I recommend playing through this section of the game casually before trying to speedrun it. I make lots of references to specific locations and cutscene triggers throughout this guide. Beginner strats are essentially foolproof. These are the strats to switch to if you are low on health, or inexperienced with running the game. The more advanced strats aren’t particularly difficult, and are probably suitable for someone after their second full run of the bad ending. They essentially require slightly more attentiveness to audio cues and a small amount of health management.
First, a brief piece on reload exploiting, the only real piece of speedtech throughout the run: essentially the game is programmed so that whenever you pull out a gun it is fully loaded. Using hotkeys (I use a combination of my number row and thumb buttons on my mouse) we can switch between weapons faster than we would have been able to reload them. This results in time saves. You only need to bind the pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, and RPG slots. I have the shotgun and RPG slots bound to my mouse as these are the most important. You can switch to any slot, whether or not it's occupied and the exploit will work.
This guide will be written in sections corresponding to my splits, I will leave what the split actually entails if it isn’t clear from the title in brackets next to the name.
Zero Saints Thirty: Fairly simple here, run in front of the first terrorist and hold fire while aimed at the head. Whip around after this and kill the second one. Run through the next room as normal. Should you run too far in the explosion corridor, the game will softlock. I tend to run circles just in front of the door. Run around the right side of Peirce, and take the early left turn. This will skip a little dialogue and save about a tenth of a second. Watch out for the RPG guy on the raised walkway. If he’s still standing when you get there, stagger him and run away. Kill the 4 terrorists and run into the QTE with Cyrus. Once the nuke has been triggered, run as usual until the first non-solid floor panel, do a roll over this to avoid the stagger. Timing the roll correctly may take a few attempts, but it’s pretty easy with a bit of practice. Disable the nuke to finish the split.
Bravado% (The White House section): Character sex doesn’t really matter. You save maybe half a tenth in menuing by picking the guy. The dialogue decisions are unimportant for the first two encounters as they are of equal length, however you save 3 seconds by choosing right when talking to Josh (the third guy in the hallway). Get to the oval office and wait the cutscene out. Don’t bother with any of the guns and jog out to Keith. Sprint all the way to Pierce, your stamina will regenerate during the cutscene. I like to jump the tables in the hallway as a way of using less stamina. Finish the running and get in the cannon. Ship spawns here are tied to dialogue lines, so you can’t really save or lose that much time here. Using missiles when the ships grid up allow for splash damage kills. Shoot the battleship down, do the following QTE and move into the next split.
A Pleasant Day: Take a tight line around the corners in the first walking section. Eat your breakfast and head outside. Get in the car and get driving towards the diner. Manually brake the car and hold right into the autoguide to get as close to the curb as possible when at the diner. Drive to the park and kill the first wave of cops. The second wave’s spawn is tied to Kinzie’s dialogue and won’t spawn before the line is finished. Get to the fountain and stand where the launcher spawns. Reload exploiting is what saves time here. Shooting an object or person that’s too close to you is an easy way to lose 2-3 seconds. Aim firstly for police cars, then other cars, then fences. Unfortunately there is some RNG here and it is possible to get screwed by it and lose a whole load of time. The officer is pretty predictable, just follow his jump and hope to one cycle him.
The Fundamentals: Get in the nearest car, and head to the military base. When the map tutorial plays, open it and drop a waypoint wherever your mouse is. The game only checks for a waypoint, and not that it is on the Friendly Fire. Grab the Eagle in the middle of the base and fly towards the Zin tower. The Void is on the top most platform, and will be invisible when you fly over it. Get the eagle ~10 meters above the platform and jump out. If you are not high enough it will not spawn and will be a hard reset. You can fall on top of the void and get right in if you hit the enter vehicle button at just the right time (it’s a few frames). From here you just use the quest waypoint to get to Friendly Fire. Park the Void with force into the ground outside. Buy the Pistol and Shotgun. Don't bother upgrading the pistol as it's used very infrequently during the run. Buy the first level of the damage upgrade for the shotgun. This is important as it is the main weapon used for taking out the wardens. Leave the store and get back in the void. Blow up the police and fly south west towards the neighbourhood nearby. Blow up all the Zin here and fly west to Kinzie’s warehouse. Trigger the dialogue by getting the trigger on the inside of her warehouse and return to the void. Fly back over the big building and land on the road, near the first cluster. Wait for the dialogue to finish and split.
Running & Jumping Tutorial: Buy the stamina upgrade. Accept the quest and save the void to your garage after the cutscene. Grab a car and get the first three clusters. Stay in your vehicle and the cluster pickup animations won’t play. After the third cluster, head to the fourth. Now wait for the Boss to talk about the apartment. If you grab the cluster too soon, all the dialogue between the 3rd and 4th cluster will replay, which takes around 30 seconds. Wait for the powers menu prompt and then buy both. Smash through the tutorial area as fast as possible and you’ll have completed the split.
Blazin’: Complete Blazin’. Yes that is it. There is a little time save if you run along the road towards the end until the arrows then jump at the tallest building. From here you can jump down to the second to last one, and jump up and hit the and trigger to end the activity.
Freeze!: Accept the quest and get the void from the garage. Fly over to the first booster and shoot the Zin on the rooftop. Jump out and disable the generator. Run across to the next generator. If you are lucky, the Zin will have walked forwards out of the fenced area and you can disable the generator from the back panel. Run through the shield Zin and kill all of them. Switch to the shotgun while disabling the hotspot. Stay about 10 meters away from the warden, this means he won’t try and melee you, but you get maximum damage from the shotgun. If he goes for the laser attack, shoot his head and it will cancel. Select the power before the prompt and then do the tutorial. Trying to line up the Zin can save time and ammunition, but is an advanced strat. The time save is fairly negligible when compared to the time you can lose if you mess it up. Use the shotgun again to kill the warden with a single headshot after freezing it.
