Doom — Speedrun

PC · Any% (Episode 1 — UV Speed) · 1993

Current WR

1:17

First Known Run

~3:00

Doom speedrunning began within weeks of the game's December 1993 release, when players started trading demo recordings — making it one of the oldest documented speedrunning communities in gaming.

Doom's built-in demo recording system, present from the December 1993 release, enabled players to share runs almost immediately, making it the earliest game with a documented competitive speedrunning culture. Players traded record demos on Usenet and FTP sites, and the Compet-N archive — established in 1994 — became the first dedicated speedrun database for any game, predating modern leaderboard sites by nearly two decades. The game's movement system, which retains momentum and allows players to strafe-run diagonally faster than moving forward, forms the foundation of competitive routing. Doom speedrunning uses the game's own demo format for verification, a standard that has held since the 1990s.

Famous Techniques:

Strafe-Running — moving diagonally by holding a strafe direction and forward simultaneously to exceed the normal movement speed cap
Rocket Jump — using explosion knockback to reach elevated platforms ahead of schedule
Monster Use — allowing certain monsters to open doors and activate switches that the player cannot reach without a key
SR50 — a precise diagonal movement technique that maintains maximum speed through tight corridors, named for its input timing

Notable Runners:

Dario Casali — renowned early Doom player and map author (later a Valve level designer) active in the 1990s community
Radek Pecka — Compet-N era champion who held records across multiple episodes and difficulties throughout the late 1990s
Drew DeVore (stx-Vile) — modern UV Speed record holder who pushed single-episode times to their current near-theoretical minimum

Key Facts:

Players were trading speedrun demos online within months of release, making Doom one of the earliest games with a documented speedrun community
The Compet-N archive, founded in 1994, is the oldest dedicated speedrun leaderboard database in existence
Doom uses its own internal demo format for verification rather than video capture, preserving exact input sequences
The game supports both single-map and full-episode runs across four difficulty levels, producing distinct leaderboards for each

Doom — Speedrun

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