Deathloop Speedrun Guide

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Deathloop, like Dishonored, is a game that is seemingly built for speedruns. The level of freedom that each level comes with, on top of the movement tech on offer, gives you a ludicrous number of ways to approach each part of the game. Dishonored takes advantage of in-game mechanics a lot more than Deathloop does, but that’s not to say all the fun stuff isn’t still there. Although, in Deathloop’s case, clips pretty much power the entire run.

You’re going to want a fresh unpatched version of the game, meaning Deathloop 1.0. Major speedrun clips and glitches were patched out in later version of the game – so keep that in mind before you start running.

This Deathloop Any% speedrun guide is meant to be used to supplement other learning materials. One source alone is not enough to teach you how to speedrun a game to completion. In particular, I would recommend using this guide alongside the top current Any% speedruns. I’m going to walk you through the major skips and tech in the run, as well as the order in which you do things. What I don’t go through, however, is the general route you take through each level. That will be up to you to either learn or develop yourself.

So, with that being said, let’s dive into this Deathloop Any% speedrun guide.

Key Details up Front – Understanding the Tech

Crab-Walking

The first, and most important, piece of tech I’m going to go over is crab-walking. Crab-walking is going to be our standard movement tech for the run. It essentially replaces sprinting and lets us move around significantly faster than usual.

Crab-walking is going to take up most of the time during the run. Thankfully, it’s incredibly easy to do. All you have to do is dodge while you’re running diagonally. You’ll be able to chain dodges together – moving much faster than if you were just regularly sprinting.

Lean Clipping

Lean Clipping is a basic clip that makes this run possible in the first place. There are a few different variations of it, but the basic setup is always the same.

In Deathloop, the camera is placed in front of Colt at about chest level. It acts as a physical object that stops us from getting too close to objects. However, if we look up, we can get much closer to walls, doors, and objects than intended.

When we do this, and then lean away from the wall before spamming lean in the other direction (towards the wall), we’re able to clip our heads through it and interact with whatever may be on the other side. You’ll see a lot of this during the run – some that use the camera movement, and other clips using only the leaning tech.

Bottle-Skip

The last bit of tech you need to know in advance is called bottle-skip. This skip is only really used for the prologue of the game, so don’t worry about mastering it too much – lean clipping is a much more important skill.

Bottle skip, or bottle throw cancel, is a piece of tech where by throwing a bottle, we can skip interact-related cutscenes. By holding and throwing a bottle at the same time we interact with something that typically triggers a cutscene or dialogue, the interaction will go through but all that extra stuff will be skipped over. The most obvious use of bottle skip is to cancel the pickup animation of the Hackamajig at the start of the game.

The Run

Loop 0

Deathloop speedrun guide library
Screenshot by Eoin Black

Objectives:

  • Activate the library cutscene.

There are five total loops we need to go through in Deathloop any% (six if you include this one). The intro loop is linear but does involve a grenade boost and a handful of bottle skips. It’s a great section of the run to practice those skips, in particular, so feel free to spend some time running it repeatedly until you’re comfortable with the mechanics.

To start, you’re going to wake up on the beach. There will be a bottle next to you. Grab it, then start crab walking towards your bunker door. While you’re walking across the beach, look down to skip a cutscene where Colt starts coughing.

Once inside the bunker, position yourself so that you’re directly in front of the Hackamajig. Go as far away from the device as you can while still being able to interact with it, then perform a bottle skip on it to pick it up while skipping the cutscene.

Rather than proceeding towards the library, you’re going to want to go to the locked door that you get access to in the next loop. Perform a lean skip through it while spamming F to interact with the door on the other side. If you do this correctly, the door will open. Go through the door and follow the hall until you reach a shelf with some grenades. Take the grenades and backtrack towards the library, making sure to slide down the boarded-off tunnel.

Deathloop speedrun guide library skip
Screenshot by Eoin Black

On the table outside of the library, you’ll find a bottle. Grab it, then make your way to the yellow generator also located outside of the library’s front door. Hop onto the generator, then perform a backwards jump to try and mantle the window on the wall perpendicular to the front of the library. This movement can be tricky, but you’ve got a lot of room for error.

