You've no doubt heard of The Elder Scrolls, but what about a lesser-known '90s spin-off styled on Prince of Persia and Tomb Raider called Redguard? It was a major shift for a series known for its dense RPG mechanics, gigantic worlds, and diverging narrative threads, but it paved the way for Morrowind and eventually Skyrim. And its obscurity can be seen in its speedrunning scene, which until yesterday, had one record - 1h 58m 34s.MoistCritikal changed that overnight with a brand-new speedrunning challenge. If you haven't kept up with his channel, he swore to hold a competition once a month to get people speedrunning obscure old games, and while this one is late as his new video makes clear, it's already a hit. Still going strong at #36 on YouTube's trending page and with 1.3 million views, the word is getting out there about Redguard, and fans itching for the $10,000 prize have shaved the world record down to 18m 25s.People have already found ways to completely skip entire parts of the game, with the community Discord dubbing one section the 'Catacomb Skip', though that doesn't do it justice as it cuts out at least 90 minutes of playtime. This has been flagged in the 'Glitch-Hunting' channel, found by ontrigger and used by current world record holder mickyyr. Essentially, chaining together animations while angling at a door just right lets you phase through it, and that specific door bypasses a huge chunk of the game.
Whoever finds the most useful glitch will also be rewarded as part of the competition with a $1,000 prize. Most useful meaning that it saves a lot of time, becomes an essential part of the meta, and is used in several people's runs. MoistCritikal says that he includes this as part of the competition to incentivise glitch hunting and to reward those who may not be as good at speedrunning, but are talented at uncovering means to break games in inventive ways to help those who are.
Tutorials have cropped up for the 'Catacombs Skip' on YouTube, and people are quickly optimising the strategy to make it less risky. Previously, it required guards (which meant avoiding them so as to not get one hit by a magic attack), but SabulineHorizon found that running into the door from a certain angle, holding the weapon, jumping, and sheathing gets you through. No guards required.
Only one day has passed since the challenge was set, and already we're sub-20 minutes. Maybe we'll see Redguard pushed sub-ten in the near future. At any rate, this over-20-year-old game has found new life, and maybe this challenge will help it find a new audience.