So I've been inspired off the adrenaline high getting the speedrun cheevo with my brother, it took us 2 runs, 1 practice run, and the 2nd which we did right after to complete it with a time of 1:42, which was cutting it close, especially since we had some goofs we didn't have in the practice run.

First, I will be referring to the Digital Operator (the guy with the computer, the guns, and is the pack mule) as hackerman, and the Infiltration Agent (the guy with the gadgets and can get into tight spaces) as stealthguy.

Second, this is written mainly from my perspective as hackerman, but as the older brother, I'm being mildly bossy to make sure we complete our goals.

Third, use the friggin accumulators, my brother believes they're meant for the speedrun, because in our first playthrough we were drowning in them since we just kept waiting nearby the recharge stations. Which is a huge no no in the speed run, 1 person can use it, the other uses accmulators, which was stealthguy because according to my brother, he was in need of power in the field often because of his gadgets draining his power, meanwhile, hackerman rarely ever has significant drains on energy, so they can just top off at the stations.

Fourth, this guide will be rife with spoilers since logically you're not going for the speedrun cheevo on your first run, and for those of you who haven't beat it, I HIGHLY suggest not reading this guide, a ton of the enjoyment is in the discovery.

Fifth, any time stealthguy needs stuff from hackerman, do it while you 2 are on elevators, since you're not wasting time since you're already stuck waiting for it to do its thing.

Sixth, hackerman as pack mule, you need to learn the locations of the 3 or so supply closets in the game to get ammo, there's just enough to get through the game as long as you don't use the assault rifle as a bullet hose, because every enemy that's not dogs dies in 1 hit.

Btw you're just going to be constantly sprinting.

The beginning of the run starts off pretty simple. First things first, the timer doesn't start until you suit up. But right before suiting up, look to the right of the of the pods, there's a panel stealthguy needs to open up to be able to open the big door to progress.

Next room's super simple, stealthguy picks up a thing on the ground next to a crate near the elevator, sticks it in the elevator to fix it then you both enter.

After that hackerman's going to finally have a chance to do something in the this big room, but first stealthguy needs rush off to the right and open the door to the office so hackerman can hack the computer, and while hacking, stealthguy needs to ready up on the keypad, hackerman gives stealthguy the code, then you both go in the back room and do the maintenance minigame. Afterwards go to the computer on the other side of the room and open the 3rd elevator, both of you enter.

The next room has the 3 generators that hackerman needs to zap if you don't want to get shot at by the turrets in the ceilings, OR you can just run through and quickly shoot them. It gets you an achievement, and seems to take about just as long depending on your reflexes with blasting turrets. Once on the other side of the security gate, stealthguy needs to remove the panels on the walls, they're kind of disguised since they blend in so well. Flip the switches and move on.

Now you're in the HUGE room with all the other (very optional) areas you can go to, however this is the first moment in the game that can be cheesed on the speedrun via memorization/writing down the codes. The password to activate the shoot out sequence with the turrets is 11/17/2056, do not forget the slashes! Surprisingly being in the middle isn't a bad spot, just quickly blast the turrets and move on.

You're now in the transport hub, a room you'll come back to often. Remember to grab the 2 medkits hackerman. Go up the elevator and you're done with this section of the game.

Once you get out of the elevator, split up. Hackerman go to the conference room and sit next to the CEO's laptop, stealthguy, go the CEO's office and do the little constellation puzzle. REMEMBER that the code for the CEO's laptop changes each playthrough, and that it is always composed of a constellation and the 3 digits of the degrees as all 1 phrase. Ours for example were "leo200" "leo345" "capricorn125". The trick is to notice when it starts to slow down, at that moment, stealthguy needs to run up to the display and note where it stops briefly, that's the 3 digits for hackerman.

Update: I just recently discovered that it isn't always a 3 digit number, sometimes it can be a 2 digit number such as "capricorn82". The possibility makes sense, I just never encountered it since I've only done 3 playthroughs, so stealthguy just pay attention to what the digits ACTUALLY are.

Hackerman gets into CEO's laptop and tells stealthguy the code for the roof access. Hackerman gets over to that room and uses the computer, make sure to figure out which of the ABCD vents are open, tell stealthguy which ones they are so they can begin their route, then open vents 1-12. To make it easy on stealthguy, hackerman should take a screenshot (if you're on Windows, just use the Snip n Sketch feature with Windows key+Shift+S) and send the map over to stealthguy so they can navigate the vents.

