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Why Speedrun Laika?

Laika: Aged Through Blood’s “Motorvania” design fuses Metroidvania exploration with high-speed bike traversal, creating endless route possibilities and sequence breaks. The any% World Record stands at 2:01:00 by xxfillex, with top runners eyeing a sub-2-hour run. In addition to any%, consider the glitchless and 100% categories, both offer unique challenges. Patch 1.0.3 introduced minor boss pattern tweaks and balance changes, so our strategies reflect the latest build as detailed in the official patch notes.

Whether you’re gunning for Speedrun.com leaderboard fame, mastering segmented practice with LiveSplit, or chasing runner achievements on r/speedrun, this guide packs every frame-save and sequence break you need. Combine this with our Complete Achievement Guide and you’re unstoppable!

Route Overview & Key Checkpoints

Optimal routing means skipping non-essential areas, leveraging zip-lines, and capitalizing on pre-bound fast-travel. Here’s the streamlined path through five major zones:

1. Outskirts → Canyons
   – Bypass Bloodwood camp sidequest; use the zip-line at the cliff’s edge to skip the guard patrol.
   – Bike-clip boost through the first rock arch for a 10–12s save on descent.
2. Canyons → Ruined Fortress
   – Perform Rubble Clip at the south exit by holding throttle into debris. This sequence break removes the collapsed tunnel segment entirely.
3. Fortress → Oasis
   – Use the upper ramp jump near the central gate to leap over the moat, saving ~8s.
   – Optional: grab the rotary saw weapon at the armory for faster boss setups (adds 3s but eases fights).
4. Oasis → Aviary
   – Angle into the wind-tunnel gust wall at 45° to skip the paddle animation.
   – Shatter the broken turbine blades for a bonus boost that triggers early zone load.
5. Aviary → Citadel (Final Boss)
   – Pre-equip smoke bombs before the Aviary exit to slide through enemy clusters.
   – Hug the left cliff wall on the drop for a higher altitude spawn near the Citadel gate.
   – Time a jump onto the rising platform to skip the scripted elevator rise cutscene.

Pro Tip: Pre-bind your fast-travel destinations under “Map → Segments” so you can warp with one controller button, no menu navigation needed.

Combat & Bike Optimization

Combat speed is bike speed. Combine these techniques to maintain maximum velocity during skirmishes:

1. Circle-Strafe on Bike: Hold throttle and strafe around enemies to avoid damage and preserve momentum. Practice on the Outer Watch patrol loop for muscle memory.
2. Two-Button Combat: Assign attack and dodge to adjacent face buttons. Eliminating thumb movement to the stick cuts ~0.05s per input.
3. Chain Thrusters: Fire sidearm blasts during each boost pulse. This staggers crowds and resets your boost cooldown, effectively chaining boosts.
4. Parry-Cancel Tech: Cancel heavy-attack animations with a perfect dodge (frame window: 6–8 frames after impact). Only available in patch 1.0.3.

Note: Overheat the engine on purpose during long fights to store extra boost energy, time your kill blow to coincide with the cooldown end for a seamless exit.

Essential Glitches & Skips

Advanced tech documented by top runners and the Steam community:

1. Rubble Clip (Canyons): At canyon exit, hold throttle into the low rubble arch; Laika clips through and loads the Fortress early.
2. Wall-Clip Boost (Ruined Fortress): In the east hall, throttle+jump clipped Laika through the locked gate with 3s saved, as seen in xxfillex’s WR.
3. Death-Warp (Citadel): Trigger scripted death mid-cutscene; you respawn at the Citadel checkpoint with skip of the intro monologue. Confirmed in the WR run VOD.
4. Puzzle Skip (Fortress Antichamber): Sequence break by entering the main hall before lighting all four torches, still counts as solved and avoids the final puzzle animation.

Missed-skip Tip: In the Oasis turbine puzzle, boost into the generator housing to bypass the manual crank segment entirely.

Movement Tricks & Micro-Optimizations

Shave milliseconds with precise input buffering:

1. Diagonal Dashing: On bike surfaces, hold Up+Right or Up+Left. This oscillation bypasses the speed cap by alternating friction calculations.
2. Corner-Clip Buffer: Input your turn just before the collision bounding box engages to skip the pivot frame.
3. Continuous Hold-Release: Keep interact held through zone transitions so prompts fire at the first available frame.
4. Frame-Perfect Jump: Press jump exactly on the last frame of acceleration input for a 0.05s extra boost burst out of corners.

Pro Tip: During map transitions, lightly tap opposite direction to maintain momentum. Tested on the Neoseeker movement section, similar physics apply.

Menu & Cutscene Hacks

Menu and cinematic waits can rack up more than 60 seconds per run if left unchecked:

1. Quick-Menu Flush: Pause → Unpause to clear pending fade transitions instantly.
2. Fade-Duration Tweak: In Options → Accessibility, set all fade times to the minimum (0.1s).
3. Autosave Bypass: Toggle off auto-save just before boss rooms, skip the save-icon and memory-write animation.
4. Cutscene Skip Hotkey: Hold the interact button during cutscenes; Laika fast-forwards through dialogue when available.

Missed-skip Tip: In the final credits roll, press pause then interact to jump immediately to the post-credits menu.

Segment Practice & Split Targets

Rather than strict splits, aim for sub-10-minute clears per zone-to-terminal segment. Once each zone is routinely under 10 minutes; routing, glitches, reloads included. You’re on pace for sub-2h any%:

Pro Tips & Final Notes

Pro Tip: Pre-equip smoke bombs in the Aviary’s loadout menu. A well-timed slide through enemy clusters avoids all slowdowns.

Note: The Citadel elevator auto-saves mid-cutscene. If you trigger a death-warp, reload immediately to preserve fuel and boost.

Missed-link Tip: In the final boss chamber, dash left through the tunnel before the platform rises to skip the opening monologue entirely.

Summary

By refining your route, exploiting combat-bike synergies, leveraging sequence breaks, and cutting every UI and animation delay, you’ll turn Laika: Aged Through Blood into a precision speed-run machine. Pair this deep dive with community route breakdowns on YouTube and track your splits on Speedrun.com. Start your timer, prime your engine, and blaze past the 2-hour barrier!