Doom's Oldest World Record Was Finally Beaten!

hello you absolute Legends in February

of 2019 the speedrunner for shock blast

did something incredible he beat the

very first level in the original Doom

hanger in 8 seconds this was a

Monumental achievement as the previous

record of 9 seconds was set all the way

back in 1998 more than 20 years earlier

whenever these ancient records are

broken it's a very big deal truthfully

for a long time people weren't even sure

if eight was possible at all let alone

would actually be achieved the man who

originally set the record of 9 seconds

back in '98 was a speedrunner by the

name of Thomas Pilger a Bonafide Doom

legend in the late '90s Thomas was King

and between the years of 97 and 99 he

submitted hundreds of demos including

the infamous hang of n but there was

another record that Thomas also achieved

back in 1998 that is arguably just as

important Thomas didn't just set the

world record for the first stage of Doom

he also set the world record for the

first stage of Doom 2 entryway entryway

is a simple level it consists of only a

few turns in a single door that leads to

the exit switch entryway is shorter than

hanger and in 1998 Thomas beat entryway

in just 5 seconds in fact entryway is so

short and so simple that everyone was

certain that this record would never be

beaten 5 Seconds was the Max and as of

2024 everyone was right it hadn't been

beaten 26 years later a run of 5 Seconds

was still the best anyone had done and

it's entirely possible that this would

have remained the case for a very very

long time if not for the insanity of a

single speedrunner when shock achieved 8

seconds on hanger he had already proven

that the impossible was possible before

so I guess if there was anyone who was

crazy enough to even humor the

possibility of getting a run of 4

seconds it would be him if you were to

have asked any Doom speedrun even just a

year ago if 4 seconds was doable they

would have said no but when for shock

blast decided to try and do the

impossible once again everything changed

and after more than a year of trial and

error and practice and perfecting his

movement The Impossible is exactly what

for shock blast did on the 6th of April

2024 he beat Doom 2's first level

entryway in Just 4 seconds beating a

26-year-old record in what his

undoubtedly one of if not the greatest

Doom speedrun of all time which is very

funny to say given that it's also one of

the shest Doom speeduns ever in today's

video we will learn how he did it and

why it was Untouchable for so many years

I really hope you

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great entryway is a basic level if I

