Before leaving for Awesome Games Done Quick 2024, the idea of completing Resident Evil 2 Remake on a live stage without taking damage was theoretical. The moment CarcinogenSDA arrived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reality set in. He wasn’t gearing up for a practice stream. He wouldn’t be in his computer room. In just a few days, he would take the stage in a room packed with attendees and perform on stream in front of tens of thousands of viewers. “I wanted to catch up with friends, and I did that for the first couple of days. After day two, which was Monday, I buckled down to practice.”

Carci would be playing RE2 on one of several PCs GDQ provided runners. The PC he would use depended on which machines were open before his run began. That meant all computers had to be locked and loaded. “You have to bring your game on a hard drive or a thumb drive. Downloading these games on their internet connection would have meant extra bandwidth loss they could not afford. I used Steam’s backup feature to back up the game on an SSD and restored it from backup on all three computers. It didn't take me more than 10 minutes on each machine.”

One perk of gaming on PC is customizing hardware and in-game settings. For instance, his home setup features a monitor with a high refresh rate, meaning the number of times a monitor redraws the game per second. Some parts of Carci’s run depended on the game running at a specific number of frames per second (fps) and on a monitor with specific settings. He conveyed this to the tech team, and they set him up. “I run Resident Evil 2 Remake on a 144hz monitor because of the risk involved” of playing on a monitor different from the one he used at home. “I wanted to make sure I didn't end up missing a shot or having muscle memory fuck with me because I’d been practicing on a high refresh rate monitor before I got there. I told them I needed that monitor, and they approved it almost immediately.”

Carci’s mouse of choice is one of manufacturer Corsair’s ELITE models. It’s got extra buttons for easy access to in-game actions, and a high dots per inch (DPI). The higher your DPI, the farther your cursor will travel when you move your mouse. Those settings were important for Carci. So was familiarity. “I installed the Corsair software as well. There’s a red button on the side that you can press, and it will lower your DPI for things like using a sniper rifle. But personally, I just like the way it feels in my hand. I want something that, when I click a button, registers in my muscle memory.”

The last and arguably most important step in Carci’s bespoke configuration was a mod that painted a graphic of his cat, “p00s,” on the back of the jackets worn by Claire and Leon. His cat loves to pop up on stream by hopping up onto the table and sauntering in front of Carci while he’s playing. He’s as much as mascot for Carci’s channel as a companion, appearing in the intro to walkthrough videos and in the lower corner of the screen while streaming. P00s’s appearance on Claire and Leon’s jackets was a way of bringing him along for the show.

Every aspect of GDQ’s setup spoke volumes about the team’s proficiency and preparedness. For the first time, “there were two stages,” says Katlink, a fellow horror game speedrunner and a member of Carci’s couch team for his RE2 Remake run. “And there's the hosts in the middle. While Stage A is running, stage B would be setting up and getting ready to go. That really helps with tech checks and just getting things prepared. You have to make sure that the audio and your headsets are good—Can I hear the host? Can I hear the runner? Can the runner hear commentary? Can the runner hear the game properly? Plus, you have to make sure the game works properly.” Having two stages, she says, “gives the next runner a lot more time to not stress and just relax a little bit.”

“Whoever came up with the idea that GDQ should have two different stages, plus an additional couch directly behind both stages, the camera angles they did—whoever came up those ideas deserves a fucking raise,” Carci says. “It’s probably the best optimization I've ever seen at GDQ.”

With one setup, each runner has to exit the stage so the next runner can sit down, get comfortable, boot their game, and go through other steps necessary to kick off their set. That process often delays the start of the next run. Too many delays can trigger a cascade effect down the schedule. “For every run, there's always a lot of quality assurance the team has to do. They have to hook systems up to capture cards, level all the microphones, basically anything involving technical troubleshooting,” Carci says.

The longer the wait between runs, the more likely viewers are to tune out. Even worse, long delays can render the event schedule pointless. “If there is an issue with audio, video, or a game system, that eats into scheduled times,” says Carci. “Viewers can't catch the games they want to see at their scheduled times.” There are behind-the-scenes benefits to running a tighter ship, too. “By knowing which runs are happening at which times, GDQ can do things like gauge viewership for incentives and timing out production.”

Once Carci completed his setup, he sat down to practice each character. “That was another level of nervousness: I didn’t know which character was going to win.”

Claire’s run would make for a better spectacle: flashier weapons, some daring but exciting diversions from his old routing, and higher consistency against her last two bosses, G3 and G4. Leon’s run was riskier, with the X factors involved in defeating his final boss giving him the most cause for worry. The encounter takes place on a lift that’s descending deep underground. There’s plenty of room to maneuver on the lift, a wide platform with no obstacles between each border, but the Super Tyrant—Mr. X on steroids—has advantages, too. He’s faster than when he stalks you through the Raccoon Police Department in his stylish hat and trench coat, able to lunge and jump at you with huge swipes of his claw.

Super Tyrant poses a super problem because of both his arena and the circumstances required to defeat him. The idea is to pummel him with damage while the on-screen timer ticks down. Eventually, a mysterious figure (Ada Wong, whom Leon thought dead) appears and tosses a rocket launcher onto the platform. You must grab the launcher, which equips automatically, and then blast the Super Tyrant into bloody chunks. Toppling him takes one rocket on Assisted or Standard difficulty. On Hardcore, you’ve got to fire two rockets. Carci’s strategy is to buy time until Ada drops the rocket launcher. He does this by stockpiling all 10 explosive grenades available in Leon’s playthrough and tossing them at timed intervals—stagger him with one explosion, wait until he recovers and strides toward Leon, then hit him again—until he runs out. Then switch to flash grenades to buy time until Ada’s deus ex machina appearance.

