The History of God of War Speedrunning OST AKheon 2026-09-26 | The History of God of War Speedrunning OST
God of War: Ascension - Shield Satyr glitches AKheon 2024-10-09 | 0:00 - At least one Shield Satyr in the game is unable to hurt Kratos after you disarm him. The buggy enemy in question is the first Shield Satyr you meet in Chapter 7. After he loses his Shield, he will attempt to hit Kratos with Sword attacks, but he doesn't even have a Sword, which means his attacks never make contact.This bug might happen with other Shield Satyrs in the game too, although you'd have to go around the game to verify this.0:25 - Well, this next bug probably isn't strictly Shield Satyr-related, but it happened while capturing the footage so it's here. Sometimes thrown Satyrs forget to get back up. They'll lie down indefinitely, only invigorating once Kratos gets too close.1:02 - A Shielded Satyr is invulnerable while frozen. No matter how much you deal damage to him, he will not shatter. I originally learnt about this from GMG's notes, so kudos to him.I believe this bug is caused by the fact that the Shield Satyr doesn't lose his Shield upon being frozen. The unique Shield Satyr damage nullification mechanics affect even the frozen statue, preventing it from being shattered.Furthermore, I think that the Shield Satyr becoming frozen without losing his Shield is in itself a bug. I think Ice Rage was supposed to first disarm this enemy and only then freeze him, but due to a bug in Ice Rage, these two events happen the wrong way around. Since the enemy cannot get disarmed while frozen, this simply means that he never gets disarmed at all.This theory could be verified by doing Ice Rage to a Shield Satyr via a stale reference. Without the initial freezing hit reaction getting in the way, the attack does disarm the Satyr as intended.1:27 - Shield Satyrs have wrong hit reactions while thawing. They react to hits like non-Shield Satyrs for a short time window. This allows for some unique mechanical interactions, like launching and then grabbing a Shield Satyr to engage in their disarming mini-game while they're in air.1:46 - You normally can't disarm a Shield Satyr's Shield with a kick, but it becomes possible if you do it while they're thawing. The disarming animation looks a bit buggy, almost as if it was supposed to be a Sword disarming animation.1:59 - You can use Fire Rage to place a bomb in the Shield Satyr without disarming him while he is frozen. The explosion itself will disarm the Shield Satyr, unless he is launched in air, in which case he will simply get launched across the room while taking no damage. Just some more obscure interactions with this complex enemy.
God of War: Ascension - glitches and observations pt. 9 AKheon 2024-10-01 | Some more findings from last year.0:00 - A checkpoint retry glitch in Chapter 1. If you retry for no reason near the end of the Chapter as you are sliding down the final slide, something strange happens. Perhaps Kratos' position becomes displaced upon retry, because he will immediately fall down under the map and get a game over. Another retry fixes things.0:40 - A checkpoint observation in Chapter 3 once you reach the part with the elevator. You get a new checkpoint at a custom location when you defeat the final bug-hound. If you create this custom checkpoint away from the elevator, it's possible to retry and then examine one of the wall murals to overlap the mural with the short in-game cutscene showing the elevator. It's an unique overlap, but sadly it doesn't seem to result in any additional glitch effects.1:11 - If you have some forward momentum, Poseidon Tremble (Air) can climb up steep/slippery collision that Kratos normally cannot stand on. Of course, this has pretty huge limits since you can only do this in places where level geometry allows it.1:33 - Another example where Poseidon Tremble (Air) allows hovering on top of a block of slippery floor. In some cases staying on top of collision like this for too long does kill Kratos automatically, though.2:11 - If you have extra momentum when you enter a slide so that Kratos flies over the slide for a moment, then start blocking, he will get stuck on top of the slide. The slide cannot begin normally until he is neutral, but he cannot stop blocking right now, so he becomes stuck indefinitely in place and no input can free him.2:27 - Aiming with Amulet or other items in similar circumstances will also softlock Kratos in place on top of a slide. The example is slightly strange looking, but rest assured that the tentacle is a kind of a slide.2:45 - While we're here in Chapter 30, might as well show some strange collision far below the tentacle slide. A lot of it is slippery collision, but there's at least one block of regular walkable collision too. But it doesn't look like there's anywhere to go from here.(In case you're wondering, I detach from the tentacle slide by retrying from last checkpoint and tapping 'X'.)3:16 - Just out of curiosity, I did Poseidon Tremble speed glitch on the Chapter 30 tentacle slide. For some reason this was the highest speed I could end up with, which is obviously far less than what you normally get with Poseidon Tremble speed glitch...? Could it have something to do with the milder incline of the slide at the very top? Should retry it once day.(Not on the vid: I once tested flying around this place with glitched Shield, and you can actually see the final phase boss platform floating far in the distance. However, it wasn't possible to reach even with glitched Shield since it's so far away.)3:37 - Two clips of buggy Gorgon mini-games in Chapter 28. If this happens, Kratos and the enemy moves to some unexpected direction and the Gorgon flash hits nothing. And it seems as if Kratos is airborne for an instant after the mini-game is finished, for whatever reason.4:07 - The Talos that spawns in Chapter 28 can die mysteriously by itself. Perhaps it hits some insta-death barrier at the foreground of the arena. I haven't tried if this could be harnessed as a consistent speed tactic.
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - pointless menu glitches AKheon 2024-09-29 | It's not the most interesting video in the world, but this should be documented too... I guess?0:00 - in the original unpatched God of War: Ragnarok it was not possible to enter the Options-menu from the Pause-menu. They added this functionality later, and although it's convenient, using this input at a wrong time can cause some small glitches as well.The first example can be done at the Weapons/Armor menu. If you open or close a Weapons/Armor sub-menu and quickly press Options, the UI elements in the Options-menu also becomes displaced. They can even go off-camera but still seemingly work like normal. Trying to use any options or closing the menu fixes the displacement.If you now return to the Pause-menu, the Weapons/Armor sub-menu will also be displaced and out of sight. But it, too, should work like normal. All in all, this just seems to be a visual effect.1:15 - If you press Options at any time when the background of the Pause-menu is blurred and then return, the background stays blurred indefinitely. This lets you see Kratos and Atreus, the skills screen, map screen and Codex-entries blurred. This also becomes fixed once you close the Pause-menu.2:04 - Finally, if you open or close certain sub-menus in the Codex or Goals-screen and then return to Pause-menu, the sub-menus become overlapped. It looks strange, but I didn't notice anything too out of the ordinary that you could do with it. Closing the Pause-menu fixes things.(Not on the vid: If you quickly choose “go to map” from the lore menus, then switch pages to Skills, the Skills panel will be invisible until you enter it or switch pages.)(Not on the vid: If you switch between Kratos and Atreus in Weapons/Armor page and quickly press L1/R1 and X to enter a Weapons/Armor sub-menu, you are able to buffer the menu page switch behind the currently opened sub-menu. Using the sub-menu works otherwise normally, but you can't auto-equip. The page switch happens after you quit the sub-menu, but it can be additionally delayed by another menu enter before the screen graphical effect is done. The buffer seems to vanish as you re-enter the Pause-menu.)(Not on the vid: If you try opening Options during the screen effect of exiting from the deepest level of Skills, the X and O buttons become disabled temporarily inside the menu.)
God of War: Ascension - glitching at Castor & Pollux pt. 3 AKheon 2024-09-24 | Some clips from last year I forgot to upload until now. To note: the video contains a few old glitches as well which I decided to re-upload since I now got better quality video of it.0:00 - You can go to the boss arena early using a Poseidon Tremble speed glitch. Unfortunately, the boss will not appear if you do this, leaving you stranded in an empty arena forever.0:32 - After doing this, if you can reach the foreground of the arena quickly enough, Kratos will be suddenly whisked back to the slide QTE-sequence you had skipped. It seems doing this QTE is necessary for the boss fight to begin properly.1:04 - A mysterious looking result I had on one attempt. Kratos ends up under the fight arena and lands on the large OoB floor there, after which he continues getting thrown around by the super momentum and flies to his death for good.1:26 - The thrown rock at the start of the fight may rarely just harmlessly bounce off Castor. The boss fight does not begin if this happens.1:42 - Damage-killing Castor before the fight starts! (Thanks to Wulf2k9 for this discovery.)If you jump to the other side of the arena before throwing the rock, you have free reign to hit him with your attacks. This allows you to deplete all of his massive 10000 HP, which will take at least 5 minutes even when using Kratos' most damaging attacks like Falling Helios.After you've done this, the boss unceremoniously vanishes with no animation, once again leaving you stranded in an empty boss arena.2:09 - Another take. I tried if it would be possible to hit Castor with a rock right before he vanishes into the ether to begin phase 1 of the boss fight, but it seems nothing happens if the rock hits Castor after he has died.On this clip, the rock throw nicely synchronized with him vanishing, making it look like it was the rock throw which blew him into atoms.2:27 - Trying to break more than one pillar early as the 5th phase of the fight begins is a bad idea. This is because if two of the pillars are already broken as the pre-phase cutscene starts, the floor starts collapsing during the cutscene itself and Kratos is unable to avoid a certain doom.2:52 - Rarely, music does not play during the part of the fight where Pollux takes over. There will be no music at all until the final QTE sequence begins.3:39 - A small break-out at the final cutscene? When playing through this part, I often quickly input jump into tether just to see if I could do a precise break-out in the post-fight sequence. A full break-out has never happened, but on occasion the scene plays with a wrong camera angle. Perhaps this is as far as a tether break-out can take us?
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - miscellaneous glitch tech pt. 2 AKheon 2024-09-10 | Some remaining observations from GoW: Ragnarök that I thought were worth sharing.0:00 - mixed-up shield glitch. If you buffer a parry and quickly switch shields, Kratos will do the parry using a wrong shield (among other effects).Switching to/from certain shields will also cause additional long-term effects, most notably with Stone Wall and Dauntless shields. The game seems to get confused as to which shield Kratos is currently using, and trying to parry causes Kratos to alternate between the parry of his current shield or the Stone Wall/Dauntless parry. Poor Guardian shield's parry has such a low priority that it becomes all but replaced by the other shield's parry.As another subtle effect, the unique block of Shatter Star shield looks a bit wonky during this glitch. This is seen at 0:12.0:37 - gigantic shield bug. If you switch shields during the cooldown frames of a parry (it might be only Dauntless parry), the shield may stay passively retracted or even grow comically large. This is a pretty rare effect, and I've only gotten something like this happen a few times overall.1:18 - some advancements to Runic Slide tech. It turns out you can start a Runic Slide after an air attack since you can buffer a Runic-attack during the landing phase. The speed you get afterwards depends on the air attack: Spear air attack gives the best speed. Still, no matter what your average speed will be much slower than if you start a Runic Slide from a small climb.2:04 - just out of curiosity, I tried doing a Runic Slide during a combined air attack + Flame Whiplash. No real benefit, but it looks unique?2:29 - I wanted to verify if additional vertical momentum given by level collision gets stuck on Kratos during a Runic Slide, but apparently this isn't the case. Pity, it would've been fun to float infinitely high in air.Thanks to Pico for this alternative (currently third) method of starting Runic Slide. To do this, you buffer a Runic-attack during the light finisher of Flame Whiplash, then quickly switch Runic-attacks. However, you don't get any speed afterwards, so it isn't going to result in a very impressive slide.2:49 - rope break-outs.The same input for doing grapple break-outs works for breaking out of ropes as well (i.e. buffer an attack to occur after a weapon switch, then use a prompt simultaneously as the attack is about to start). As a result, your ally gets stuck riding the rope over and over again indefinitely. The rope prompt stays visible on the screen regardless of your distance to it, and also all navigation prompts become disabled (as per usual). Using a generic prompt or retrying fixes things. This has no known use so far.3:50 - Rampaging Ibex break-out.You can break out of this Runic summon by doing it into a climbing wall with the traversal assist loophole. A redundant Ibex model stays on the map after the attack ends, which looks slightly funny. The Ibex lacks collision, but it will still block projectiles. You can do this a total of two times - a third Ibex you try to summon makes the first one disappear.4:44 - breaking out of a ceiling grapple is also possible! The input is the same as for the other grapple break-outs. But it's not useful at all. The prompt simply disappears, causing you to get stuck.5:10 - in the unpatched version it was possible to Recall during a roll, causing what me and Kazooie dubbed the "buggy roll" effect on our first playthrough. Spamming the respective inputs fast enough, you could cancel out of a roll into a new roll and chain them together. However, this was really hard to do consistently while also steering, so it isn't really a viable movement tech. Plus it's probably impossible to do on current version.To note: Kazooie is the player in this clip.5:26 - you can do an attack to displace Kratos as you simultaneously use a prompt with L-stick. In the unpatched version (using infini-Rage v2) you could displace quite a long distance using one of the Rage-attacks - this clip shows an example. Maybe this would do something unique if there was a cutscene trigger right next to a traversal prompt somewhere... although in hindsight, I'm not sure if such a spot exists anywhere in the game.This idea should still be possible on the current version, but you can't displace such a large distance since Rage-attacks are not available outside Rage any longer.5:39 - I managed to break out of a grapple point in v. 1.0. with the simple input of trying to evade, buffer attack, use grapple point. This only happened once and I could never recreate the effect, so it's a total mystery.5:51 - messing with an Ormr from out of bounds. It seems the creature is invincible while it's underground.6:54 - reading a lore tablet while underneath one.7:11 - if you fall out of bounds for long enough, Kratos turns into a mess of pixels. This is some photo mode-footage of it.7:38 - a clip from my auto-walk glitch testing of yore. Stylish enough to close off this video!
