Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
I spent a while inspecting the sequence at the end of Episode 2 where Sam fights the giant BT squid, with a few unusual results.
0:00 - This video shows another new tech, which I guess I'll go ahead and call "Pausewalking" to go along with the "Seamwalking".
Whenever you open the Cargo-menu, a very small amount of "time" passes in the game world, as if you had unpaused for a few frames. This means that if you pause while sprinting and then repeatedly open the Cargo-menu, you are able to move very slowly without leaving Pause-menu. This trick can be used to hit cutscene triggers while the game is paused, although it takes some precise positioning.
The pre-boss fight cutscene in Episode 2 has two parts to it: first is an "auto-walk" during which the city lights go out. The second is a full cinematic cutscene that lasts for almost 4 minutes.
In this first clip I load a game while these cutscenes are playing. This doesn't cause side effects other than that the auto-walk carries over a load. This makes Sam walk uncontrollably for a few seconds, after which everything is fine again.
1:15 - Things get more interesting if you wait out both cutscenes in Pause-menu. Once you unpause, you will have effectively bypassed many of the effects of the cinematic cutscene. The weather is still sunny and Sam's physical position isn't updated to the boss arena.
2:13 - My first instinct was to simply try leaving the fight zone. And even though this is a scripted boss battle... it works. Leaving the range of the boss ends the fight early with no need to fight. All's well that ends well?
2:51 - Alas, not everything is right in the game world right now. There's still a large invisible barrier around the boss fight zone, although curiously it now resembles the barrier you find around voidout zones, as in it pushes Sam away upon contact. The barrier is even present near the gate where you go through to meet Fragile.
Die-Hardman is unable to comprehend what just happened and will not let Sam complete the order successfully. The mission objective still says "eliminate BT" even though the BT is already gone, and the story is stuck for the time being. (Saving is also disabled since there is a threat nearby, supposedly.)
3:41 - So I got to thinking: would Die-Hardman be satisfied if I defeated another BT instead of this one specific boss? So I backtracked to the last BT area and picked a fight there. Only a few hematic grenades later, the boss went down... and the game became softlocked.
This is a slightly odd kind of a softlock where Sam is unable to move and Pause-menu can't be opened, but some other controls like wheel menus still work. Still, I couldn't find a way to escape this state, forcing a restart.
4:45 - The game created a new Checkpoint when waiting out the cinematic cutscene inside Pause-menu from the point where the boss fight begins but Sam is still outside the boss ring.
I take a moment to take in the sights. If you turn around, you'll see that the Port Knot City entrance has become all filled up with goop. It's just a visual effect, albeit cool looking. Getting close to the terminal or private room prompts causes the boss to vanish without a trace, as before.
5:17 - The Port Knot City exterior is looking gloomy and dramatic with the epic lighting, rain and tar everywhere.
6:34 - The boss can escape its confinement and spawn at some unusual points in the map, although only where there's plenty of space for it to roam around.
6:53 - It seemed like a rare and interesting mechanical interaction to be in deep water while fighting a boss enemy, so I gave it a try. Of course, this turned out to be tactically disadvantageous. It seemed the boss turned extremely relentless in this state, attacking Sam constantly without giving him any breather. Perhaps the attack rhythm of the boss is tied to Sam's recovery animations, which are different in water?
8:00 - I tried out what happens if you defeat the boss while it's out of bounds. I was rewarded with the same softlock as from before.
8:34 - In other words, Sam is free to be out of bounds, but the boss has to be inside the boss arena when you deal the finishing blow or else the post-fight cutscenes can't start and you get softlocked.
9:05 - Also had to test what happens when you seam break-out inside this fight. Well, it's another softlock. You get stuck in the fight arena with the boss nowhere in sight.
10:19 - Bonus clip: accessing Cargo-menu during the cinematic cutscene crashes the game. If I had to guess, I think the game is reusing the non-playable Sam model from the Cargo-menu inside this cutscene, causing an irreconcilable conflict.
To note: the Cargo-menu does not cause a crash in every cinematic cutscene. The details may vary from scene to scene.
In the 2nd crash you can see a glimpse of the cinematic cutscene with Sam unavailable... only his clothes remain.
(Not on the vid: the pre-boss cutscene triggers do not exist during seam break-out.)
