Play it faster, play it weirder: how speedrunning pushes video games beyond their limits

For a niche but passionate corner of the internet, video games are not simply things to play, but structures to be torn down and rebuilt - together

In the summer of 2017, the gamer Beck Abney sat in his room playing Mario Kart 64. What happened next has been described as one of the greatest achievements in gaming history. Many doubted it could even be done at all.

He was trying to perform one of gaming's hardest glitches: the Weathertenko, a trick that if done correctly can finish a full lap of the stage Choco Mountain in just a handful of seconds. To do it once requires immense skill, but Abney wanted to do three in a row, a feat never before achieved in recorded history. And he wanted to do it incredibly quickly.

He had been trying since August without luck, streaming on Twitch for hours almost every day, to his 27,000 followers. It was now October. His attempts had climbed into the thousands. It wasn't until his 26,461st attempt that he made history.