Hell-blazers: Doom Eternal Speedrunning Q&A, Interview Compendium!

This compendium contains the interviews for "Hell-blazers," my
Doom Eternal Speedrunning Q&A Project, and any salient links.

Note: When new interviews go live, this compendium will
also be updated.

Update, 1/4/2025: My focus has shifted to Metroidvania, which I've written multiple books on, since this post. To it, I've decided to release the entirety of my work on Metroidvania in one single place: "From Master's to PhD (and Beyond): My Entire Work on Metroidvania" (2025). This includes my master's thesis and early postgraduate work (re: "Mazes and Labyrinths"), my PhD (released in 2023), further essays released after my postgraduate work in my larger book series, Sex Positivity. You can also ask me questions about Metroidvania on the r/Metroidvania subreddit: "From Master's to PhD (and Beyond): My Entire Work on Metroidvania" (2025).

Foreword

Aimed largely at the Twitch crowd, but also speedrunners,
Doom Eternal can be speedrun like any videogame. I've followed
Doom Eternal closely to see how speedrunners feel about it. In time,
can it rank alongside classics like Super Metroid (1994) or Goldeneye (1997)?

My name is Nicholas van der Waard, and I'm independent researcher/post-grad
whose work is focused on Metroidvania, but also horror-theme FPS. For
more information about my work, as well as the Q&A and what it covers,
please refer to this extensive post.

The Compendium

The Players

These are the persons who have kindly agreed to be interviewed for this
project. While all of them are gamers, each person represents a different
aspect of gamer/speedrunning culture.

DraQu: A Twitch streamer and FPS
speedrunner, and one of the first players to complete the game on Ultra-Nightmare. He also likes 90s pop music.

Click here to read DraQu's full interview.

Under the Mayo: A
YouTuber. His channel normally covers games like Mortal Kombat 9, but has expanded to include Doom Eternal.

Click here to read Under the Mayo's interview.

Byte Me: The current world
record-holder for Doom 2016's
UN 100% Classic and several other categories, Byte Me is moving his unique approach to
speedrunning onward, to Doom Eternal.

Click here to read Byte Me's full interview.

The Spud Hunter: An arena
combat specialist, the Spud Hunter enjoys Doom Eternal for
Ultra-Nightmare, and the game's exclusive multiplayer battle mode. His Slayer
helmet gives him power.

Click here to read Spud's full interview.

King Dime: A
classic-Doom speedrunner
who regularly appears on AGDQ.

Click here to read King Dime's full interview.

Your Mate Devo: An Aussie
speedrunner and software engineer.

Click here to read Your Mate Devo interview.

Click here to read a second interview with Your Mate Devo, which covers the game's patches and how they affect speedrunning overall.

FrostyXen: The current WR Holder for UN 100%.

Click here to read FrostyXen's interview.

Click here to read my second interview with Frosty Xen, which covers the game's patches and how they affect speedrunning overall.

**My Doom-exclusive Posts**

"Spectating FPS Speedruns: Potential Pitfalls Exemplified by Doom Eternal": An examination of FPS speedruns from a spectator's perspective, and why I think Doom Eternal isn't the best example of an entertaining speedrun to watch.

"Visual Clutter in Brutal Doom / Project Brutality": An article I wrote covering these two popular mods for Doom, and
some of the issues I have with them.

"Doom Eternal: Made for Speed... but Speedrunning?": The article whose title question launched this Speedrunning Q&A
Project.

"Doom Eternal (2020) Review": My personal review for Doom Eternal.

"Post-colonialism in Doom": An essay where I analyze the Doom franchise, including
Doom Eternal, through a post-colonial lens.

Other Links

"7 real life items that inspired Doom Eternal": An interesting interview with Hugo Martin about Doom Eternal's palimpsests.

Summoning Salt: Perhaps my all-time favorite source for well-documented speedrunning history.

Karl Jobst: Another excellent source for YouTube videos about speedrunning history.

Pop-culture Weapons Analysed: A video by historical weapons expert, Shadiversity, analyzing the Crucible from Doom Eternal

***

Persephone van der Waard is the author of the multi-volume, non-profit book series, Sex Positivity—its art director, sole invigilator, illustrator and primary editor (the other co-writer/co-editor being Bay Ryan). Persephone has her independent PhD in Gothic poetics and ludo-Gothic BDSM (focusing on partially on Metroidvania), and is a MtF trans woman, anti-fascist, atheist/Satanist, poly/pan kinkster, erotic artist/pornographer and anarcho-Communist with two partners. Including multiple playmates/friends and collaborators, Persephone and her many muses work/play together on Sex Positivity and on her artwork at large as a sex-positive force. That being said, she still occasionally writes reviews, Gothic analyses, and interviews for fun on her old blog (and makes YouTube videos talking about politics). To learn more about Persephone's academic/activist work and larger portfolio, go to her About the Author page. To purchase illustrated or written material from Persephone (thus support the work she does), please refer to her commissions page for more information. Any money Persephone earns through commissions goes towards helping sex workers through the Sex Positivity project; i.e., by paying costs and funding shoots, therefore raising awareness. Likewise, Persephone accepts donations for the project, which you can send directly to her PayPal, Ko-Fi, Patreon or CashApp. Every bit helps!