Stealthguy crawls through the vents and gets to the roof, once on the roof, needs to install the engine and inform hackerman when they've done so, so hackerman can reboot the power to the elevator. According to my brother, he said the radiation was easier to deal with by going in reverse order for the antennas, 4>3>2>1. This is also where you get the Maintenance Pros achievement for doing it under 2 mins, although we're unsure when the trigger starts, since we felt like we did it pretty fast and didn't get it. From our recent (and successful) speedrun attempt, I noticed that basically the directions I was giving my brother to configure the antennas seem to be reversed. So if hackerman sees that the antenna needs to be placed in the SE corner, or is saying "down/right/left/etc" stealthguy needs to go the opposite direction, this is def something you and your partner will figure out for yourselves.

Once stealthguy places all the antennas, they tell hackerman, hackerman runs the diagnostic, and stealthguy should head back while the meany AI starts talking at ya. This is a good time to hit up the recharge station if anyone needs it. Once you're able, hackerman uses the code to open the access door the super capacitor, and more importantly, REROUTE POWER TO THE ELEVATOR, if you've read the emails (and you should have on your first playthrough), you'll know that opening the access door to the super capacitor messes with the elevator. If you don't reroute the power now, you're going to have to do it when there's endlessly respawning dogs which is a waste of ammo, health and time, also there's a friggin achievement for it, ofc it's the right way.

Hackerman and stealthguy regroup in the super capacitor closet, stealthguy should carry the super capacitor pretty much at all times in the playthrough since they're faster, and more importantly lack firepower. Hackerman, pull out your shotgun, blast the dog that falls from the ceiling. Open the door and have hackerman take point, go down the left hallway and just never stop moving, blast the 2 dogs with the shotgun, because shotgun ammo is more plentiful and assault rifle ammo is better used in the encounters where you're fighting from a distance. Run to the elevator and return to the transport hub.

As you're coming down the elevator to the transport hub, an area you will become familiar with, you're going to want to go around the room as basically behind you is the entrance to the reactor. Hackerman open the door, stealthguy plug in the super capacitor. To maximize your time, hackerman as soon as you enter, do a callout for stealthguy to remove the super capacitor and they move up near the door, hackerman you open the door for them as usual to progress deeper into the facility towards the centrifuge.

Take the elevator down, stealthguy defuses the 2 mines, and here's a big thing that'll probably save you like 3 mins or so in your run. In the L shaped hallway towards the centrifuge, there's a mine on the ceiling, we discovered if you hug the wall on your right as you go towards the centrifuge (left on your way back), you can safely sprint so that saves a ton of time crouching past it being all worried it's gonna go boom.

Stealthguy takes point to defuse the 3 mines in the room, they get priority on the charging station, hackerman can hit it up on the way back. As stealthguy defuses mines, hackerman get the ID badge which would be in the back right room, and loot the closet on the left side for ammo. Stealthguy keep taking point and defuse the mines in the centrifuge control room then head down to the airlock, hackerman hack into it to gain control of the touchscreens.

For the centrifuge room, the first time is the easiest since the centrifuge isn't spinning, but since you come here 3 times, you 2 need to develop a system of callouts to activate the airlocks. Remember the centrifuge goes clockwise, so 1>2>3>4>5>1>etc is the way to go, but on the first time, the moment stealthguy plugs in the super capacitor, there's enough time to come back to airlock 1. Hackerman once they're back inside and coming up the elevator, hit up the recharge station and start working your way back to the elevator.

At the top of the elevator, you'll see a door that's now open, it's the side passage to get back to the transport hub. The entrance to Antik will be on the left, so head in that direction.

When doing the hacking for the train (and you do it twice since you have to do it again for Terra), remember, you cannot do the button sequence until you've done 4 pairs, so once 4 sets of numbers have been entered, you can slap the buttons and head out to the next area.

In our practice run, this is when my brother and I realized "Holy crap this game is pretty short" since our first run was like 9 hours total, so basically 2 hours per section.

Anyway get off the train, head through the door, take a left, stealthguy use your analyzer to reveal the dogs up ahead. Hackerman whip out your shotgun and blast them. Keep going all the way to the end, you should reach the dead end with the room where the AI talks to you again after revealing to you that it tortured someone to learn how they ticked.

