Carcinogen is a speedrunner who is known for playing spooky horror games like Resident Evil. He’s completed successful speedruns of many games, including Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. At the 2018 event Awesome Games Done Quick, Carcinogen completed Resident Evil 7 in just 01:49:28, which is around 20 minutes shy of the current world record held by Captain_Ezekiel; impressive nonetheless. Let’s take a look at what one needs to do to start playing Resident Evil 7 faster than average.
Tips for Completing Your First Resident Evil7: Biohazard Speedrun
The first thing you’ll need to decide when you start your Resident Evil 7 speedrunning career is whether you intend to do a New Game or New Game+ speedrun. When you do a New Game+ speedrun, you get to keep items you earned throughout the game. This makes it much easier to complete the game, whether you play on Easy or Madhouse difficulty. Carcinogen’s speedrun is a New Game speedrun, meaning he doesn’t get to keep any advanced items that might make his game easier. It is also a Madhouse difficulty run, meaning the game is in its most difficult setting.
If you intend to do a New Game+ speedrun, ever, you should follow a guide to unlocking all the advanced weaponry. These weapons will help you defeat encountered mobs and bosses very quickly and easily, especially compared to the regular game’s choice of weaponry.
We’ll follow Windows Central’s guide to unlocking everything you need for a full-on New Game+ speedrun. Following this guide, you can beat the entire story mode and unlock the advanced weaponry in under four hours. That is assuming you play your cards right.
You’ll need to have completed the game at least once (not necessarily quickly) before attempting this speedrun strategy. In doing so, you’ll unlock the Albert 01-R pistol and Secrets of Defense, which will aid you in running the game quickly.
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Things That Will Add Time to Your Run
You’ll want to consider whether you have behaviors that typically add time to a run. Since you’ll be trying to complete the game in under four hours to get the Just Get Me Outta Here achievement while doing your speedrun, you’ll need to clock as little time on the following things as possible.
- Cutscenes are largely unskippable and add significant time to your run. There are only two instances of skippable cutscenes: after the old videotape sequence on the Wrecked Ship and the ending sequences. You’ll want to skip both of these sequences, but you won’t be able to skip anything else.
- The game clock doesn’t pause when you’re using menus. This includes saving the game or checking the map. So you’ll want to make sure you know every inch of the game like the back of your hand.
- The game clock will not continue running when you have the game paused. So pause the game whenever you need to check a guide or even think about your actions. You’re not a professional speedrunner. Pause liberally.
- Ignore all phone calls in the game unless the call is required to progress the story.
- While we probably don’t even have to say it, retrying after death doesn’t pause the game clock. Die as little as possible, even if it means you have to play a little safer than usual.
Completing the Game
We won’t steal Windows Central’s thunder by giving you their strategies. If you want to use their strategy guide, you can find it here. The biggest takeaways we want to highlight is how many rooms in the game are entirely skippable and how important it is to play the fights in the game as efficiently as possible. These two things are some of the most important deciding factors in your game time. Unlike cutscenes, you have agency over how they turn out.
Carcinogen’s Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Speedrun: How Did He Do It?
Carcinogen’s speedrun at AGDQ starts off like most runs of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard runs: with the opening cutscene. As soon as the cutscene is over, the kid gloves come off, and he takes off down the path next to the house, knowing exactly where to go already. He explains that movement speeds in Resident Evil 7 are not static like in many other games, and that the game will artificially slow you down at certain points. He evades one artificial movement speed reduction during a checkpoint by resetting his game, but explains that this isn’t something you can often do in the speedrun due to how much time it takes to reset the game.
Carcinogen then begins to make his way through the game. He avoids rooms that don’t have anything meaningful for him to pick up and skillfully tackles each and every encounter that comes his way. Since Carcinogen is doing a New Game Madhouse run, he doesn’t have any of the advanced weaponry you can use in New Game+; he has to rely on himself and the basic weaponry available. He doesn’t even get to use the Albert 01-R, a staple of many beginners’ runs.
To Save or Not to Save?
Carcinogen blasts through the game with just one cheeky safety save toward the middle of the run. He explains early on that saving the game is a huge time sink. He notes that players looking to be competitive in their Resident Evil 7 speedruns should avoid saving if they can to save those precious, precious seconds. Carcinogen explains that the spot where he saved is a tricky spot, even for him, and that he runs the risk of dying in the upcoming section. Further, he explains that dying in this section and having to retry — with the game clock still running — would put him much further behind than creating a safety save.
True to his words, the section immediately following does give him a bit of trouble. No doubt in part because of his underpowered weaponry. He takes a lot of damage from a chainsaw-wielding Mia Winters and has to repeatedly back off — as we mentioned, playing safely — to keep himself from dying. Carcinogen manages to take Mia down and progresses, but not without taking some heavy damage. He comes close to dying several times and is unable to fend off all of Mia’s attacks.
He progresses through the game quickly and displays advanced knowledge, not just of the speedrun of the game, but also of the game itself. There are several points in the run where Carcinogen’s strategy doesn’t quite pan out as expected, destabilizing his run. Despite that, he managed to clock a time that is still very competitive, even if it’s not currently a world record. Many speedrunners forget how to play the game normally, knowing only how to route their speedruns. Thus when their runs get destabilized, they flounder. However, Carcinogen remains calm despite major destabilizing factors (such as a failed stun on Chainsaw-Mia.)
Who Holds the World Record for the Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Speed Run?
The current world record holder for the Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Speedrun is named Captain_Ezekiel from Japan. He holds world records for Any%, 100%, and Knife Only runs in both Easy and Madhouse modes and New Game and New Game+. To say he’s a bit of a legend in this game would be an understatement. The only world record run for Resident Evil 7 not held by Captain_Ezekiel is the Console version of the game, which YossyHop holds.
Final Thoughts
Speedrunning is becoming more and more popular. Each year, AGDQ and SGDQ attract more and more viewership and donations, which is excellent since they are charity events! People are enamored with the mastery required to complete games faster than average. You can get started with speedrunning, too, if you want to! In the meantime, check out Carcinogen’s terrifying run in the video below!
See Carcinogen Take on the Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Speedrun Here!
The image featured at the top of this post is ©Pe3k/Shutterstock.com.
