UPDATE: GDQ has contacted PCGamesN to confirm that Mekarazium, who faked the Revengeance run, has been banned from future GDQ events. Our original story follows after GDQ’s statement:
“Yesterday, we were made aware that Mekazarium played a segmented video for his DLC run at Summer Games Done Quick 2022,” GDQ explains. “Mekazarium has since admitted to this, both to some members of the community as well as directly to GDQ staff. He contacted our staff with a document detailing that he had planned this for over a month, demonstrating this was planned and intentional. This was made possible because of the remote nature of this particular run in the marathon.
“This is absolutely unacceptable and attempts to undermine the integrity of the speedrunning community that we love and support. The exact result they desired was unclear from the document, but it is clear that they believed we would not be willing to speak out about their behavior. However, we believe it is in the community’s best interests to know why this run was removed by GDQ. We have removed Mekazarium’s runs from our YouTube archive, and will not permit him to run in the future.”
The world-record speedrun of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance’s DLC, which was featured at SGDQ 2022, has been revealed as a fake, as Russian player Mekarazium admits that they used a pre-recorded video of the game rather than completing it live.
In a message sent to Games Done Quick’s enforcement team, Mekarazium explains how their run of Blade Wolf, which claimed a new “record” time of six minutes, 55 seconds, was in fact a pre-taped, segmented run, whereby sections of the game are completed individually, and then spliced together using editing to give the impression of a single, continuous playthrough. Some games featured on the official Speedrun leaderboards have a separate classification for segmented runs – since the skill and luck required to hit every exploit or time save across an entire game is usually very high, as compared to besting levels individually, speedrunners will use segmented runs to demonstrate what is theoretically possible in a game.
But Mekarazium’s run was presented as a full, real-time playthrough, offered to viewers as a reward for reaching one of SGDQ’s donation thesholds. Rather than taking place live, at the SGDQ venue in Minneapolis, Mekarazium’s run was broadcast via livestream from their own computer. Mekarazium admits that this allowed them to substitute a full, real-time run for one that was pre-made and segmented.
“The Blade Wolf DLC run incentive people paid for is a pre-recorded, segmented run,” Mekarazium writes to the GDQ enforcement team. “I haven’t mentioned it anywhere, neither during the submission process or the email I sent to the [GDQ] committee. It was supposed to be a real-time run, but I’ve changed my mind at the last second after switching the saves.”
Users on the speedrun sub-Reddit noticed various discrepancies in Mekarazium’s run of Blade Wolf. Compared to his run of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance’s base game, the DLC run contains almost no keyboard sounds. There is also a moment, captured by Redditor SevenStack, where Mekarazium seems to remove his right hand from the mouse while the in-game camera continues to move. Mekarazium tries to explain this by saying they were moving the mouse with their left hand.
Razer BlackShark V2 Pro$179.99VIEWNetwork N earns affiliate commission from qualifying sales.
At the end of the run, the GDQ announcer tells Mekarazium their time, confirming that they have set a new world record. Mekarazium responds by saying “can we not, like, use the world-record stuff? It’s very misleading. It assumes what happened here is the fastest time, when in fact someone else could have a faster, world-record version”.
The previous, official record for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance’s Blade Wolf DLC, of seven minutes, 20 seconds, is currently held by Mekarazium themselves.
“People might consider [this] BW DLC run a legitimate run for the leaderboards, which can cause some problems later,” Mekarazium’s message to the GDQ team continues. “I haven’t been planning to submit this run to the leaderboards, and it was a means to show the maximum potential of said category, something people should strive for.
“I’ve done an actual bad thing, and I shouldn’t have done this on the event…I acted selfishly and I haven’t put more time thinking about others. I am sorry for doing the thing I’ve done. Truly.”
Mekarazium’s run has since been removed from the Games Done Quick YouTube channel.
SGDQ 2022 concluded on July 3 with a run of Elden Ring, successfully raising over $3m USD for charity Doctors Without Borders. We have contacted GDQ for comment on Mekarazium’s run and will update this story should they respond.