You're going to be heading to the laser grid server room, you pretty much just go straight. So I myself hackerman know via reading the logs that there's a way to reconfigure the pattern the thing moving along rail so it doesn't zap you, but in our first playthough we ended up finding our own way through which got us the Dexterity and Patience cheevo. Not even that much patience tbh, takes like 2 mins tops to get through the room. Hackerman you hack the nearby panel on the door frame as you enter to shut off the 3 cameras, stealthguy you go through the tight space only you can go through and navigate through the room, you'll eventually reach a closet that has a button that stops the rail from moving. Hackerman, you'll notice there's a grid of vertical lasers and that the rail passes through it, but slows down on it, the moment it does that, call it out so stealthguy can turn it off, and bam hackerman can reunite with stealthguy at the elevator and you head to the quantum servers.

Oh boy the quantum servers, I think we spent like 45 mins in our first run to figure it out, was the first time I started looking on the forums for hints. So stealthguy move the crane to the ladder, then grab the camera right behind you lol and attach it to the crane so you have a view. Because the whole quantum "different observations observing the same thing produce different results" the 2 of you are going to have different answers for the most part but it's super simple. So hackerman you can see the first row of quantum cores from the observation platform, you'll just have to move occasionally to see them. Also remember row = horizontal, column = vertical. So figure out between the 2 of you in the first 1 which core 1-8 has a red light, because all except 1 are going to have different results.

IMPORTANT: Mark down the column that you found the bad core in, hackerman, help stealthguy dump it in the area on the right. Then stealthguy bring your crane back to the ladder to grab the little maintenance panel (this was what caused us so much grief), bring it up for hackerman to ride across the room and position the crane so both of you can see the row numbers for the cores. Once you both find a row that has a red light, you're done, because it's the same column as the 1 previously. Dump the 2nd core and you're done, hackerman purge the coolant and do time to do the sick ass shootout. Also stealthguy, unscrew all the panels, you only need the 2 door levers, but the lever that says "Protections" is what raises cover for you, on our practice run we thought that game was "harder" by not giving us cover and realized it on 2nd speedrun that we just goofed.

Update: Also don't pull the lever that says "Central Cleaner" it activates a laser that'll kill you, my brother and I found out that the hard way on our hardcore run T_T

Anyway hackerman don't get overzealous, controlled fire is how you conserve ammo because your assault rifle is extremely useful. Also don't move up until the music stops, once it does, hackerman move up and start opening doors, stealthguy grab the super capacitor and start catching up, remember to use your analyzer to spot mines and dogs through the walls.

IMPORTANT: We realized this on the 2nd speedrun, because we were griping about how the 2 mini encounters with the dogs you have as you're going through these side passages suck because the super thin railing can block your shots. EXCEPT that hackerman's EMP gun can shoot through walls, so stack up next to a door that has the dogs, blast once or twice (I did twice for safe measure), then just run in with shotgun and blast all the dogs and keep moving. Remember there's a digicode segment so be prepared for that. The 2nd time you stack up behind the door with all the dogs is the room with the train, just blast the EMP through the wall and run past all the dogs and activate the train, because the moment you do, they all die.

Mostly same as the first, except that when doing the hack to open the reactor door (yes I know it says hydraulics but for sake of ease we just called it the reactor door), you can get attacked by drones. We don't know how, but in our 2nd speedrun, no drones attacked us and we got the Phantom Hacking achievement. Cause first and second playthroughs we got attacked by them.

Anyway same thing as before, plug in the super capacitor, hold the door open for them and yadda yadda. However when you enter the L shaped hallway with the ceiling mine, in the next room there will be 4 dogs, so hackerman get that gun ready and blast them, and there's another dog in the centrifuge room. Do the hack to get access to controls and do the centrifuge minigame again, though sometimes a drone will attack you.

When you're both done, as you both try to head to the L shaped hallway the trash cans try to kill you, and hackerman has to use the EMP gun because the evil AI has given them protected statuses meaning can't fire at them. Best placement imo is hackerman stays near the exit door with the 2 on their left, and stealthguy hangs out near the door to the supply closet. This consistently gives us the pattern of hackerman blasting the 2 on the left instantly, and the 3 on the right will funnel through 1 door to reach hackerman since they're closer, and they can just blast all 3 with 1 shot. Proeed back up the elevator as normal, but keep in mind there's 3 trash cans up there so be ready with the EMP gun.

As you get back to the transport hub, the entrance to Terra is past Antik, so stick left, if you're fast, you won't have to waste time blasting trash cans, since there's an elevator that's a safe zone. Do the same train minigame and you're off to Antik. My brother and I agreed that if we're not in Terra by 50 mins, the run is basically over, so keep that in mind, since we were doing the CEO laptop stuff in Princeps tower by like 7 mins.

Terra, man Terra is the HARDEST segment of the game, this is where you'll make it or break it to be honest. Hopefully our strategies will help you.