If done correctly, you’ll mantle the windowsill. To your left will be some bricks adorning the library wall. Hop onto the topmost one and put a laser mine directly below you. Crouch and detonate the grenade. Once you’re at the apex of the height this grenade boost gives you, jump and hold W. This combination of movement should be just enough to get you on top of an invisible wall above the library.

From here, head over to the circular skylight and kick it to break the glass. Slide down and crouch before performing a bottle skip on the lever. It’s important to crouch here so that your bottle doesn’t break. After pulling the lever, pick it back up and hop onto the lamp on the desk behind you. Then jump and mantle through the wire glass in the ceiling. Jump off the map and perform a bottle throw skip just before you die, and you should skip all the dialogue with Julianna, and the cutscene where she confronts us.

Loop 1

Objectives:

  • Get Reprise.
  • Read the LPP.
  • Get into Wenjie’s lab to read her notes.

This is where the main part of the Deathloop Any% speedrun actually starts. You’ll wake up on the beach again, and again you’ll do the same crab-walking bottle skip tricking to get the Hackamajig. This time, you’ll also get the code for the door, so you can open it normally rather than lean clipping through it. You will still need a bottle from the beach, though, because you’ll need to perform a bottle skip when you pick up Reprise. Timed correctly, you’ll skip the cutscene and be able to move directly into the planning menu.

You have a little bit of menuing to do here – mainly just equipping the Spring Heeled Trinket so that you have instant access to double jump. Keep in mind that your timer will still be running here. It only pauses during load screens.

Updaam

Deathloop Speedrun Guide LPP Skip
Screenshot by Eoin Black

When you’re ready, load into Updaam. You’re going to be following a route around the left side of the district that takes a detour through the library in the center of the map. In here, you’ll be grabbing a turret. Take that turret up to Colt’s apartment on the cliffs side of Updaam.

Our job here is clipping into the safe to interact with the LPP inside. However, doing this triggers a long cutscene with another Colt from a different timeline. This is a long cutscene that loses a lot of time. Skipping it was one of the first major time saves found in the any% category.

This skip is going to require a lot of practice. So, expect a lot of trial and error. The theory is that we’re going to use a combination of a grenade and the turret to break out of the cutscene, then interact with the LPP again to get the trigger needed to move the quest along.

So, set up your turret a little bit in front of the safe. You need the lineup to position you over the turret during the cutscene so that you can interact with its battery. Set up a laser mine just to the left of the safe, on the floor. Then look all the way up in the air. Looking up will let you get much closer to an object than if you were looking directly at it because of how Deathloop’s camera works. When you’re pushed up against the safe, lean into it and look down while spamming interact. If you time it correctly, you’ll interact with the LPP and trigger the cutscene.

As you come out of reading the LPP, use your Hackamajig to trigger the mine. You might need to practice its placement so that you can see it during the start of the cutscene. You’ll get a grenade boost, but the game will reposition you for the cutscene. Because of the repositioning, though, you’ll be able to move your camera. Look down and take the battery out of the turret. This will break you out of the cutscene. Clip into the safe again and interact with the LPP for a second time. After that, you can head back to the entrance of the level and leave.

At this point, you’ll have unlocked the Strelak Verso that we talked about before the run, so equip it and advance the time to the Afternoon. Then, head to the complex.

The Complex

Deathloop speedrun guide Wenjie skip
Screenshot by Eoin Black

You’re going to be following a route through the Complex towards Wenjie’s lab, picking up a turret in her lab along the way. We’re going to be using the turret to clip into her locked room – arguably the most difficult clip in the entire run.

The room we’re trying to get into is just below where we’re grabbing the turret, behind a locked door. There are three notes in here that act as lead triggers that we need to hit.

When you’re in front of the door, you’re going to be placing the turret just in front of it, then wedging yourself between it and the door as it deploys. The result should be your character model being forced forward, through the door. There are a few different lineups that different runners use, but this clip is still a run killer for a lot of people. It’ll take a lot of practice to master the timing and positioning, so don’t be afraid to clear out the Complex and just spend an hour or two (or 10) just practicing.

