26 Years and Over 100,000 Attempts to Shave a Second off this Doom 2 Record!

Hell is everywhere

Released on December 10, 1993, Doom shook up the small world of video games. Adored by the press and players of the time, he impressed everyone. Whether it is the French, British or American press, all professionals describe it as “a revolution”. Doom grossed $100,000 on its first day of operation before reaching a million very quickly. Subsequently, in 1994, Id Software released Doom 2 which also met with great success.

Lately, we're mostly talking about Doom for its ability to run on a staggering number of devices. If it is not the first FPS in history, it is undoubtedly the one which runs on the most bizarre objects in the world. Already at the time, its featherweight of 2.39 Mb helped it to be installed on as many computers as possible. Thanks to the source code shared by John Carmack, many developers have run the title on anything and everything: pregnancy test, cash register, connected vacuum cleaner… and even on an earring. But today, it's the speedrunning scene that's grabbing our attention.

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The 1st level of Doom 2 in 4 seconds!

Did you know ? Doom and Doom 2 remain the preferred playground for certain speedrunners. The latter, convinced that past records can fall, sometimes spend days attempting the impossible. In 1998, it was a certain Thomas Pilger who made everyone agree by completing the first level of Doom in just 9 seconds. While everyone thought that no one would be able to do better, 4shockblast manages to complete the world in 8 seconds in 2019 (at least that's what the game displays, the result is actually rounded). Almost 20 years later, Thomas Pilger's feat is no more. But what is perhaps a little less known is that Thomas did not just have one distinction to his credit. He also had a record on the first level of Doom 2 recorded in 1998: 5 seconds were needed to complete the first table.

Since this incredible time, everyone thinks that it is impossible to record a lower time. But who is better placed than the one who broke Thomas' record in 2019 to take on this challenge? While for over 20 years the speedrunning scene thought breaking 5 seconds was improbable, 4shockblast rolled up its sleeves. After 1 year of doing everything possible to achieve this and after more than 100,000 tests, the result is finally here. On April 6, 2024, 4shockblast completed the first level of Doom 2 in just… 4 seconds! A result made possible thanks to perfect movement between enemies alerted by the shots fired by the speedrunner. If you want to know more, Karl Jobst returned to this little feat by here. Hats off to the artist.