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.

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.

*This link to "Postcolonialism in Doom" (2020) is now dead (Marilyn took it down). Rather than reupload said piece elsewhere, I had inserted it into "Those Who Walk Away from Speedrunning" (2025). —Perse, 5/13/2026