How to Get Into Speedrunning

Speedrunning turns the challenge of beating a game as fast as possible into a deep, rewarding art of practice, routing, and precision, a hobby with a passionate community and a uniquely satisfying pursuit of improvement. For newcomers, though, knowing how to begin can feel daunting. This guide shows you how to get into speedrunning, learn the routes, and enjoy the pursuit, so you can relish the chase for a faster time rather than feeling lost at the scale of what the best runners achieve.

Choose a game you love

Speedrunning takes dedication, so choose a game you love. Picking a game you genuinely enjoy sustains the practice it demands. Players often stress this on community sites such as ankertoto, where runners share advice, but the key is to choose a game you love, since you will play it a great deal. Choosing a game you love, and picking one you genuinely enjoy for your first speedrun, is the foundation of getting into speedrunning, since the hobby involves playing the same game over and over, practising routes and refining your execution, and that repetition is a pleasure rather than a chore only when you truly love the game, so starting with a favourite is what sustains the dedication speedrunning asks of you.

Learn the route

Speedruns follow routes, so learn the route. Studying the optimal path through a game is the foundation of a fast time. Rather than playing normally, learn the route. The route is the plan. Learning the route, and studying the optimal path through the game that the community has worked out, is central to speedrunning, since a fast time comes from following an efficient, planned route rather than playing as you normally would, and learning that route, which paths to take, what to skip, the order to do things in, is the essential framework on which your run is built, so studying the established routes is where most newcomers begin.

Practise the tricky parts

Runs have hard sections, so practise the tricky parts. Drilling the difficult tricks and sections until you can do them reliably is key. Rather than hoping they go well, practise them. Practice builds consistency. Practising the tricky parts, and drilling the difficult tricks and sections of a run until you can perform them reliably, is central to speedrunning, since a run is only as fast as its weakest, most failure-prone moment, and the tricks that gain the most time are often the hardest to execute, so practising them in isolation, over and over until they become consistent, is how you turn the risky, time-saving manoeuvres of a run into reliable parts of a clean, fast time.

Start with a simple run

Speedruns vary in difficulty, so start with a simple run. Beginning with an easier category or route eases you into the hobby. Rather than attempting the hardest run first, start simple. A simple start helps. Starting with a simple run, and beginning with an easier category or a more forgiving route, is a sensible way into speedrunning, since the most optimised runs involve brutally difficult tricks and demand enormous practice, and beginning with something more achievable, a simpler category, a beginner-friendly route, lets you learn the fundamentals of routing, practice, and timing, and feel the satisfaction of improvement, before working up to the genre's most demanding challenges.

Learn from the community

Speedrunning has a rich community, so learn from it. Drawing on the guides, routes, and knowledge others share accelerates your progress. Rather than working it all out alone, learn from the community. The community teaches. Learning from the community, and drawing on the wealth of guides, routes, tutorials, and knowledge that the speedrunning community shares, is central to getting into the hobby, since speedrunning has a famously open, helpful community that has already worked out and documented the routes, tricks, and strategies for countless games, and tapping into that shared knowledge, learning from those who have gone before, is far faster and more rewarding than trying to discover everything yourself from scratch.

Track your times and improve

Speedrunning is about improvement, so track your times and improve. Timing your runs and working to beat your best keeps you progressing. Rather than running without measuring, track your times. Tracking drives improvement. Tracking your times and improving, and timing your runs so you can work to beat your personal best, is central to speedrunning, since the hobby is fundamentally about improvement, and measuring your times, seeing where you lose seconds, and striving to shave them off is what gives speedrunning its addictive, rewarding progression, turning each run into a step toward a faster time and each improvement into a tangible, satisfying mark of your growing skill.

Enjoy the pursuit of a faster time

The heart of speedrunning is the pursuit, so enjoy it. The satisfaction of chasing and achieving a faster time is deeply rewarding. Rather than being daunted by the best runners, embrace your own pursuit. The hobby offers a singular satisfaction. Enjoying the pursuit of a faster time, and the deep satisfaction of chasing improvement and achieving a time faster than before, is what getting into speedrunning is truly about, since the hobby offers the uniquely rewarding pursuit of mastery and improvement, and the thrill of a clean run, of shaving seconds off your best through practice and skill, is a satisfaction that keeps the community passionately devoted, whatever the level you run at.

Common questions from players

Is speedrunning hard to get into? It can seem daunting, but choosing a game you love and starting with a simple run makes it approachable. Beginning with an easier category and learning the fundamentals eases you in before the hardest challenges.

What do I actually do to speedrun? Learn the route and practise the tricky parts. Studying the optimal path through the game, and drilling its difficult sections until they are reliable, is how you build toward a clean, fast time.

How do I improve? Learn from the community and track your times. Drawing on the routes and knowledge others share accelerates your progress, and timing your runs to beat your best gives the hobby its addictive, rewarding progression.

Getting into speedrunning, in short

Follow the steps above and the genre opens up. For more guides, see our games section, and the blog gathers recent writing.