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - mechanics overlap glitches AKheon 2024-08-14 | Kratos' actions can be generally divided into two groups: arm actions (aiming, Axe throw, recall, weapon switching, etc.) and body actions. The game has a few different mechanics overlap glitches which make it possible to overlap almost any two actions between these two categories, or even multiple arm actions at once. Mayhem ensues!The video contains the various mechanics overlap glitches which I discovered myself. Most of this stuff is probably known already, but it's worth putting on a video.To note, there's actually a whole glitch combo community that uses this tech to make impressive combos in GoW: Ragnarok, and I recommend doing a search if this seems interesting.0:16 - The most common mechanics overlap setup is evade into recall. For some reason recalling changes the properties of the evade in a buggy way, and most actions that are buffered during it have changed properties. Timing matters: for best results, you'll want to recall fairly early on during the evade.Since almost every one of Kratos' actions is potentially affected, it's not really feasible to list all the results in a video. This is just a basic overview of the different mechanics overlap setups and what the results may look like.This first relatively simple clip shows chaining together evade to recall to an unarmed heavy attack to Blades weapon switch to Hyperion Pull into a Blades Runic-attack.0:25 - This clip shows evade to recall to Blades weapon switch to Dauntless Shield parry to Huldra Project #9 to Legacy Rage activation to overlap the last two in a stylish way. You probably get the idea... it's pretty complex and messy stuff, and requires pretty systematic testing of Kratos' move list to understand which actions can segue into which actions while overlapped. You're still operating within the normal constraints of the game's cancel system, after all (sort of).0:39 - Another possible setup is to do an evade, then weapon switch at a specific point near the end of the evade followed by a third action. Done correctly, the weapon switch will overlap with the third action. If left alone, the overlapped weapon switch acts like a "god buffer" which will soon interrupt or reset any action Kratos is currently doing. To bypass this and convert this into a longer overlap combo, evade to Blades weapon switch to Whiplash to evade is at least one way to do so.This method is far more difficult to use than evade to recall. As one benefit, it gives you easier access to overlaps with non-Axe weapons since it does not use recall.0:56 - A third setup uses Hyperion Pull. Switch weapons during it to Axe and hold down 'recall' and 'block' as the Blade is returning to Kratos. This interrupts Hyperion Pull early and activates Frost Awaken III, which will then become overlapped with new actions.1:05 - The same input while walking towards a small climb can be used to consistently interrupt the climb. As usual, this just disables all ledges until you retry or use a generic prompt, so it has no known benefit.1:28 - A few times when testing this I got a side effect where Kratos' aimed actions (like Axe toss) became disabled. You can see on the video that aiming and pressing 'light attack' does nothing. I didn't figure out what causes this, or if there's anything else to it, so it might be worth revisiting one day.1:55 - Apparently, trying to recall with a wrong weapon active can cause the classic arm cramp-effect (?).2:12 -The fourth setup for starting overlaps is with a landing animation. For example, start a Whiplash in air by buffering it during a weapon switch as you run off a ledge, then start doing melee attacks precisely as you land.(Not on the vid: I think some manner of overlaps can also be done from the small landing animation after leaping over a gap.)2:23 - Gale Force is a fun animation to overlap as it's quite persistent. It can even override Relic-use animations (as seen in this clip) and some Rage attack animations.2:59 - Here's a small showcase of old clips I captured on v. 1.0.Some unique overlap glitches were possible on the unpatched version, f.e. a roll into recall overlap. It's no longer possible to recall during a roll on the patched version, but at least some of the functionality of this glitch variation can still be accessed with an evade to recall overlap with an extra weapon switch and recall overlapped with a roll, so it just takes a few more inputs to pull off.It was fun to overlap arm actions with Infini-Rage and sprint around while doing Whiplash and other moves. The variation shown on this clip makes Kratos become stuck, and you can't break free unless you retry or use a navigation prompt.3:32 - a sound glitch I got once when testing these Whiplash overlaps. Some loop got stuck in the background until I did Whiplash a second time.4:03 - I managed to overlap a Runic attack and air attack. No further comment, it's just a really old clip and I'm not sure if it's possible on patched any longer.
Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened (2023) - out of bounds in New Orleans AKheon 2024-07-30 | A clip from my stream where I managed to exit New Orleans. I did a search on Youtube and noticed two other people had found an OoB in New Orleans as well, but both players used different spots that were closer to the bog region, so perhaps this is new?This OoB spot is right next to the quick travel spot to Creole Quarters. You have to walk on the side of some planks and then inch yourself past a tight corner between the planks and a box. Normal running and sprinting past the tight place doesn't work. It seems that Sherlock can push against collisions particularly well during one specific deceleration animation, so walking and stopping repeatedly allows him to slip deeper and eventually go past the tight spot.Since one specific deceleration animation is needed, this tech has a bit of inconsistency to it. I think you can manipulate which deceleration animation Sherlock is currently using by turning around. But I still haven't tried it enough to be able to claim I fully understand it.This is quite a large OoB zone with many interesting things to see, this highlight is only a small fraction of it.-- Watch live at twitch.tv/akheon
Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened (2023) - seagull launch AKheon 2024-07-25 | A clip from my stream where I stumbled upon an unexplainably strong seagull.I don't remember where exactly this spot is in the pier, but it's probably somewhere en route to the warehouses. If you climb some boxes by walking against them in a correct angle, you can get close to a seagull. To my surprise, the bird has collision. Any time it opens up its wings, Sherlock can get launched in air if he is close enough.Although this is not on the clip, later on I managed to climb on top of the seagull as well. But this was a less interesting result which didn't result in launches.It seems it isn't possible to steer Sherlock while in air, which reduces the utility of this trick, probably consigning it to the level of a mere curiosity.--Watch live at twitch.tv/akheon
Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate - sloped floor clipping with double musou AKheon 2024-07-22 | It turns out that the flashy cutscene showing that a double musou is about to start has an offset bug, making sloped floor clipping even more universal than before.If you interrupt an attack with double musou, the offset bug will immediately reset your character's x/y location to where it was at the start of the attack. With attacks that have a lot of forward movement, this means your character will quickly zip backwards. Your velocity is so high for an instant that you will easily clip through sloped floor.Not all attacks with forward movement work for this purpose - the effectiveness depends on the specific animation properties. As a general rule, most characters who are great at going under walls while angled are now equally good at sloped floor clipping thanks to this new tech.
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - Frost Awaken III break-out AKheon 2024-06-22 | A technique to break out of two different navigation actions/prompts. I first discovered it at vault points, thanks to Pico for informing that it also works jumping over gaps.---0:00 - Normally, Kratos should be uninterruptible during actions like small climbs, jumping over gaps, etc. to prevent all manner of glitchiness. However, Frost Awaken III at a precise timing can overlap the navigation action, interrupting it when it resolves.First example is at gaps. Different gaps require a different timing. I think this is because each gap has a slightly different relative placement of the invisible wall preventing Kratos from passing through until he jumps vs the invisible trigger which compels Kratos to start the jump.So, in order for this break-out to work in a way that leaves Kratos inside the gap boundary, the invisible wall and trigger have to be very close together. If they're too far apart, it becomes harder - or completely impossible - for Kratos to go through the invisible wall during the few frames he is jumping before he breaks out of the action.Common troubleshooting: if Kratos does Frost Awaken III without leaping, your timing was too early. If Kratos leaps without doing Frost Awaken III, your timing was too late. Frost Awaken III must activate precisely at the first frames of the jumping action... or else!1:09 - Here's an example with vaulting. Unlike gaps, any point of the vault animation will overlap and can be interrupted with Frost Awaken III. But that still doesn't mean that finding the best timing is easy, since the purpose of this break-out is to cancel the vault at its exact middle point, so that Kratos ends up on top or inside the vault point (biggest OoB potential).I think it's possible to very slightly delay the activation of Frost Awaken III if you let go of 'recall' and press it again during the time window for Frost Awaken III. Knowing this might help at some vault points.(Not on the vid: I think Frost Awaken III works with the smallest climb animation as well. Sadly, breaking out of it is not very useful. The bigger climb animations don't overlap with recalling, which makes this technique impossible to use there.)
God of War: Ragnarok (PS4) - Rage shrug buffer AKheon 2024-06-04 | This is an elusive, hard-to-describe glitch with a myriad of small effects. Still deserves some more research one day. Reading the video description is recommended.0:00 - I guess I'll start by explaining the context. On the unpatched version, timing out Fury made Kratos keep the Fury-move set even outside Rage - this was called Infini-Rage v1.However, on the patched version, timing out Fury instead gives you a different effect. To ensure that Kratos never keeps Fury-move set when not in Rage, the game has a special check that activates the first moment Kratos is neutral after his Rage has depleted. A special "shrug" animation activates where Kratos' weapons are switched back to normal and the Rage ends in every sense of the word.The developers attempted to fix the glitches which let Kratos use a normal move set during Fury and which also allowed easily timing out Rage. However, at least by this date, they haven't stamped them out completely. You can still take out Axe during Rage if you start Rage during Evade into Recall into Weapon Switch right at the exact moment Kratos catches his Axe. It's nearly frame precise, but you know you got it to work if Kratos holds up his Axe during the Rage activation sequence.From there, you can buffer an Axe attack after a roll, and then holding down 'aim' lets you time out the Rage.After timing out Rage, the Rage shrug remains buffered in the background, and it will activate the first moment Kratos becomes neutral.0:34 - So, what's the use of this? Well, "use" is a strong word, but it has some curious glitch potential, at least. To start with, the Rage shrug is a high-priority action that will cancel many other actions in Kratos' move set. For instance, trying to do most Runic-attacks with a shrug buffer will immediately cancel them.Since this is not an action you usually see in the cancel system, it behaves kind of weirdly. Depending on the action, it can cancel them instantly, sometimes in the middle and rarely not at all. You can't really know what you'll get without manually testing it.In this video, I access the Unarmed heavy sprint attack via Onslaught Shield parry. As you can see, the sprint attack is cancelled by the shrug roughly in the middle.0:47 - The shrug cancels some but not all navigation actions like steps, climbs, etc. A small and medium climb are interrupted early on. This isn't very useful, but it's worth noting.1:15 - A tall climb isn't interrupted. The shrug instead stays buffered until Kratos has finished climbing.(Not on the vid: a gap is interrupted immediately by the shrug, which isn't very useful for break-out purposes.)(Not on the vid: you can use grapple points with a Rage shrug buffered. But at least a basic wall grapple and swing grapple work completely normal, with shrug resolving after the animation is over. The other grapple types should be tested eventually as well, just in case.)(Not on the vid: of course, generic prompts cannot be tested with this glitch since those can only be used when Kratos is neutral.)1:30 - Different shields also have some different effects. With Shatter Star and Stone Wall shields you have quite a bit of flexibility and are able to transition from blocking to aiming or vice-versa without losing the Rage shrug buffer.Parries also work differently between shields. It seems the parry of Shatter Star is immediately interrupted by the shrug (?) but if you hold down 'aim' Kratos will seamlessly begin aiming without you losing the Rage shrug buffer. So you can keep tapping 'block' to spam instantly cancelled parries over and over. Looks weird, but again... utility is questionable.1:46 - Since the Rage shrug activates whenever Kratos is neutral, the only way you can move around without the glitch ending is by holding down 'aim', 'block' or repeatedly chaining weapon switches. As another inexplicable side effect, the Axe looks displaced when it's repeatedly sheathed/unsheathed in this state.2:09 - It's possible to do wrong weapon Runic-attacks with this glitch. A guaranteed way to do it with light Runic-attacks is through Axe Throw, as seen on the video. Freezing Throw doesn't seem to work the same way for heavy Runic-attacks, though.2:23 - Done straight from block, most Runic-attacks will cancel immediately. But rarely it seems you can do a wrong weapon Runic-attack like that as well. I have no idea how or why, for this glitch is full of mysteries.2:40 - Another miscellaneous effect: a Rage air attack with Axe in hands. To note, the Rage shrug cannot activate in air and instead resolves after landing.2:54 - Using Skadi's Edge into Recall and then cancelling the Recall, you can force a weapon switch while Recalling. This is also mechanically unusual.3:09 - I also tried taking a Rage shrug into a cutscene. It seems it will not resolve inside a cutscene and instead activates the first thing after cutscene is over.
God of War: Ragnarok (PS4) - traversal assist prompt glitch AKheon 2024-06-03 | This trick was discovered half a year ago, but here's finally a more comprehensive look at how it actually works.0:00 - Normal 'O' prompts are glitch-proofed quite well in this game. You can't use them when Kratos is not neutral, and it's not possible to give simultaneous input either, preventing any possibility for buggy overlaps.0:14 - However, if you turn on the accessibility option "traversal assist", you can now activate traversal prompts (i.e. climbing walls, ropes, sidles, crawlspaces) using L-stick instead. L-stick is far less glitch-proofed than 'O', and you CAN in fact overlap it with other actions.The most useful overlap is to sheathe your weapon at the exact same time as you push L-stick to use the traversal prompt. The sheathing animation changes the properties of the traversal action as long as it continues, allowing you to f.e. do attacks while you're getting on the climbing wall. Most input will simply cancel the traversal action. But...0:32 - Here's where it gets more interesting. Any upper-body actions will not cancel the traversal action but instead becomes overlapped with it. This lets Kratos get on the climbing wall while f.e. doing a Recall into an Axe Throw, giving you a more lenient timing to cancel out of the traversal action... in addition to looking bizarre.The biggest limitation to climbing wall/rope overlaps is that Kratos cannot do any non-climbing actions while in a dedicated climbing state. This means that after a certain point the effect of the overlap becomes largely visual. It's possible to interrupt the very start or end of a climb with an overlap, but the part in the middle will always work like normal. Even if you let go of input, Kratos cannot complete the Axe throw - it instead becomes buffered and happens by itself once you leave the dedicated climbing state.(Not on the vid: a normal Axe Throw ends by itself within seconds of starting the overlap. If you want to get more time, charge a Freezing Throw instead - it will last indefinitely. Or alternatively, keep doing Axe Throw and Recall repeatedly, as these two actions can be chained into each other while maintaining the overlap.)0:59 - Here are the known ways to go OoB at traversal prompts with this glitch. First off, Kratos acquires a wrong angle if you do a sheathe overlap while entering a sidle or a crevice. If you immediately leave, Kratos' exit animation will also be angled, placing Kratos OoB.1:19 - An alternative way to go OoB at sidles or crevices is to simply do some full-body action (like 180 Turn) while the overlap is active. Kratos is generally able to cancel the whole sidle/crevice animation and return back to neutral as long as the overlap is active and his feet are touching ground. Some crevices are blocked by collision on both sides, so this variation isn't always more helpful than the angled exit variation shown previously.1:34 - Interrupting the start or the end of a climbing wall or a rope climb action is also enough to sometimes breach the floor or adjacent wall, giving access to OoB.(Not on the vid: breaking out of a crawlspace is also possible by doing a full-body action. Many crawlspaces around the game don't have any floor collision, though, so it's a less useful variation than you'd think.)1:58 - The main overlap shown on the video thus far has been sheathe into a Recall into an Axe Throw. However, it's possible to do overlaps with non-Axe weapons as well, even if it's more tricky.Using Mystic Heirloom while armed as you use the traversal prompt forces Kratos to unsheathe during the traversal action. This unsheathe has the same loophole potential as normal sheathing, and you can then follow it up with non-Axe aimed actions. Simple! ...Although the timing is very precise.2:44 - Huldra Project #9 is an upper-body action, so you can overlap it with traversal prompts. But this doesn't have break-out potential, it seems.3:03 - The unpatched version also had a way to overlap blocking and traversal actions. I couldn't get it to work any longer, so it's probably patched. But then again, it was always really inconsistent.3:17 - This overlap seemed to have at least one unique effect at crawlspaces: doing a 180 Turn made Kratos' direction not change, but he still tried leaving the crawlspace after taking a single step, as if he was facing the exit.3:44 - Atreus has his own set of traversal assist prompt glitches. First of all, you can overlap Bow charge shot with traversal actions. This doesn't have break-out potential and gets you stuck, so it's quite impractical.4:24 - Overlapping block and traversal actions is far more useful. This has the same limitations as Kratos' traversal prompt glitch, allowing you to break out of sidles/crevices freely and climbing walls/ropes only in a more limited way.(Not on the vid: Dive overlap allows cancelling out of traversal actions early on, but that's about it.)5:24 - You can break Atreus free from his stuck state by taking damage.
