A friend with speed is a friend indeed.

Image credit: GDQ

Some people get very excited for our annual non-E3 blast of games news in June. Others await the Q3-Q4 release window rush of games with glee (although, this year, I find it a bit more scary than I do exciting). My favourite time of the gaming calendar, though, is split between two six-month blocks: I celebrate the arrival of Summer Games Done Quick and Awesome Games Done Quick like the passing of Halley's Comet.

This year, SGDQ runs this week from 5th July until 12th July and features at least 69 games, ranging from triple-A to indie, excellent to awful, super modern to highly retro. You can catch the 24-hour streams on either Twitch or Youtube.

Check out SGDQ 2026 here.Watch on YouTube

In my household, AGDQ and SGDQ stay on all week, basically. I have it running either on my work computer, my living room TV, or - if I'm cooking - on my laptop resting precariously on a step-stool whilst I'm sweating my onions. It's a net benefit: I get to watch some of the world's most talented gamers break games I've loved for decades, and the organisational wizards in charge of the show generate more advertising revenue from me for Doctors Without Borders. Win-win!

In case you're new to all this, SGDQ revolves around speedruns: playthroughs of video games in which the player aims to complete a certain goal as quickly as possible. This may be as simple as getting to one of the game's endings, or there may be more complicating factors involved: 100 percent completion, randomisers, custom goals, and so on.

Many speedruns take advantage of glitches or exploits, whereas others rely on techniques such as arbitrary code execution or tool-assists in order to make the playing - and viewing - experience more fun. I learn so much about the development, craft, and design philosophies of games through watching speedruns, and I highly recommend that you check out SGDQ this week if you have even a passing interest in video games.

We've already had a bumper Sunday (the Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Devil May Cry 5 runs were my favourites), but in looking ahead to what we can expect this week, I'd like to highlight: Tunic (a run for which developer Andrew Shouldice will be present), Super Mario Odyssey (all Story moons!), Sonic 3 & Knuckles (glitched), Hollow Knight: Silksong ('Awoo%', which means getting all the fleas), Monster Hunter Wilds (in which viewers pick the main weapon of the runner), Pokémon FireRed (doing the Elite Four twice), Elden Ring (all bosses co-op), and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Here is the schedule of what you can expect in full. I am not going to list times and dates as this could get very messy, very quickly - you can thank timezones and whatnot for that. Luckily, the site is very comprehensive, scales to your timezone automatically, and tells you everything you need to know.

I can't stress enough how much of a good time these twice-annual shows are. If you fall in love with what you see here, why not check out the other, more regular programming GDQ hosts on its channels? You can also check out the ESA (European Speedrunner Assembly) for some more local flavour, if you're interested.

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