Apparently speedrunning – racing to finish a game as fast as possible – is quite popular. Of course it is – where have you been? Haven’t you heard of the charity speedrunning marathons Games Done Quick?
Speedrunning involves not only knowing every nook and cranny of a game but also how to cut its corners and even break it, if needs be. Take Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus – speedrunners discovered you can skip an entire boss fight with the Citadel/Zitadelle by simply running right past it. But the discovery wasn’t the shock to developer MachineGames you might think.
“That might look like it’s incidental, but the boss [executive producer Jerk Gustafsson] actually wanted – he likes for people to be able to speedrun the game,” said senior game designer Andreas Öjerfors during his talk at Digital Dragons 2018. “Me, as the designer of the Citadel, I don’t, because I want people to play my content!”
Source: Eurogamer Wolfenstein 2 deliberately caters to speedrunners, and Bungie hires them