so an update on that skip: me and @RE_Aster went on some testing and realized the perfect tactic for it to make it consistent

1. you need to be in coop, solo won't work
2. the HOST or the one of has a very low ping (its best to be the host) takes cover on the side where im standing on the video while being meleed
3. then you trigger the birkin
4. then you walk just a bit back to the end of that cover
5. ???
6. you're a legend and you're now teleported to the door! should save around 7+ seconds of running to the door I'd say

ok so finally after an hour of testing I concluded that this skip IS doable in solo but not as fast (only around 30 secs slower than in coop but its still faster than usual playthrough by around 2 minutes) no matter how hard you try there's not enough time to reach the lowest floor before the invisible wall kicks in, even if you do it perfectly

@rozukk can you pls remove "coop-only" from the title? :D

one of the players jumps on the rails, then jumps on top of a train and then jumps on an invisible wall (your best bet it to aim for umbrella logo and be in the middle of the train), then you run along this wall and jump down to the elevator which must come up after you press a button, then the 2nd player triggers the elevator, you move to a platform and then you jump right below the elevator, aiming for the exit and the second player who's on top must kill himself in order for the first player to continue it is risky for casual/normal speedruns but for professional/veteran it is less risky since if you fail you can suicide

possible fails: if you overshoot the jump on the invisible wall from the train, you'll still get a time save (not as much of course) but at least you won't lose any time at all (UPD: actually I just realised that this kind of time save will work perfectly for solo runs!) if you won't reach the invisible wall, you'll just fall on the train tracks and thats pretty much the end of your run if you're running on low difficulties and cant suicide (BUT if you position yourself like I did on the video, you pretty much can't miss the jump)

in the end this skip saves more than 2 minutes, I'd say it's a must-do on every coop run but of course the downside is that it can't be done in solo runs (unless if you won't go for a jump down to the elevator and just run to the button like I said above)

UPDATED FASTER AND CONSISTENT VERSION IN THE COMMENTS

Basically the trigger to activate Birkin sequence is at around the same place where the soldier who's sitting closer to the edge of cover tries to melee you so if you allow him to melee you, you will enter an animation that you can't escape and this allows you to stay behind or in those spawning boxes which are preventing you from going back on birkin sequence and therefore the game respawns you next to the door I accidentally did that on my practice speedrun attempt when I haven't killed anyone and just tried to run past but the guy knocked me with melee and I couldn't replicate it for a lot of time and now I finally understand what you need for it atm I dont know will it work offline or will it work consistently but im pretty sure that answer to both questions is "yes"

no we didn't, we first tried doing a strat where my friend dies and respawns closer to the door so he can activate it, but it seems like it has a VERY high chance of softlocking you so in our submitted run we had to swap so its me who triggers the door instead (a couple of secs slower but at least it won't softlock you probably)

and btw just curious, has anyone encountered a (multiple) softlock(s) on 1st chapter? :D we personally had 3 sotflocks in 3 different places just because the last enemy never spawned

Literally every time im trying a run with my friend we always get softlocked on one particular moment, when you go to the safehouse and trigger that tyrant cutscene it just doesn't want to work as intended resulting in a softlock, we're so tired of this shit, we cant complete a run for like 3 days already just because this game keeps softlocking us here https://imgur.com/a/L85BmHT

well I just tried doing a practice run and I can already say that nemesis on chapter 4 seems a lot harder that on the latest version, like it has a lot more hp (or probably its just weapon damage which might be lower), also every single grabbing sequence where you need to smah your C key is like 2 times longer and harder than on the latest version, dog sequence for example is nearly impossible without being bitten by it (unless you break your finger) also "spacebar with samurai edge" tactic is broken af here lmao just look at that clip: https://imgur.com/a/dHUMP0S (update: it happens extremely often and not only with spacebar/samurai edge even when enemies are not that close, its almost impossible to run on this version)

ok, thank you! shame that this game isn't that popular for speedrunning, I personally love it

Latest steam version runs very poorly for me while an old pirated version runs very smooth, can I use it for speedrunning (in solo of course)?