“While I can be pretty consistent, I don't choreograph my Super Tyrant strats closely, simply because my grenades just kind of go wherever they feel like. I'm not very good at throwing grenades.” Where a grenade lands determines whether Super Tyrant will stagger forward, backward, or to one side. If he staggers forward, Carci moves as far away as possible and keeps throwing. During a practice run, Carci was shocked when Leon got hung up on a light affixed to the platform’s railing. “I didn’t even know it had a collision box. I got stuck to it and he hit me with his slam-dunk move.”

In another practice session, a piece of debris fell from above and hit Leon like a falling piano in a cartoon—or so his viewers and I thought. What actually happened “was the debris fell and I blew it up at the same time,” says Carci. “I thought the debris wasn't actually going to fall yet. Normally, debris only falls in two or three places during that fight, and it only falls when Leon or the Super Tyrant are out of the place where it falls.”

Carci estimates a 90 percent consistency rating for his Super Tyrant strategies. Good, but nowhere near as dependable as his routing and strategies for Claire, who doesn’t have to fight that boss.

His friends’ encouragement boosted his confidence. Katlink and Ecdycis, another veteran horror runner who had just finished his run of the original Clock Tower prior to the spotlight shining on Carci, would occupy the couch. “Obviously, when you're on a stage like that, you kind of have to keep your cool,” Katlink says. That’s where ace couch teams come into play. “It's nice to have commentary to help you focus. Having that makes it so much nicer to do what you have to do and not have to commentate at the same time. It’s really hard to do, especially on a very high-focus game.”

The more familiar a runner with their couch, as GDQ runners call it, the better commentary and the run will flow. As Katlink explains, “Having that good chemistry with your couch is super important. It stems a lot from just being friends with the runner. They want their support system, and they know that they mesh well with those people. It's probably going to be that those people also run the same game, or know a lot about the game, because you talked their ear off about it.” The strongest couches are also versed in filling silence while a runner, who’s usually wearing headphones, concentrates on a challenging fight or segment. “If there's any dead air, they can help with that, because you're trying to make the run as entertaining as possible,” says Katlink. “It’s not a big deal for me, really. I'll find the dead air and I will smother it.”

Kat and Ecdycis would be joined by MattDaRoc, who would call in remotely. “I was in the GDQ Discord channel on voice chat with Carci and the other couch members Ecdycis and Katlink,” Matt says. “I had his run on a live video feed so I could watch it in real time.”

In the hours leading up to his run, he received good news. “As soon as I learned Claire was winning by a landslide, my anxiety went down,” he says. “The whole time I was practicing, I knew ‌I could do it. Everyone was encouraging me; they could see how anxious I was about it.”

Things were going his way. Even so, overconfidence posed as great a threat to his no damage run—estimated to take around 90 minutes—as Super Tyrant. “I knew if I got complacent, I would fall victim to something stupid. And I actually almost did a couple of times during the run.”

Carci’s no damage run in Resident Evil 2 Remake was scheduled for 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday, January 17^th. I stayed up late to watch it. My stomach was in knots. Carci, meanwhile, was feeling less anxious as his time drew nearer. Claire was a shoo-in, but that was only one reason for his enthusiasm. “I just felt excited. This would be the first time I got to perform at a GDQ in six years.”

He had adjusted his sleep schedule to make sure he was wide awake. A few hours before his call time, he ate dinner, hydrated, and answered nature’s call. He wanted no physiological distractions while he played. Approximately 45 minutes before he was scheduled to begin, he climbed the stage and sat down at his computer. “You're setting up while the other runner is doing their run.”

When Carci appeared on-camera, he seemed more nervous than he expected in our interviews. Or perhaps I was projecting my own case of the jitters. I’ve watched his streams for years. I’ve seen him complete no-damage runs at home, but I also knew not everything would be under his control. I wondered how, or if, any nerves he felt would manifest in his run. Would he lose control of his character and get snagged on geometry? What if he lost track of Mr. X as the giant hunted him through the corridors of the RPD?

“Being on a live stage like that, it's even scarier as a runner,” says Katlink. “I can imagine how he was feeling in certain moments where it's like, something could go very wrong, here.”

By the time Carci took the stage, he had tried to shove all those concerns to the back of his mind. It was game time.

“It is absolutely fantastic to be back for the first time in six years,” Carci says when his segment goes live. “I have landed myself in some hot water.” He set up the stakes: “I have to do this entire run taking no damage. Not a single hit.” There were circumstances, he explained, where his character might flinch from an attack or appear to take damage, but “as long as our health stays in the green ‘Fine’ status the entire time, we haven’t dropped a single point of damage.” Carci pledged to donate $100 every time he suffered a hit. Ideally, that wouldn’t happen. Carci introduced his couch squad—MattDaRoc, Katlink, and Ecdycis—and got them to agree that they’d donate if he got smacked around, too.

Ash, the GDQ host for the run who would read donations at moments when Carci and his couch didn’t need to provide commentary, announced Claire Redfield as the winner of the bidding war.

The stage was set. Carci had his character of choice. His couch was literally and figuratively behind him. And he had done everything in his power to prepare to make GDQ history.

“So, without any further ado, I think we should probably just go ahead and go for it,” he said.

“All right," he said, and began the countdown.

Five. Four. Three.

Two.

One.

Go.