Once inside the room, grab the Field Nullifier on the desk and activate it. Interact with the note on the whiteboard named “notes on Updaam’s cliffside facility.” Then interact with the radio message called “Singularity” on the desk by the Nullifier. Finally, use the computer terminal and read the group chat. After triggering all three of these notes, place enough laser mines to kill you and trigger them. The Nullifier will stop your Reprise from going off and end the loop.

Loop 2

Objectives:

  • Learn the combination to Aleksis’ library safe.

Updaam

This is going to be a very short loop. Immediately advance time to the Evening and load into Updaam. Route your way into Aleksis’ party and hop up the roof. Enter his room through the bathroom window and interact with the note on the far desk in his room. This will give you the combination needed for a safe in the next loop.

Just around the corner from Aleksis’ room is a storage room with a gas canister and another Field Nullifier. Activate the Nullifier and kill yourself, either with your grenades or the canister.

Loop 3

Objectives:

  • Learn the code needed to disrupt Egor’s experiment.

The Complex

Deathloop speedrun guide Egor's code
Screenshot by Eoin Black

This is another really short setup loop. This time, we’re getting things ready to make Egor go to Aleksis’ party in Updaam during the evening. So, when the day starts, skip to the Evening and go to the Complex. You’re going to be routing across the district over to Egor’s lab. There’s a Field Nullifier in the truck that sits between Egor’s hideout and the bunker – grab it.

Bring the Nullifier with you to the lab building with the Radial Fluctuations note and set it up. Ready the note (stuck on the whiteboard) and kill yourself with the necessary number of grenades.

Loop 4

Objectives:

  • Get Wenjie to go to Aleksis’ party in the Evening.

This loop is dedicated to putting that code from Aleksis’ room to good use. You’re going to be skipping ahead to Noon and going to Updaam. The route through the district and into the center of the library. There will be a safe on the ground, open it with the code, and wait for some dialogue to play out before grabbing the little Aleksis statue from inside. That dialogue is needed to be able to interact with the statue and only triggers when the safe opens, hence why we can’t lean clip into it.

Deathloop speedrun guide 2bit
Screenshot by Eoin Black

Take the statue and make your way over to 2bit in Condition Detachment. Enter his room and hit the dialogue trigger. Once 2bit starts taking, place the statue on the ground. Leave the room and head towards the side door entrance to Condition Detachment on the same floor as 2bit. You’ll know you’re in the right place because you’ll open the door and be faced with a cliff drop. Fall off and kill yourself. If your timing is correct, your Reprise will teleport you back into the room with 2bit, or somewhere close. Once it does, do the same thing again so you have no more extra lives.

Back in the room with 2bit, place a single grenade on the ground. Pick the statue back up and at the same time, you give it to 2bit, trigger your grenade to skip some dialogue. You’ll be forced into dialogue with 2bit, select the last option.  After that, place enough grenades on the ground to kill you and interact with 2bit after the recording says “Wenjie, listen.” Wait for Colt to say “hook”, then select the last option again from the dialogue menu. Back out of the next dialogue menu and kill yourself with your grenades. Wenjie should now be at the party in the Evening.

Loop 5

Objectives:

  • Kill the Visionaries

Okay, you’re finally ready to put all of the pieces together. This loop is the final one in the run and involves us killing all the Visionaries. With the exception of some skips and tech, it plays out not too dis-similarly to the final run in a regular play through.

Karl’s Bay

Deathloop speedrun guide Frank's fireworks
Screenshot by Eoin Black

Your first course of action is going to Karl’s Bay in the Morning. You need to route around the right-hand side of the dock until you reach the shed that houses Ramblin’ Frank’s fireworks. You would typically have to go through an entire quest line to get access to this shed, but if you crouch behind the box with some fireworks on top of it and lean clip into the shed wall while spamming interact, you’ll be able to activate the fireworks from outside – letting you jam the rain flaps and ensuring Frank dies when he tries to set them off in the Evening.

