The "greatest speedrun accomplishment of all time" is in sight as two…

Over the past few years, a speedrun accomplishment that once seemed impossible is starting to look inevitable: a perfect run of Super Mario Bros. is in sight. Two speedrun legends are inching ever closer to that fabled goal, and a new world record is the first step in what might be the biggest accomplishment in speedrunning history.

If you've ever checked in on the Super Mario Bros. speedrun scene, you know the basics, but here's some background just in case. In extremely simplified terms, the classic NES platformer only checks every so often to see if a given level is completed, which means there is an absolute minimum time in which you can complete each stage. Tool-assisted speedruns (or TASes), which are created by programming inputs into emulators, show us that the perfect Super Mario Bros. speedrun would be a time of 4:54.265. mchezo.life

In most cases, TASes do things that are impossible for human players – but top Super Mario Bros. players have been making the "impossible" seem real. We've been covering a runner called Niftski for years as he's shaved the world record down ever closer to that theoretical perfect time. Even in 2023, we were no longer talking about the difference between human performance and machine-engineered perfection in terms of seconds. Instead, the difference was measured in frames.

Back then, it was 22 frames. Now, it's just 4. Niftski has set a new world record of 4:54.332, which you can see in the video below. It's worth watching the final moments alone, where Niftski pops off and shouts out his "W mom cheering me downstairs."

Runners have already perfected each individual part of the game, but the problem is stringing it all together. The final stage, 8-4, is not governed by the same rule that sets the minimum possible time for the earlier stages. This one is loaded with tricks that require button inputs timed down to the individual frame, and many of them have to be done back-to-back.

But now, "we are now only 4 frames / 0.06 seconds away from No L+R TAS tie, and it is completely inevitable at this point," Niftski explains in the description of his world record video. "As proud as I am to finally achieve my well overdue 4:54.3xx, I will make sure to not stop this grind until I put this category to rest with the perfect SMB1 Any% speedrun of 4:54.265."

Niftski has committed to the grind, and he's not alone. Another runner named LeKukie tied Niftski's previous record, and he's also set himself on the grind to get the perfect run. He learned how to speedrun Super Mario Bros. using a homebrew emulator for PS2 that was plagued by input lag, unable to afford better equipment. He eventually got an NES, but it was one made in his home country of Brazil – a model which, it happens, runs a tiny bit slower than its worldwide counterparts.

LeKukie was a dedicated runner, still managing to post great times even with the limitations to his hardware. And with each upgrade, it was as if he was dropping another layer of training weights, like he was the Goku of Mario runners. His full story is wild, and it's explained very well in a recent video by Kosmic. The community eventually decided to "free LeKukie," pitching in to provide him an NES that ran at full speed, as well as equipment for streaming. Among the donors? Niftski himself.

Now LeKukie is a legitimate contender for that perfect run, and he's inching closer right alongside Niftski. Either of these runners could be the one to do it, and it'll be a massive milestone once it finally happens. SummoningSalt, who you might know from his excellent YouTube documentaries on various speedrunning scenes, puts it simply in a tweet: "This will be the greatest speedrun accomplishment of all time."

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Back in June, RuneScape studio Jagex held its first live event outside the UK (and its biggest to date): Deadman All Stars, an Old School RuneScape PvP tournament. I had the chance to talk to OSRS creative director Kieren Charles at the event, and he explained his philosophy on running the 13 year-old fork of the 25 year-old MMO amid its new lease on life.

"The game's bigger now than it was in 2007," Charles said of RuneScape's overall health, while OSRS is now older than RuneScape was when Old School began in 2013. Last August, Old School hit an all-time player count record eclipsing any era or version of the game, and Charles estimated upwards of one million active subscribers just for Old School.

Charles himself was part of the original RuneScape phenomenon, but as a player, one of the core mid-to-late millennial cohort that made the game ubiquitous in middle schools during the golden age of MMOs. "I grew up with the game," Charles told me. "I was 14 in the school library playing RuneScape. I was just the one who never quit."

But why choose the 2007 iteration of RuneScape as a starting point? The game first launched in 2001, and had already undergone major revisions like the "RuneScape 2" update in 2004. Charles joined the OSRS team a few years after it started, but looking back, he characterized the choice as "kind of arbitrary, but based on what players deemed the sort of golden [age]."

"Players actually wanted the 2006 version, but we didn't have a copy of that version of the game," revealed Jagex senior communications manager Danni Amos. "A [Jagex employee] found the 2007 server in their desk drawer, and we had to boot it up, see if it works."

Wisdom of the crowd

Old School is, as best as I can tell, the first instance of officially-supported 'classic' servers for an MMO. The first fan servers running preserved versions of transformed or discontinued MMOs preceded it, but the likes of WoW Classic were following Jagex's lead. Charles believes that Old School's community engagement leaves it the best of both worlds when it comes to fan-managed versus official throwback MMOs.

