How a record-breaking Legend of Zelda speedrunner fell and rose again

Narcissa Wright, a video gamer who livesstreams her speedruns of The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of TimeBeat the Game in just over 18 minutes — at the time, a world record. Wright gained fame in the gaming industry, tracking thousands of audience members and making money from streaming.

Then, in 2015, Wright publicly announced that she’s transgender, and the vitriol from the community that had once revered her became so extensive that her streams morphed from speedruns to mental breakdowns. Prior to her transgender transition, Wright was praised for her gaming skills and received positive feedback from the community. Suddenly, she began receiving death threats and constant taunts instead, and her streams’ comments were flooded by bigots.

Her struggles didn’t just come from transphobia, though. The new documentary Break the game, Wright confesses to having a deteriorating mental state due to an obsession with her audience, her fan base, and her desire to be the centre of attention. “I was at the precipice, and now I’m like a fallen star,” she sighs in the film.

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Wright’s deteriorating mental health led to her being banned multiple times from both Twitch and Twitter, most notoriously for tweeting that she wanted to “kill [her]self” and “shoot people at the twitch HQ,” something she says was only ever a self-destructive post, not a serious threat. “I don’t own any weapons and the threat was non-credible. I did feel like self-harming though, and the Tweet was my way of self-harming,” she posted in a now-deleted tweet. Her account remains deactivated.

What’s unique in Wright’s case is how much of her struggle was documented online, first in her livestreams, and now as recorded streams in Break the Game. The film, funded in part on Kickstarter and directed by Jane M. Wagner, documents Wright’s rise to gaming renown, then the rapid decline of her status and mental health, both of which she attempts to tackle by breaking another record with The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild.

This new journey has her blocking out the majority of humanity. She lives and breathes her online life. She eats and sleeps it, too. When she starts connecting romantically with another streamer, d_gurl, it becomes clear that she won’t be able to ignore real life altogether.

Wagner first discovered Wright via a livestream, and instantly knew she wanted to document Wright’s experience as a trans gamer attempting to break another world record. She was also convinced that her audience should watch Wright’s streams within the movie, rather than listening to a bunch of talking heads describing them.

Image: Pat Ackerman/Tribeca Film Festival

Break the Game is mainly an amalgamation of Wright’s Twitch streams, drawn from more than 30,000 hours of footage. “When I told people in the industry that was my plan, they told me, ‘No, you can’t do that. It’s not cinematic,’” Wagner told Polygon in an interview after the movie’s debut at the 2023 Tribeca Festival. The good news is that she ignored this advice and followed her intuition. The result is a unique, insightful examination of gaming culture with equal appeal for gamers and non-gamers, providing authentic insight into a subculture that’s been undergoing rapid change over the past decade.

Wagner’s ideas about breaking with documentary convention is a running theme throughout all aspects of her movie — its story, protagonist, underlying message, and cinematography. One thing that stands out in particular is the notion of speedrunning as an act of radical defiance.

In Wright’s case, it goes even further — speedrunning can read as a queer act, a trans act. Speedrunning is often about exploiting a game’s weaknesses, using glitches in the code for player advantage. Speedruns often involve breaking rules and not sticking to them. “This is one of the things that drew me to both speedrunning and Narcissa — this notion of speedrunning as a punk-rock act,” Wagner says. “You’re taking a game and playing it completely differently from the way the developers intended. Similarly, coming out as trans is considered rule-breaking, at least in the eyes of society.”

Zelda is not the only important character here. Ocarina Of Time Wright did not make a random decision. She identified with the Zelda characters in the Super Smash Bros. series. “As she puts it, Narcissa was able to express some of her feelings about gender through her character choice in playing as Zelda,” Wagner explains. “Even Link as a character is very androgynous.”

