Bendy Any% Master Guide
Written by Gardenia, with contributions from Ablazeknight, Yellow_SR, and obser.
I see a lot of new runners or people who are casually submitting runs asking the same questions and making the same mistakes, so I figured I would put together a rough guide/FAQ type thing so I it can be linked for easy access to information :))
Before the run begins: -A lot of runners like playing on lower graphics as the game tends to lag less when done so (this game is NOT well optimised so can struggle time to time)
- PLEASE please please show your IGT on the file select screen after the run in your video submission. For mobile runners, this won't be possible and your runs will have to be timed with Real Time.
Chapter 1: -Nothing special here, just watch the item route of top runs and practice taking tight 'racing lines'.
-After entering the item room for the first time, take a few extra steps into the room after the objective in the bottom corner appears and then save quit and reload to save 2 seconds of walking.
-The only thing is taking jumps over the ink puddles at the end to save some time from wading through slow ink
Chapter 2:
-After flipping all 3 switches and pulling the lever for the gate, run up to the boards in the doorway. Instead of breaking them, wait for the light sound that plays while the searcher is groaning. Upon hearing this sound or seeing the Bendy save icon in the bottom right appear (assuming you don't have the save glitch), quit out to the title screen and reload your save (this guide will refer to this as SQ from now on). This will have 3 of the 5 boards be removed and allow you to walk into the Music Department without having to swing your axe once!
-Upon entering the Music Department and locating the power switch by the ink filled stairwell, pull the switch and wait for the audio cue of a light turning on. There are 3 of these audio cues, and upon hearing the first one, SQ. This will save you a couple of seconds by skipping having to wait for the lights to turn on.
-After the searcher fight in the main room, SQ immediately upon killing the last searcher and the door will be open. Since we time runs using the time on the file select screen, this actually saves time.
-After loading in from this SQ, if you are on PC or console, spam your pause key while moving your camera slightly down to check the 2 trash cans. The pause spamming is known as pause buffering, and it allows you to save time IGT-wise by not having to search all the trash cans for the keys and just reloading until they appear in the 2 trash cans. If the keys are there, great! If not, quit out, reload your save, and repeat the process. Sometimes, the keys will be there in the first 3 tries, sometimes it will take a long while. USUALLY, the keys will appear in 1 of the 2 trash cans within the first 5 reloads after the SQ.
-When doing the instruments step, you can activate the projector from the room below by jumping up to it and spamming E.
Chapter 3: (oh boy this is a long one) -after giving boris the flashlight, wait until the objective card thing in the bottom right hand corner appears, and then SQ to skip the door animations
-when clearing out the toy room, if there is more than 1 bookshelf in your way, SQ after collecting the final toy.
-please do not pick the demon path, PICK THE ANGEL PATH, its always faster.
-when you enter the elevator for the first time, SQ to speed up boris. You will need to hold down W when loading back in or the cutscene wont start.
-the gears will always be in the same spots, so watch top runs and learn which boxes they're in. this is one of the most important things I dont see people doing: -after collecting the SECOND gear (doesnt matter which one is your second one), SQ. This will prevent Boris from sending the elevator away, saving a bunch of time. -this is also possible to do for the thick ink and power cores tasks.
-below I will have some videos linked of the OOB (out of bounds) skips for chapter 3, they save a decent amount of time when perfomed well, so definitely worth using. Essentially, you send the elevator down to FLOOR 9, and then quickly enter and exit the miracle station IMMEDIATLY and you will clip out. Follow the videos for the route down.
-before entering the elevator to start the bendy cutouts task, go to the door blocked by planks to the right of the elevator and break it open, then enter the elevator. the door will stay open until the butcher gang sequence, in which you can access a secret 2nd axe which makes quick work of the butcher gang.
-after clearing the last bendy cutout, die to a searcher (two spawn points in the heavinly toy room, and one spawns in the bookshelf/toy machine room) and you respawn back at the beginning of the floor near the elevator. if you were planning on going for tommy gun, DONT its slower than using an elevator out of bounds trick to make sure the projectionists does not spawn. If searchers don't spawn, bendy will always spawn after the last cutout nearby.
-make sure to grab the axe from the room you opened for the butcher gang fight.
-use the oob to despawn the projectionist. there is a strat you can do here similar to that of thick ink save quitting, see the video by ablazeknight for details below.
-entering the elevator too fast at the end of the chapter causes a softlock, so wait for the elevator doors to FULLY open before stepping inside of the elevator.
Floor K -> Floor 9:
Floor 11 -> Floor 9:
Floor P -> Floor 14 (projectionist skip):
Ink hearts strats:
Chapter 4: -you can just watch a top run until the games section of chapter 4 for an optimisations.
-you only have to complete the gun game and milk jug game to progress which require: -6/9 cans to be knocked over -the bar on the back wall of the gun game to be filled until the stripped section
-the butcher gang can be tricky, and top runners still die in the section. if you want to play it safe, feel free to use the cans to distract them, but if you wanna go fast see the lines top runs use to run through and avoid getting hit by the butcher gang.
-below will be another guide for the bertrum strats, top runners do something called 2 cycle which can be tricky to hit, but the guide on destroying the first arm early is still useful:
-you can run through the projectionist section, he wont catch you.
-the same can trick can be used to damage boris, so grab a few before entering. for an indepth route for the fastest kill, consult the following guide:
Brute Boris route:
Chapter 5: (YAY 5 minute cutscene that you cannot skip) -you can move during the cutscene of the hand coming up if you destroy ink blobs and start movng the boat fast enough
-sammy takes 14 hits, and you can stand on top of the gate next to where he spawns to avoid taking damage (see runs for what I mean and how to get up there)
-the lost ones fight, known as the forever fight to the community, is complicated and difficult. If you're too slow or dont kill enough lost ones and searchers (as opposed to alice and tom getting the kills) then the fight adds more waves, so be aggressive as possible! If you want a more indepth guide for this section, consult the following:
Forever Fight guide:
-WAIT before Alice stops talking before standing on the last plank that falls down after the fight or you softlock.
-you can die after picking up every ink blob to avoid the walk back, each saving 3 seconds. you can also have all 3 pipes in your inventory at once, so after you make a pipe begin heading for the next ink. when bendy spawns he cannot get you, its just a mini event/cutscene so keep going.
-please learn the pathing for the switches in the bendy fight, we see so many people lose a lot of time from aimlessly wandering. watch a top run.