The firework shed is connected to the hangar that Harriet is in, so turn around and use your double jump to get up onto the roof. On the roof, there are three pieces of out-of-place sheet metal on the side facing the ocean. You can look through the corner of the middle one and into the hangar, giving you a direct line of sight on Harriet while she’s giving her speech. Shoot through the hole to alert everyone inside – hopefully triggering Harriet to run to the area behind her podium. Once she does, go to the last piece of metal on the other side of the roof and look through the corner. You should be able to see Harriet through here – shoot her until she’s dead and route to the exit of the level.

When you go to leave Karl’s Bay, you’ll need to press F to interact with the door and enter to confirm your choice to leave. Because this is the first Visionary you’ve killed, you would usually have to sit through some dialogue. Instead, if you spam F and enter after confirming your intention to leave, you’ll skip past the dialogue and go straight back to the planning menu.

Next up is the Complex in the Afternoon.

The Complex

Deathloop speedrun guide Egor's Experiment
Screenshot by Eoin Black

The Complex section of the final run is super simple. We’re only here to make sure that Egor ends up at Aleksis’ party in the Evening.

To that end, you’re going to route your way over to his lab at Array Y. While you’re loading into the level, pull up your pause menu nad check the note you picked up earlier to learn the code needed to disrupt Egor’s experiment. Provided you’re playing in online mode, you will continue through the enter-level cutscene while reading the code (don’t worry about invasions if you’re playing online. This speedrun route never activates the trigger that enables invasions).

Once you’re at the lab, grab the Nullifier from inside one of the buildings and deploy it in the center of the area where Egor’s experiment is taking place. Input the code on the device and hit the big red button. You can then just run out of the area through the tunnels under the lab. Super simple stuff.

Fristad Rock

Fristad Rock can be a bit of a nightmare for new runners. There’s a tricky grenade skip that takes a decent amount of practice to get right, so bear that in mind moving forward.

Once you load into Fristad Rock in the Afternoon, route over to the bunker where Charlie and Fia are having some one-on-one time. You would normally have to go through a whole ordeal to learn the code needed to enter this bunker, but we don’t have time for that.

Deathloop speedrun guide Lover's Skip
Screenshot by Eoin Black

When you enter the bunker room with the code terminal, look to your right and you should see a hanging light. Jump on top of it and place a proximity grenade at your feet. Hit it with your machete and it should launch you through the ceiling and into an out-of-bounds area.

After successfully getting yourself out of bounds, drop down to the lower area of the bunker, by the exit door and terminal you use to flood the bunker in a normal playthrough. In the corner by that door, place and blow up another mine to knock yourself back in bounds.

Back in bounds, spam down Charlie and Fia with your Strelak until they’re dead. Jump down onto their bodies and grab Shift from Charlie, then dive into the water to kill yourself. If your timing is right, your Reprise will put you back at the console in the bunker. Place enough laser mines at your feet to kill you and trigger them. This Reprise should carry you outside of the bunker. From here, you can just route your way to the exit.

Getting the timing and positioning right during this section of the run is tough, so make sure you put in enough practice. Not only do your grenade clips need to be spot on, but you need to time your Reprises correctly, too.

Updaam

Deathloop speedrun guide Aleksis' first spawn
Screenshot by Eoin Black

Here we are, the grand finale! We’ve only killed three Visionaries so far, but Updaam in the Evening is going to be an absolute bloodbath.

You’re going to want to incorporate Shift into your general movement from here on out as well as crab walking. It’s not too techy, but having a good mastery of it as a movement tool will help you shave a few seconds off of this section of your run.

When you load into Updaam, route your way through the main entrance of Aleksis’ party. Aleksis himself is our first target – but as you know, his whole shtick is that he’s hosting a masked party so no one knows who’s who. Fortunately for us, though, he’s a video game character and is bound by the laws of his code. In this case, the fact that he will always have dual-wield machine guns, the fact that his inspection always reads “uses everyone around him”, the fact that he only has two spawns, and the fact that he has a unique dance animation. Yeah, there’s a lot that makes him stand out

Screenshot by Eoin Black

His first potential spawn location is in the room with the comedy stage, generally towards the back. When you route into the main entrance of the party, have a glance through the window and see if you can find him. Don’t be afraid to inspect some people to double check, and don’t be surprised if you miss him. This section of the run does take some practice to master.

