The Gold Split - Week #52: The Road Ahead
Week #52 (August 21): The Gold Split's Future; Big Survey; Bananza; PEAK; $$$ Competition; Event News; Gold Stats; New Records: Refunct, Portal, Titanfall 2, Sekiro, Final Fantasy IX
Happy Week #52!
This week marks the first full year of (mostly) weekly digests of news from the world of speedrunning and beyond, commonly known as The Gold Split. It’s certainly cause for celebration and I couldn’t be more happy to have made it this far. Let’s reminisce a little, but let’s also get serious for a moment and talk about the future. This week’s main story is all about that.
Contents
Up to Speed ⚡️
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, go ahead and submit them here or in the Gold Split Discord! 📨
Story of the Week ✨
The Gold Split (soft-)launched well over a year ago, on June 29th 2024. But as we’ve established, time ticks a little differently around here. A year commonly has roughly 52 weeks, and so I’d consider the 52nd issue of this publication the one that matters. But as we also know, my counting skills aren’t world class. Because the very first issue wasn’t numbered, this is technically the 53rd…
Anyway, to stop beating around the bush… this is a big deal for me. I’m very good at starting projects, but terrible at sticking with them. I knew that putting something out into the world would add some positive pressure, but honestly didn’t expect to make it this far. Or at least, I wasn’t able to envision myself over a year later, still doing the same thing. I’ve enjoyed pressing the scary Publish button every single time and don’t want to stop.
You, dear reader, have helped to get us all to this point. I’m incredibly thankful for every minute and second you’ve spent reading the words that I wrote. Thank you for subscribing, for sharing these weekly publications, for joining the Gold Split Discord and forming a little community there, and especially to those people who chose to upgrade their support with a paid subscription. 💛💛💛
As mentioned, I don’t want to stop publishing. However, a few issues have crept in that need some time to be resolved. Therefore, The Gold Split will take a longer break. I don’t know how long it will take me and I want to be able to take my time to make sure I get things right, so I can’t give any estimates about when the newsletter will return. It comes down to three things:
First of all, Substack. It was definitely the right place to go when starting out in June of last year. However, I no longer agree with their questionable policies about who they platform, who they like to be, and the direction the website is taking. While offering more and more features that resemble the social media that initially set them apart, it’s become clear that their main objective was always to simply attract as many people as possible, regardless of their affiliation and values. This bothers me greatly and the next issue will be hosted on a different platform. Moving house will take time and effort, and I want to spend a good amount of both to find a new home and get settled properly. Please don’t unsubscribe from here just yet. I should be able to take you all with me when the move eventually happens and will occasionally post updates on BlueSky.
Secondly, I want to take the time to gather some feedback and potentially make fundamental changes to the structure of each week’s issue. Nothing about it bothers me too much, but there are certainly a few things that are a little rough around the edges. A new platform might offer new opportunities, too. I’ve also never gathered any public opinions from subscribers and the community. This changes now, and I’d love if you could take some time to post some feedback through The Gold Split’s Big End-of-Year Survey. Because we don’t have the required sample size for questions that rate or rank parts of the newsletter on a scale, I purposely left each of them extremely open ended. I’d appreciate every piece of feedback you can give, and promise to read all of it. If you prefer, you can always reach out privately to me (Fatzke) on Discord.
Last but not least, time is unfortunately money. The Gold Split was never meant to be a financial success. I wanted to give back to the community that has given me so much in the past, while also learning a lot in the process. It’s been successful in that regard, but working on each week’s issue still takes a large amount of time. It’s time I should be using to pay the bills, and cost of living is only ever going up. As part of the hiatus, I want to figure out a compromise between the necessities of capitalism and the amount of time I can (literally) afford to spend on this passion project.
When I launched The Gold Split, I pledged that 50% of every paid subscription coming in through Substack would be donated to a speedrunning charity event. I am eternally grateful to the people who decided to support in that way, am upholding that promise, and will reach out to you soon. However, and I want to be clear here, when we’re moving from Substack, all financial contributions to the project will be supporting me and cover the running costs like keeping the goldsplit.news domain. I don’t take any joy in writing this, and I’m looking forward to a future where I can reverse this process. If you’re still willing, I’ve set up a small page on Ko-fi and am actively thinking about Patreon. Apart from Discord roles there might not be many perks I can offer, but I have been thinking about a set The Gold Split stickers…
This feels like the worst point to end it on, but I’ve said all I wanted to say. If you made it this far, thank you so much! It’s incredibly humbling to have a group of awesome individuals regularly read the words that I write and I’m already looking forward to starting again in the hopefully not too distant future. See you then!
Up to Speed ⚡️
🦍 Donkey Kong Bananza Leaderboards Split the Atom Any% (1-minute read)
As reported in last week’s main story, the Donkey Kong Bananza community had decided to ban the use of the IFAT technique, which allowed players to fly through levels. These changes have now been implemented on the leaderboards and all current runs have been moved to the new Any% (Restricted) category, which continues as the main category for the game. Currently, the IFAT is the only technique that has been restricted from use in that way.
🏔️ PEAK Leaderboards Overhauled (2-minute read)
PEAK is the most active game on speedrun.com. While the backlog for runs requiring verification is growing by as much as 100 submissions daily, the moderators have their work cut out for them and are trying to establish a long-term structure for their leaderboards. Regular updates to the game, a map that changes daily, and new glitch discoveries aren’t helping. These are the most recent changes:
Max% is moved to the main leaderboards and split into Solo 100% and Full 100%. These categories require the completion of all possible achievements.
