My friends, 'tis the year 2021, and what might speedrunning have in store for the world? In particular, the realm of Perfect Dark speedrunning has already seen some wild promise. The following screenshot was taken from a local recording of an Attack Ship Perfect Agent speedrun, where rising-star speedrunner, "Xela", was on pace for a 8-second Untied World Record:
You see, this is what a speedrun on Perfect Dark's Attack Ship Perfect Agent looks like, the moment Elvis cracks the door towards the ending portion of the stage. Elvis then enters the "bridge room" of the ship, you must eliminate three Skedar who spawn or uncloak, and the level ends. This "ending" portion has been broken down intensely in numerous videos on the matter, including this one; a study on what makes the "Agent" difficulty world record, 2:06, so remarkable.
This ending portion, will most often, take 24 seconds to play out. In the Perfect Agent world record, 3:07 by Lake Demon, his ending plays out in a quite-fast 19 seconds. You can view this run in its full glory here. And although most endings take 24 seconds to play out; this can be played out in as little as 18 or even 17 seconds, depending on numerous luck factors. And therein lies just what makes this particular screenshot, of Xela's run, so remarkable.
You see, on this 3:07; the current untied world record (UWR), and a two-second UWR at that, Lake Demon gets roughly a 2:48 Elvis Door. This is six-seconds slower than the 2:42 door in the aforementioned screenshot of Xela's run.
This means that indeed, Xela's 2:42 Elvis door, could have produced a 2:59 speedrun on the Attack Ship Perfect Agent stage... a world record that would be 8-seconds untied! Even if Xela got the typical 24-second ending, this would have been a 3:06; a brand new untied world record. And if Xela simply had a similar ending as Lake Demon's 3:07; this could have been a juicy new untied of 3:01. But alas, Xela got an abysmal 29 second ending, resulting in a non-personal record of 3:11. Quite a pity!
Here, we can see the leaderboards as they stand today, (January 10, 2021), on this stage.
One can only imagine the massive Untied World Record spread, if Xela only got a lucky ending, and resulted in a world record of 2:59, 3:00 or 3:01. It might be so intimidating, that it could be quite a while for someone to come along and challenge this theoretical record. However, if Xela can maintain these paces, 2:42 Elvis doors, throughout his Attack Ship Perfect Agent sessions, it is only a matter of time before he achieves an Untied World Record on the stage; perhaps the very first untied in the calendar year, 2021.
There were 39 Untied World Records achieved in the year 2020. How many will be achieved in 2021?
Happy speedrunning & good luck to all gamers!
- SpeedLore