Speedrun Explained 55 (Update 1); Speedrun Explained 56, 57 & 58 (Announcements)

Hey all! Been a bit since the last update and I apologize for that! I'm going to try and put on my calendar every month to provide at least one update, like how I put reminders on it to do things such as the Retrospective, Recap, and Q&A. There's a lot to update on as the next few months are going to include a good handful of videos and content, so on to the updates!

First is a quick update on the next video that'll be coming out, the Scriptless speedrun of Half-Life (#55). I actually just began writing for this video, and had the call with the runner this past Monday where they walked me through the run. I'm really excited to be finally covering it, but can't speak too much right now as to how the video will be paced/looking like how I could tell early on with the past couple videos. I'm just glad to FINALLY be covering this speedrun!! As for when it'll release, if all things go smoothly, I'm looking to have it up here on Patreon in the first 10 days of November, with a public release around then, if not on the game's 25th birthday in November.

Now on to all the other video announcements. A little look at how the bread is made behind-the-scenes on YouTube, ad rates are the best during these next three months due to the holidays. I'm trying to take full advantage of it by releasing more videos than normal, and also give my new workflow a stress-test and see what I'm capable of putting out. Because of this, I plan to release two videos in November, and two videos in December. I've tried to select runs that aren't terribly long so that this will be more doable. First and foremost, the winner of the most recent Patron's Choice was the Any% run of Baldur's Gate 3 (#56). This is an insanely short speedrun, sitting at around three and a half minutes. Because of its short length, I intend to learn the speedrun myself and make the video that way. This is going to be something I plan on streaming the process of learning and grinding, BUT I'm still playing through the game casually at the moment (I'm in Act 2), so I plan to put off that process until after I finish my playthrough. I'll outline when I think these videos will all come out at the end of the update.

Another run that I intend to cover in this timespan is the New Game speedrun of Starfield (#57). I'm not sure there's much that needs to be said as to why I want to cover it. It's just one of those things that I'll obviously cover. The run itself right now is at around 36 minutes, which is a super manageable length. I just started streaming again, and began the process of learning and speedrunning the game on stream. I plan to grind out a decent time over the next month or so and then make and release the video covering it once I have a run I'm happy with! The last of the videos that will be out before the end of December is one covering the Any% speedrun of Outer Wilds (#58). This is an absolutely incredible game that if you haven't played, you need to go play. I've just onboarded a runner for the video, and it's a shorter run (around 7-8 minutes), so it shouldn't be too difficult to cover in this timespan.

Now as for tentative release schedule. For sure Half-Life is going to be the next video out. It's the number one priority and already being scripted. BG3 and Starfield are likely going to be the next two, although I'm thinking that the order will likely be Starfield before BG3 due to Starfield being a longer run and requiring more time to learn and speedrun, so I'd like to focus on that first while I have more time to grind out runs. This is of course subject to change, who knows how things will play out, but I'm thinking it'll likely be Starfield, then BG3. That leaves Outer Wilds for last, which to me makes sense because something about that game just seems to meld with the holidays really well. So that all means that the tentative release schedule looks as follows:

Early November - Half-Life

Late November - Starfield

Early/mid December - Baldur's Gate 3

Late December - Outer Wilds

Once we get into November, I'm planning on running the next Patron's Choice to pick the video after Outer Wilds, so be on the lookout for that then! Until then, hope you all have above average days :)