remove the monsters and just head to the

exit you can see that it merely consists

of three 90° turns followed by a single

door to the exit switch of course there

are other parts to the level including

some Secrets but today we are only

talking about the speedruns that only

requires you to get to the end of the

level as fast as you can and unless

stated otherwise these speedruns are

always played on the Ultraviolence

difficulty on the 27th of November 1995

the runner known as Demon Lord was the

first documented person to beat the

stage in 6 seconds if you watched my

video on the Doom 2 level Chasm this is

is the very same Demon Lord that

famously expressed his love for those

annoying Ledges after achieving 6

seconds on entryway Demon Lord would

exclaim in his notes this task can

really drive you mad and five isn't

possible if you do it I'll eat a horse

demon Lord's run was as primitive as it

gets but we do already see some

semblance of strategy being implemented

a single shot from the pistol just as he

passes the first zombie you'd think this

was just to shoot the zombie but its

real purpose is to alert the three

zombies in the next hallway if you look

at the layout of these zombies you'll

immediately see that there's no clear

path through them if you want to

speedrun this level you'll need the

enemies to get out of your way if they

don't there is simply nothing you can do

the single pistol shot alerts those

zombies causing them to run in the

direction of Doom guy and hopefully out

of your way so you can run around

unfortunately enemy movement is

determined by RNG so most of the time

they will still not cooperate the first

two zombies in the level are easy they

don't even see you coming after the

first corner you need all three zombies

to run towards the wall on the right and

you need the Imp just behind them to not

walk forward quickly and block the next

Corner in the next hallway there is

another imp and zombie that will need to

move out of the way as well after this

initial Gauntlet of enemies there is one

final boss a single Imp in the exit room

if this imp decides he doesn't feel like

letting you reach the exit switch the

run is dead so despite the level being

so short there is a ton of luck required

if you want to get through smoothly I

assume it's the monsters being major

hurdles that made Demon Lord assume that

5 Seconds wouldn't be possible even

though theoretically it's clearly doable

and that's probably also why it took a

full 2 and 1 half years for a

speedrunner to actually do it on the

30th of March 1998 Thomas Pilger became

the first person to beat entryway in 5

seconds clearly some people were still

skeptical that five was even possible at

the time as in Thomas's notes simply

said yes it is possible pilger's run was

a 5.97 a single frame under 6 seconds

and when you watch the run there doesn't

appear to be any major mistakes no major

stocks no obvious time losses in

February of 2000 Adam W would get a

5.91 this run also looks pretty smooth

Adam did Implement a new strategy

however at the end as he opens the door

he fires his pistol this alerts the Imp

who will run towards the direction of

Doom guy in this case Adam fired while

on the left side of the door and then

used the leftwards movement of the Imp

to run around the right while there

aren't any major errors in Adam's run

it's still clear that some time can be

saved Adam went very wide in the brown

room and he made contact with walls

before the final door which slowed him

down dramatically but how much time

could realistically be saved well if you

were around in the early 2000s and you

wanted to know what was possible in Doom

generally the first group group of

people you'd look to would be the

Deathmatch players in Doom Deathmatch

movement is King the players who had the

best movement would win the most matches

this is obvious and you'd think it would

translate directly to speed running but

there is a big difference between death

match and speed running in speedrunning

you have enemies running around all over

the place and enemy behavior is governed

by luck a lot of people can't stand

grinding for luck and the Deathmatch

Pros weren't any exception if they

wanted to practice or show off their

movement skills and prove how fast they

were they didn't want to have to wait

for enemies to give them permission to

get through levels quickly so instead

they just removed monsters completely

this way there was no luck it was simply

the player's movement versus the level

terrain and this is how a lot of the

Deathmatch players speedran the game in

my video talking about Hangar I brought

up the fact that in 2001 Deathmatch

Legend oselot beat hanger in 8 seconds

without monsters showing that 8 seconds

was at least theoretically possible also

in 2001 ocelot would play entryway and

achieve a time of

5.26 this run is extremely precise but

the interesting thing about this run

that definitely needs to be pointed out

is that oselot didn't use sr50 at all

sr50 is a much harder version of

strafing that is slightly faster but

when you use it you can't turn I'm sure

oselot could have implemented a bit of

sr50 if he wanted to to get a faster

time but even if he did it wouldn't have

mattered much entryways so short it's

legitimately hard to find good

opportunities to use it you're not

strafing for any more than a second

before you have to turn oselot run of

5.26 does seem rather close to four

though maybe sr50 would make the

difference well in 2002 another

Deathmatch Legend known as slasher would

incorporate sr50 to achieve a 5.14

clearly sr50 had some impact but only

around 810th of a second or so slashers

run is honestly incred rible especially

for the time just looking at it visually

you can tell it's extremely optimized

however in saying that just because it

looks really good that doesn't mean that

it's perfect for example while slasher

did use sr50 throughout the Run he

didn't use it as much as he could there

were still several frames where he was

only using standard strafing including

the very beginning and very end of the

run this didn't have a massive impact

though at most he probably only lost a

single frame by not maximizing s 50 on

top of this slasher could have also

opened the door to the exit room one

frame earlier he was close enough to

