PC) in 00:15:13.852 by shmunkie
Video • Twitch • YouTube
🥈 Second Place:
Super Mario Sunshine (Any%: GCN) in 01:13:07.000 by JJsrl
Video • TwitchPortal 2 (Single Player: No SLA) in 00:56:02.083 by madin
Video • Twitch • YouTubeSpyro the Dragon (Any%) in 00:37:14.000 by Ashriel (She/Her, They/Them)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Main Quest: PC) in 00:23:27.450 by DankSlushie (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeGimmick! (Any% (Zipless)) in 00:06:53.000 by Aryll (She/Her)
Video • Twitch • YouTube
🥉 Third Place:
Kirby's Dream Land (Normal Mode) in 00:10:03.000 by pletty
Video • Twitch • YouTubeOri and the Blind Forest Definitive Edition (All Skills: No OOB/TA) in 00:27:02.000 by Primorix (He/Him)
Video • TwitchPrey (2017) (Any%) in 00:06:09.000 by scufu (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeSonic Frontiers (Any%: PC) in 00:57:05.650 by Reverie (They/Them)
Video • Twitch • YouTube
Fun Stat of the Week
📊 Over 400 people have beaten Super Mario Bros. in under 5 minutes
This is remarkable and originates from a short Twitter thread initiated by Kosmic. There’s some further context, history and other content creators chiming in as well.
Reddit Choice
🔝 The r/speedrun choice of the week is possibly the greatest speedrunning accomplishment ever. Those of us old enough know just how infuriating these ring toss games can be.
👋🏻 And that’s it for this week! See you next Thursday, August 1st 2024. 👋🏻
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Special shoutout to my incredible wife and co-conspirator Niamh for all the visuals. Let her know how awesome those dividers are!
Special shoutout to Sarim for supporting with some copywriting. Find the words he writes over at gameluster.com!