The Ascent 7 difficulty setting returns to the main page.
Random Seed returns as well, but now requires a mod to generate truly random maps.
💰 New Speedrun.com Competition With a $5,000 Prize Pool (3-minute read)
This competition requires players to play through SHINOBI III: Return of the Ninja Master as well as the demo version for SHINOBI: Art of Vengeance in one sitting, as fast as possible, and submit their times to the leaderboards. When the competition ends on August 24th, the top five players will share the $5,000 prize pool. At the time of writing, eight runners have submitted their times, with the fastest taking 35 minutes and 33 seconds. More information about rules and eligibility as well as additional links are available in the post.
Briefly
🇯🇵❄️ RTA in Japan announces Winter event (BlueSky Post)
RTA in Japan Winter 2025 will take place in Tokyo and run between December 25th and December 31st.🧙♂️ The person who beat Secret of Evermore in six minutes (11-minute video)
This video by DoctorSwellman outlines how a discovery in 2019 paved the way for a TAS-only arbitrary code execution method in Secret of Evermore.🦔 Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing leaderboards mandate new setting for PC players (1-minute read)
Certain settings for Low Detail Models could result in in unfair advantages for PC players. The mandate brings the gameplay in line with the console versions.🔥 Hades 2 leaderboards now have category extensions (1-minute read)
Two categories have been approved for the launch of the extension leaderboards: Rivals 4 and Dash/Sprint Only.
Event News 📅
🏁 Finished
RTA in Japan Summer 2025 raised ¥10,811,000+ (~$73,340) for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders)
BSG Annual 2025 raised €10,202 for MIND
Spotlight raised $1,043+ for The Knights and Orchids Society
⏱️ Running
Until August 24th: Lady Arcaders Super Showcase 2025 (Schedule), benefiting CARE
🔜 Upcoming
Starts August 22nd: SpeedDocsAThon 2025 (Schedule), benefiting Save the Children
Starts August 22nd: The Fastest Place on Earth 3 (Schedule), benefiting PRISM
Starts September 7th: Flame Fatales 2025 (Schedule), benefiting the Malala Fund
Starts September 12th: Speedrun Summit (Schedule TBA), benefiting Urban Arts
This Week’s Top Times 🏆
🥇 First Place
Refunct (Any%: Normal) in 00:02:40.789 by smythe (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubePortal (Out of Bounds: PC) in 00:05:19.980 by wyrnicus (He/Him, They/Them)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeTitanfall 2 (Any%: Standard) in 01:12:42.000 by ClipBoardGuy (Any/All)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeSekiro: Shadows Die Twice (Shura: PC, Glitchless) in 00:28:03.000 by Yeruka
Video • Twitch • YouTubeResident Evil Village (Glitchless NG+: PC) in 01:25:18.000 by Nindo
Video • Twitch • YouTubeThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Any%: pre-v1.2.1) in 00:38:55.000 by MoldyMeatballs
Video • Twitch • YouTubeFallout 3 (Any%) in 00:13:55.000 by HydreiZoniX
Video • Twitch • YouTubeFinal Fantasy IX (PSX Disc: Any%) in 08:33:53.000 by CaracarnVi
Video • Twitch • YouTube
🥈 Second Place
Super Mario 64 (120 Star: N64) in 01:35:30.000 by Karin
Video • TwitchMetroid Fusion (Any%: Normal) in 01:10:34.000 by monkeysmb (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeDeepwoken (Ferryman: Patched, Normal) in 00:00:02.833 by willowcvnt (They/Them)
VideoGrand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned (Any%) in 01:04:18.000 by timonIV (He/Him)
Video • YouTube
🥉 Third Place
Super Mario 64 (16 Star: EMU) in 00:15:01.000 by ZUMMI (He/Him)
Video • TwitchResident Evil 4 (Steam) (New Game: Professional, Single Segment, 60 FPS) in 01:22:54.529 by DerekT21288
Video • Twitch • YouTubeKingdom Hearts Final Mix (Any%: PC, Beginner) in 01:48:38.000 by dianeastrology (Any/All)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeSubnautica (Any%: Creative, Glitchless) in 00:10:37.000 by whotag (She/Her)
Video • Twitch • YouTube
Fun Stat of the Week 📈
I crunched the numbers on all 51 issues of The Gold Split written and published prior to today. Here are a few details!
Total amount of words written: 94,186 (or 450,447 characters)
Average amount of words per issue: 1,846 (or 8,832 characters)
The three longest editions so far:
The shortest and only one with a word count lower than 1,000:
Week #46: 928 words
If you just discovered The Gold Split and you’d like to catch up on all 51 prior publications, it’ll take you almost 400 minutes, or 6 hours and 40 minutes.
Social Choice 🔝
The social choice of the week is… this ancient speedrun of a Wendy’s drive-through, dug up from the depths of the old internet.
Personally, I think the timer should start before ordering. It’s not a cutscene, and individual skill can make a real difference there.
👋🏻 And that’s it! See you on a different platform, in the not too distant future. 👋🏻
The Gold Split is free and I have no plans to add a paywall. If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to receive the new issue directly to your inbox.
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Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Thanks for reading.
Shoutout to Wyrnicus for getting a world record on their birthday! 🎂