I spent a while inspecting the sequence at the end of Episode 2 where Sam fights the giant BT squid, with a few unusual results.
0:00 - This video shows another new tech, which I guess I'll go ahead and call "Pausewalking" to go along with the "Seamwalking".
Whenever you open the Cargo-menu, a very small amount of "time" passes in the game world, as if you had unpaused for a few frames. This means that if you pause while sprinting and then repeatedly open the Cargo-menu, you are able to move very slowly without leaving Pause-menu. This trick can be used to hit cutscene triggers while the game is paused, although it takes some precise positioning.
The pre-boss fight cutscene in Episode 2 has two parts to it: first is an "auto-walk" during which the city lights go out. The second is a full cinematic cutscene that lasts for almost 4 minutes.
In this first clip I load a game while these cutscenes are playing. This doesn't cause side effects other than that the auto-walk carries over a load. This makes Sam walk uncontrollably for a few seconds, after which everything is fine again.
1:15 - Things get more interesting if you wait out both cutscenes in Pause-menu. Once you unpause, you will have effectively bypassed many of the effects of the cinematic cutscene. The weather is still sunny and Sam's physical position isn't updated to the boss arena.
2:13 - My first instinct was to simply try leaving the fight zone. And even though this is a scripted boss battle... it works. Leaving the range of the boss ends the fight early with no need to fight. All's well that ends well?
2:51 - Alas, not everything is right in the game world right now. There's still a large invisible barrier around the boss fight zone, although curiously it now resembles the barrier you find around voidout zones, as in it pushes Sam away upon contact. The barrier is even present near the gate where you go through to meet Fragile.
Die-Hardman is unable to comprehend what just happened and will not let Sam complete the order successfully. The mission objective still says "eliminate BT" even though the BT is already gone, and the story is stuck for the time being. (Saving is also disabled since there is a threat nearby, supposedly.)
3:41 - So I got to thinking: would Die-Hardman be satisfied if I defeated another BT instead of this one specific boss? So I backtracked to the last BT area and picked a fight there. Only a few hematic grenades later, the boss went down... and the game became softlocked.
This is a slightly odd kind of a softlock where Sam is unable to move and Pause-menu can't be opened, but some other controls like wheel menus still work. Still, I couldn't find a way to escape this state, forcing a restart.
4:45 - The game created a new Checkpoint when waiting out the cinematic cutscene inside Pause-menu from the point where the boss fight begins but Sam is still outside the boss ring.
I take a moment to take in the sights. If you turn around, you'll see that the Port Knot City entrance has become all filled up with goop. It's just a visual effect, albeit cool looking. Getting close to the terminal or private room prompts causes the boss to vanish without a trace, as before.
5:17 - The Port Knot City exterior is looking gloomy and dramatic with the epic lighting, rain and tar everywhere.
6:34 - The boss can escape its confinement and spawn at some unusual points in the map, although only where there's plenty of space for it to roam around.
6:53 - It seemed like a rare and interesting mechanical interaction to be in deep water while fighting a boss enemy, so I gave it a try. Of course, this turned out to be tactically disadvantageous. It seemed the boss turned extremely relentless in this state, attacking Sam constantly without giving him any breather. Perhaps the attack rhythm of the boss is tied to Sam's recovery animations, which are different in water?
8:00 - I tried out what happens if you defeat the boss while it's out of bounds. I was rewarded with the same softlock as from before.
8:34 - In other words, Sam is free to be out of bounds, but the boss has to be inside the boss arena when you deal the finishing blow or else the post-fight cutscenes can't start and you get softlocked.
9:05 - Also had to test what happens when you seam break-out inside this fight. Well, it's another softlock. You get stuck in the fight arena with the boss nowhere in sight.
10:19 - Bonus clip: accessing Cargo-menu during the cinematic cutscene crashes the game. If I had to guess, I think the game is reusing the non-playable Sam model from the Cargo-menu inside this cutscene, causing an irreconcilable conflict.
To note: the Cargo-menu does not cause a crash in every cinematic cutscene. The details may vary from scene to scene.
In the 2nd crash you can see a glimpse of the cinematic cutscene with Sam unavailable... only his clothes remain.
(Not on the vid: the pre-boss cutscene triggers do not exist during seam break-out.)
