Hi METALGEARRAY,
I feel your pain! This felt worse than beating Zico on Wipeout lol...
THE TIPS
1. Know your route
Get to know the route you’re going to take from start to finish. Personally, I split the Gauntlet into three sections:
- The Start
- The Corridor
- The Final Section — definitely the hardest part for me, as this is where I kept losing my speed.
Don’t worry too much about killing every enemy at first. Focus on your speed gauge and experiment with what works best for maintaining or gaining momentum.
2. The Rocket Launcher
There’s a hidden rocket launcher in the tutorial, as you can see in the video below. I won’t lie — it can be a pain to reach, but it’s extremely useful.
The splash damage can take out multiple enemies, and you can also get kills through direct impact. Seems common to using the EVA-8 Auto Shotgun as their secondary, and arc grenades so it’s worth experimenting with both.
3. Maintain your momentum
This is probably the most important thing.
You need to maintain your momentum to keep your speed up in the Gauntlet:
- Never touch the floor if you can avoid it.
- Jump off walls as soon as you touch them to perform fast wall kicks.
- Avoid holding the forward movement key while airborne.
- Chain your slide-hops together across flat ground.
- Keep an eye on your speed gauge and learn where you’re gaining or losing momentum.
The goal is to keep your movement flowing rather than constantly having to build your speed back up.
4. Give yourself an advantage from the start
I normally start my run in the lobby section by wall-running towards the doorway.
There’s also a technique called the
frag boost, where speedrunners use grenades to give themselves extra momentum from the lobby doors. It takes a bit of practice, but once you get it down, it can potentially shave a second off your time.
5. Experiment with your controls
Some people have had success changing their button bindings on the Playstation controller to make sliding easier and increasing their sensitivity.
It’s worth experimenting with your settings to find something that feels comfortable and allows you to react quickly.
6. Restart quickly
If you miss a target or completely lose your momentum, don’t waste time trying to recover the run.
Pause and restart.
You’ll eventually get to the point where you can tell almost immediately whether the run is going to be a good one.
7. Take breaks
This trial requires a
lot of muscle memory.
If you’ve been attempting it for ages and everything suddenly feels worse, take a short break. Come back to it later and you’ll often find that your movement feels much more consistent. Don't leave it too long as I tried helping a few friends out years later and might as well have been starting from scratch.
THE VIDEO
This is a really good video to follow because it takes everything right back to basics.
There’s no point overcomplicating things by watching videos of potentially hacked or highly optimised speedrunners. Instead, compare your times to the times this guy gets through each section. It should give you a good indication of where you’re losing time.
Target times for each section:
- 1st section: 9.5 seconds
- 2nd section: 24 seconds
- 3rd section: 33.5 seconds
MY RUN
First Section
I grenade the first three enemies with a grenade placed in the middle of them.
Then I use the rocket launcher when I’m in mid-air at the lower door leading into the corridor. The splash damage takes out the enemy there.
Some people use a grenade instead, and if you place it correctly, you can take out both enemies underneath the door. However, I always seemed to damage and slow myself down in the process, so I personally preferred the rocket launcher.
Second Section
As I slide underneath the door, I shoot the enemy on the right.
As I start my wall climb, I shoot the next enemy directly in front of me.
I then jump to the next wall, switch weapons and use an Arc Grenade on the group.
After that, I use the shotgun to take out the three remaining enemies from left to right as I make my way through the rest of the corridor.
The Final Section — The Dreaded Part
This was easily the section I struggled with the most.
I was always making good time up until this point, then I'd completely lose my speed here.
Initially, I was going into this section with a little extra height so I could maintain my speed while taking out the two enemies. However, I eventually started sticking to the
left-hand side, and that allowed me to shave a few seconds off compared to the times I was getting when taking the right. It was harder to shoot the enemies from the left side than it was the right as done in the video.
Honestly, I spent a lot of time simply running through the map without worrying about my overall time and trying to figure out
how to maintain my momentum through this section.
Once I figured that out, my times started improving.
At the end of the day, it really comes down to
repetition and muscle memory.
Break the Gauntlet down into individual sections and perfect each one at a time. If you make a mistake, restart and ask yourself:
"What caused me to lose time there, and how can I prevent it from happening again?"
Eventually, the movements become automatic and you'll start putting the sections together.
Hopefully some of this helps! Good luck, and don't give up — once you finally get the run you've been chasing, it feels bloody good