OSRS regularly gets new content, including full-scale expansions like 2024's Varlamore. Those udpates need to match the Old School vibe, and Charles said one of the best compliments he gets is that the new stuff feels like it could have come out in '06 or '07. But all potential new additions are also put to a community vote before getting implemented, and if a feature or addition doesn't meet the 70% approval minimum, it gets scrapped.

"We are already running an MMO that's entirely decided by fans, but it's backed by a huge development team who could still do things that are at scale," said Charles. "With fan server versions, it's never going to be at the same scale. It's hard to imagine it having the number of players like you can have with an official version, nor the development support."

It's an approach he doesn't necessarily recommend to every MMO developer, and the team has had stuff rejected which "really does suck in the moment," according to Charles.

But they've reached a point where they don't bring a feature to vote unless they're confident players will dig it. Besides, Charles said he'd still rather have a proposed addition get rejected than "spend six months or a year of development time to then launch it and find out people hate it."

While many great games come about from singular, forceful artistic visions, Charles described himself and his colleagues more as caretakers. "With Old School RuneScape, it's what the community wants. We're making it for them and looking after it for them," he told me.

"I'm fortunate as a creative director to be able to inherit such a good foundation for what we do going forward. I was part of the community directly before I joined the studio. I know what that feeling is, and I want to make sure that we look after that and keep it going."

At D23, Lucasfilm has finally dropped the first trailer for Ahsoka season 2, and Grand Admiral Thrawn has declared war on the Rebel Alliance.

In the trailer, which you can watch above, Hayden Christensen's Anakin returns as both Force ghost and for a snowy Clone Wars-era flashbacks. In the present, Grand Admiral Thrawn is back in a galaxy far, far away and declares war on the Rebel Alliance – expect plenty of space battles, then. Quick flashes of action also reveal Huyang wielding multiple lightsabers like General Grievous for a fight with Shin Hati. The question of Ahsoka Tano's Jedi status will also be addressed, by the sound of things.

Season 2 will pick up with Ahsoka Tano and Sabine Wren stranded on Peridea after the Ahsoka season 1 ending, while Ezra Bridger and Grand Admiral Thrawn escaped back to the main galaxy. Also remaining on Peridea are Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati – following the tragic loss of Ray Stevenson, Rory McCann will take over as Baylan in season 2.

At Star Wars Celebration 2025, we learned that Hayden Christensen will return as Anakin Skywalker and Admiral Ackbar will face off against Thrawn. There was also a first look of sorts shown behind closed doors, which teased battles across two galaxies and giant, evil droids.

"Anybody who saw the sequels knows that there's a First Order coming in, like, 20 years from where we are now in the storyline," The Mandalorian and Grogu director Jon Favreau has shared. "And then Ahsoka season 2 is coming out – which I've seen all of – and that's definitely more dealing with the larger [picture], a higher level. That's about the officers and we're the enlisted men – this is more of a ground-level experience of what's going on. You're seeing the backdrop – which, by the way, is what the first Star Wars started off as."

Ahsoka season 2 arrives on January 20, 2027 on Disney Plus. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies and shows for everything else the galaxy far, far away has in store.

For even more, keep up with our D23 live blog.

Cult classic open-world game The Simpsons: Hit and Run could finally be getting a revival, if series creator Matt Groening is to be believed.

Via Empire, Groening took the stage during D23 2026 and seemingly let some news slip that he wasn't supposed to. Groening was asked whether there will ever be another Simpsons: Hit & Run game, and he appeared to tease a remake. "I think the original game is coming back in some form," he said, before current Simpsons showrunner Matt Selman cut in with, "or not."

The Simpsons: Hit & Run has seemingly been stuck in some sort of rights purgatory having originally been published by Vivendi, which was acquired by Activision and then brought under the Microsoft umbrella in 2023 with Microsoft's acquisition of Activision. Disney owns the overall series, but it's unclear if there's another entity that would need to give the green light for a continuation or revival of the Hit & Run intellectual property specifically.

After more than two decades, it's reasonable that some fans have given up entirely on getting a remake or sequel, and in some cases have embraced that as a good thing, but Selman said as recently as this March to "never say never" when it comes to more Hit & Run. Now, with Groening seemingly let some sort of remake or remaster project slip, Hit & Run fans have more reason than ever to be optimistic.

The Simpsons: Hit & Run is a GTA-like open-world adaptation of Groening's iconic cartoon sitcom. Developer Radical Entertainment reportedly began working on a sequel immediately upon Hit & Run's release but was forced to cancel the project when Vivendi declined to renew the license. The game was never ported outside of its original platforms GameCube, PS2, Xbox, and Windows PC.

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