YouTuber Summoning Salt has rereleased his documentary chronicling the history of “Halo 2” speedrunning on a VHS tape.
Titled “The History of Halo 2 World Records,” the nearly two-hour video explores how runners tracked and verified their times in the pre-digital era. Salt outlines how mailed tapes, forum debates and analog footage shaped the game’s competitive scene in the mid-2000s.
The documentary traces the evolution from early runs to modern strategies, detailing the technical progression over the last two decades. Salt breaks down key tactics, including “sword flying” and “BXR,” and how they contributed to faster completion times.
He also highlights the role of specific community members who helped define the current meta through experimentation and repetition.
Longform gaming content still performs
Summoning Salt is known for longform video essays on speedrunning history and has built a subscriber base of over two million. His work regularly surpasses one hour in length, showing that viewers will engage with well-researched content, even in a short-form-dominated ecosystem.
His latest release continues this trend and demonstrates that niche gaming history, when presented clearly and with narrative structure, can reach a broad audience.
What creators can learn
For creators producing content around niche communities or older games, Salt’s video serves as a case study in combining subject matter expertise with accessible storytelling. Additionally, it shows that you don’t always have to follow the usual types of merch. Salt decided to lean into his genre and release his videos on speedruns on VHS tapes, which speedrunners used to use to submit their runs.
Salt plans to release more of his videos on VHS soon, with additional footage.
The full documentary is available on Summoning Salt’s YouTube channel.