In recent weeks, TikTok teens and general gremlins have been “speedrunning” the Church of Scientology. Dressed in costumes, sometimes as Minions, they storm the doors of the church, zip past as many members and security officers just to see how deep they can penetrate the secretive chambers before being ejected. Just like their gaming counterparts, the runners are iterating and improving on each other’s attempts. They’ve even recreated churches in Roblox to improve their strats.
The trend reminded me of the nascent days of “Anonymous,” the online hacker collective who initially targeted the same contentious organization. I thought of the trend again when alleged gunman and game designer Cole Tomas Allen stormed the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Grainy footage showed him bolting past a security detail in what appeared to be a Naruto run. As societyal guard rail after societal guard rail disintegrates, we’re witnessing familiar patterns of “seeing what happens.”
Gil Lawson is the solo developer of goblinAmerica, a political history speedrunning shooter where you Quantum Leap between different presidential administrations to spare the leaders of the free world from humiliation, assassination, or worse. He believes that recent events, where spritely, gamified gestures are manifesting in the real world, are signs of people feeling like the end of a chapter is near. But Lawson also believes that these impulses have always been closer to the surface than we openly admit, and that perhaps the gaming space has merely provided a more cohesive shape for this to be realized.
“I think the urge has always been there,” Lawson tells me. “History is bursting with people who tried to do things as quickly as possible—because they thought it was forceful and effective, because they had big plans and a narrow window, or just because they didn’t like thinking and did like doing. Most of the ideas that come out of these impulses are pretty identifiably bad at the time and look even worse with hindsight.”
In goblinAmerica, the United States was birthed from a shapeless swamp by a succession of sun-worshiping presidents. The big ball of gas has been good to this nation, transforming it from a bog to a modernized civilization with highways, sewers and floating obstacle courses. However, a collective of bitter moon imps are now trying to undo America. By the order of the sun, you must possess this presidential lineage at sensitive moments throughout history and restore goblinAmerican pride.
In the tutorial you will help goblin Washington blast away a cherry tree. In short time, save goblin Lincoln from goblin John Wilkes Booth, plus a posse of other gun toting maniacs in the streets. You’ll have guns, but your most dependable weapons are your acrobatics. You can do long Mirror’s Edge kick slides and dramatic Quake rocket jumps. You will be most rewarded for your time, but each stage possesses their share of presidential secrets. Some unlockable gear appear useless at first, but the mystique of games like these will be how players find practicality in absurdist things.
goblinAmerica’s presentation will draw comparisons to Cruelty Squad, the ultra-cynical immersive sim about gig work assassins killing CEOs. Which, too, has also had odd echoes in reality. Fancy footwork is far more of the crux of goblinAmerica. And where Squad’s world felt like composed of corrupted files, America’s landscape is far more whimsical. Mushy and clay-like, anachronistic goblin architecture, all gliding by like a dream where your feet barely connect with the ground. A shoot-out in Toontown.
Lawson says he was slow to arrive at FPS games. Half-Life 2 was “a big inflection point,” but his biggest influence is Modern Warfare’s Mile High Club, a brutal gauntlet epilogue where you mow down a swarm of hijackers to save the president. “It was the first time I’d done anything like that,” says Lawson. “Learned a route, drilled the execution, optimized to shave seconds off. When I got it, I yelled so loud.”
He loves the art of crafting a strat. The whittling and the discipline. To my mind, video game violence and corporeal actions are not directly related, but it’s clear that elements are being baton passed through cultural feedback loops. Speedrunners study each other to see what glitches and exploits can shave off those crucial seconds. TikTok kids review memes hoping to find L. Ron Hubbard’s head in a jar. Practices carried over. Hyperreal made real.
“It seems meaningful that actual speedrunning is not hasty and unconsidered,” says Lawson. “It’s methodical, disciplined, it takes endurance and stamina. You try, you fail, you reflect, you learn. Maybe thinking about fast, forceful political action through the lens of [personal bests], splits, and tech will help us improve the world more capably and quickly than the “move fast and break things” model. The only thing that stands between us and a better life is the right leaderboards.”
goblinAmerica hits Steam on June 17, 2026.