So just rush past through all the doors, heading to the back of the locker room, on the middle bench by a bag is the badge needed to get to the decontamination. Do the hack which involves a shootout at low O2, so you'll slowly lose HP. At the end of the hack, stealthguy goes through the tight space, flips the switch to turn on the decontamination process, and hackerman uses the computer to force open the door since the notes mentioned that was a bug with the room. Open it, go in the elevator and now you're in the hard part of Terra.

So there's this friggin little scorpion/spider (IIRC the logs said it was a hybrid) things called Hackers and boy they like to hang out on walls, and if they touch you, YOU'RE DEAD. So don't be stupid, learn where the hackers are and blast them. You work your way to the left towards the big pod room, be mindful of the 2 mines, hackerman hit up the supply closet for ammo while stealthguy recharges at the energy station upstairs since they just burned a bunch of energy on defusing mines. Hackerman go up and preemptively blast the trash can, I didn't this recent playthrough and it nearly caused a death. GRAB THE BADGE ON THE DESK then use the computer to activate the vents which causes the hackers to fall from the ceiling, blast them, then go back upstairs and disable quarantine on the other computer, then open all doors, so you can head to Stocks.

Gotta deal with this laser encounter which is a little nerve wracking since you don't wanna touch lasers that will pop the pods which will spawn hackers, while fending off hackers that fall from the ceiling. Anyway to start the encounter, stealthguy, remove the panel on the door frame as you enter, hackerman hold down the switch for them so they can go to the middle and remove the panel, then swap so stealthguy is holding the switch while hackerman enables the hack to disable lasers. Deal with the shootout (we found that basically 1 wipe here is ok time wise), grats for finishing it, imo one of the hardest ones in the game.

After that, hackerman take point with your shotgun and open the door, 4-5 dogs will round the corner, blast them then head backwards. Stealthguy go forward, defuse the mine and hang out by the keypad and await a code. Hackerman go back in the hallway slightly and on your right will be a door you can use the badge on, hack the computer, make sure to press I for info to learn the 4 digits of the badge holder's ID, then read the emails to find the code for the Stocks door. Combine the 4 digit ID with the 3 digit code and that's the code for the Stocks room, the 2nd half changes every playthrough so no cheesing it here.

Now begins a tricky part, the run back with the nitrogen tanks, because they're volatile and will go boom after a certain amount of time. We've determined that it is impossible for hackerman to make the trip so stealthguy with their superior speed has to haul the tanks making 2 trips. But hackerman has an important role, stealthguy give a callout to hackerman as you begin your run, then hackerman starts opening doors for you, to save you time not standing around waiting for a door, making sure to look back occasionally. Once you 2 enter the big pod room, it's all on stealthguy, because at that point they've caught up to you. Be super careful, we've noticed hackers respawning on the walls on the way back so check for them. Make the 2 trips, reattach all the nitrogen tanks and boom you're good to go to the labs.

The labs door is super scuffed, there's 2 hackers on the left leafy wall, 1 on the right, and 1 on the CEILING, get those 4 however and you're good to go into the labs with a pretty clever puzzle that took us about an hour to figure out initially. But a hilarious thing is that the code never changes, which makes sense that puzzle even once we figured it out, takes like 7 or so mins to get the answer. So instead, you 2 just run up to the keypad, and the answer is 89702 (plz don't look at the spoiler if you haven't beaten the game, it's quite a clever puzzle), then open the door. Stealthguy just rush towards the elevator and get it open for hackerman, hackerman get out your shotgun and keep your head on a swivel because like the hackers, these parasites (which are just giant earth worms) will 1 shot you, and as soon as the door is open, get inside and head up top.

Now the 2nd part of the Terra which can make or break your run, the ant hive. We've figured out that it's a "maze" but the maze is static, and the objectives never move, so once stealthguy knows the route, you're good. On our successful speedrun, it took him like 3.5 mins to navigate it, from what I can tell, it apparently really SUCKS down there. Hackerman can use a radar to kinda help but the area has 2 floors and stealthguy is under attack by ants constantly. Def wanna practice this area to figure out the route, though however, once stealthguy blows the nest, you get a checkpoint, however stealthguy should still be doing a callout to inform hackerman when they're nearly done so hackerman can run to the drill and get ready to gtfo.

You run through the nest in a crazy action movie "everything's blowing up around you" moment then you end up separated.

