The Machine Assist
Speedrunning used to be about grinding against a wall for a thousand hours to find a clipping bug. Now, communities run physics simulations of the game engine on distributed servers to mathematically prove where sequence breaks are physically possible.
- The Titanfall 2 gauntlet record was recently lowered by another 0.4 seconds due to an algorithmic trajectory optimization.
- Glitch hunters are treating game engines like cryptographic puzzles to crack.
This fusion of data science and gaming mechanics has created a spectator sport unlike anything else.