Awesome Games Done Quick 2026 Report #1
Gotta Watch Fast!
I had hoped to provide a day by day report about the must-watch runs throughout this year’s Games Done Quick (GDQ). If you aren’t familiar, GGQ is a twice a year charity marathon where speedrunners join forces to stream speedruns for a week of solid content and raise money for different charities. Speedrunning is the practice of completing video games as fast as possible.
I started watching GDQ in 2016 after searching for a playthrough of Ocarina of Time on YouTube. I found ZFG’s 100% speedrun and it blew my mind. Well, I was hooked. Now, I watch AGDQ every January, and SGDQ (Summer Games Done Quick) every summer.
This year’s AGDQ is off to an amazing start. Here are my recommendations to watch from the first few days.
Super Mario Sunshine by inkstar
The first run of the marathon was an Any% run of Super Mario Sunshine. I have a history with this game, the TLDR is that I am terrible at it. So watching players execute movement and tricks with effortless proficiency is beautiful to watch. It’s a gorgeous game with amazing sound and music.
Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage by DylanJayFox
I watched this run with my wife and son. My wife, a huge Spyro fan, was amazed at how fast DylanJayFox completed the run. One of my favourite things about speedruns is showing them to people who know how a game is “supposed to be played” and seeing how speedrunners break the sequencing. Lots of out of bounds clips, quick kills, and precise movement in this one.
Final Fantasy X by Vermillion
A game that would take almost a whole day to speedrun is now marathon friendly thanks to a cut scene remover mod. Final Fantasy X is an awesome speedrun to watch because it kind of becomes a Pokemon game because the main damage comes from summons. Always great commentary and lots of fun Final Fantasy trivia during these runs.
Path of Exile 2 by Angormus
This was the surprise of the show so far. Path of Exile was once featured in a HotFix, the Games Done Quick weekly programming on Twitch. It was part of what got me to finally try the first game. This run shows off a lot of cool techniques and has great commentary about how the game works.
Small Saga by Queuety
An RPG that came out and I forgot about. I enjoyed watching this run because the pixel art is beautiful and it’s like seeing a modern Redwall RPG. There’s something about Arriety or Borrowers aesthetics that works for the scale and worldbuilding of an RPG.
Lylat Wars by Argick
Finally, Argick runs Lylat Wars, Star Fox 64. Star Fox 64 is already an engaging speedrun, but Argick does a points attack to see how high of a score he can achieve on one life. The techniques and knowledge on display, as well as Argick’s +5 Charisma modifier, make this a must watch run of the show.
So there ya go. Something to get you started. You can watch the full archive of runs on GDQ’s YouTube and you can watch the event live, too!