God of War: Ragnarok (PS4) - miscellaneous glitch tech pt. 1 AKheon 2024-05-05 | Some smaller stuff that may or may not be of interest to glitch finders. Better to document it anyway...?0:00 - If you load an auto-save (i.e. NOT from last checkpoint, but from the auto-save menu), Kratos apparently has some extra freedom to act while the screen is fading in.I tried doing something at the 1st Triptych with this idea. In this first clip, I just demonstrate the concept by using Huldra Project #9 although normally all kind of combat actions are disabled in this set piece. And, to reiterate, this is not possible if you just retry from last checkpoint. Have to reload an auto-save.0:13 - I tried escaping the set piece early with a 180 Turn. Sadly, the doorway has no prompt to leave until the set piece is over. Still, this idea should be tested at other checkpoints inside special set pieces since it might do something useful elsewhere around the game.0:36 - If you enter Photo Mode right after retrying during some set pieces, the actors will be displaced. It looks curious, but might not be very useful. This clip is from the sled ride right at the start of the game.0:56 - This second clip is from the 1st Thor fight, checkpoint right before the QTE where Thor throws his hammer at Kratos.1:36 - If you enter Photo-mode during an overlapped action, then switch Kratos' expression, his entire pose may change to something else. Again, this is probably not useful, since it's unlikely this could affect his collision or location in any way... but still pretty odd.2:13 - Did you know Atreus has his own navigation prompt break-out? It's true! Just buffer Dive into Action while walking towards ledges, small steps, etc. The simplest way to do so is to do Dive, then buffer another Dive during it while walking towards the prompt.Unfortunately, it seems this break-out happens so early on in the action that it either doesn't do anything (at gaps) or doesn't do anything except disable all navigation prompts. This means that you can easily get stuck somewhere, since you can no longer climb up small steps or anything else. But a traversal prompt like crawlspace should fix this state, much like with Kratos' respective state.2:42 - Atreus' directionality bug. I don't fully understand this trick and can't do it consistently, but I got it at least five times while testing.It's a simple as it looks: stand with your back against a fall, turn the camera to face the fall, then quickly evade to drop down from the ledge. If the glitch begins, Atreus' movement will very unresponsive and strange, and he will try moving forward even if you're holding L-stick backwards. Navigation prompts fix this state, and it might just get fixed automatically over time, or if you let go of L-stick or do actions.A few times it also seemed as if the glitch didn't start immediately but instead took a short time to kick in. It's pretty mysterious for sure. It's hard to say if something like this could exist for Kratos as well.2:57 - This bug even affects auto-walk sections. So, if you get the glitch near a doorway or another auto-walk section, the game cannot steer Atreus properly and he gets stuck floundering about aimlessly for 30 seconds until a failsafe kicks in.3:40 - If you charge a Runic Arrow shot, then open Pause-menu, let go of the firing button and close the menu again, the shot will be fired to a wrong direction. The direction is not entirely random, but it doesn't seem entirely consistent either.3:58 - If you rapidly try to change your shields during any time when your shield is locked, the game will crash. I guess if I was trying to go for a "fastest crash%", this is the tactic I would use.
Last Call BBS - Dungeons & Diagrams 1 random win in 9.45 AKheon 2024-04-21 | I've been practicing and doing some Dungeons & Diagrams speedruns as a kind of tribute to Zachtronics, a brilliant puzzle game developer.This is a vaguely sudoku-like logic puzzle mini-game where you have to map out a dungeon, charting the location of its walls. Going fast means being able to quickly parse the layout of a dungeon from some general rules, and maybe taking a few risks here and there. Never done runs of something like this before, so it's been pretty interesting...This is a category where you just have to complete one random dungeon as fast as possible; surely with a good layout and precise playing the time could still go a bit lower.--Watch live at twitch.tv/akheon
Last Call BBS - Dungeons & Diagrams 5 random wins in 2:02.90 AKheon 2024-04-21 | I've been practicing and doing some Dungeons & Diagrams speedruns as a kind of tribute to Zachtronics, a brilliant puzzle game developer.This is a vaguely sudoku-like logic puzzle mini-game where you have to map out a dungeon, charting the location of its walls. Going fast means being able to quickly parse the layout of a dungeon from some general rules, and maybe taking a few risks here and there. Never done runs of something like this before, so it's been pretty interesting...I'll still probably try to get this category under 2 minutes. Feel free to give this a try too if you're interested, this game has leaderboards and it would be neat to have some competition.-- Watch live at twitch.tv/akheon
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - Rage buffer glitch AKheon 2024-04-18 | Similar to the Runic/Relic buffer glitch, you get glitchy results if you buffer a Rage-activation, then switch between Rages before it begins.This tech is universal. You can set it up by buffering Rage during various navigation animations (like climbing a step), but there are also some moves in Kratos' move list that let you buffer Rage, such as a roll, which I'm using as set-up in this video.The timing for buffering a Rage from roll is very tight, so I'm slowing Kratos down with Burden of Evasion to make accessing this input a bit easier.0:00 - The results vary depending on which Rage you start from and which Rage you switch to. This first example shows switching from Fury to Valour. This makes Kratos enter Fury-rage without Fury moveset. He will instead use his regular move set, which mostly works like intended (although it does have some Rage-related limitations, like no weapon switching or a proper Recall). After Rage is over, Kratos has a wrong Rage-bar and it's not possible to re-activate Rage before you manually set it to something else from the menu.(Not on the vid: Valour to Wrath or vice-versa seems to work quite normal? Although I think I didn't test this on enemies.)(Not on the vid: Valour/Wrath to Fury/Legacy makes Kratos do the Rage seemingly like normal. Afterwards, he has a wrong Rage-bar. With Fury, this gets fixed when you use Rage the next time. With Legacy, Kratos will keep on doing Valour/Wrath instead even though he has Legacy equipped.)(Not on the vid: Legacy to Fury gives the same result as described below, except when re-activating Rage, Kratos' Rage bar gets fixed and the lingering glitch result ends.)0:39 - Legacy to Valour/Wrath gives the most interesting effect so far. Doing this gives Kratos a glitched Rage with a wrong (Legacy) Rage-bar.The glitched Rage will turn off by itself within a second. This lets Kratos spam its activation repeatedly.1:03 - If you hold Axe/Blades aim for a moment after activating, the glitched Rage won't turn off instantly and Kratos can instead run around while Rage stays on. Using the Spear's weapon special allows you to Rage sprint instead. But he doesn't have a Rage movelist, and the Rage will end after most actions anyway, so this doesn't seem obviously helpful.1:27 - This state has a lot of small side effects. This video goes through all of the ones I discovered, but there might be more.One of the first things I noticed is that Axe throw is buggy in this state. If you do a regular throw immediately after Rage activation, the Axe will auto-return to Kratos immediately after the glitched Rage turns itself off. 1:46 - Freezing Throw works especially strangely. It barely has any range before it auto-returns back to Kratos.2:11 - You can manually adjust the timing for the Axe's return with f.e. an evade. With precise timing, you can hit a puzzle target and teleport the Axe back to Kratos simultaneously, allowing you to freeze something without losing the Axe. Might save time at some puzzle somewhere?2:26 - After glitched Rage turns off, Kratos enters a "neutral Rage" state where he will stand in place while breathing heavily. Although this is a Rage-only animation, you'll end up in it post-Rage.If you press L-stick, Kratos will do a belated "Rage shrug" (indicating Rage finally ends) and lose a small amount of his Rage-bar. Doing most actions will end the state without it.You can use prompts while in neutral Rage. It's not fully compatible with some cutscenes and can cause mini-softlocks like seen in this clip. It seems some safety time-out kicks in after 30 seconds which prevents a full softlock, though.3:12 - Using a generic prompt (like boats, etc.) shortly after glitched Rage-activation while armed forces Kratos to unsheathe after the prompt is used. In this clip, he tries to climb into the boat with Axe in his hands, which is apparently not allowed. But the game has another safety time-out in place which hits at around 5 seconds, allowing the prompt use to continue like normal.3:30 - Another example: unsheathing Spear when entering a crawlspace. As a side note, Kratos is programmed to unsheathe when leaving the crawlspace, even though he should be unarmed at this time.3:53 - The forced unsheathe allows giving input while entering a traversal prompt, which enables doing prompt glitches with non-Axe weapons. (This is only as useful as a prompt glitch with the Axe, but still something worth noting.)4:11 - You can switch weapons or do a buggy Recall without interrupting neutral Rage. Overlapping these actions with Rage shrug and other actions can cause subtle mechanical oddities? For instance, in this clip I do a directionless evade. (I've also seen a glitched looking weapon sheathe a few times.)4:21 - rarely, you can also cause a mini-softlock at the shop. I'm not sure how to do this consistently yet.
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - Runic/Relic buffer glitch AKheon 2024-03-24 | When playing as Kratos, buffering a Runic/Relic attack and then switching it before Kratos does it causes glitches to occur.Kratos' normal movelist doesn't seem to contain a single action during which you can naturally buffer Runic/Relic use, but you can still do so using the environment: the various kinds of navigation animations (i.e. vault, small step, medium step, gap) as well as grapple points/walls work for starting this glitch.EDIT: since uploading this video, Pico found out that you can buffer a Runic-attack during Scorched Sweep. However, you can't get any speed to your Runic-slide when the glitch is started this way. A runic-attack can also be buffered after landing from an aerial attack. The spear air attack does give a slight amount of forward momentum, but not as much as a small step.To note, switching Runic-attacks when playing as Atreus creates a different effect, allowing you to cast Runic-attacks without any cooldown. It's a speedrun tactic in its own right, but not the focus of this video.---0:00 - You get different results with this glitch depending on the timing. With early timing, i.e. there's a fairly lengthy period of time between switching Runic/Relic and the buffer resolving, Kratos does the action with seemingly most of the animation data missing. He will simply stand in place while miscellaneous SFX plays, and the attack usually interrupts early too. The cooldown of the action does not start either.So far, this timing is only possible with a vaulting point. Buffer Runic/Relic as early as possible during the vault, then enter menu and switch it to get this result.0:26 - With a late timing, i.e. there's a short period of time between switching Runic/Relic and the buffer resolving, Kratos usually enters a classic Runic slide (last seen in GoW 2018). Most but not all Runic slides leave Kratos completely stuck. The only meaningful input you can give is to direct your ally to fire arrows or turn the camera to steer your movement. No environmental prompts can be used either.1:10 - An alternative late timing result (possibly related to doing this glitch at small steps?) has Kratos run a few steps while SFX plays.1:26 - Some examples of glitching up Relic use. You usually just get miscellaneous visual effect and not much else. For instance, Hilt of Hofud creates the Realm Shift visual effect without time actually slowing down.1:37 - Other miscellaneous early timing effects.(Not on the vid: regardless of timing, Hel's Touch works comparatively normally. Kratos does its full action, but it doesn't have any visual effect and it might not even hit enemies. Its 2nd attack also can't be buffered even if it's upgraded.)(Not on the vid: early timing Helios Flare makes Kratos walk a few steps forward in a quasi-aim state. No fireball will be shot.)(Not on the vid: early timing Huldra Project #9 makes the game crash.)2:05 - An example of starting a Runic slide at a grapple point. The timing is very precise: you basically have to input the Runic/Relic use and then open menu almost immediately afterwards shortly before Kratos lands.This clip also shows just how stuck Kratos is during a Runic slide. Enemy attacks will not free him. Photo-mode reveals that even his facial muscles are paralyzed: you are unable to change his facial expression at this time!3:02 - Late timing Huldra Project #9 makes Kratos get stuck in a slow walking state indefinitely. Same story as before: no input works and not even enemy attacks end the glitched state. (Although changing his facial expressions is possible in Photo-mode, for what that's worth...)(Not on the vid: late timing Helios Flare forces Kratos to stay in a slow quasi-aim walk indefinitely, so the outcome is quite similar to late timing Huldra Project #9.)3:30 - Last on this video I want to show the most promising Runic/Relic buffer glitch: you are able to do a Runic slide that has an incredibly high speed with a late timing Hilt of Hrotti. Not only is the speed good, but the slide can also be interrupted with any input, making it more feasible to use as a speed tactic somewhere.The game is also heavily slowed down while this slide is active. Although this is not the only Runic slide that slows down the game, the slowdown isn't usually this extreme. Imagine how fast this slide would be if the game wasn't at around 30% of its usual speed at the moment?The worst part is that it might not be possible to activate this variation 100% consistently. Even if you pull off the slightly finicky input for doing this glitch, you may sometimes end up with a nearly speed-less Runic slide too. I can't say for sure, but it might just be a precision/timing based issue and not pure RNG. Still, this set of glitches definitely deserve a bit more research in the future.(Not on the vid: other Runic slides that can be interrupted with any input are Artillery of the Ancients, Flames of Anguish and Leviathan's Roar.)
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - testing at Lyngbakr Island AKheon 2024-03-15 | I applied the recently discovered glitch tech at Lyngbakr Island to see if some skips would be possible.---0:00 - There's a convenient sidle / climbing wall where it's possible to go out of bounds using a prompt glitch.First, I tried skipping the whole top floor of the island by going OoB, then landing downstairs and opening the key item chest early. Unfortunately, the chest can't be opened if you skip the mini-boss fight, making this plan impossible.0:35 - A much smaller skip where you just bypass the climbing wall is possible. As a side effect, the Wretch nest also stays inactive, which might give an additional few seconds timesave.1:15 - For the time being, I ignored the Wretch nest and tried activating the fights on the Island in wrong order. The nest finally becomes active after you've turned the wheel and attempt to leave the area. After smashing downstairs, I have both the Wretch nest and mini-boss active, and all the nearby passages are also open.2:10 - As a result, you can take the mini-boss fight outside its intended boundaries. Some of the Wretches spawned by the boss behave quite strangely and get stuck on doorways, but otherwise nothing too majorly glitchy happened. The mini-boss itself does its best to avoid the hole in the ground.2:48 - Well, back to OoB testing. I noticed there's a stretch of death floor underneath the sidle, even though in normal circumstances Kratos should not be able to even fall down here.3:12 - Later on the whole Island rises out of water and reveals a whole new floor that was previously hiding under the water surface. I tried entering this area early as well, but nothing is loaded at the moment.3:43 - Overview of what is under the Island in Photo-mode. The big fish can be seen here, but there's no additional level geometry. I wonder if the puzzle targets under the fins could be hit early, somehow?
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - One-Bladed Kratos AKheon 2024-03-05 | This video showcases an interesting side effect of breaking out of grapple points which give Kratos a temporary Blade in his left hand.---0:00 - The basic idea of the break-out is pretty simple. Normally, you're not able to do actions simultaneously as you activate a prompt with 'O'. However, you can get around this limitation by buffering another action to coincide with 'O' use.For this simple grapple point break-out, switch weapons, buffer an attack during weapon switch, use 'O' at a precise moment when Kratos would do his regular attack. This seemingly overlaps the two actions and breaks Kratos out of the grapple point during its first frames.0:10 - After the break-out, Kratos is left equipped with two weapons: his Axe or Spear (whichever you had equipped at the time) as well as one Blade in his left hand. He now has a 50% chance of using actions from either move set when doing attacks, aiming or blocking. The missing Blade will also cause some misplaced streaks of fire and other minor graphical oddities when doing Blades attacks in this state.One-Bladed Mode with Axe also has this odd side effect where simply pressing 'aim' makes Kratos "catch" the Axe first, a bit like during a recall.There are basically two sets of glitch effects associated with grapple break-out. First is that Kratos enters One-Bladed Mode, the second is that grapple points and navigation prompts like vault or gap points become disabled. Your companion may also get stuck using the grapple point endlessly at this time.Certain things end One-Bladed Mode without ending the second set of effects, and vice-versa. For instance, most generic prompts fix both sets of effects, but a health/rage pick-up only fixes second set of effects. Entering a dog sled or a store only fixes the second set of effects. Activating a Relic or Fury only fixes the first set of effects. Climbing a chain fixes neither. It's something useful to try to keep sorted out while testing this stuff...(Not on the video: you can seamlessly switch between Spear and Axe during One-Bladed Mode using a roll.)0:47 - If you throw away Axe (or switch weapons), you end up in True One-Bladed Mode, which is basically a fancy name for Kratos whose only active weapon is the extraneous Blade granted by the grapple break-out. This state mostly works like Blades usually does, except the weapon effects continue to be slightly messed up. Kratos also does not have an air attack in this state.1:44 - Some footage of One-Bladed Kratos overlapped with Spear.2:17 - Many prompts in the game expect Kratos to be unarmed, so they force him to sheathe his weapon. But what if Kratos is wielding more than one weapon at a time, like during this glitch? It seems the game doesn't know what to do with the extraneous Blade, so Kratos keeps it in his hands instead. When climbing a chain, this manifests in a graphical oddity.2:40 - And when using a boat, the extraneous Blade will prevent Kratos from entering the boat. But it seems the game is programmed to forcibly remove all weapons from Kratos after a few seconds has passed, so you don't get stuck indefinitely by doing this.(Not on the vid: the dog sled prompt on the other hand works completely normally and is compatible with One-Bladed Kratos.)2:55 - Some more footage of the side effects of grapple break-out. To recap, your companion may get stuck using the grapple point over and over again, although this depends on the location. Kratos also becomes unable to use grapple points or navigation prompts like small steps, vaults or gaps, although often there are some ways to get around this.3:34 - Alternatively, you can start One-Bladed Mode at a "lean" prompt using a slightly different setup. This way you will not incur the usual grapple point break-out side effects and navigation around the game world will be easier.My setup for doing this is to overlap weapon switch to Unarmed with leaning, then overlap recall with leaning, then simultaneously press 'O' to leap down as you evade. Done correctly, the evade will interrupt the lean prompt, leaving Kratos One-Bladed.3:52 - A generic prompt leading into an Axe puzzle chain is also delayed by One-Bladed Mode.(Not on the vid: Mystic Gateways also work like this.)4:05 - As far as Rage is concerned, Wrath randomly picks between Kratos' two move sets and uses either one for the powerful attack.4:21 - Simply being in One-Bladed Mode causes Legacy to glitch up, resulting in Kratos having a 50% chance of using either Legacy or Blades move set during the Rage.(Not on the vid: Valour works pretty much normally and does not end One-Bladed Mode. Fury works normally and fixes One-Bladed Mode.)
