I don't know if this is common knowledge, but my friend and i discovered that you can skip most ladders if you walk at them from a 90 degree angle or steeper(I've tried at a 45ish degree angle and it's inconsistent, 90 degrees sideways or walking backwards was extremely consistent), even if they're in tight spaces. At least going down them.

You can't skip the one during Angie and Donna's doll house going into the well, and i think theres one or two in the factory segmant that cannot be skipped, but everything else seems to work. Ethan does not take fall damage when doing this as well, so health at the time is not an issue. Figured i'd share it in case people didn't know. If i find the exact locations for the unskippable ladders, i'll update this or add a comment, but i figured i'd post it here since it seems like a very easy small timesaver.

Edit: Thanks @Aqua_Cheetah, the other ladder is right after pulling the B3 lever and bringing dukes elevator up in Factory. Every other one can be bypassed by this, or sprinting at it

I noticed this as well except I was able to just sprint off of every ladder straight on the only 2 ladders that I can think of that force you to go down them properly is the one in the doll house in the sewer like area, and the second is in the factory where you've just pulled the 2nd level lever for Duke.

So I wasn't going crazy!

I noticed this too a few times that Ethan would just drop instead of climbing. I just thought it was a bug or something along those lines. Will have to see if I can consistently recreate this.

Thanks for bringing this up.

It’s definitely consistent, I’ve noticed the ladders have wonky hit boxes for Ethan to grab onto. If there’s a hole he can fall down, and sometimes the area next to the ladders are big enough you can just run straight on next to it and drop down. I’ve done it in the house where you get the shotgun during the lycan attack, the tower in the house right next to hit, the tower/roof ladder where you get the mask of rage, and I few others I don’t remember off the top of my head. That honestly tells me there’s got to be someway to have a set up to cause it to happen with the unskippable ones listed by OP. Even if it takes like 10s to set up with a proper angle it would still be faster than climbing down a ladder in most segments.

there are a couple ladders I haven't gotten this to work on, the ladder in the dollhouse well and one of the ladders in factory, but for the most part it works 90% of the time!

I know it would be more of a timesave to be able to drop down the well, but man I hope we can drop down that factory ladder, such a tease too almost looks like you can just squeese by, hate it with a burning passion. Fuck that thing.