Ship Escape: Accept the quest and spawn the void. Fly towards the waypoint. Park/crash the void onto the rooftop near the door. Enter the ship and get down with the sickness. After getting the gun off the Zin trooper, shoot it as soon as you can. This will remove the crouch lock and allow you to sprint earlier than usual. Get to the end of this section and fly the ship out and into space.
Hack the Planet: Accept the quest and call vehicle delivery for a void. Fly across the river and crash in front of Planet Zin. Do the hack and get back in the void. If it blew up, spawn another. Blow up both waves of police while in the void. Get out and use the shotgun on the portals and head for the curb opposite Planet Zin. The golden CID will spawn here, just spam the interact button to capture him. Hop back into the void and fly towards the start of the platforming activity while the dialogue plays.
Platforming: The void will dive sharply after the game reloads. You can risk a warp to shore here, as it can put you right next to the activity start, or it can put you on the road. The safest way to get there is to super jump through the water and run into it. Get bronze on the activity and then you can climb the central pillar to finish the activity.
Blazin’ 2.0 (Fire element): Spawn a void and get to the Broken Shillelagh. Once again switch to the element before you are prompted to. Complete the tutorial as fast as possible.
CID’s Body: This is the most trick intensive split in the run. After the game has reloaded after the success screen, immediately quit out and reload through the ‘Continue’ option in the main menu. Call vehicle recovery for a void and accept the quest. Fly to the old crib ruins and park the void. Get to the cutscene trigger ASAP. Get back in the void, or spawn a new one if it has gone. Try and blow up as much as you can before Kinzie talks about the bounce gun. As soon as this happens, you need to get out of the void and grab it. This queues the dialogue that has to play before you can pick up a CID. Line up on the edge of one of the CID pickup zones. This is a feel thing and will likely take a few runs to get used to doing. There is a tight window when the character staggers backwards and into another CID's pickup area. There is no penalty for missing it, other than having to play the animation for picking up the second CID, so everyone should go for it. Split when the animation of picking up the third CID starts.
Torrent%: The worst split of the run. Has multiple windows of tight timing, near death and a bug that loses you a minute if you get it. Get back in the void you used to get to the CID shells. If it has blown up, spawn one immediately. Fly over the building with the waypoint and shoot the Zin attacking you and CID. If you are new to the run, wait until the defense bar is full to leave for the power station . If not you can leave after Kinzie says “Hold on”. This is about 10 seconds from the end of the defense activity, allowing you to abuse the out of range timer. Drop down out of the void into the power plant checkpoint. Kill the Zin and start the download. Get back into the void and fly up. You’ll be waiting here until around 15:10 is left of the protection timer. Land on the rooftop with the first booster and wait for 15:00. It is important to park the void well, I like to do it over the little doorway, facing towards the left side of the building that separates the first and second boosters. Here the first beacon will unlock. Hit this as soon as possible and get off the rooftop. For beginners/safe strats it is best to clear the rooftop. If your health is near max, hack it straight away and tank the bullets. Fly the void around the powerstation building and get to the second booster. Similar strats apply, kill everyone if you need to, if not you can hack it right away. Here comes the bug. Get back to CID and freeze him. It is possible for you to fail the checkpoint for no reason and be reset back to the second transformer. The only consistent way I have found to avoid this is to take your hands off the keyboard and mouse until the timer says 2:55. If you get to 2:55, you're safe, if it doesn't you'll be taken to the failed checkpoint screen. Shotgun the murderbots, and use your fire power to kill the Zin coming after you. Split once the defense timer hits 0.
Brain Power (Getting telekinesis): Equip the shotgun and get ready to kill the warden. It is ideal to kill him after one cycle, but you don't want to take much longer or it'll start jumping around on the rooftops and make you haemorrhage time. Do the telekinesis tutorial as fast as possible, once again using the shotgun to kill the warden. As soon as he spawns, you can begin throwing golf carts at him. Split at the end screen
Mind Over Murder: Accept the quest and spawn a void to fly to M.O.M. You just need to learn the spawns of the heads and hope the people and cars have nice spawns. Split on the end mission screen
Hacker Vision: Spawn yet another void, and accept the quest. Fly over to the Broken Shillelagh. Enter the mission and skip the cutscenes. Walk forward once you’re in the hackerspace, into the arena-y bit. Blow up all the things as fast as possible in 2D, then move the tank forwards, towards the gate key. Drive through the level, blowing up tanks as necessary and shooting the gate keys as early as possible. At the top of the downhill ramp connecting the second and third gate keys, you may need to wait for the checkpoint marker to spawn (It will be about a second after Zinyak says “Touché”). Shoot the gate key as early as possible, and wait out the trap. It is best to park the tank as near to the gate as is possible, as this will give you the shortest run to the bike. Split once you’ve gotten on the bike
Tron% (The motorbike section): Basically go through the course towards the IO tower. Clean driving and not hitting the tanks or bikes are the only real time saves here.
The Doors: Get through the red door. You can split as soon as you’re through it. Dive through it for extra drama points.
Once you have your RTA time, continue recording/streaming and hit 'Retry from Checkpoint'. Once the cutscene starts again, go to the 'Save Game' menu and save. This will give you the IGT.
If you need any more info on the route, feel free to dm me on Twitter or discord and I'll be more than happy to help you out.
