What happened at Break the Record LIVE?
European Speedrunners Assembly / Kaspersky
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The fastest Doom Eternal speedrunners around took part in Break the Record: LIVE on 26 July – a speedrunning competition in which the goal was to set a new world record time for beating iD’s shooter with no major glitches.
Break the Record: LIVE is the latest flagship speedrunning event from European Speedrunners Assembly in collaboration with cybersecurity company Kaspersky. American speedrunner xiae won with a new world record time of 1:08:52, picking up a cool $3,350.
It was an exciting day of speedrunning action, as five competitors set personal bests while xiae set the highest standard by breaking the world record (and their own personal record by two minutes). Catch up on all the action below.
Final leaderboard
1. xiae – 01:08:52
2. bowsr – 01:09:26
3. BloodShot9001 – 01:10:51
4. ShiningFace – 01:11:55
5. visconic – 01:12:27
6. Rampancy – 01:12:28
7. xamide – 01:14:26
Watch Break the Record: LIVE again
Break the Record: LIVE took place on Sunday, July 26, with qualified runners able to attempt as many runs as possible between 10 AM CEST (1 AM PST / 4 AM EST / 9 AM BST) and 1 AM CEST (July 27) to achieve their fastest glitchless time. Runners had to start their last run before 10 PM CEST for it to count, giving all competitors 12 hours to establish the day’s top score and break the world record.
You can rewatch all the action on ESA Marathon’s Twitch channel — which we’ve embedded below:
The prize pool
As with all major esports events, the prize pool was shared amongst the best players on the day. ESA’s prize pool was originally $5k, but Kaspersky boosted the total by $3k so it finished at $8k. The fastest runner received a bonus $750, bringing the total for first prize to $3,350. As a perk for participation, all competitors received a cut of the total prize money.
- 1st: xiae, $3,350
- 2nd: bowsr, $2,000
- 3rd: BloodShot9001, $1,000
- 4th: ShiningFace, $750
- 5th: visconic, $500
- 6th: Rampancy, $250
- 7th: xamide, $250
Kaspersky also offered a $2.5k sponsorship to the world record holder at the time of qualification cut-offs. Going into the event, the speedrunner bowsr was the Kaspersky Flag Carrier – so they left the event with a whopping $4,500 total.
The American player originally earned this accolade with a time of 1 hour, 10 minutes, 30 seconds and 630ms, a strong performance until xiae cracked through.
Raising money for charity
As with previous ESA Marathon events, Break the Record: LIVE is raising money for charity, with proceeds going to the Swedish Alzheimer Foundation. Last summer’s event – which saw players set fast times in games such as Super Mario 64, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Dark Souls, and Tony Hawk’s Underground – helped raise $85,945.