Photo: Tribeca Film Festival

But Wright wasn’t just gripped by the characters — she found the whole world of Zelda compelling. During film shoots outside of Wright’s livestreams, she and Wagner would sometimes go on walks together. Wagner says Wright would see a flower and exclaim, “Oh, it’s warm safflina,” a plant from Breath of Wild She found the game, and its immersion into it, to be a source of inspiration for herself in a society that did not easily accept her.

Even the way Wright engaged with Twitch went against the platform’s norms at the time — while nowadays, people tend to stream themselves going about their lives, back in 2014, it was unusual to stream anything other than gameplay. Wright streamed herself doing other things, such as eating, crying and sleeping.

Openness has both advantages and drawbacks. The scene that was most harrowing in Break the GameWright talks live about her feelings of depression and suicide. Viewers threaten to swat Wright in the chat.

When someone then knocks on Wright’s door, the fear is palpable — both hers and ours. It isn’t armed law enforcement at her door, though. It’s a mental health charity offering support. It isn’t totally clear who called them; Wright asks on the stream whether anyone watching is responsible, but doesn’t get a response. Contacting them may have been a well-intentioned act, but the fact that a viewer was able to find Wright’s home address is unnerving.

In scenes like this, the audience is forced to reckon with Wright’s obsession with constantly being online. It doesn’t seem to be doing her any good, yet she apparently can’t help herself. We might reasonably question why she doesn’t just switch off instead of streaming her breakdown to the world. “Just going offline is not the answer,” Wagner explains carefully. “For Narcissa, speedrunning is the thing she’s best at — and she’s proven that. It’s like saying to an athlete like Stephen Curry, ‘Get off the court.’ No. She should be allowed to do what she’s good at.”

But speedrunning isn’t just about finding a calling. “For some people who game, the online world is the only place where they’re able to find community, connection, and acceptance, and be their most authentic self,” Wagner says. In a world that isn’t geared toward introverts, neurodiverse people, or anyone struggling with mental health, the online world represents a kind of freedom. Narcissa’s experience was the opposite. It caused her as much damage as it did good. It was difficult for her to escape the vicious circle in which streaming was both the cause and solution.

Wagner says d_gurl helped Wright navigate through a difficult period. She represents the best approach to gaming. She’s able to experience all the joys streaming has to offer, like making friends and finding a community, but she’s also able to separate that from real life. d_gurl, whose real name Alex Eastly is, has a full-time job, loves hiking and plays in a rock band. As Wagner puts it, “She’s able to enjoy being on Twitch without letting it completely consume her.” It’s as if she’s cracked the secret, and as the documentary unravels, she slowly lets Narcissa in on it, too.

Image: Tribeca Film Festival

“I think one way of breaking a cycle is to have other people in your life who can provide another perspective,” Wagner says. “In the film, you really see how Alex does that for Narcissa. Not only is she there for her, but she opens up her world to her.”

Break the Game received wide acclaim at Tribeca: It was featured in a New York Times roundup of the fest’s best documentaries, with Wagner herself receiving a special jury mention for Best Documentary Director. Wright, however, was not present. After such a difficult few years, it’s perhaps no surprise that she decided to take some time away from the spotlight, leaving Wagner to handle the press.

Wagner doesn’t mind, though. “I think that for protagonists of documentaries, it can be really challenging to relive traumatic events over and over at screenings, and to continue this parasocial relationship with viewers of the film. I was really proud of Narcissa for recognising what she needed and advocating for herself,” she says. “She’s taking this moment to go on to the next level of her life, so to speak.”

After seeing her unravel on screen, it’s a relief to know that she’s now happy, socializing, and looking after herself. They are still close friends, even though they’re no longer in a romantic relationship. It is a testament to the strength of both their online and offline connection that through it all, they’re still there for each other. “As Narcissa puts it, ‘d_gurl still has my PlayStation,’” Wagner laughs.

Break the GameStreaming is available online via the Tribeca At Home Festival until July 2. Currently, it is looking for a distributor. Polygon’s feature will be updated when the full film release is complete.