Greatest Speedrun Games Ever

Super Mario 64

The godfather of 3D speedrunning, where A-presses became a religion and the 0-star vs 1-star vs 16-star debates split communities for a decade. Discoveries like BLJs (backwards long jumps) and parallel universes turned a kids' platformer into a research project, and it's been the

Release Year: 1996Community Activity: 10/10Approx. Any% WR: ~6m30sCategory Depth: 9/10

added by IJRin 10 rankingsSuper Mario 64

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Wrong Warps and the infamous 'ZFG' (Zelda Fifty Percent... no, actually glitchless purity runs) made OoT a proving ground for TAS-to-human tech transfer. Its any% category collapsed from over an hour to under 20 minutes as the community cracked reverse bottle adventure and stale

Release Year: 1998Community Activity: 9/10Approx. Any% WR: ~17mCategory Depth: 9/10

added by IJRin 9 rankingsThe Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Minecraft

A procedurally generated world shouldn't be speedrunnable, yet Minecraft Java random-seed glitchless became one of the most-watched categories on Twitch, fueled by Dream's controversial 2020 run and subsequent statistical takedown. Bastion/blaze rod routing is now optimized to th

Release Year: 2011Community Activity: 10/10Approx. Any% WR: ~19mCategory Depth: 8/10

added by IJRin 12 rankings

Celeste

A modern indie darling built by a speedrunner (noel) FOR speedrunners, with a golden-strawberry no-death challenge so brutal it created its own cult of masochists. The game's tight physics engine spawned wavedashes and hyperdashes that feel like they were reverse-engineered from

Release Year: 2018Community Activity: 8/10Approx. Any% WR: ~27mCategory Depth: 8/10

added by IJRin 10 rankings

Portal

Valve's physics puzzler became a speedrunning icon the moment players realized portal momentum could launch Chell out of bounds entirely, birthing the legendary out-of-bounds category that bypasses most of the game. GLaDOS's dry wit made even the 'inbounds' runs a GDQ crowd favor

Release Year: 2007Community Activity: 8/10Approx. Any% WR: ~7mCategory Depth: 7/10

added by IJRin 6 rankings

Super Metroid

The low% run — beating the game with the bare minimum items — is arguably the single most respected speedrun category ever devised, demanding frame-perfect wall jumps and mockball tech through Zebes with almost nothing. Its 1994 design still yields new sequence breaks decades lat

Release Year: 1994Community Activity: 8/10Approx. Any% WR: ~44mCategory Depth: 9/10

added by IJRin 7 rankingsSuper Metroid

Dark Souls

FromSoftware's punishing RPG turned into a speedrunning spectacle once runners realized bosses could be skipped via clever hitbox abuse and quitouts, collapsing a 40-hour game into under 20 minutes. Watching a runner sprint past the Asylum Demon with zero hesitation remains a rit

Release Year: 2011Community Activity: 8/10Approx. Any% WR: ~18mCategory Depth: 8/10

added by IJRin 7 rankings

Hollow Knight

A sprawling Metroidvania that speedrunners tamed through precise pogo-jump chaining and boss-skip sequence breaks, with the any% category becoming a showcase of nail-bounce mastery across Hallownest. Its depth rewarded years of route optimization long after the base game's 2017 r

Release Year: 2017Community Activity: 7/10Approx. Any% WR: ~38mCategory Depth: 8/10

added by IJRin 10 rankingsHollow Knight

Elden Ring

FromSoft's open world exploded onto speedrunning charts within days of release, as runners found wrong-warp glitches and horse-jump shortcuts that turned the Lands Between into a highway. Its rapid post-launch tech discoveries (and patches killing them) made it a live speedrunnin

Release Year: 2022Community Activity: 8/10Approx. Any% WR: ~18mCategory Depth: 7/10

added by IJRin 13 rankings

Super Mario Bros.

The original NES classic where warp zones and the minus world became speedrunning folklore before 'speedrunning' was even a word, with the sub-5-minute barrier standing as one of gaming's oldest optimization benchmarks. Its simplicity is exactly why frame-perfect execution still

Release Year: 1985Community Activity: 9/10Approx. Any% WR: ~4m55sCategory Depth: 6/10

added by IJRin 5 rankings

Half-Life

Valve's genre-defining shooter hides a speedrunning secret weapon: bunny-hopping and strafe-jumping tech that lets runners rocket through Black Mesa at absurd speeds, skipping entire chapters via clever exploits. It helped seed the strafe-jump tech that later defined Quake and So

Release Year: 1998Community Activity: 7/10Approx. Any% WR: ~21mCategory Depth: 7/10

added by IJRin 3 rankings

Resident Evil 4

Leon's escort mission nightmare became a beloved New Game+ speedrun where the infinite rocket launcher and inventory Tetris optimization turn survival horror into an action ballet. Capcom's remake reignited a whole second wave of route theorycrafting in 2023.

Release Year: 2005Community Activity: 7/10Approx. Any% WR: ~1h28mCategory Depth: 7/10

added by IJRin 4 rankings

GoldenEye 007

The N64 shooter that basically invented competitive console speedrunning culture in the late '90s LAN scene, with 'Facility Agent' sub-32-second runs becoming legendary long before the internet made clips shareable. Its level-based structure created dozens of individually iconic

Release Year: 1997Community Activity: 6/10Approx. Any% WR: ~32m (all levels)Category Depth: 7/10

added by IJRin 8 rankings

Quake

id Software's shooter is the spiritual home of strafe-jumping and rocket-jumping tech that spread across an entire genre, with its Nightmare-difficulty speedruns remaining a benchmark of movement mastery nearly 30 years later. Speedrunning historians credit it as the bridge betwe

Release Year: 1996Community Activity: 6/10Approx. Any% WR: ~19mCategory Depth: 8/10

added by IJRin 2 rankings

Sonic the Hedgehog

Built for speed from day one, the original Genesis Sonic turned platforming momentum itself into the point, and its speedrun scene leans into spindash chaining and zone-skip glitches that feel almost intended by Sega. It remains a nostalgic gateway game for many newer runners.

Release Year: 1991Community Activity: 6/10Approx. Any% WR: ~13mCategory Depth: 6/10

added by IJRin 3 rankings

Trackmania

Not just speedrun-friendly but speedrun-native, Trackmania is literally a racing game built around beating your own ghost, making it arguably the purest distillation of the speedrunning ethos in existence. Its map-editor culture produces thousands of community-made tracks optimiz

Release Year: 2003Community Activity: 7/10Approx. Any% WR: varies by trackCategory Depth: 9/10

added by IJRin 2 rankings

Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

A rage-game built entirely around a hammer and a pot, Getting Over It turned its own brutal difficulty into the speedrun challenge, with sub-3-minute clears feeling like a magic trick to anyone who's raged through it normally. Bennett Foddy's narration mocking failure only sweete

Release Year: 2017Community Activity: 5/10Approx. Any% WR: ~3mCategory Depth: 4/10

added by IJRin 2 rankingsGetting Over It with Bennett Foddy

Super Mario Sunshine

The black sheep of the 3D Mario trilogy found redemption in speedrunning, where FLUDD-canceling and yoshi-juice tech let runners skip Isle Delfino's fetch quests almost entirely. Its notoriously fiddly camera makes every clean run feel like a technical triumph over the game itsel

Release Year: 2002Community Activity: 6/10Approx. Any% WR: ~1h38mCategory Depth: 6/10

added by IJRin 2 rankingsSuper Mario Sunshine