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - glitches and observations pt. 1 AKheon 2024-02-25 | Some random bugs and oddities from my casual playthrough of the unpatched version. Kazooie is the player in one or two of the clips too!---0:00 - near the start of the game, you can blast away a deep layer of snow and leave a cosmetic hole on the ground.0:28 - a wonky chain.0:42 - after retrying from a checkpoint in Svartalfheim, the nearby geysers acted a bit oddly. I could throw an Axe at them but they wouldn't visually freeze up. In the case of the geyser blocking a grapple wall, this didn't matter and the grapple wall was still useable. In the case of the geyser blocking a gap, this did matter and the gap was not possible to jump over.1:38 - for some reason upon revisiting the mountain area in Svartalfheim, I could see a floating trolley in the distance.1:51 - Atreus became very fidgety in one of the crawlspaces in Svartalfheim.2:54 - the tutorial message saying "exit" when using the Alfheim dog sled got stuck on the screen very easily. I recall it happened repeatedly and only temporarily went away when driving the sled. Retry was needed to permanently get rid of the message.3:19 - a cheap looking wall of foliage in Vanaheim while boating around.3:44 - I had planned on finishing the whole game unpatched, but alas, a game breaking bug got in my way. One of the climbing walls in Vanaheim during "Creatures of Prophecy" was unclimbable and stopped my progress. I tried replaying the previous fight and even tried defeating the enemies and breaking the rock on the climbing wall in a different order, only to meet the same outcome. For what it's worth, the bug went away after patching the game.4:10 - While moving around this area and repeatedly retrying, I got another random bug. One time after retrying, Kratos was holding his currently equipped Relic the Hilt of Gram in his hands for some reason. This prevented him from doing any attacks, but a roll into a weapon switch got rid of it. I was basically standing in place without doing any specific actions as I retried. It didn't happen again afterwards and ended up being just a random one-time occurrence that may forever remain a mystery.
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - infini-Rage v1 and v2 AKheon 2024-02-16 | The unpatched version of God of War: Ragnarök had two useful Rage-related exploits that are documented on this video.---0:00 - infini-Rage v1.The basic idea of this exploit is that if Rage fails to end properly and instead "times out" in some unusual circumstances, the game lets Kratos keep the Rage-move set even outside Rage.The easiest method for doing this is probably activating Rage during an evade into a Recall. The Axe will appear in Kratos' hands as he begins Raging. You can then buffer some actions from Kratos' regular move set after a roll inside Rage. If you start aiming with the Axe and wait long enough, this will automatically time out Rage, allowing you to keep the Rage-move set after Rage ends.0:38 - Alternatively, you could enter a climbing wall with traversal assistant at the same time as you activate Rage and use it to time out Rage. (Any traversal prompt like a crevice, crawlspace, etc. might also work for this purpose.)However, this version of the glitch has one serious drawback. Since Rage fails to resolve properly, a part of the game will still think you're Raging. As a result, using any traversal or generic prompts in the game is not possible, and there's a high chance you just get stuck afterwards. Retrying from last checkpoint is the only known way to fix it.1:06 - infini-Rage v2.A more convenient if also more elusive way to use Rage-move set outside Rage. There are multiple different setups for it, but the simplest one I found was to do evade into Recall into a full roll, followed quickly by an Axe Throw. In these circumstances, the Axe Throw overlaps with the roll. Interrupted by Rage, the Rage comes out glitched and Kratos gets to keep the Rage-move set no matter the circumstances in which you turn the Rage off. As for why this happens...? I don't really know.The benefits compared to the v1 are obvious. The set-up is much faster since you don't have to wait for Rage to time out. Also, in this set-up the Rage does actually resolve properly, which allows you to use any prompts in the game world, switch Rage at will, etc. that weren't possible to do in v1. Once activated, you can keep the glitched state with you indefinitely and even fight multiple fights in a row with endless Rage.The only things which end this state are certain traversal prompts (like climbing walls and boats) and retrying. Other than that, you're free to Rage forever.1:40 - an example of how having endless Rage breaks the combat.2:15 - If you're in Rage-move set, any auto-walk sequences will break, leaving Kratos stranded in place forever.Fortunately, this can be avoided if you're careful since you can move between Rage-move set and regular move set at will. As a general rule of thumb, Rage-actions are buffered from Rage-move set whereas regular actions are buffered from regular move set, and you can use f.e. evade or roll to change between the two.2:37 - I tried hitting puzzle targets with the Rage rock throw... it didn't work.2:50 - This state has some other peculiarities as well. The Rage-sprint action can interact in an unusual way with Recall and weapon switching. For instance, recalling and holding down 'aim' at the right timing makes Kratos' upper body get stuck in aim-pose for a few seconds. This will then overlap with Rage-sprint and potentially air attacks too, resulting in the interaction seen on this clip.With weapon changing, you can basically change weapons while running during a Rage-sprint, which makes it really easy to buffer ground actions over ledges. Using this, it's also possible to do aimed actions like Hyperion Pull while Rage-sprinting, etc.Unfortunately I didn't capture footage of this before patching, but there's a particularly funny looking outcome where the Rage-sprint and Freezing Throw become overlapped, resulting in Kratos sprinting around in a strange looking pose and slow movement speed...But as mentioned, these tricks are unpatched only. In the patched version, it seems they've added a check which essentially forces the game to resolve Rage properly as long as Kratos is neutral and Rage is depleted. Perhaps I'll mess around with these tricks again one day, if I do a fresh install of Ragnarök.
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - various tests in Muspelheim with Atreus AKheon 2024-02-11 | Some glitches and observations from Atreus' segment in Muspelheim.0:00 - You can use a prompt glitch to bypass the lengthy sidle shortly after the level begins. Conveniently, this not only skips the sidle but also a 30-second in-game cutscene at the end of the side, so it's a pretty decent time save.0:16 - As a side effect of having skipped the cutscene, there's an inactive enemy loafing nearby. This is probably the enemy who was supposed to make his appearance inside the cutscene to signal the start of the next fight.0:31 - I thought to myself, what kind of things might be possible to do with an inactive enemy. My most ambitious test had me push the enemy to the zone where Thor grabs Atreus to do his next leap. I then did "Dive Into Battle" to the enemy. This looked odd and seemed to displace Thor a little, but didn't cause any bigger glitches than that.1:00 - Activating the skipped cutscene during a fight makes it play out while enemies are nearby trying to fight you. Thor's hammer is also invisible. If Atreus gets hit, he is broken out of the cutscene and gameplay continues seemingly normal after this.(Not on the vid: Thor lacks collision until the cutscene ends.)1:48 - Of course, I also wanted to see this cutscene while Atreus is doing a glitched charge shot and his entire upper body is stuck. His right armpit might be sore tomorrow morning.2:47 - As another side effect of having skipped the cutscene, the left side of the sidle becomes a natural OoB spot. Just enter the sidle and leave it from the left side without pressing any buttons or L-stick. Atreus' leaving animation places him inside the wall automatically.From here, I tried seamwalking to the crevice through which Kratos comes later on to visit Surtr. However, it seems there's some wall preventing you from getting close to the crevice and not a lot of floor around it, so going all the way might not be possible without some better long jump or seamwalking tactics.(Not on the vid: I also tried the sidle OoB / break-out to get to the lower regions of Muspelheim early, but again, it looks like you just lack the range to reach there.)3:26 - You can create a glitched charge shot that gets Atreus' upper body stuck with just the Mask alone. To do so, take out the mask and immediately afterwards input a charge shot.Just out of curiosity, I got Atreus' upper body stuck and then entered the 2nd Thor leap in the level. If Atreus is in this glitched state, Thor will leap OoB for no good reason. Atreus will then fall down, only to suddenly zip upwards back on solid ground. After some tens of seconds pass, the 3rd Thor leap begins without a warning and gameplay continues like normal afterwards.(Not on the vid: if you retry after the 3rd leap, the game becomes unwinnable because you return to a checkpoint where Atreus immediately falls out of bounds.)4:30 - For completion's sake, here's also the first Thor leap of the level while your upper body is stuck. This one doesn't end up out of bounds.(Not on the vid: entering the final cutscene of the level with a glitched charge shot only creates a short-lived effect. It seems the glitched charge shot is fixed during the QTE where the mask is ripped out of your hands.)
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - various tests in Midgard with Atreus AKheon 2024-02-08 | Some glitches & observations from Atreus' first two gameplay segments in Midgard. Note: this was played on the unpatched version, so things might vary on other versions of the game. At the very least, it's known that the auto-walk glitch no longer works on the current version.---0:00 - Near the start of the Midgard-level, you ride an elevator up to see Jormungandr. I used auto-walk glitch to lure one of the enemies from the fight I had previously skipped there to get him into the next cutscene. It seems enemies become passive and somewhat camera shy inside cutscenes, so this was less interesting than I'd hoped.1:38 - The enemy is still hanging out nearby after the cutscene and has to be defeated to go onward in the game.1:59 - I tried going out of bounds with auto-walk glitch at the large yard near the ledge from which you fall down later after meeting with Freya, just in case this would hit some trigger early. Instead, I managed to create an unwinnable situation inside the game.After Atreus falls down, the game tries to move him back to the prompt where he left from, which is the elevator crank. Unfortunately, this is not possibly since the elevator has a thick floor and Atreus gets stuck against it. After hovering for a few moments, he will fall back down, then rise up again, for an eternity.3:06 - Right before getting to the yard where Sindri starts cleaning up the remains of his shop, it's possible to do a minor skip using auto-walk glitch. If you parry chain to the left from the prompt to jump down, Atreus will clip an invisible wall and fall down when trying to return to the center of the ledge. There's a new checkpoint a few steps into the yard and you can hit it by doing a short parry chain.After retrying, gameplay resumes from the point after Sindri has left your party, except in this case he actually hasn't left and he keeps following you (at least in some unofficial capacity) even to the later areas. Sadly, I didn't play further to see if this would cause side effects down the line. For example, it would've been a bit funny if he'd come all the way to meet Freya.4:12 - After skipping meeting Freya, I messed around with wall clips before returning back to Sindri to see if there would be potential for another skip here. Strangely enough, eventually Freya appeared and started following Atreus a companion (although, again, in an unofficial capacity where it wasn't possible to give orders to her).I returned back to the campfire after this, and sure enough, she was no longer sitting by the campfire. Does this prove that the cutscene and gameplay Freya are the same character model?(Not on the video: Freya refused to follow Atreus down to the yard with Sindri. In fact, she would flat out disappear after entering the corridor with the sonic-destructible barrier.)5:05 - If you hit a loading zone at the corner leading down back to Sindri, then backtrack a bit and go out of bounds, it's possible to drop down into The Oarsmen early.If you climb down the chain, you'll find that the interior is pitch-black. There's a Mystic Gateway here, but going near it activates a fight. There are at least four high-level enemies here which, at least for my skills, are impossible to beat early.6:26 - As another test, I tried dropping down directly next to the Mystic Gateway to see if I could activate it before the fight has time to begin... but it still doesn't work.I got the impression from Pico in the God of War speedrunning Discord that he'd come here early on NG+ using some collision flaw and defeated the enemies, but the Mystic Gateway was still unavailable. So, overall, I'm not sure if Atreus can use these Mystic Gateways freely at all.6:52 - On the other side of Oarsmen, you'll find two prompts that are normally for Kratos only. Using either one makes Atreus become stuck in place forever.7:13 - Upon returning from Ironwood you end up back in Midgard. Atreus can breach through anything using auto-walk glitch near Kratos' home, so I tried going through some entrances. There's nothing loaded beyond the fence leading to the path with the first triptych.(Not on the vid: I also tried going to Kratos' back yard early, but there's nothing there.)7:36 - If you start auto-walk glitch using the Mystic Gateway and simply stall for long enough, Kratos spawns at the yard, probably in anticipation for his appearance in the upcoming cutscene. A curious side effect...
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - early Lake of Nine continuation AKheon 2024-02-04 | If you'll recall, at the end of 2023 I posted a video about reaching Lake of Nine early. This video contains some more observations and speculation regarding this huge yet still theoretical skip.To note, this footage was captured on the unpatched PS4-version, things might vary in unforeseen ways on the other versions of the game.---0:00 - You can pick up a Blades Runic-attack and equip it even though Kratos left his Blades at home.0:38 - In the same vein, you can purchase and equip Blade-pommels to increase Kratos' power level. Apparently, if you don't have Blades, Kratos just displays the Axe in the shop screen instead.1:06 - One thing you can't equip early are enchantments for the Amulet. If you pick up one and then open the menu as prompted by the game, you get a crash.1:27 - Various grapple points can be used even without having Blades, which is at least a small mercy for gear-less Kratos.1:45 - Beating the rest of the game without any gear and no companion might be impossible since there are so many gear / companion-related obstacles on your way. Fortunately, there's a new opportunity to do early Lake of Nine after Freya joins your party.The game normally prevents you from re-entering the crevice that is used to go out of bounds near Kratos' home. However, the crevice prompt can be used like normal for a short time after gameplay resumes when retrying from last checkpoint. Conveniently, you can generate new checkpoints in this section at will since you always get a new one after the dialogue with Freya and Mimir ends.In other words: set up a new checkpoint in front of the crevice, then retry and quickly do the prompt glitch to go out of bounds as the screen is fading in. If done from this point in the game, the skip would save over an hour on NG+, so it would still be pretty significant.2:47 - To note, the inside of the crevice is mostly unloaded at the moment.3:11 - Showing the later early Lake of Nine skip in practice.But like I implied earlier, there are still some obstacles in the way before this becomes a viable skip. First of all, Freya doesn't have Sonic or Sigil arrows on her, which makes completing many upcoming puzzles impossible. I've heard from the people in the GoW speedrunning Discord that at least on NG+ entering the arena and switching companions gives you the magical arrows, which allows you to get a bit further.Next roadblock is the fact that you skip Asgard 1 and never get the mask for Atreus. There are a few points where you have to use the mask in Atreus' Helheim-segment to progress, so at the moment, trying to do this skip ends there. (Or so I've heard from speed_gunner).So yeah... Some more tech is needed for this skip to become reality. But this is the current progress as of now.