If Aleksis is there, great! Kill him. If not, use your shift to teleport onto the roof and into Aleksis’ room like we did for the code earlier on. The second spawn location is below the room on the dance floor. If he wasn’t in the comedy hall, he will be here. Again, kill him.

Regardless of where Aleksis spawns, you’ll then want to navigate onto the roof of the party and run to the area overlooking the rooftop where Wenjie and Egor are. Shoot them from here – making sure you kill Egor first.

Killing Julianna

Deathloop speedrun guide-rak-door
Screenshot by Eoin Black

Once all three are dead, route your way out of the party and over to the RAK door. We’re going to be doing two blink clips here – a new but fairly easy-to-pull-off clip.

Wedge yourself into the left corner of the RAK door and hold your shift ability until the visual indicator disappears. Dash and trigger your shift at the same time and, if your angle is right, you will end up out-of-bounds just beneath the door. Look up and try to hit the red button on the other side of the door with your machete to open it. Once you do, shift to get back in bounds inside the RAK bunker.

Inside the bunker, walk over to the left console. Wedge yourself into the right corner of the console with your back facing the Rakyetoplan. Hold your shift and start slowly moving right. Do this until your Shift indicator jumps up into your face, then activate it and dash backward at the same time. If you do it correctly you will clip into the room with the Rakyetoplan. You can then interact with it to finish this section and move on to Julianna (during this whole section, Frank should have died passively in the background – you will get a notification when he does).

Don’t worry if you don’t get those blink clips first try – they’re incredibly awkward and require a lot of practice to learn.

When you load back into the game, you’ll be in the RAK cutscene. At the start of it, you’ll have a brief window where you can use your weapons. Spam your weapon swap and your character model will be misplaced, allowing you to place some mines on the ground below you. Blow them up and one of two things will happen:

  • You’ll die and Reprise will load you back in, skipping the cutscene and allowing you to route to Juliana.
  • You’ll be knocked out, and put back in, the cutscene zone on top of the RAK. From here, you can use Shift to continue on your way to Julianna.

Either way, you’ll skip the cutscene and be able to route to Julianna. Once you’re at her door, line yourself up with the very edge of it. There’s a tiny gap that you can shoot through – kill Julianna through that gap and wedge yourself in the right corner of the door. Look up and set up another Shift clip. Trigger the clip and you should go through the door. Jump off the platform, killing yourself, and the run will be finished.

FAQ

Question: Is Deathloop Related to Dishonored?

Answer: Technically, yes. The presence of Dishonord’s dueling pistols at the end of Deathloop, combined with the fact that early developer notes mark Deathloop as being in the Dishonored timeline, point towards the two of them sharing the same universe.

Question: Can I Speedrun Deathloop on Console?

Answer: Yes, you can, but performing lean clips is much more difficult on a console compared to PC. However, there are a handful of runners that have achieved decent times on PlayStation.

Question: Is Deathloop a Good Speedrunning Game?

Answer: Yes. Just like Dishonored before it, Deathloop is an incredibly speedrunning game that is both beginner-friendly and has a high skill ceiling and potential for mastery.

Conclusion

Deathloop is a phenomenal game for new speedrunners to run. It’s not too complicated and it’s still very open in terms of times. It’s also very flexible, with multiple setups and routes you can take – some of which are very beginner friendly.

If you were to start speedrunning any game, Deathloop should be it. It’s as fun as it is simple, and that’s extremely rare for a speedrunning game. Oh, and also check out our interview with former Deathloop Any% WR holder, Seeker Tv!

Continue reading:

Mirrors Edge Speedrun Guide

Portal Speedrun Guide

Best GDQ Speedruns Guide – Condensing a Decade of Speedruns Down Into the Best of the Best

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