open it but he pressed the use button a

bit slow but it does bear repeating that

for 2002 this run is incredible in fact

it was so good that it would take 15

years before anyone could do any

better the year is now 2017 and we're

really starting to enter the Modern Age

of Doom speed running and none other

than for shock blast decided to play

entryway just to try and beat slasher

run without monsters this time of course

he would maximize his use of sr50 as

much as possible including at the very

end and he would also change the

technique for approaching the exit room

door by using left strafe instead of

right strafe this doesn't seem to make

sense intuitively because you're facing

away from the final door so you have to

spin around further to open it but it's

actually a bit more optimal in practice

because of how momentum Works in Doom we

can directly test this by using tools by

taking slashers run and splicing on

shock's exit room door technique and it

works out to be a fullframe faster shock

would be able to use this optimized door

technique to get a 5.09 but still this

run wasn't perfect in fact there was a

glaring error right at the beginning

that you would never notice unless I

told you about it if we pause shock's

demo on the very first frame we can see

that he is facing directly forwards this

seems normal as this is how Doom Guy

starts any level but any Doom

speedrunner will tell you that this is a

big mistake in Doom speedr running there

is something called a quick start if we

look at the first frame of slashes run

we can see that he is already turned

even on frame one by timing your inputs

perfectly as the level loads you can

load into the level already facing the

correct angle this is considerably

faster because when you turn in Doom you

actually lose speed and also your speed

Vector is already perfect from frame one

so that's a benefit too because shock

was not able to execute the quick start

in this run he had to turn after he

loaded into the level which made him run

slightly slower at the very beginning

and when I say a quick start is

considerably faster I mean somewhere

between 1 to two frames which is 0.03 or

0.06 seconds in any other context this

wouldn't be a big deal but in entryway

where the run is already so optimized

this was a massive time loss despite

this imperfection shock decided not to

press the level any further this task

would be entrusted to the speedrunner

depravity in January of 2020 depravity

managed to replicate shock's run however

this time correctly implementing the

quick start this allowed him to achieve

a

5.06 at this time it now occurred to

depravity that he was awfully close to a

4sec run at least in theory since

Slash's run of 5.14 in 2002 it had taken

18 years to save three frames so the

timeline wasn't looking very promising

if you just looked at the progression

however depravity did have an ace up his

sleeve that gave him just enough hope to

dig a Little Deeper there was a

theoretical technique that could save

one or maybe even two frames on previous

runs the technique is called momentum

preservation and it's one of the most

precise tricks in Doom speed running

usually when Doom guy hits a wall his

momentum is destroyed however in certain

circumstances if you are running into a

corner at the perfect angle Doom guy can

can keep his momentum fully even though

he's not moving historically this trick

was only attempted on lifts for example

in this clip here lifts are good places

to try this because there is plenty of

time to line up Doom guy and also try

several times before the lift reaches

the top or bottom then because Doom guy

has full momentum the instant he can

exit the lift he will and at full speed

there are also very rare instances where

this was attempted on the corners

between a wall and a door but again this

example is is rather special because

there is so much time to line up the

angle before you reach the door and the

movement is so simple trying to do

something like this without a setup is

almost impossible it's certainly too

precise to do intentionally with any

consistency without a setup without a

way to give yourself time to line Doom

guy up in just the right way you would

literally be hitting your head into the

corner of a wall over and over and over

again and more or less hoping for the

best which is exactly what depravity was

insane enough to do entryway has a

single door and on that door momentum

preservation is possible if you run into

the corner of the door with the perfect

angle Doom guy can keep full speed and

get through the door the instant it will

allow him to do so on top of that

because of the direction Doom guys is

running through the door he can even get

one or two frames of wall run from the

wall wall running is where you can get

extra speed by running at the correct

angle against a wall but it's only

possible in certain directions in this

case this is going North which does make

it possible all in all a perfectly

executed momentum preservation with wall

run on the exit door can save up to two

frames or 0.06 seconds it would take

depravity almost a month to get a half

decent run with a successful door trick

which would net him a time of 5.03 but

both the movement and the end were ever

so slightly suboptimal depravity would

continue to press forward and after

three more months of grinding in May of

201 20 he would achieve this

run depravity run of 4 seconds on

entryway was undoubtedly one of if not

the most precise Doom speedruns ever

performed in history and it was a huge

Milestone but let's not forget for the

past 10 minutes I've been talking about

how perfect and how difficult it is to

get a run of 4 seconds without monsters

this took 26 years to do with no enemies

to worry about without monsters you can

take the perfect line you don't have to

worry about enemies blocking your path

or back boosting you if four is so hard

without monsters how on Earth is it

supposed to be possible with so many of

them standing in your way

if you asked any Doom speedrunner back

in 2020 when depravity got 4 seconds

with no monsters if a run of 4 seconds

with monsters was possible they would

have said No in fact the fastest

recorded run at that time was still a

5.49 achieved by sedo in 2012 after his

run of 4 seconds de previty did go back