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - the auto-walk glitch AKheon 2024-01-28 | Here's a more comprehensive info package about a strange, potentially powerful glitch tech that only exists in the unpatched version of the game.The idea behind this exploit is simple: it's possible to give unintended touch pad-input to Kratos or Atreus during any "auto-walk" sequence in the game.So, what is an auto-walk? It's when the game subtly re-positions Kratos right after you choose to use many of the game's prompts so that its animation will not begin displaced.So, what can you do with touch pad-input? Most touch pad-input pertains to the HUD, but there are three physical actions you can tie to it as well: Shield Parry, 180 Turn or Rage-activation. This means, you can do any of these three inputs during an auto-walk to interrupt it.So, what's the use? Rage or 180 Turn don't necessarily help much. However, parries can be used to move away from a prompt after choosing to use it. During this time, the game automatically still tries to make Kratos auto-walk back to the prompt you left from, which makes navigation tricky, but not impossible. What's more, Kratos is (usually) immune to walls while he is doing an auto-walk, which means that with proper angles and positioning, it's possible to clip through a lot of walls in the game in the process.So, what's the catch? I guess one pretty big one is that this glitch is patched and no longer works on the current version. It can't be started without a correct type of prompt in the vicinity. Also, quite critically, you can't end it at will. The auto-walk state is so persistent that there are only a few ways to end it, most commonly a checkpoint retry. So, to have any realistic hope of doing sequence breaks with this tactic, there would have to be a checkpoint past the walls that you clip through. Otherwise, you just end up accomplishing nothing.This glitch tech also doesn't work in "no-attack zones", like near The Forge or the Vanaheim camp, which limits some of its potential.For more info about moving around with a parry chain, I recommend reading the description of this video:youtube.com/watch?v=Wa-_P5xYCUo---This exploit can be done with both Kratos and Atreus. Atreus' version is a bit more limited in the sense that he only has one type of a parry and he can't steer at all during his parry chain. To see more of Atreus' auto-walk glitch, check out f.e. this video.youtube.com/watch?v=xkCFezTf3PY---0:00 - Just the basics of the glitch tech. Also shows a failed attempt to skip the first Dreki-fight. The reason this tactic cannot work here is that there's no checkpoint past the crawlspace.0:51 - I thought about going to the Alfheim desert early, but this didn't work either. The reason this time was because there's no prompt in this location that would conveniently let Kratos auto-walk directly towards the wall I want to breach. Going from the side isn't an option either because there's not enough floor out of bounds. However, in the process I learnt about some quirks that different type of prompts can cause.With Mystic Gateways, I got a few different results when going fully out of bounds during auto-walk glitch. This first result is that I lose control of Kratos and he then starts slowly floating downwards instead of falling normally.1:46 - Another result was that Kratos falls normally at first, but after a while he suddenly rebounds and launches high in the air. There's a chance that this is caused by the mysterious out of bounds floor under the Mystic Gateway; perhaps Kratos "falls upwards" against it for a while, and eventually when he slides past it, he launches with a massive built-up momentum high in the air.2:32 - I tried if it might be possible to go through Svartalfheim first visit in reverse by clipping out of bounds at the pier near the Mystic Gateway. For this, I tried using a boat prompt. Although I didn't succeed, the boat prompt caused a pretty curious result when falling OoB in its own right. After Kratos falls for around 7000 meters, he smoothly rebounds back to the boat. However, the boat use is cancelled and the camera becomes stuck at a fixed angle behind Kratos indefinitely. Using R-stick does nothing during this time. The boat prompt no longer works either. Since there are no other usable prompts in the direction I'm facing right now, I get stuck.4:03 - Another miscellaneous effect I got from a few different kinds of prompts (chest, a door, a boat) is that Kratos takes a few steps while hovering in air, then gets stuck in place forever. Perhaps you get this result if you're still relatively close to the prompt you started from?4:22 - the auto-walk glitch can be activated inside some crawlspaces and indoors areas too, like Durlin's Office. This lets you go out of bounds in this location for mildly strange looking results.
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - various tests in Ironwood AKheon 2024-01-24 | Assorted results of some glitch testing in Ironwood. To note, this footage was captured on the unpatched PS4-version, and things might vary on other versions of the game. At the very least, it seems the "auto-walk glitch" that much of the video is centered around no longer works on the current version.---0:00 - After you acquire Rage for Atreus, it's possible to return back to the home base by seam walking from out of bounds. This would've been a small time save since you avoid having to ride Jalla, but you get stuck shortly afterwards because you need Jalla for the next section of Ironwood and she is nowhere to be found.1:19 - After a certain point in Ironwood - I'm not exactly sure what changes, possibly the type of collision the level is built out of? - the auto-walk glitch becomes extra powerful and Atreus is immune to walls during his extended parry chain. This makes going out of bounds extremely easy. The glitch tech still has some big limitations, though, especially since you can't steer at all while doing the parry chain.In this demonstration, I start the auto-walk glitch with Jalla, enter an upcoming bog section using a parry chain and fall out of bounds. After Atreus respawns back on Jalla, the previous area has unloaded, leaving the Pit just an empty crater on ground. It seems Angrboda has to forage colors from somewhere else from now on...This concept of hitting a loading trigger to unload a previous area, falling OoB and bouncing back to your starting location could have some glitch potential somewhere?2:15 - I tried going past the elevator section in Ironwood using the auto-walk glitch. Sadly, pretty much the only piece of collision you can't breach right now happens to be the pile of rock blocking the exit. And there doesn't seem to be enough floor out of bounds to go around it either. It might be doable if you could steer during this glitch, but alas.2:57 - At the first fight after using the elevator, you can use auto-walk glitch to clip through the large stone block and activate the upcoming fight early. Then you can resume lifting the stone block as the fight is already underway. Your characters can get hit during the block lifting animation, which looks slightly buggy.(Not on the vid: in this location the walls cannot be clipped through using the auto-walk glitch, so breaching the stone block early is the best you can do.)If you're careful, you can get Atreus to stay inside the stone block after getting hit. However, the sides are walled-off and you can't go fully out of bounds from there, so this isn't very useful.3:47 - If you get hit in a way that pushes you back to the direction of the elevator, the stone block can't be activated again and you get stuck.(Not on the vid: I tried going back to the elevator after escaping the fight, but this wasn't helpful. Angrboda won't take you back down just yet, and there's no limit here that would unload the fight itself.)4:21 - One more test with the auto-walk glitch. You can parry chain all the way on top of the large hill where there's a cutscene where Atreus learns about Gryla. This might also be a minor time save, although I couldn't find a way to skip the cutscene itself. The cutscene trigger catches Atreus and everything resumes like normal from there.4:53 - In the first Jalla riding section, I found a spot where you can angle yourself between a wall and a dead tree and start sinking into collision. It's unknown if you could go all the way out of bounds from here. The angle is really inconsistent to get, though, so even if it was possible, it probably wouldn't be a viable speedrun tactic.
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - Mines water slide exploration AKheon 2024-01-21 | There's a watery mine cart ride inside the Svartalfheim Mines. I was told that getting on it might result in some new skip potential, so gave it a shot. Didn't find a skip, but here's the resulting exploration, at least.To note: this footage is from the unpatched PS4-version. Things might vary in unforeseen ways on other versions of the game.---0:00 - You can go out of bounds fairly early on in the Mines after riding the mine cart using a prompt glitch and some seam walking. (As for more detailed instructions on how to do this trick, I recommend reading the video description to my "skip last fight in Alfheim" video.)youtube.com/watch?v=LTCXLGit08s0:14 - It's fairly easy to land inside the mine cart ride by just running/sprinting towards it. However, Kratos will get blocked off by invisible walls on both sides if you do so, making it difficult to actually leave the ride once you're on it.With a bit more precision (i.e. holding 'aim' as you land), it's also possible to land on the railing. This lets you move on the ride while also being able to drop off from its left side.0:27 - Moving on the railing when the track turns is very tricky, so this example video just drops off at this earliest convenient point to end up at a very slightly later area. Sadly, this doesn't really help skip anything. Going past this point on the railing is unlikely to be helpful anyway since there are no interesting areas to get to early on this side. Being on the opposite side railing would be a different story altogether... but how to get there?0:40 - Just an overview where I run through the entire mine cart ride. Once you get past the point where the ride started, eventually environment unloads and collision runs out.1:51 - Kratos tries to protect Atreus by hurling him into outer space... Hey, it has worked before on this channel, so why not? However, Atreus has some hardcore "creepy Watson" tendencies and he can teleport behind you when you're not looking.2:14 - Atreus' behavior changes when near the puzzle area. His collision becomes nearly impassable (unless when shooting arrows). He also leans forward, as if he was down at the puzzle area inspecting how it works. I tried pushing Kratos through collision by using the tight space here, but didn't get results.2:40 - Possibly related, but if you leave the area upstream, Atreus' elevation has problems catching up to the floor and he may sink half-way inside the cart ride. This happened a few times during my testing.3:07 - Two enemies spawn nearby when you first get on the mine cart ride. They are allergic to bathing, so they die if you just block their path as they jump across, falling into the watery cart ride. Maybe you could do something with enemy presence to expand the glitch potential of this place...?3:29 - Unfortunately, there's a box of invisible collision here which prevents exploring the other side of the mine cart ride. You'd have to get on the mine cart ride from the other side after doing the prompt glitch, but the floor there doesn't seem very cooperative and I couldn't get it to work.
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - Jalla break-out AKheon 2024-01-17 | A silly tech to break out of prompts where Atreus leaps on Jalla's back from above. Note: this is played on the unpatched PS4-version, things might be different on other versions of the game.The theory goes like this: normally, 'O' prompts are glitch-proofed pretty well, and the game disallows giving simultaneous input when using them to prevent weird overlaps and break-outs. However, you can indirectly get around this limitation by buffering an action and then using the 'O' prompt at the same time as the buffered action begins.Atreus' weapon special is perfect for this purpose as it has a somewhat lengthy recovery animation during which you can buffer other actions AND you can also use this specific 'O' prompt during it.In other words: do the weapon special, buffer a new weapon special during recovery frames, then use the Jalla prompt at a precise time so that it overlaps with the weapon special. The timing for creating the buffer is pretty lenient, and you can even do it at the same time as you press 'O'.The timing of the 'O' press is the most critical part of this glitch tech, as it has to occur exactly as the buffered attack begins, and the window for doing so can't be more than just a frame or two.You can buffer some other actions such as Parry or Rampaging Ibex during the weapon special to do the break-out. Rarely, it seems Evade and 180 Turn also can cause a break-out even though they cancel the recovery frames instead of creating a buffer.0:00 - In this first clip, I break out of the Jalla prompt and then quickly dismount before Angrboda even finishes leaping on Jalla. Doing this leaves Angrboda behind to sit on Jalla while Atreus is free to move around by himself. It's not very useful here since there's nowhere to go, but it might create glitchy effects elsewhere in Ironwood.Afterwards, when mounting Jalla again, Atreus' mounting animation is buggy and he leaps into the bog before finally climbing on Jalla's back.0:24 - After doing this break-out, Atreus ends up at ground level under the bog for a few seconds. You're free to do grounded actions during this time, but eventually, once Angrboda finishes sitting on Jalla, Atreus is also teleported on the mount and your actions become far more limited.Blocking or doing a charge shot before you're teleported can mildly glitch up your pose while riding Jalla, but this doesn't seem mechanically different from just normal Jalla riding. This sort of minor overlapped actions end once you dismount from Jalla the next time.0:53 - Rampaging Ibex is special. Casting it at the right time and starting to run with Jalla will prevent Atreus from being teleported, thus extending the break-out further. You retain a complete break-out as long as Jalla keeps running, and you can do almost any ground actions for some strange looking results. The main limitation here is that Atreus' position is locked to Jalla. Doing bow shots also seems impossible right now, for whatever reason.Reaching the next stop where you can dismount Jalla seems to end even this stronger version of the break-out for good. However...1:50 - Once again, Rampaging Ibex causes an unique effect. I cast it while running towards the next dismount stop while holding 'O'. Afterwards, although my characters didn't dismount Jalla, the mount started acting as if the next part of the quest had started. She became unsteerable and tried to go through the wooden barrier to the next area, but for some reason found it impossible to do so. Therefore, the team got stuck in place forever.(Not on the video: trying this again later, I also managed to create this same effect with a charge shot. You can get a charge shot stuck on Atreus by attempting to do one during a bow dodge. Then when approaching the dismount spot, he automatically fired the shot but remained otherwise broken out.)2:33 - At another spot where I tried this out, Atreus didn't teleport to the bottom of the bog but instead appeared instantly on Jalla's back. Not being able to do ground attacks made this a far less glitchy variation.
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - small climbing wall trick with Atreus AKheon 2024-01-16 | A glitch tech that lets you break loose from a climbing wall and drop down, allowing some out of bounds and shortcuts here and there.To note, this is played on the unpatched PS4-version. There's no telling if this trick exists on the other versions of the game.It's the easiest to do at "leaping points". Push L-stick without looking directly to the direction you're leaping so that Atreus stays in the "ready to jump" pose. Then rhythmically flick L-stick to the direction of the leap point while switching arrow types. For me, I get the best success when I do both in a roughly same rhythm, as seen on the video.The trick can be done elsewhere on a climbing wall too, probably on any region that allows you to switch different arrow types. However, getting Atreus to drop is frustratingly inconsistent and I don't really have any advice on how to get it happen quickly.This tech is possible to do even before you acquire any different arrow types. It's curious how such a harmless and passive seeming input plays a role in all this...
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - skip last fight in Alfheim (wasted potential) AKheon 2024-01-11 | A fight skip which unfortunately results in the game becoming seemingly unwinnable shortly afterwards.Note: this is played on the unpatched PS4-version. Things might vary in unforeseen ways on other versions of the game.---0:00 - Here's an alternative way to do a prompt glitch with Kratos. His sheathing animation (i.e. switching weapons to unarmed) has a strangely high priority and it can give Kratos a freedom to do some attack during an auto-walk / when settling into using some prompt.Most actions done at this time will interrupt prompt usage, but Axe recall overlaps with it, creating a further opportunity to overlap things with a traversal prompt. Starting to aim and charging an Axe Throw, for instance, can allow you to retain more functionality inside a crevice, etc. than normally possible and you can f.e. suddenly evade or do a 180 Turn to break out of the prompt in the middle. This often gives you the power to go out of bounds, as seen on this video.In other words, to do this trick...1, turn traversal assist on. 2, enter a prompt with L-stick at the same time as you sheathe your weapon with D-Pad. 3, recall Axe during/after sheathing. 4, start aiming and charge an Axe Throw (for example) to retain more control of Kratos inside the traversal prompt.The walls of this particular crevice are solid, but simply exiting it while at an angle pushes Kratos through walls and leaves you out of bounds. This lets you avoid going all the way through the crevice, which would activate a cutscene where the bridge collapses and a fight begins.(Not on the video: the fight can still be started after this point if you run back underneath the bridge.)0:22 - Unfortunately, you get stuck at the next Mystic Gateway. Normally when using it, there would be a cutscene where Tyr leaves your party and the Alfheim-section is considered complete. For some reason, this cutscene will not begin after doing this skip, so realm travel will not become unlocked either.In addition to this, the whole area seems to be locked down. There's an invisible wall behind you to the direction you just came from, and the crevice leading onward cannot be used either. You seem to become completely stuck after doing this...1:23 - Now for some bonus glitches & observations.The cutscene where the bridge collapses can be activated at an angle / when going out of bounds. It looks pretty strange, but it's not useful. After retry, Kratos re-appears in-bounds again at the start of the fight and the everything is back to normal.1:45 - The bridge will not collapse if you break out of the crevice in the middle. This lets you go over it and explore some unplayable area. It looks a bit unfinished and wonky, but it's a completely enclosed space, so you can't fall out of bounds there. The walls and collision don't match very well, and there are also two grapple points leading to higher floors. Eventually, at the highest floor you enter an oddly shaped cave which leads nowhere and has some mysterious ambient lighting changes. Could this be the local elvish disco?
