General Tips:
-Use manual transmission (if possible).
-Use hood cam to help judge corners better.
-Cars to use (in order): Shelby GT500 SS, Gallardo Balboni, R8, 918 RSR
-Play on Easy difficulty to avoid getting the "Perfect Run" reward after finishing events - saves 2s per event.
-After finishing the final events of Stage 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 9, quit to menu and continue career again. This skips various unlock animations and the "stage complete" animation.
-[Manual gear specific] When using manual gears, if you're in the air for long enough (for example, on that large jump on 3-1), your speedometer needle will start to go anticlockwise, and when you land you will lose a lot of speed thanks to that. To prevent this, use nitrous as the needle is about to drop and hold it until you land.
-[PC Only] If your game crashes, and you have custom controls, check them when you start the game again because there's a chance that they've been reset back to default.
-[PC Only] The higher the fps, the less grippy the cars are and the more unstable the game is. So, the highest recommended fps to play the game at a 60fps cap. HOWEVER, due to recent discoveries, for the most optimal full game time, you HAVE TO play with the in-game v-sync enabled, which limits your game to 30fps (you can read more about why it HAS to be the in-game v-sync under Glitches and Exploits near the bottom of the guide).
Events Per Stage:
Stage 1 = 4 events (if you count the mob escape as one) - pos. 195 on the final event
Stage 2 = 5 events - pos. 172 on final event
Stage 3 = 6 events - pos. 139 on final event
Stage 4 = 5 events - pos. 109 on final event
Stage 5 = 5 events - pos. 85 on final event
Stage 6 = 5 events - pos. 67 on final event
Stage 7 = 4 events - pos. 50 on final event
Stage 8 = 5 events - pos. 26 on final event
Stage 9 = 4 events - pos. 11 on final event
Stage 10 = 6 events - pos. 1 on final event
(The number of events for each stage and The Run position are listed to help you remember which events to quit to menu on).
Cutscene Skips:
To skip a cutscene at the start of an event, just restart the event. The events where you will want to do this are:
-Stage 1-2 (San Fran Race) - Jack preparing for the race. Not only is this cutscene technically faster RTA (unless you have very slow loads), but skipping this cutscene via a restart enables clean, dirty, and rapid passes early, which allows you to gain XP from passing the various opponents in this event. This gives you significantly more XP than you would get normally without skipping this cutscene and massively increases the chances of getting various unlocks fairly early, which will mainly save you time in Stage 3 and Stage 5.
-Stage 3-4 - Nikki and Mila cutscene.
-Stage 4-2 - Marcus brake check cutscene.
-Stage 5-5 - Restart event when you can only see a black screen from the fade-in.
-Stage 7-3 - The cutscene where Marcus shoots you; you can only restart the event after Sam has finished saying, "Jack... I just got word".
[PC specific; 10-4 OOB Setup] Stage 10-4 - The cutscene with Cesar and Jack in a cop chase. Skipping it does save time, and it is required to do the 10-4 OOB, but there's a chance of the game softlocking (on PC).
NOTE: It's possible for the game to softlock on the Stage 3-4 (which is extremely rare), Stage 4-2 and Stage 5-5 cutscene skips. However, it's nowhere near as likely to softlock compared to the Stage 10-4 Cesar cutscene. Also keep in mind that softlocks are not as common on the console versions of The Run, as far as we're aware.
Glitches and Exploits (click on the orange text to view a video of a glitch/exploit):
Here comes the fun part, the glitches and exploits... but before you have a look at these glitches and exploits, I need to explain a few things to help you better understand how the reset glitches work. Around the map, there are reset triggers placed anywhere the developers don't want you to go. However, it appears to be very easy to break these reset triggers by... well... using the resets, as well as either a gas station OR a mid-event cutscene. Our most recent discovery involves spamming the reset button until the game considers you to be in control (you'll know if it has worked if you see a black screen fade followed by your car going in and out of existence), and either going into and exiting a gas station OR going into a mid-event cutscene. For whatever reason, this breaks all reset triggers, allowing you to go wherever you hell you want.
NOTE: 2-5 (reset only), 6-1, 10-4, and the faster version of 5-1 (where you do the bugged reset) are significantly more consistent if you play the game with the in-game v-sync (with the in-game v-sync even being a requirement for a lot of them) because it has a special property which appears to delay the amount of time it takes until a manual hard reset is allowed to be triggered. Meaning it can't interrupt the buggy reset that you need to get to setup the glitch. Once you're in this mode, you have to be aware of some VERY IMPORTANT side effects of this bugged mode.
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You can not manually reset your car.
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You pretty much enter a permadeath mode, so if you wreck your car, you're toast. And the only way to become less toast is to restart the event.
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The timer in make up time and battle events completely breaks. So, even if you run out of time, you won't fail the event.
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You can't get killed on any mob events. Not from the Cayennes, the chopper, OR EVEN EXPLOSIVES. *Meaning this glitch could potentially be useful on Extreme difficulty. Another thing to mention is that this glitch only works on the latest version of the game (for PC, it's 1.1), so make sure that you have the latest version of the game (for example, the official Origin version on PC). And with that done, let's get to the fun part :D
And just to be clear:
"Instant reset version/bugged reset version" - requires the in-game v-sync to work, will always be fastest. Example, Example with input display
"Alternate setup version" - in-game v-sync not required, however it will always be slower than the instant reset/bugged reset version of the glitch.
Stage 2 - 2-5 Reset glitch - Can work without the in-game v-sync enabled, but it's less consistent.
Stage 3 - 3-5 OOB (bugged reset version) - Restart event, then do reset - Do the direct version below instead.
Stage 3 - 3-5 OOB (direct OOB version; legacy; currently faster)
Stage 4 - 4-4 OOB
Stage 5 - 5-1 OOB - Spam reset during the cutscene until you gain control - you only have one chance at getting the reset. If you don't get it, then do the alternate version shown in the video (the one that doesn't require v-sync to be on).
Stage 6 - 6-1 OOB - Restart event, then do reset. This OOB setup only works with the in-game v-sync enabled.
Stage 9 - 9-2 OOB - Doesn't require a bugged reset setup; can be done without the in-game v-sync and above 30fps
[1] Stage 9 - 9-4 OOB - The bugged reset does NOT work on 9-4, so follow the video linked and read the instructions in the description.
[2] Stage 9 - this is the original discovery made on the /r/needforspeed subreddit - don't need to refer to this, this just acts as a way to credit the people who originally discovered this.
Stage 10 - 10-4 OOB - For this one to work, you NEED to skip the cutscene by restarting and you need the in-game v-sync enabled. It is recommended to spam reset really quickly for this specific setup.
Stage 10 - 10-6 Orange Barrier OOB - No setup required, just drive through the barrier.