and play entryway in the Ultraviolence

category and managed to get a time of

5.29 a couple of weeks later however he

figured that even if four was

theoretically possible in some way the

grind would be far far too long so he

left it there in September of 2021 a

speedrunner known as dasan would be able

to beat depravity Mark with a

5.14 this run is really good and it

shows that if the enemies cooperate you

can run a very similar line to the runs

without monsters in his notes dustan

proclaimed potentially one of the

cleanest runs I have ever done I think

that maybe 5.0x is doable with wall run

or door boost but I think that will

remain to be tested by someone else who

isn't afraid to lose what is left of

their sanity while you definitely can

get a similar line to the no monster

runs the fact remains that needing to

avoid the monsters does lose time you

will lose at least a couple of frames

because no matter how Cooperative the

monsters are it's impossible for them to

completely get out of the way so the

lines you can run in the no monster runs

are different and are more optimal than

those on Ultraviolence therefore even

though 5.14 seems really close to a

4-second run still at this point in time

even theoretically people didn't think

it was humanly possible in early 2023

for shock blast would return to the

level his goal was just to beat D 5.14

and to test how low the record could

reasonably go to be clear 4 seconds

wasn't on his mind at all or anyone's

mind for that matter but after playing

the level for a while something did

change shock realized that even though

the monster did force him to take wider

lines and thus lose time the monsters

also provided him an opportunity to use

a technique that isn't possible without

them and this technique is called thing

running thing running is essentially the

same as wall running but instead of

using a wall to run against to build

speed you can use a thing things are

solid objects that Doom guy can run up

against like barrels but things can also

be enemies usually thing running is done

on barrels because barrels don't move

and on the Doom two mat barrels of fun

players will brush up against the

barrels to build speed this extra speed

even lets them jump over a gap that

otherwise is too large to cross trying

to do it on a monster is a pretty crazy

idea you'd have to hit the monster at

the perfect angle and because monsters

are always moving around the odds of it

all coming together are extremely low

and even if you did brush up against a

monster in the right way as an object

they are so small that you'd only get

one or two frames of thing running which

is a tiny amount and generally not worth

the risk the beginning of the fan-made

map nuts does show how it works though

but entryway provides us a unique

situation because the very first

monsters in the level aren't moving they

don't see us coming we are running North

which is a direction that is compatible

with wall running and thing running and

thus if we were consistent with our

movement and were able to hit the

perfect angle we could reliably use one

of them to get some extra speed in

theory we may be able to save one or

even two from fres shock was about a

month into playing entryway when he

realized that thing running on the first

zombie is something he could

consistently do obviously this does

increase the difficulty because you

really have to be perfect with your

movement to hit the zombie at the

necessary angle and distance but shock

was good enough to do it with this extra

frame or two gained from thing running

on the first zombie this offsets some of

the time lost due to having to go around

other monsters later in the level it was

at this point that the unthinkable

started creeping into shock's mind maybe

just maybe 4 seconds is humanly viable I

can't overstate just how much more

difficult four would be with monsters

than without without monsters all we

needed was perfect movement and then a

good execution of the door trick with

monsters we need to also worry about

thing running off the first zombie and

we needed all of the zombies to move

perfectly out of the way in order to

help with enemy movement shock did three

specific shots one at the very beginning

the same one that had been around since

1995 he then did a second shot again

very soon after this is to alert the

zombie in the third hallway to make him

move closer to the wall on the right and

then at the end he did a shot while on

the right side of the exit door to lure

the Imp away so he could do the exit

room door trick on the left side similar

to what Adam W did back in 2000 Shar

would work on entryway throughout 2023

and by October he was close really

really close in fact on the 20th of

October 2023 shock achieved this

[Applause]

run this was a run of 5 Seconds flat

shock's first ever clearly 4 seconds was

on the horizon but despite being only

one frame away when we are talking about

requiring the most precise Doom speedrun

of all time that's a long long way it

was around this time that I personally

found out the shock was going for 4

seconds I was elated because ever since

2019 I have been making jokes in the

Doom speedrunning Discord asking when

someone was going to do it so that I

could make a video and it was never

supposed to actually happen but now

incredibly it seemed inevitable all

shock needed was a perfect run and after

6 more months and over 100,000 attempts

26 years is after Thomas Pilger first

achieved 5 seconds in the late '90s on

the 6th of April 2024 four shock blast

achieved this

run this run exemplifies modern Doom

speed running if you showed the ancient

Doom players this demo they would have

never believed this was a human actually

playing it's more or less a perfect run

implementing the hardest strategies for

the second time in history for shock

blast had beaten a classic Thomas Pilger

demo and both times for the very first

level of the game you couldn't ask for a

better storyline this ladies and

gentlemen is what speed running is all

about a community spending decades

optimizing a 5-second speedrun on a game

that is now 30 years old and personally

I'm all for it a huge congratulations to

shock for this achievement thank you so

much for watching you Legends I hope

you're having a fantastic day and I will

see you in the next video