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - skip bridge ambush in Ironwood (+ glitches) AKheon 2024-01-08 | Here's a speedrun tactic plus some related glitches that occurred while testing this stuff out.To note: this is played on the unpatched PS4-version. Things might vary in unforeseen ways on other versions of the game. I've heard that the auto-walk loophole at the very least has been patched, making this skip (or at least this setup for it) not possible on the current version.I freely admit that I don't fully understand this skip yet, and as a result I can't vouch for it being as reliable or optimized as it could possibly be. But from what I tested, I found the setup as seen on this video to be "fairly" consistent. An interested speedrunner should probably look into it some more before incorporating it into runs.0:00 - There's a section in Ironwood where you ride Jalla over a bridge when enemies attack all of a sudden. Normally, Jalla is locked on a single axis while crossing the bridge and she automatically steps on the bridge too, making it impossible to steer her or avoid the ambush. However, sometimes when using the auto-walk loophole (i.e. using chained Parries to start moving during an auto-walk) Jalla will not automatically step on the bridge and her axis will not become completely locked after you mount her either. This lets you steer her off-track, ruining the ambush and also giving you access out of bounds.This can happen even when using auto-walk loophole on Jalla's right side (i.e. the side you normally mount her in this section), but it's quite inconsistent and I couldn't figure out why or how it happens. Is it related to distance, timing or the way Atreus slides back to Jalla after moving away? However, in my testing, whenever I started the auto-walk loophole from Jalla's left side, I got this setup to work much more reliably.Therefore, my recommendation here is to retry from last checkpoint. This gives a short amount of time to run past Jalla before she moves against the wall and makes her left-hand side inaccessible. Do a chain of three Parries to end up on Jalla's right side, then let auto-walk resolve as normal. If everything worked correctly, now it's possible to slightly steer Jalla and not get on the bridge.0:22 - The bridge area itself doesn't really have collision, so if Jalla fails to get on it, she will soon fall through the ground out of bounds. Although it should be noted that if you're not careful steering her, you may end up getting stuck in front of the bridge. The controls are quite finicky in this point...0:30 - From here, you can seam-walk to go past the area's sealed exit. This isn't a very difficult seam-walk in my opinion.0:47 - Going to the higher path with a chest might be necessary to spawn Jalla on this side. Her A.I. is still fixated on the bridge you skipped and she can't be ridden, but going around the corner and returning, the section should work normally from there.If you can get this to work, two fights and a cutscene are skipped. But as a side effect of doing all this, you never learn Rage for Atreus... could this be an issue later on?(Not on the video: it's possible to continue the seam-walk to return all the way back to Angrboda's home. I tested this on a different attempt where I did this section normally, but if I seam-walked back instead of riding Jalla, the game became unwinnable because Jalla never got to Angrboda's home afterwards, even after retrying from a checkpoint.)1:35 - Even if you get the setup right, the trick still has some randomness to it which might make it risky to use in runs. For instance, in one of my tests Jalla spawned underground. But apparently the game has a mechanism which teleports Jalla back on solid ground if she falls down while ridden.(Not on the video: on one attempt Angrboda also failed to spawn on Jalla after doing the skip, making you get stuck in place forever.)2:05 - As mentioned, Jalla's A.I. is fixated on the bridge right after doing this skip. She is trying to navigate back to the bridge waypoint, even though it's impossible to reach right now.Also, if you're riding, Jalla's axis is somewhat locked forward, making it impossible to move around freely.3:00 - After a while, Jalla stops wandering and becomes ridable again, but doing so right now is quite risky. Especially dismounting is bugged out and seems to create different kinds of break-outs. For instance, in this clip Atreus ends up in a combined state of riding Jalla and being on foot. His position is locked inside Jalla but he can also do ground attacks.(You shouldn't think too hard about where his head must be right now, anatomically speaking...)As another example in this very same clip, dismounting makes Atreus and Angrboda descend smoothly underground, as if on an express elevator. This can be stopped by quickly pressing 'O' to dismount a second time, but only before passing below the ground level.4:13 - Another take with a different looking effect. Atreus won't be playing football with that leg any time soon...
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - almost getting to The Forge early AKheon 2024-01-06 | I heard that getting past the gate leading to The Forge early might potentially be a major time save, so I devised a setup for doing so. Unfortunately, some new glitch tech is probably necessary to take this skip all the way there.To note, this is played on the unpatched PS4-version. Things might vary in unforeseen ways on the other versions of the game.Many of the game's prompts are preceded by an "auto-walk" where your character is re-positioned next to the prompt. The exploit here is that it's possible to give touch pad input to your characters to disrupt the auto-walk, which is in all likelihood highly unintended (and according to picobit, already patched in the current version).This auto-walk has certain very unique properties to it. Most critically, Kratos is immune to collision while auto-walking. Therefore, if you escape from an auto-walk, you can controllably go through some walls in the game, although you do need a bit of setup and some good angles to do so.The only two actions that can be tied to touch pad are Parry and 180 Turn, but even with those two actions you can do quite a lot.Using the Dauntless Shield, Kratos will do a strike towards the direction he is currently facing with some curvature to either left or right. You can adjust it by waiting for him to turn around during auto-walk as well as 180 Turn. Although fairly awkward, this makes steering possible while this glitch is active, which is not possible with Atreus' version of this same trick (at least so far).Using the Stone Wall Shield, Kratos will do a slower strike towards a fixed direction, which is always his initial direction at the start of the auto-walk. As such, you can set it beforehand for some additional control for moving around the level.In brief: use the Parry actions and 180 Turn for movement and the auto-walk for clipping through boundaries when it's needed.0:00 - As for the trick itself, I start by setting up an angle for Kratos' Stone Wall Shield parry.0:12 - I examine the prompt and start 180 Turn and Parry to move away from it. The only input you can give Kratos during this time are these two attacks, which makes movement very awkward, but it's possible to get the hang of it. If you try to evade (among other inputs?), you can skip the cooldown of a parry, which speeds up the time when Kratos can do another one.0:26 - Get Kratos behind a bit of collision. The next time he auto-walks, he will phase through it. Wait a bit until you're fully out of bounds - I use one of the small rocks here as a positioning aid - then continue doing some Parries.Two Dauntless Shield parries which angle to the left are enough to go around a collision boundary and behind the gate itself.0:36 - I switch to Stone Wall Shield and do a single Parry. Now Kratos is basically behind/inside the gate, but there are still a few things you have to worry about. First of all, there isn't much floor to the direction of The Forge, so doing Parries too hastily will result in you falling down. Wait for the auto-walk to adjust Kratos' position until doing new Parries.Second of all, the pile of boxes in the corner has collision and will trap you if you miss the timing of your Parries. You have to do the final series of Parries to essentially seam walk past the boxes from the right side without falling down.0:56 - And now you're through! Unfortunately, you can't stop the auto-walk and regain control over Kratos so easily. You might have to retry from last checkpoint to do so, but there are no checkpoints on this small path.(To note, at least with Atreus, getting hit by enemies will not end auto-walk, and I'd assume the same is true for Kratos.)To make matters worse, the area up ahead seems to be a "no attack" zone, which means you can't progress any further with a character who can only move with attacks. I tried going a bit deeper through the adjacent mountain, but only fell out of bounds for my efforts.In other words, this skip might be possible, but it might not be possible with this specific glitch tech...1:21 - Apparently, Mimir can read the runes while falling. This finally breaks you out of auto-walk, but at this point it's a bit too late since you're half a mile under the ground!
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - skip first fight as Atreus AKheon 2024-01-04 | Another small time save. Note: this is played on the unpatched PS4-version. Things might vary in unforeseen ways on other versions and ports.You can use the touch pad to buffer an infinite string of parries to move during any "auto-walk" with Atreus. This includes all the prompts that begin with an auto-walk, such as certain crawlspaces, chests, narrow doorways, etc.It's less powerful than it seems because there's no way to steer Atreus, nor is there an obvious way to regain control during this time.Regarding the skip itself, the prompt at the end of this crawlspace not only starts the auto-walk leading to a short cutscene but also separately activates a timer which starts the next fight. So, if you stall for long enough, the fight begins while Atreus is still in the crawlspace. Getting hit now breaks you out of the cutscene, allowing you to backtrack. This deactivates the fight, and upon returning you can just run past all the enemies.The enemies will become active again if you retry from last checkpoint or if you attack them first.(Not on the video: it's possible start the skipped fight while riding the elevator to the next area by striking the enemies below with your bow. After the next cutscene, you cannot open the frozen door because the game thinks you're currently inside a fight; however, this can be fixed by retrying from last checkpoint.)
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - skip talking to Freya AKheon 2024-01-01 | Something useful for speedruns. To note, this is played on the unpatched PS4-version. Things might vary in unforeseen ways on other versions and ports.EDIT: I've heard that on the patched version the prompt to the next sidle does not exist after doing this skip, which is a huge drawback for sure.0:00 - You can glitch up some traversal prompts by blocking as you move into them with L-stick when you're playing as Atreus. After getting on the prompt (like on this first step of the climbing wall), you can evade, use Runic or 180 Turn to break out. The path which leads back down to Sindri is pretty close behind the wall, so you can reach there from out of bounds with an aim dodge. Pretty simple...0:19 - As a small bonus, you can also break out of the next sidle to sprint past it to save maybe 10 extra seconds.On unpatched, this whole trick should save almost 5 minutes because the dialogue scene is so lengthy. If it should work on the patched version as well, the time save would be smaller, maybe around 1 minute.Afterwards, I played all the way up to the point where you switch back to Kratos and things seemed to work normally, so this is probably a viable skip. Also, this trick might help save time in other Atreus-sections as well.0:37 - While I was at it, I also tested what happens if you go meet Freya from the wrong direction. You basically get to see her hanging out at the campfire from up close. The cutscene trigger itself seems to be a part of the climbing wall and can't be accessed from here.1:14 - As another bonus, you can use the same prompt glitch (with a charged shot instead of blocking) to freeze Atreus' upper body in the shooting pose. I then go talk to Freya. The rest of the video is just watching the Freya cutscene while Atreus is bugging out.To note, Atreus gets stuck like that forever, until you retry.
God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - early Lake of Nine AKheon 2023-12-31 | Going exploring Midgard with Kratos much sooner than intended. This trick could even potentially skip half of the game, although right now it still runs into a few road blocks.Note: this was played on the unpatched PS4-version. Things might vary on the patched version or other ports.---0:00 - There's a subtle prompt glitch that allows going out of bounds at crevices. It's a bit hard to explain... I'll have to make a separate video of how it's done and what kind of effects it has a bit later on. In brief, you need to...1, have "traversal assistant" turned on.2, activate a traversal prompt with L-stick and 'block' simultaneously, followed very quickly by 'recall', all the while holding 'block'.If done right, Kratos will enter the crevice with weapons in hand and at a slight angle. When exiting the crawlspace, he will go through an adjacent wall instead of exiting properly, ending up out of bounds.0:18 - With a bit of seam walking, you can go past a fence and from there run all the way to Lake of Nine.0:56 - Upon reaching Lake of Nine, the game considers every single quest in the main quest line up to this point completed, meaning you skipped half of the game. There's just one problem... You are without gear, without cash, no Blades, no Atreus, no shock arrows, no nothing. Is it even possible to complete the game from this point?2:14 - Talking to Sindri crashed the game. However, reloading made everything work (comparatively) normal again.(Edit: I've heard that this crash happens automatically as soon as the various quest messages have stopped showing, so it doesn't have anything to do with talking to Sindri.)2:36 - Sindri's shop catalogue lists companion gear, Blades pommels and even the Sword, even though Kratos doesn't have any of them.3:14 - For what it's worth, I experimented with this for a while. This is not on the video, but I first went to Sindri's House, where I found Freya. I recall she then spawned to Midgard with Kratos (in a clunky looking way) when I returned there afterwards.I had to get more power for Kratos since lv. 1 Kratos will get insta-killed by some of the later enemies here. To that end, I got some pieces of the "Guiding Light" set that can be found around the lake and did other side-quests too to get to lv. 3.I then went to King's Grave and attempted to continue the story line. The fight against the undead there is pretty hairy for a low level solo Kratos with no Blades.After the battle, you can see some dialogue by Freya appear, although she herself is nowhere nearby. Finally, the path leads to a conspicuous stone wall which is not possible to get rid of without Freya... so, it's a dead end.4:25 - Freya can be found loitering around Midgard, although she is not quite a full companion. She lazily tries following Kratos on foot but gets lost easily, and she is not interested in getting on the dog sled. You can't see her in any of the menus and can't give any commands to her either.5:12 - In a desperate bid, I lured her to King's Grave on foot. She will follow you down to the combat arena, but stands immobile and will not help against the onslaught of enemies.5:59 - At the end of the fight, she seems to start reacting to story beats. She slides at the first magical barrier and then gets into position to dispel the stone wall. Unfortunately, the prompt "R2" doesn't work at all... can't give commands to her. So, it's still a dead end.7:14 - The second (and last?) opportunity to do early Lake of Nine is after finding Atreus. So, I tried doing this whole thing a second time, just in case picking up Atreus would activate some companion logic, allowing you to give commands to Freya... Again, pretty far-fetched, but I had to try it out.7:58 - This time, I couldn't find Freya roaming around in Midgard, so I went to check on her at Sindri's House. Everything was not all right with her... She had bugged out and was floating in mid-air at the doorway of the house.8:43 - Although retrying made things look a bit more normal, Freya still refused to follow Kratos to Midgard even though I moved between the areas repeatedly. It might've been just some bizarre bad luck, or maybe the game has a maximum companion limit of 1 that was already filled by Atreus? At any rate, this attempt also ended in failure.Right now, I think the best chance of making this thing work and skipping half of the game would be at the very least also skipping King's Grave. But testing is still underway...Have a glitchy new year!
