Doom beaten in 101 minutes, in nightmare mode

Doom is hard enough on its default Hurt Me Plenty difficulty setting, so it's somewhat surprising (and a little disconcerting) that someone has managed to beat the game in Nightmare mode in just over 90 minutes. That someone is speedrunner and shooter extraordinaire DraQu_, who you may remember as the high score holder in Devil Daggers.

This latest run beats his previous attempt by around ten minutes, but DraQu_ thinks there's still room for improvement. Despite the fleet-footed demon dancing on display, he reckons there were some "sloppy fights" and that it should have been a sub-1:40 run. I'm sure it's only a matter of hours before that happens, at this rate.

"The state of the run is constantly changing since it's still just a few days old," DraQu_ said. "In the past few days we've found some of the biggest out-of-bounds skips yet and I'm sure there's more to come – in fact, there were more skips found just a few hours ago. Small optimizations in terms of, for example, movement and dealing with fights are also found here and there and I'm actively working on those.

"To me, this run pretty much has the perfect balance between glitches/skips and pure skill-based fighting and I'm really happy with how many things we've been able to find," DraQu_ continued. "And I was actually pleasantly surprised at how fun it is to move around the game – especially after you get the Gauss Cannon, which is basically a rocket launcher with some extra benefits that allow you to move faster. The community has done an insane job in such a short time but I'm kind of afraid of where the run is headed because as I said, I really enjoy the skill-based combat aspects of the run – especially in Nightmare – and if the run ends up being mostly skipping everything and just running with a bit of platforming, it'll take away from my enjoyment of the run."

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.