Metroid Dread speedrun community member jayena has created a tool called ‘ZDCurtain’, which detects when the game is loading using computer vision algorithms, and this tool will be used to bridge the gap between Switch and Switch 2 loading times.

This is amazing news for the many that bought the game physically! There is currently a huge difference in loading time when compared to a digital copy, that is further emphasized on a Switch 2 as physical copies didn’t get faster loading times, which we have reported on a separate post. This also equalizes speedruns that have randomly extended load times on certain rooms, which can often occur on some parts in Dairon, or right before boss encounters.

Its functionality is somewhat limited as of now, being unable to work on most VODs or YouTube videos as it requires a game feed without any overlays, as well as the default brightness settings on Dread and the RGB Range set to ‘limited’ on the Switch / Switch 2 systems.

Further refinement is to come, and it has proven to be useful for automatically detecting game loads while also timing the length of those loads accurately. Mac and Linux versions of this tool are on the table as well!

The intention is for the community to use this tool to create a competitive leaderboard regardless of the console or type of copy, and it will be used for every category and game version, save for Boss Rush, which uses the In-Game Timer instead of Real-Time Attack timing.

We appreciate jayena for taking her time to create a tool like this, and we hope to see more physical runners take part in this game’s speedrun history!

Source: ZDCurtain / Metroid Dread speedrun Discord