In a game defined by its narrator and atmosphere, it is fitting that one of the most important figures in the speedrunning history of Bastion is not the loudest voice in the room. Known simply as SomeDude, they are a United States based runner and moderator whose work on routes, tutorials, and rules has shaped how Bastion is run more than any isolated leaderboard time ever could. On Speedrun.com their profile shows more than sixty full game runs across titles like Bastion, Metroid Dread, Metroid Prime, Super Mario World, and Ori and the Blind Forest, along with a decade of site activity and they or them pronouns listed in the profile header.
Finding A Home In Bastion
SomeDude joined Speedrun.com ten years ago, right as Bastion was settling into its second life as a speedgame rather than just a critically praised indie action RPG. Their profile shows Bastion as the game they ran most heavily, with forty nine recorded runs across multiple categories, from All Story Levels to All Weapons and Any% variants.
Those early submissions trace the familiar arc of an invested runner learning a new game. Long All Story Levels times shrink into the mid forty minute range. Any% New Game runs drop toward four and a half minutes as routing and execution improve. By the mid to late 2010s, Bastion is no longer just one of many experiments for SomeDude. It is the game they stick with, improve in, and eventually help administer as a community moderator.
Teaching The Run: Tutorials And Guides
What separates SomeDude from many mid 2010s runners is not only how fast they play, but how consistently they teach. On the Bastion Speedrun.com guides page, their “SomeDude’s NG Any% no MS Tutorial” sits alongside older Any% guides and routing notes. The entry credits them as author and notes that it was last updated seven years ago, at a time when Any% No MS New Game was solidifying into the main technical category for full game runs.
Outside the written guide, SomeDude also produced a series of long form video tutorials. A two part “Bastion any% speedrun tutorial” is described as an introduction to Any% New Game and New Game Plus for players of all skill levels, while a later video called “The Basics of Speedrunning Bastion” boils the run down to a simple goal: “The speed run really consists of just trying to get to the heart of the bastion as quickly as possible.”
By 2022 their Twitch channel archives a “Bastion NG Any% No MS Speedrun Tutorial” broadcast, an updated walkthrough that sits beside PB attempts in the same category. Taken together, the guide, the early YouTube tutorials, and the later live teaching sessions make SomeDude one of the clearest entry points for anyone trying to learn Bastion in the late 2010s and early 2020s.
Chasing And Setting Records
Although their legacy is rooted in infrastructure and teaching, SomeDude’s own runs were world class at their peak. On January 25, 2020, a post on the r/speedrun subreddit announced a new world record in Bastion Any% No MS by SomeDude, with a time of 13 minutes 25.23 seconds and a Twitch VOD linked as verification.
That record did not freeze Bastion’s history. Other runners continued to refine routes and execution, but so did SomeDude. A Twitch video now titled “Bastion NG Any% No MS Speedrun in 13:16.74” shows a faster clear from their channel, and the main Any% No MS New Game leaderboard lists that 13:16.740 run as third place, submitted five years ago, behind more recent records by Primorix and HaosEdge.
Even outside that primary category, their times are notable. Their Speedrun.com profile shows a 23 minute All Weapons New Game run that currently holds first place, along with strong Any% New Game Plus and All Story Levels times. Those placements reflect not just raw speed, but a deep understanding of how to route upgrades, weapon choices, and enemy spawns across the entire game.
Moderation, Rules, And Community Stewardship
In addition to playing and teaching, SomeDude has acted for years as one of the public faces of the Bastion Speedrun.com community. The game’s stats page lists them as a moderator, and their mod activity count is over two hundred actions, with “last action” recorded only a few months ago.
On the forums they started and maintained threads that shaped how Bastion is run. The “Forge Stacking Discussion” thread, created seven or eight years ago under their name, discusses advanced tech involving weapon upgrade stacking and its implications for categories. That conversation sits alongside other threads about glitchless rules and menu storage, forming a written record of how the community handled new discoveries, category splits, and legality debates.
The combination of active moderation, verification work, and open discussion keeps Bastion’s boards consistent. For runners trying to submit their first attempts, that stability is often invisible, but it is one of the reasons Bastion has remained a friendly, understandable speedgame rather than a tangle of unclarified tech.
Beyond Bastion: A Multi Game Runner
Although Bastion is where SomeDude has their deepest roots, their profile makes clear that they are not a single game specialist. They have runs recorded in Metroid Dread, where Any% No Major Glitches times in the mid one hour twenty range and a Boss Rush entry show a solid grasp of that game’s modern movement. They have also submitted runs in Metroid Prime, several categories in Super Mario World, and an All Skills route in Ori and the Blind Forest Definitive Edition.
Those results are not leaderboard defining in the same way as their Bastion work, but they show the same pattern. Runs are often accompanied by routing interest, long term game visits, and multiple submissions rather than one off clears. Even in other titles, SomeDude approaches speedrunning as a process to understand and teach, not just a ladder to climb once and abandon.
Legacy In The Bastion Community
Bastion will probably never be a massive speedgame measured by thousands of daily runs. It is a niche title, an eleven chapter action RPG with strong music and narration that happens to support quick clears and routing creativity. In that context, figures who keep the game alive over a decade matter as much as any single world record.
SomeDude’s legacy rests on three intertwined contributions. First, they pushed Bastion’s Any% No MS New Game route into the low thirteen minute range and held the world record at least once, giving other runners a clear, high standard to chase. Second, they invested heavily in teaching, from early YouTube tutorials and written guides to updated Twitch walkthroughs in the 2020s, making it much easier for new players to pick the game up. Third, they served for years as a moderator and forum presence, helping to define rules, respond to new tech, and keep the leaderboard coherent.
In a community where many runners move on quickly, SomeDude is the kind of quiet steward whose work outlasts their own active PB grind. Every Bastion runner who learned from their tutorial, followed their route notes, or submitted a run to the boards they moderate is part of that legacy.