After 25 years, Quake’s oldest speedrun record has just been broken

With Resident Evil, GTA, Half-Life, Doom, and all the other games that lend themselves to speedrunning, new records often involve discovering a hidden glitch or a super-complex exploit that changes the entire route. But this time we have something completely different. More than 25 years after its first record, the oldest speedrunning record for id Software’s epochal FPS game Quake has just been beaten, setting a new record that was previously thought to be impossible. And the secret? There is no secret. Quake’s most difficult record was beaten through sheer skill and determination.

The first level of the second episode of Quake, released in 1996, is “The Installation,” a deceptively simple run-and-gun arena that, as players soon discovered, could be skipped entirely thanks to a sequence break right next to the starting zone. The Installation forms a sort of circle, but if you time your jump right, you can cross the gap that otherwise separates one side from the other at the start of the level and reach the exit in a matter of seconds—or, to be more precise, seven seconds.

The record for beating The Installation on easy mode was first set and broken by speedrunner Markus Taipale in March 1999. It has stood at seven seconds for 25 years. Later players of the FPS game have managed to shave off small increments of time and hundredths of a second, but Taipale was the first to break the seven-second barrier, and since then no one has been able to break the six-second barrier – until now.

As explained in a typically excellent video by YouTuber and speedrunner Karl Jobst, Quake player “EIM64” finally broke the game’s oldest standing record on Thursday, August 15, with a time of 6.99 seconds on “The Installation.” And he did it through sheer skill. EIM64 didn’t find a new glitch, exploit, or level skip—he simply replayed “The Installation” over and over until he found ways to shave off that precious hundredth of a second.

For example, in Quake, if you want to reach maximum movement speed, you have to repeatedly jump or perform “bunny hops.” The problem is that at the beginning of The Installation, if you keep jumping until you reach the railing you need to jump off of to make that all-important jump across the gap, you’ll still be stuck mid-jump, so the timing is off and you’ll miss your target.

Typically, players counteract this by running a few steps right at the start of the level so the bunny hop sequence is perfectly timed. EIM64 realized that if you turn Ranger just a tiny bit more before the first jump, you can practically eliminate the need to walk and still hit the railing in the right frame later. After that, it’s all about making extremely subtle adjustments to your movement. When you run forward in Quake, you turn more slowly – instead of holding down the forward button, EIM64 strategically taps it so that it affects sideways movement less.

Through repetition, analysis, sheer skill, and a lot of patience, EIM64 has managed to break Quake’s oldest record. It’s an impressive feat, and marks the second time this year that a long-standing FPS record has been broken – a Doom 2 record that was thought to be unbeatable was recently broken after nearly three decades.

Check out the best old games if you miss the halcyon days of Quake and the Boomer shooter, or maybe the best upcoming PC games if you want to see what the future holds.

You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC gaming news, reviews, and guides, or get our PCGN deal tracker to grab some bargains.