Awesome Games Done Quick Online will kick off on Sunday, January 8, launching a week-long high-speed gaming extravaganza featuring some of the world's foremost speedrunners showing off their skills on an array of games from the past and present—and one starring a hard-to-kill action hero that never officially saw the light of day.
The AGDQ event gets underway with a pre-show set to start at 11:30 pm ET, followed by the first speedrun—an Any% run of Splatoon 3 on the Nintendo Switch—at noon. The PC swings into action at 2:14 pm ET (these schedules are very tight) with some Crash Bandicoot fun. That's not really my cup of tea, but an hour after that a New Game+ run of Mirror's Edge will begin, which is more my speed.
Here's a Catalyst run from Summer Games Done Quick in 2017. It takes 1:03:49 to get from start to finish—the current record, according to speedrun.com, is the considerably quicker 49:18.
Other interesting speedruns on tap during the event include an Any% Nosferatu run through Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, an All-Quest playthrough of Fallout 3, an Any% Frogun run, an All-Trophies completion of Goat Simulator, and an Any% co-op playthrough of Dead Space 3.
The real hook for me, though (even though it isn't a PC game) is an Any% run of Steven Seagal Is: The Final Option, a mid-'90s SNES beat-em-up that was never actually released. According to SNES Central, however, a playable beta version eventually surfaced and it's a "completely functioning game," according to the AGDQ 2023 Online submission page.
"Much like in real life, Steven Seagal has 255 lives and can respawn in a nearby area," the description states, accurately. "The run consists of out of bounds to complete the stages and deathwarps on some jumps."
It’s not a speedrun, but to prove it's actually a real thing that exists, here’s some prototype gameplay of Seagal beating the shit out of some scientists and maintenance workers:
Along with the solid week of speedruns, Awesome Games Done Quick 2023 Online is notable for another reason: It will be the final event for Games Done Quick founder and managing director Mike Uyama, who announced earlier this week that he'll be stepping down and "taking a break" after the show is over. Uyama has headed up the Games Done Quick series since its founding in 2010, when he broadcast from his mom's basement; in the years since, GDQ has raised more than $41 million for charities. 100% of funds raised during Awesome Games Done Quick 2023 Online will be donated to the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
The final run in Awesome Games Done Quick 2023 Online will be an Any% warpless run of Super Mario Bros 3 on the NES, after which the whole thing will wrap up a little after midnight (again, Eastern time) on January 15. You can dive into the full schedule at gamesdonequick.com.
