come to terms withElder Ring and its moody bosses in less than two hours, fold the dystopian adventure of Half-Life 2 in less than one, or ship MegaMan 2, the retro classic from 1988, in almost 40 minutes. No, definitely, Speedons is not chomping at the bit yet. The 3^e edition of the charity event organized by streamer Xavier Dang, alias MisterMV, sets off this Thursday for a 75-hour marathon of speedruns video games for the benefit of Doctors of the World.

Presented live on Twitch, from the Palais des Congrès in Paris, the event will bring together dozens of «speedrunners» who will take turns until Sunday evening in order to finish the video game of their choice as quickly as possible. True performance requiring hours of training, peerless skill and steely attention, the art of finishing a game quickly – the speedrun – consists in optimizing a way of playing to the extreme. The exercise sometimes comes down to playing bugs from a given work to go faster, or even skip entire parts of the game.

Of the speedruns for all tastes

No less than 70 games have been selected for this 3^e edition, which will open with a speedrun of Crash Bandicoot 4 : It’s About Time. The lineup, which mixes old and new titles, small independent productions and industry behemoths, will give participants the opportunity to show off their prowess, including on Tomb Raider II , Pokémon Hearthgold/Soulsilver, Castlevania : Symphony of the Night, The Legend of Zelda : Majora’s Mask or Cuphead. The complete schedule of the event can be found on the Speedons website.

Finally, several animators, videographers and streamers – including Zerator, Antoine Daniel, Damdam, Real Myop, Gomart or, of course, Mister MV – will comment on the various performances of Speedons 2023. Usually, the speedrun is an opportunity to share anecdotes and manufacturing secrets of the game presented, or to present and explain some strategies – sometimes surprising, often spectacular – used to overcome it.

The last edition of Speedons had collected more than 802,000 euros for the benefit of Doctors of the World and brought together nearly 1.2 million spectators on Twitch. With some of the same personalities, and still live on Twitch, the 2022 edition of ZEvent for its part collected more than ten million euros in September, for the benefit of five associations chosen by the public.