Summary
Speedrunning used to be the wild west of gaming. Timers taped to CRTs, frame-by-frame analysis on forums, and a lot of “trust me bro” energy. But somewhere along the way, developers caught on. They stopped treating speedrunners like rogue agents and started designing games with them in mind. Now, some of the best titles out there come loaded with features tailor-made for the folks who think “saving the world” should take under 30 minutes.
From real-time timers to built-in leaderboards, sequence break recognition toclever level designthat practically begs for skips, these games don’t just tolerate speedrunners—they celebrate them.
Braiddidn’t just encourage speedrunning—it practically demanded it with a coy smirk and a ticking clock. Released in 2008, this deceptively serene puzzle-platformer is built around time manipulation, but it hides something behind its artsy aesthetic that made it legendary in speedrunning circles: a hidden challenge mode with very real stakes.
After completing the game once, players unlock theSpeed Runfeature, which adds an in-game timer and dares them to beat each world within a set time. And this isn’t some soft challenge with wiggle room—it’s tight, brutal, and specifically designed to make players rethink everything they thought they knew about how time works in the game.
The twist is that every world inBraidplays with time differently. One lets players rewind mistakes, another makes time move only when they move, and so on. That meanseach level is a puzzleto manipulate in the most efficient way possible. The way speedrunners use edge mechanics, like stutter-stepping to keep time slow, or rewinding to bait enemies into perfect positions, shows just how deep this system goes.
Hat Kidisn’t just adorable—she’s got some serious moves, andA Hat in Timedoesn’t shy away from showing them off. Beneath its cute and colorful exterior lies one of the most fluid movement systems in any 3D platformer, and the developers knew it. From the very first hour, the game practically encourages players to mess around with its mechanics just to see how far they can push the momentum.
What makes it a speedrunner’s dream is how open it is to creative movement. Dive-cancelling, hat-switching mid-air, and momentum stacking are features that the community embraced and the devskept. The developers even added an officialSpeedrun Mode, which disables cutscenes, tracks times per act, and gives players a raw timer that never stops.
Even better, the community’s relationship with the dev team is one of the healthiest out there. Gears for Breakfast regularly watched speedrun events and incorporated suggestions from runners. They didn’t just tolerate sequence breaking—they leaned into it. Some later updates added new movement tech that directly mirrored how runners were already playing.
Dead Cellswastes no time getting players killed—and it also doesn’t waste their time, period. Its signaturefast-paced combatand procedurally generated maps might seem like enemies of speedrunning precision, but Motion Twin found a way to embrace both chaos and control.
The game includes a real-time speedrun timer baked directly into the HUD, and several of its time doors—which lock players out if they’re too slow—create natural incentives to move fast. But that’s not all. Players who master the game’s movement tech—tight dodges, perfect parries, mid-air jumps, and slam attacks—can shred through levels with a rhythm that feels closer to a dance than a fight.
Motion Twin also added dedicated Speedrun Presets and Custom Mode options, letting players tweak item pools, enemy behaviors, and gear loadouts for consistent practice. Combined with daily runs and leaderboard support,Dead Cellsdoesn’t just allow speedruns—it helps players grind them down to muscle memory.
What really seals it is the metaprogression. Unlocks persist across runs, meaning experienced players can tailor their builds for max speed. And with new mutations and items continually added through updates, the meta is always shifting, keeping even long-time runners on their toes.
Players who grew up glitching throughMetroidwith wall jumps and bomb boosts felt right at home inAxiom Verge. But what set it apart wasn’t just the nostalgia—it was how it wove sequence breaking into the very fabric of its design. In fact, the game goes so far as to acknowledge and evenencourageit.
Rather than patching out exploits or locking content behind intended progress, developer Tom Happ leaned into the chaos. Certain rooms and tools existsolelyto reward players who break out of bounds or find unintended paths. The Address Disruptor, for example, can corrupt the environment in ways that turn solid walls into pathways, glitched tiles into platforms, and enemies into springboards for skips.
There’s even a secret ending that can only be discovered by pulling off some truly absurd movement tech—something that casual players will never stumble into, butspeedrunners adore. And for players who want to practice, the game includes a full speedrun timer with pause control, meaning players can learn each split without wrestling with external tools.
IfMirror’s Edgedid an energy drink and developed a crush onDOOM, it would probably look likeNeon White. Everything in this first-person speedrunning shooter—from the level length to the weapon design—was crafted around shaving milliseconds off a perfect run.
Every stage inNeon Whiteis a compact playground of demons and death cards, and players are judged not on whether they survive, but howfastthey do it. Weapon cards double as movement abilities—discard a shotgun to double jump, or toss a rifle to dash through glass. The key is balancing gunplay with traversal, and the scoring system encourages going back and doing better.
What sets it apart is how aggressively it gamifies speedrunning. Levels are graded by speed, and getting a Gold or Ace rank unlocks the ability to view aghost replayof the dev’s best time—an invaluable tool for players to study optimal routes. There are also hidden gifts in each level that require clever movement to grab, rewarding players for experimentation between sprints.
Everything inNeon Whiteis tuned for velocity, right down to the soundtrack by Machine Girl, which makes every run feel like it was ripped straight out of an early 2000s anime fever dream.
There’sprocedural generation, and then there’sSpelunky, which builds entire ecosystems of disaster every time it’s booted up. And yet, in the middle of that chaos, there’s order. There’s a path. And for speedrunners, that path is gold.
Spelunky’s best runs look like pure improvisation, but they’re built on a deep understanding of the game’s physics and enemy behaviors. Players who survive long enough learn to predict how traps trigger, how enemies move, and how to use explosions, corpses, or even angry shopkeepers as movement tools.
The magic lies in the timer and seed system. BothSpelunkyandSpelunky 2track real-time run data, and Daily Challenges give every player the exact same map seed, turning the usual chaos into a level playing field for global competition.
Celesteisn’t just a platformer. It’s therapy in the shape of a jump button. And somewhere along its emotional climb through grief and self-doubt, it also turned into one of the mostrespected speedrun gamesin the indie scene.
What makes it exceptional is how refined the movement is. Every dash, jump, and wall-cling behavesexactlythe way players expect it to. That precision invites mastery, and the level design rewards it with thousands of tiny decisions that stack into smoother and faster climbs. And for those who want to go deeper, the Assist Mode and accessibility settings allow players to train specific mechanics without friction.
The developers didn’t just allow speedrunners in the room—they set the table for them. An in-game timer tracks per-level and full run times, and theFarewellDLC is a love letter to those who thought the original game wasn’t hard enough. It added more movement tech, including hyper dashes, wall bounces, and demo dashes—techniques that became staples of the speedrun meta.
The community took all of that and ran with it, literally.Celestehas one of the most active speedrun communities in the world, and its annual presence at events like Games Done Quick is a testament to how perfectly tuned every frame of it is. Watching a runner fly through its stages with surgical precision makes it feel less like climbing a mountain and more like dancing across it.