So you 2 end up split up, I don't know stealthguy's route but hackerman, just go forward and ride the elevator up, and keep going forward to a fairly large open space. There's 4-5 parasites here, kill them all, find the electrical terminal on the right wall and wait for stealthguy then you do the final maintenance minigame which is the hardest so I'll detail this 1.

The first 1 has a 5x5 grid of lights and a 2x4 grid of buttons beneath it. To resolve it, stealthguy presses the big button, and tells hackerman a series of 5 coordinates, keep in mind rows/columns. Once hackerman has the 5, click apply, then you'll see a 2x4, tell stealthguy which is it, then you're done.

The second 1, I don't even know how you solve without sharing screenshots. So stealthguy, just send hackerman a screenshot. Hackerman, click the button that matches the big display, then on the next step, 3 buttons aligned with symbols light up. Tell stealthguy to push those buttons X times where X is = to what row it's on, so row 1 is 1 time, row 3 is 3 times, etc.

Third is ez, it's the diodes and crap, which we overthunk our first time and I actually looked up what were diodes, coils, transistors, etc. But nah it's just a left to right type deal, you've done it before, you know how to deal with it.

After that hackerman, go back to where you came, there's a hallway you can go down, watch out for the mine, ignore the room at first and just go to the end. Hack the computer to disable the cameras so stealthguy can come up, once they do, you can check out the supply closet for your final chunk of ammo.

Stealthguy you activate a shootout that you have to deal with solo, but before starting it, just drop the super capacitor in the elevator. Though apparently if you die, the game is gracious and gives you a couple of mags if you had no ammo. Once that's dealt with, stealthguy start unscrewing the 2 doors, and inform hackerman when the 2nd 1 is almost done so they can sprint over to you and escape. Hackerman take cover behind the beams with your back to a wall, ahead of you, you should see a garage type opening, and just aim at it the whole time, because that's where enemies come, and by backing up slightly, you don't have to deal with the turret. It's mostly ants/parasites so careful tapping and you one shot them, could swap to shotgun for dogs, but otherwise you're good.

You go down the elevator, do a run and gun type thing, as well as some hacking and you end up back in the centrifuge. This will be stressful because until stealthguy plugs in the final super capacitor, hackerman has to deal with endlessly respawning enemies. Dogs come out of the vents in the left and right sides of the room, and drones come down the hallway, so communication is key for hackerman to inform steatlhguy that they can interact with the centrifuge controls, once they plug it in, smooth sailing.

Leave the centrifuge as you did before, with the elevator, and I'm sure you've wondered why you die when you go to the upper room across the way in the pulse hallway and can't interact with the switches. They're the hydraulics, and once all 3 super capacitors are plugged in, super ez just run up there, flip the swtiches, door closes so no more insta kill pulse and you progress as normal.

All pretty straightforward at this stage of the game, just sprint forward, wait at the bridge for the meany AI to give its speech, then keep running to the reactor room. Hackerman do the diagnostic and run the emi command.

Also, pretty much if you're going into the reactor maintenance minigame with 1:35 (that is 1 hour and 35 mins), consider your run over for the most part, because the while process is about 7 mins or so. 5 for the minigame, 1 to start it up, and 1 for the ending. Then about 5 for the boss fight, and about 2 mins for the entire escape sequence.

Since this is speedrun, you 2 should probably already be very familiar with the reactor minigame and know your stations, so can't really give advice here beyond don't mess up because it's a speedrun and that's a ton of time you can lose, also you get a cheevo out of it.

Once you finish the minigame and the little sequence afterwards, just run all the way to the final boss, there's nothing worthwhile looting, just pop open the airlock and charge in. Stealthguy if you're running low on ammo at this point, don't fire your pistol except during the suck phase, because hackerman should have a bunch of shotgun ammo to deal with the ants, and can use their assault rifle to pop the pimples on the boss to trigger the suck phase. Once ants start spawning, just run non stop and when it's time for combustion, stealthguy take cover with hackerman so they can blast the ants. As soon as you trigger the 3rd combustion, get ready to leave because the boss drops dead.

The escape is ez, you just run nonstop and crouch twice under lasers. Hackerman you're doing 1 final hack, run the diag on the pods fuel levels, stealthguy you're just holding a valve. Hackerman keep an eye on the fuel levels and as soon as 2 of them are full, just tell stealthguy 1 of them (they don't need to know both), hit L for launch and them make sure to hit Y to confirm it. Goofed that 3 times but made it each time. Pods take about 30 seconds to do their thing but if you enter with multiple mins than you're good.

And that's it, that's the speedrun for Bonding Ambivalence. Now go do it again on real mode where if you die, you restart from the beginning B)