Spirit Luckys Big Adventure (PS4) - glitches and observations pt. 3 AKheon 2023-12-29 | Even more findings from our recent glitching sessions. Kazooie is the player in some of these clips.0:00 - Camera break-out.It's possible to do a camera break-out with the use of slippery floor like steep cliffs. There's a precise time window during which you can buffer the camera when landing on such floor. Then, when landing on ground level, quickly jump to complete the break-out instead of the camera being taken out like normal.During camera break-out, normal gameplay resumes while Lucky is invisible and the camera's frame and visual effects stay on the screen. It looks curious, but mechanically it doesn't seem too out of the ordinary.0:49 - Talking to some NPC returns Lucky visible but keeps the camera framing effects. Those, too, will finally disappear when you next time take out the camera.1:40 - Small mechanics oddity.When riding on Lucky, press 'dismount' and 'jump' simultaneously right as you stop running to activate a minor mechanics glitch where Lucky dismounts as Spirit jumps. The jump looks slightly glitchy, with Spirit stopping in mid-air for a moment. I'm not sure what might be the practical use of being able to do a horse jump without being on Spirit, but maybe it might help with positioning Spirit closer to walls, if needed?1:52 - Tragedy of the moose.Pretty early on in the game, there's a quest where you have to escort some horses past a broken bridge. Just out of curiosity, we lured a random moose on the broken bridge. It seems that a freely roaming animal like this can go past invisible walls, allowing it to go on top of the part of the bridge that's supposed to be broken.Unfortunately, the beast's unique ability proved to be fatal: it then fell through an apparent crack in the game world (that's normally blocked by an invisible wall) after being scared away by Lucky. An unfitting end to this noble animal...2:20 - Out of bounds at the broken bridge.You can jump on top of a rock to the left from the broken bridge to end up at the bottom of the river. Moving around is challenging since the river bottom is uneven and slippery. Spirit refuses to move around much, and there are some spots on foot where it's easy to get stuck.3:05 - Going towards the beaver dam, you can see the cutscene where Lucky ponders crossing it even from out of bounds. However, you can't actually reach it from where you are. We had to quit & reload to get back on track (this teleports you back to the Stables, safe and sound).(Not on the vid: there was a glitchy occurrence where Lucky was able to jump and seemingly move forward a bit while inside a dialogue, but we didn't figure out the input for doing this, and the footage of this was pretty chaotic looking too, so I didn't use it here. This was at the prompt where you cut some branches with the saw after passing the broken bridge.)
Spirit Luckys Big Adventure (PS4) - glitches and observations pt. 2 AKheon 2023-12-27 | Some more footage from the glitching sessions with Kazooie, he is also the player in some of these clips.0:00 - The game has some quick travel-related glitches. This first example is pretty harmless: hugging Spirit as you quick travel. This makes Lucky hug nothing after loading time ends. To do this, press circle in front of Spirit and simultaneously open the Pause-menu to quick travel. All of the subsequent quick travel glitches use this same input scheme as well - just give the correct input as you open the menu. 0:21 - Quick travel when starting to use camera. The camera will automatically take two shots during loading time. After gameplay continues, you can see the latest picture. It can sometimes look as if it was taken out of bounds, or contains unloaded scenery.1:00 - Quick travel when activating a cutscene. So far, this is easiest done at cutscenes which begin from a button press. We didn't test it very much; different cutscenes would probably yield different looking results.At Hendricks' barn, quick travel causes a brief loading time followed by the cutscene starting. It seems the assets haven't loaded properly, causing the barn doors (and possibly the barn itself?) to be duplicated.1:37 - We found three different prompts that cause a rather unique glitched state. These prompts are: quick travelling as Spirit drinks from a trough, when talking to someone or when picking up an item.After quick travel, Lucky is in a strange, floaty state where her body leans oddly if you push L-stick to steer. All of the face buttons also look as if they're disabled, so the only thing you can do is run around.However, once you've acquired the camera, pressing triangle reveals something new about this glitched state: the dialogue/scene that you escaped from was actually buffered in the background this whole time, and taking out the camera activates it wherever you want... in addition to any 'O' prompts also getting activated, even though you only pressed triangle and not circle...? It's pretty bizarre, and so far we only tested it with a few different dialogues, so our understanding of it is far from perfect.We didn't test this with the item pick-up, so it's hard to say if it might also become buffered in the background. Also, although the drinking variation looks the same, it doesn't really buffer anything to activate when you press triangle; it just takes out the camera and ends the glitched state.At any rate, this trick allows you to enter a loading zone during a dialogue, thus escaping it. It seems interrupting a dialogue makes the game think it never happened, so it starts anew the next time you talk to the character.2:57 - A limited form of air-walk also happens automatically during this state if you run off cliffs or steep surfaces. You can't steer lucky during this time and she will gradually lose height too. Pressing triangle in air takes out camera, ends the air-walk and activates the buffered dialogue at a wrong location. Everything returns to normal afterwards.4:08 - A pretty random bonus clip. Crouching in front of Jim's House's window, Lucky's leg sometimes rises to rest on top of the windowsill, which looks silly.
Spirit Luckys Big Adventure (PS4) - glitches and observations pt. 1 AKheon 2023-12-24 | Kazooie came to visit, and once again we dedicated a few glitching sessions to break some poor game. Our first pick was actually God of War: Ragnarök, but it turned out to be so insufferably tedious that we had to switch to something better... and that something was Spirit Lucky's Big Adventure. Christmas is saved!Note: this is played on the unpatched PS4-version. Some things may have been fixed with patches later on. Kazooie was the player in some of these clips.0:00 - Escaping the tutorial.The game's first quest acts as a tutorial where you're surrounded by invisible walls and can't go free roaming yet. However, it seems there's a way to escape the tutorial. We did so by parking Spirit close to the wall so that it forms a tight angle with the fence next to the water pump. This way, we could just barely slide on top of it with a jump, and from there jump over the fence.0:16 - The invisible boundary still exists and is two-sided, preventing us from easily returning back "in-bounds", so to speak.0:40 - If you're far enough away from Spirit, it will conveniently teleport to your location when summoned.0:56 - We went back in bounds by steering Spirit into a tight space between a hill and the invisible wall, then dismounted Spirit. This clipped Lucky through, allowing the quest to continue like normal.I'm not sure if early free roam can be very useful due to the trigger-based nature of the game, but I guess it doesn't hurt to have the option?1:26 - At Jim's House, if you jump with Spirit over the trough, it's possible to get Spirit stuck hanging in air between the invisible wall of the house and the trough. It's not permanently stuck, and it's not too hard to just drive away from this spot. Quick travel fixes this as well. It just looks pretty silly...2:12 - Bumping into something while dismounting can cause launches.2:36 - After you start talking to someone, there are a few frames before the dialogue window appears during which you can use other inputs. Taking out camera during this time results in the game automatically snapping a photo or two. Like here, you get an eerie photograph of Lucky that she took while apparently standing behind herself...!(There is a pretty simple explanation for this, though: the game uses a different model for Lucky in dialogue and cutscenes, so this is basically the in-game Lucky taking a picture of her dialogue/cutscene counterpart.)After this, the dialogue box and the camera menu become overlapped. Unfortunately, the focus never returns to the dialogue box, causing the game to become softlocked.3:21 - We also tried what happens if you take out the camera while walking into a cutscene. In most cases, Lucky tries to take a snapshot of the cutscene. This is followed by a softlock.3:42 - It seems the softlock can be averted if you exit the camera menu fast enough. This variation seems to cause a break-out where Lucky's in-game and cutscene character models appear on screen simultaneously, and you can even control the in-game Lucky during this time! It seems all the normal in-game functions like mounting Spirit are also available.It's a pity that these glitch variations are a bit arduous to test. The game auto-saves frequently, so sometimes you only get one shot at some event or cutscene before the auto-save prevents you from returning and trying it again. Another annoying factor is that the loading times are lengthy - quitting and reloading the game takes almost two minutes. All this is to say that our testing so far hasn't been thorough, just a general exploration of techniques and glitch possibilities.4:29 - A particularly strange camera + cutscene softlock occurs at Hendriks' stable. When opening the doors, the two Lucky models freeze side by side, and the cutscene model's hair and cloth physique bug out in a hypnotic looking way.
Deadly Premonition (PS3) - fishing break-out AKheon 2023-12-18 | It's possible to break out of the fishing mini-game by using binoculars break-out. This lets York move freely while the fishing mini-game is playing.0:24 - If you quick travel back to the fishing spot where you did the break-out, you'll find that York has been cloned. Not only that, the clone York is just lazying around fishing while you're out there hard at work solving crimes! I tell you, it just isn't fair...1:15 - Deposing your freeloading clone is not an option because he is immune to attacks.1:44 - When clone York throws the fishing rod, his collision changes enough for the real York to accidentally slip past him to the corner of the pier, where he gets stuck. Just a small detail that the annotations don't mention...1:53 - If you use the fishing prompt again, the fishing mini-game will not begin anew but rather the two Yorks are fused together peacefully, ending the glitch.2:02 - The same thing happens even if you use some faraway fishing prompt. The scenery will be unloaded for a moment when the game's focus returns to the original fishing spot.2:28 - Exiting the fishing mini-game while doing something else is an action with its own peculiar results. I didn't test or capture footage of it very thoroughly yet... so maybe there will be a "fishing break-out pt. 2" video eventually, if I get back to glitching this game again in the future. But for now, here's what happens if you stop fishing while inside a dumpster.As a general rule, the game cannot properly resolve the fishing mini-game if you're broken out and doing something else. A buggy fade-out also makes the whole screen stay black indefinitely.3:08 - Nothing happens until I finally decide to exit my hiding place. This allows the game to teleport the "real" York back in front of the fishing spot, like normally happens when quitting the fishing mini-game. Unfortunately, since the area is unloaded, this causes him to fall to his doom.(Not on the video: the same happens f.e. if you stop fishing while inside a car. The fade-out is buggy and nothing happens until you leave your car, at which point the game teleports you to the fishing spot, which is usually fatal.It's hard to tell if you could use this effect for anything useful. Being able to fish while free to move might be useful in a 100% speedrun, although setting up the break-out might be difficult to do without already losing too much time.The ability to instantly teleport back to your most recent fishing location is also quite unique, although you can only safely use it from another fishing spot.)
Deadly Premonition (PS3) - glitches and observations pt. 10 AKheon 2023-11-25 | 0:00 - you can try clipping through the wall using Polly at the hotel since she moves very close to walls and corners during her schedule. However, this test proves almost definitively that only using NPC and a tight space is not going to result in a wall breach. Perhaps if you could "talk" when squeezed into such a tight space...?0:23 - overlapping two A&G Diner cutscenes. Basically, I try to rush into the kitchen at the same time as I activate the Chapter 9 closing time cutscene. The effect is pretty harmless, though. Afterwards you get booted out of the Diner as usual.1:10 - as talked about in the description of my previous video, the Chapter 9 finale cutscene is particularly interesting as it theoretically holds the key to skipping Chapter 10.You can enter Pause-menu and progress time by smoking during the first few seconds after breaking out of the cutscene. By doing so, it's possible to overlap the short cutscene of being behind A&G Diner at the wrong time with the Chapter 9 finale cutscene. This doesn't cause anything too special to occur, though.1:46 - the Chapter 9 finale cutscene is quite lengthy, so on my break-out attempts I sometimes started wandering around. On one test I went to sleep in the middle of it, activating this rather curious side effect. When York wakes up, he is at some strange coordinates, immune to both walls and gravity. You can roam around underneath the map as long as the cutscene lasts.(Not on the vid: I was particularly confused by this result when recording this footage because after the screen goes dark, I somehow managed to teleport inside the A&G Diner. This happened because I was holding L-stick forward during that time, and the game in fact teleports you back in front of the A&G Diner briefly before the Chapter 9 results screen appears. So, if you're running forward, it's possible to touch the A&G Diner loading zone and interrupt the Chapter 9 finale cutscene at the very last moment. This makes the game unwinnable, though, since this cutscene can only be activated once. But hey, another mystery solved.)3:48 - a test where I tried taking the Psychic Spot prompt into Chapter 10. This glitches up the remaining Chapter 9 finale cutscene in a pretty odd looking way, and the Chapter 10 intro cutscene has a pretty cool Dutch angle to it too. Now I kind of wish I'd played all the way to Becky's House to see if the cutscene there also had a Dutch angle...Anyway, much like with the dungeon break-out, this kind of a prompt becomes temporarily unusable because of all the dialogue boxes, so although you can take it to Chapter 10, you can't actually use it.
Deadly Premonition (PS3) - glitches & observations pt. 9 AKheon 2023-11-13 | I still have a pile of glitch video from when I played this game some months earlier, I should try to get it all uploaded before I forget what's going on in which clip...0:00 - I tried having York starve during activities during which time runs.First up is fishing. Usually, it isn't possible to starve to death while fishing. The game not only fills some of your hunger meter as you start fishing, but the mini-game is also automatically closed if you wait long enough (around 15 minutes) for your hunger to go into the red again.0:13 - However, it's still possible to starve to death during the small fade-in that precedes fishing, so if you activate the prompt right before death, York dies before the fishing mini-game can begin. This doesn't seem to accomplish much else than a silly looking game over, though.0:40 - The binoculars activity is protected in the same way, making it impossible to starve to death during it. The game forcibly closes the activity and the binoculars-menu as well when your hunger goes into the red.1:05 - You can starve to death while hiding, though. There was more about this in a very early video, where there was a clip of York starving while hiding from the Raincoat Killer.1:22 - the text box of the locked gate before A&G Diner seems to have an unique property when broken out of. It actually appears to duplicate cutscenes in a way that I haven't seen happen with any the other basic break-out methods.In this example, I break out of the gate prompt with Sigourney, then take the gate message into the Kaysen & Willie sidequest. The cutscene begins twice in quick succession, and skipping one instance of it still keeps the other instance running in the background without Kaysen & Willie disappearing like they usually do at the end of the cutscene. This allows you to start the side quest and immediately go to Kaysen's truck to complete it before he even has a chance to leave. Not sure if something like this could save time in a 100% run?On a more theoretical note, there's a chance that taking this message box to the final cutscene of Chapter 9 might allow a skip of Chapter 10. This is assuming that the message box indeed duplicates cutscenes, and that the mission-ending property of the Chapter 9 finale cutscene, when duplicated, would skip two Chapters instead of just one.Unfortunately, even with all the break-out tactics, I don't have a clear plan on how it would be possible to break out of the locked gate and then activating the Chapter 9 finale cutscene that is behind it.One problem is the fact that the normal level progression of Chapter 9 gives you the key to unlock the gate, which makes you unable to use the locked gate message box for duplication. However, the key can vanish from your inventory after picking it up with save & quit (in certain conditions?) so there's a way around that.Second and yet unsolved problem is getting through the locked gate & fence while retaining an ability to do a break-out. You can't take the locked gate break-out very far since you can't press X (it closes) or open the Pause-menu while it's on the screen. It's not an easy break-out to test and utilize in this regard. Therefore, starting the locked gate break-out before clipping through the fence is almost certainly not going to work because of these limitations.You might be able to break out of the locked gate prompt from the inside, giving some flexibility in the order in which to do things. Binoculars break-out would making clipping through the fence fairly easy, but sadly you can't set up another Sigourney break-out during binoculars break-out because talking to NCPs is disabled at that time. And so, the question remains... how to get past the fence while having the ability to break out again? Looking even deeper into the various break-outs of this game might reveal an answer.3:48 - Activating the first A&G Diner cutscene while a bench is in the way. Gotta love how all these cutscenes take place in the game's own engine, allowing all kinds of strange interactions to happen.
Deadly Premonition (PS3) - the basics of car break-out AKheon 2023-10-13 | This is an elusive glitch where York enters a combined state between driving and walking.I first encountered this glitch when duplicating cutscenes at the Chapter 12 tailing sequence. Since then, two other methods of starting it have been discovered: one is to begin binoculars break-out and then quit the binoculars-menu while driving. Thirdly, you start car break-out if you hit one of the teleporting triggers near York's House while driving.0:00 - This clip shows the second method, using binoculars break-out.When the glitch is active, York can do regular actions like walking and attacking, although he is at the driver's seat. You can neither drive the car or get York to move from his spot, so you're completely stuck.0:47 - Any cutscenes seemingly crash the game in this state. This clip shows the game crashing when midnight begins. It's not on the video, but I tried it at the Chapter 10 deadline cutscene as well with the same result.1:15 - Quick travel doesn't work properly in this state. Although using radio or flare is possible since the game thinks you're currently on foot, York just gets teleported to some specific spot on the map no matter what you pick from the radio list.1:45 - This clip shows the third method of starting this glitch, at York's House. Also, a part of the flamethrower's graphical effect continues to linger for way too long after firing. Could this random bug be related to the car break-out?2:32 - Enemies can hit York inside the car, if they can just reach him. A game over while in car break-out looks a bit strange but otherwise seems to work normally.
Deadly Premonition (PS3) - glitch testing in Chapter 18 AKheon 2023-09-17 | 0:00 - If peek break-out is buffered, there's a fairly common side effect when entering a dungeon where the map fails to load properly. In Chapter 18 when entering Harry's Mansion, this results in the intro cutscene playing with everything unloaded, followed by York falling to his doom.0:41 - It's a "blink or you'll miss it" type of a deal, and only works once after entering the Mansion, but Harry is present floating in unloaded nothingness. down in the basement floor.(To elaborate, every time you fall down and get a game over, the previous checkpoint takes you back to this dungeon's intro cutscene with the level still unloaded. Harry himself does not appear on any subsequent falls.)If you're fast, you can talk or observe Harry while falling down past him. Observe freezes gravity and displays the usual 'Observe' line about Harry. It's not shown on video, but talking to him just displays "..." with seemingly no other effects.I also wondered if you could fall and land on top of Harry to stand on him, but I couldn't hit him when I gave it a try.1:18 - A less common side effect of peek break-out is that York is suddenly taken away from Harry's Mansion to peek at the originally set up location instead of the dungeon beginning properly. Earlier I thought that this will inevitable always result in the game crashing when you exit the peek, but apparently by toggling through all the window views before exiting peek returns York back to the overworld safe and sound.After this, if you return back to the Harry's Mansion, the intro cutscene to the dungeon no longer exists. As a result, the foyer door will not be locked behind York as he enters, and so, you can enter this normally inaccessible room during this dungeon.If you do so immediately after the dungeon begins, nothing is loaded behind the door and York falls out of bounds. Opening the map shows that York indeed falls right through the very final room of the dungeon. I tried hitting the basement cutscene trigger that ends the level by running towards it while falling, but didn't get any results. Perhaps the room would have to be loaded for you to be able to skip this entire dungeon... So close, yet so far!2:06 - If you go deeper into the dungeon and then return to the foyer, it's now loaded and can be accessed normally. But nothing much happens there, and the front door is unusable too.
Deadly Premonition (PS3) - car door break-out + massive air walk AKheon 2023-09-08 | This video explores what happens when you break out of the car entering animation and then run miles out of bounds.0:00 - Binoculars break-out is so powerful that you can basically interrupt any regular action with it, returning York back to a neutral state, no questions asked. If you do this during the short animation when York enters a car, he becomes immune to walls and gravity, much like with peek break-out.In fact, I think this is the default response for almost every dedicated prompt animation, like climbing, hiding, etc. but the problem is, this can't be tested so easily since most of these prompts are unavailable during a binoculars break-out. The prompt for entering a car is a pretty unique case, as it can be used, but only in specific circumstances which are not fully understood yet. Sometimes it seems cars become usable after a quick travel, but that alone doesn't seem to be the full explanation.As another minor side effect, the car you use to start this glitch with loses its prompt to enter. However, I think it regains it if you pass through a loading zone and go indoors.0:28 - It seems opening a regular door is possible without York losing his state of indefinite wallclip. This doesn't serve a purpose beyond adjusting his height, though.0:47 - Conversely, a "Climb Down"-prompt will end the glitch.1:02 - Same thing happens if you interrupt the car exiting animation, except this time the car does retain its prompt to enter.1:28 - While I was in the neighborhood, I went to observe Velvet Falls from up close while air walking. The various misty effects of the waterfall are thin layers of 2d-graphics that you can just run through.2:20 - The graphics start acting in a pretty trippy way once you run through the cliff. The far end of the map has a massive stretched texture that creates a surreal looking horizon, plus the lighting affects York in a rather drastic way, turning him into a mere silhouette.3:28 - Once you're past the back wall of the map, you're finally free! Just a wide open horizon of OoB.3:56 - After running some miles outside the map, all diegetic sounds (i.e. footsteps, weapon sounds) stop playing.4:12 - I smoked to see what would happen at midnight. It seems that either smoking or the midnight cutscene ended this glitch and made York fall down, resulting in his doom. Curiosity killed the detective...
Deadly Premonition (PS3) - glitch testing in Chapter 8 AKheon 2023-09-01 | Some early tests I did in Chapter 8, shortly after discovering Sigourney break-outs.0:00 - Overlapping Sigourney's cutscene with the Gallery entrance cutscene. It looks somewhat buggy, as you'd expect.As a nice detail, if you do this overlap by talking to George instead of entering the mission circle, once the combined cutscene is over, York spawns right on top of the mission circle, activating it in the process and overlapping the Gallery entrance cutscene with itself. The half-unloaded Gallery front looks pretty cool.1:23 - After breaking out of the Gallery entrance cutscene, you can use it to start peek break-out. Simply run up to the Gallery window, then press Pause to skip the rest of the cutscene while peeking. This will interrupt the peek animation, starting peek break-out right before you get transported inside the Gallery at the end of the cutscene.Unfortunately, going to Diane's office early in Chapter 8 isn't too helpful since there's no trigger behind the shelf (like there is in Chapter 12). But you can see Diane and Carol chatting up close, and this is also an opportunity to watch the Chapter 8 finale cutscene while York is invisible.3:22 - The same setup also gives you an alternative way to enter the Gallery at night. Once the combined cutscene ends, go to the bed and sleep past 0:00. Once the cutscene is over, York is taken to the gallery as usual although it's night.4:44 - The bad part is that being in the Gallery hall past midnight seems to make the whole Chapter unwinnable. When you approach the painting, Olivia appears to make an entrance, but she immediately disappears afterwards since NPCs usually can't exist in the game world at night. This makes it impossible to get her key, locking you into the Gallery hall... forever.(To note, it might be possible to escape by smoking until it's closing time. Afterwards, the Chapter might still be conventionally unwinnable if Olivia doesn't re-appear at the Gallery. But I didn't test this, so I can't say for sure.)5:38 - Gallery interior cutscene with the area wrongly loaded and gravity toggled on (as a side effect of peek break-out).
Deadly Premonition (PS3) - Chapter 13 finale cutscene (in void) AKheon 2023-08-26 | As a side effect of peek break-out, areas may fail to load properly. This doesn't stop cutscenes from playing, so you can watch some of them in peculiar looking circumstances.This is the Chapter 13 finale cutscene, where York and Emily start bonding together after work at the Hotel. Yeah... not much more to say about it, I thought it was worth uploading just by itself.
Deadly Premonition (PS3) - dungeon break out pt. 2 AKheon 2023-08-20 | Some more results of using this curious break-out tactic around the game.0:00 - trying to break-out of radio use. You can't use the query while the radio menu is on the screen, so you have to start the break-out shortly before it appears. The ensuing white-out will block the screen, but the radio menu will still be usable underneath it. After quick travel, York's radio animation resets, but this doesn't do much beyond looking slightly odd.(Not on the vid: entering dungeon while quick travelling works surprisingly normally. The quick travel has a two-part loading screen - the first part is uncancellable, but once the second part begins, another loading screen kicks in and takes York to the dungeon as usual.)0:34 - breaking out at the top of a ladder climb. Since dungeon break-out resets this kind of animations instead of cancelling them, York will keep on climbing past the top point of the ladder higher than intended, but he will instantly return back to floor level once the animation is over.(Not on the vid: dungeon break-out of the animation at the bottom of the ladder didn't seem to cause any strange results.)0:52 - breaking out of box pushing. The box pushing animation resets, and to me it seems you can use this to push a box slightly further than would normally be possible before it breaks. You can also use this to mis-align boxes for some new OoB setups, although that stuff seems pretty quaint now that we have binoculars break-out...1:20 - just out of curiosity, I tried breaking out of the midnight cutscene. This creates a somewhat unique effect as York will do his usual dungeon query head shake inside the midnight cutscene instead of breaking out. Perhaps the midnight cutscene is code-wise very similar to the dungeon query cutscene?1:52 - dungeon break-out + grab. Looking back, it seems the subtitles are wrong here - this clip is breaking out as York escapes the grab, not when York is getting grabbed. Sorry about that.Anyway, the animation where York recovers from the grab attempt never resolves properly, leaving the high-contrast screen effect active. You also lose control of York and also can't open the menu. Enemies will keep approaching York, trying to grab him, but those grabs can't make contact either.2:33 - on another attempt, I did this near 5:59 to see what would happen when dawn breaks. It seems that this fixes everything and gives you back control over York again.2:57 - dungeon break-out in the middle of a grab. This result is the same as with the Sigourney break-out: York's animation changes back to neutral, but he is still getting grabbed. You lose control of him and the grab is now inescapable, meaning that game over is inevitable.(Not on the vid: dungeon break-out at the very start of the grab seemed to have the same effect, with the grab becoming inescapable.)3:43 - I tried entering a dungeon at the moment of a game over. However, nothing happens after the white-out and you instead get a normal game over. It seems new loading screens can't activate if York has received fatal damage and/or game over sequence is playing?4:08 - I tried taking the dungeon break-out query into the game over-screen just to see if you could cause glitches there. However, this query (and all other similar queries) disappears when York takes fatal damage from an enemy.4:24 - falling out of bounds gets you a bit further, since this way the query stays on the screen even past the point of getting a game over. However, you lose control of it at the moment of York's death, so this serves no purpose. The query finally disappears whether you choose to continue or quit.
Deadly Premonition (PS3) - Chapter 9 A&G Diner cutscene (in void) AKheon 2023-08-17 | What better place to enjoy a sinner's sandwich than a literal purgatory?0:00 - As you may recall, one of the lingering side effects of peek break-out is that areas don't load properly. When entering some indoors location, it seems that the game tries loading some part of the level where York is currently not present; in smaller levels like A&G Diner this creates the impression that nothing at all is loaded. This doesn't stop cutscenes from working properly, and York is generally immune to gravity at this time, so you can watch entire cutscenes while the game world looks empty.4:49 - Once gameplay resumes, gravity finally kicks in again, causing York to fall down into the void.5:01 - On another try, I attempted saving York from certain doom by smoking until 21:00, which is when A&G Diner closes. Well, it was a good try...5:44 - When I chose to "continue", the game mysteriously teleported York back to A&G Diner once he woke up at the hospital. Strangely placed level checkpoint?
Deadly Premonition (PS3) - Sigourney break outs pt. 2 AKheon 2023-08-12 | Some more results of Sigourney break-outs.0:00 - Breaking out of phone use. The phone animation is cut short by the Sigourney cutscene. This also stops the save menu from appearing. To note, so far I haven't been able to break out of the save menu using any break-out method; if that somehow became possible, that might be another avenue to blow the game wide open.There's one known side effect, which is that the phone becomes stuck in York's hands. The effect is only fixed by trying to use a phone a second time or probably going through a loading zone. However, you can't cause too much mayhem with it because the phone is not visible unless you stay within a few meter range of the phone. I wonder if the cord has a preset maximum length? If yes, it's curious that they decided to physically model this part of the phone instead of just making it stretch out infinitely.1:15 - As expected, you can break out of Lysander's shop to take the menu with you anywhere. Since you can have access to a few different type of cutscenes from this menu, you could certainly use it as a method of break-out in its own right - probably most comparable to gas station break-out. But so far I have ruled this out of my testing because it's not a priority.Unfortunately, my attempt to redo Sigourney side-quest with the shop menu open was ruined by the fact that choosing to "show list" at the start of the side quest overlaps the Lysander shop menu and Pause-menu, which crashes the game.2:25 - Vending machine break-out is pretty much the same idea. You get to take the vending machine menu with you. It seems that you can't do a very strong break-out with just a regular vending machine. But I can't say for sure if purchasing items at the wrong time might do something interesting (like overlapping a shop item message while you're already picking up a quest item or something?).3:32 - Some Sigourney tests in Chapter 15. This is where I discovered that it's possible to escape from the graveyard sequence using Sigourney; please look at the video "day/night cycle glitch" for that.In this first clip I simply enter the graveyard intro cutscene with Sigourney to cause some funny looking effects. The path leading to the red trees is free of enemies as long as the overlapped cutscene is continuing, but it's not much of a time saving tactic since this is such a short section.5:06 - I tested breaking out of a regular NPC dialogue. Unvoiced dialogue lines like this are untimed and they essentially pause the game indefinitely. However, some dialogue lines force them to close regardless, so that the cutscene can continue. Perhaps this mainly happens with two-part dialogue lines. At the end, you can take a dialogue line with you, and closing it would probably be (again) a new break-out tactic in its own right, but its specific use or scope hasn't been tested for now.6:06 - breaking out of an enemy grab with Sigourney. The grab sequence doesn't fully interrupt. York's animation resets but the grab itself keeps on going. You can no longer wiggle to get out of the grab, which means that York is doomed to a game over afterwards.
Deadly Premonition (PS3) - mission overlaps in Chapter 12 pt. 5 AKheon 2023-08-09 | Some more odd results from this very complex mission. These are the last Chapter 12 results for now, but even so, there's a lot I didn't test. For instance, my testing remained pretty self-contained, and I didn't try using the menu to smoke, quick travel, etc. to combine these results with even more things in the overworld. I'm sure you could cause even more mayhem at this mission, although maybe it's not a priority for now...0:00 - another rare quadruple overlap. I also skipped some of the cutscenes to create a different timing for the combined cutscene.Points of interest: at 0:43 York enters cutscene motions and lights a cigarette while you're free to move around. From 0:51 point onward, the 2nd part of the mission cutscene starts again, except Thomas is already with you in the car. This allows you to see that his character model is in fact speaking his lines, even though you normally only hear him through the radio during this cutscene. The same is probably true for George as well, who also only speaks through the radio.At 1:54 Nick proves he is more aware than he seems, immediately escaping our team after coming outside. At 2:41 you get the tailing failure cutscene while outside the car in front of the PD. At least some of these most bizarre results might be caused by a timed cutscene suddenly interrupting loading time in an unintended way?From 2:55 onward, you just have a regular broken out cutscene, and I fail to combine it with anything interesting, so I cut the video there.3:02 - Another example of cutscene motions affecting York while having broken out of a cutscene. York's head turns to the right whenever he is addressing Thomas, and at the end of the broken out cutscene the head also stays that way. This makes York's regular animations look a bit silly, but sadly it becomes fixed if you do any more dedicated animations (breathing, aiming with a gun, etc.).3:54 - The car itself can get affected by cutscene motions during a broken out cutscene. In this clip, the car stops and its door opens right in the middle of the tailing sequence. Afterwards, it's stuck in place. Perhaps this is the explanation for the "reverse car break-out" that was seen in Part 4 of this series?4:47 - With all the cutscenes overlapping, some important flags like whether gravity affects York can be randomly flipped on or off. If it's flipped off and a part of the cutscene takes place in out of bounds, it's possible for York to fall down and get a game over while inside the cutscene. Sounds pretty dramatic, but choosing to 'Continue' fixes the overlapped cutscenes and returns things to normal.5:33 - Too much messing around has caused something weird to happen to Emily and Thomas... Or maybe this a silent protest against York's increasingly bizarre and dangerous investigation methods?
