Overview
Find out how to beat the Challenges on each level here, annotated with helpful images and thorough verbal explanations.
0-1
GET 5 KILLS WITH A SINGLE GLASS PANEL
As you know, your starting gun can break glass with its charge shot. Breaking glass that enemies are standing on will cause them to fall, often to their deaths. The easiest room to do this in is the one with the giant fan at the bottom.
To group the enemies together, jump over them. They’ll crowd around where you’ll land, and you can shoot straight down into them to break the glass under them. Just remember to dash to stable ground afterwords.
If you mess up, pause the game with your ESC key and hit CHECKPOINT to reload a few paces back.
0-2
BEAT THE SECRET ENCOUNTER
As you progress through the level, you’ll eventually reach this room:
At the back of that room, instead of going through the checkpoint, go through the door to your left.
In that room is a blue podium, and to the right of that podium is a shutter with a vent on the bottom right of it. This vent can be broken by shooting or punching it, revealing a small tunnel you can slide through.
Once you slide through it, you’ll be rewarded with a Secret orb. But that’s not all: Next to the secret orb is even more crawlspace that you can slide through.
At the back of the crawlspace is a small room in which you can punch a vent above you and climb out.
Once you’re out, you’ll be welcomed with a checkpoint and a bossroom door. Go through and fight the boss, and once you’re done you may leave the way you came.
0-3
KILL ONLY 1 ENEMY
To do this level, I suggest you bring the Pump Charge (green) Shotgun. You’ll want to use its overcharge ability to easily explosive jump.
Once you reach the very first room with enemies, jump up to the door to the next room without killing any of them (the melee enemies cannot reach you there, so you only have to dodge the ranged ones). Do not go through the door. Aim way up at the ceiling above you, and notice that it is made of glass. Take out your pistol and use the charge shot to break the middle column of glass on the ceiling. Take care to avoid the shots from the enemies below you while doing this, as you will need at least 51 health to explosive jump soon.
Once the middle column of glass ceiling is broken, take out your Pump Charge Shotgun and overcharge it. Now simply look straight down, jump, and immediately fire the overcharge. The explosion will send you hurtling upwards, through the glass you broke and into the second-to-last room of the level. Avoid the enemies here and progress through the next door, which takes you to the boss room (which is also the final room of the level).
The singular enemy that you have to kill for this challenge is the boss. Because you skipped his first phase, you’ll be fighting both in succession. Good luck!
0-4
SLIDE UNINTERRUPTED FOR 17 SECONDS
This one is pretty easy. Beat the level normally, taking care to kill all enemies that might interrupt your slide. However, in the last room with the glass floor, DO NOT BREAK ANY OF THE GLASS. If you break the glass, you won’t be able to slide over it, instead falling to your death.
Once you’ve cleared out the level, go all the way back to the very beginning, the room where you first spawn in with the shop terminal. Back yourself up against the back wall, line yourself up so you’ll go out straight, and slide all the way to the end of the level. The whole level is a straight line, so you won’t need any kind of special maneuvering here.
0-5
DON’T INFLICT FATAL DAMAGE TO ANY ENEMY
This one is not as hard as it sounds. The bosses here throw an explosive projectile as one of their attacks. If this detonates too close to them, they’ll take self damage. All you have to do is lower their health until they’re about a hit or two away from death, then dodge around until you see them wind up a throw. As soon as they do, get in close. (Your dash ability has invincibility frames, which you can then use to dash away from the explosion and not take any damage yourself!)
The explosion from their own thrown projectile will kill them, inflicting fatal damage without you needing to actually shoot them.
1-1
COMPLETE THE LEVEL IN UNDER 10 SECONDS
This is very, very easy, and simply relies on you knowing the trick to accessing the secret level.
When you enter a secret level, it counts as completing the previous level. Fortunately for us, the secret level entrance here is in the very first room.
Note that the timer does not begin until you leave the spawn room. While in the spawn room, take out the Marksman pistol (the coin gun). As soon as you leave the spawn room, flick a coin into the fountain.
The fountain will slide to the side, revealing the entrance to the secret level. Immediately jump in, and you’ll have completed 1-1 near-instantly.
1-2
DO NOT PICK UP ANY SKULLS
This challenge requires that you bring the railgun from a later level.
Progress normally up until the point where you would normally pick up the blue skull. There’s a secret passage you can enter in the direction that I’m shooting in the picture below:
In the passage you’ll find an electric box that is unique in that it must be shot with the blue railgun.
Once you do so, it will power up and the floor will drop out from underneath you, leaving you very near the end of the level. Progress as normal and you’re done.
Big thanks to otsu_ruru who was able to figure this out when I couldn’t!
1-3
BEAT THE SECRET ENCOUNTER
You’re likely aware of the main door of the level that only needs 1 skull to open, either red or blue. Get both skulls. When you do, face away from the door to see one of the windows behind you slide open. Go through to enter a secret area, where you can face the secret encounter.
1-4
DO NOT PICK UP ANY SKULLS
Head straight to the door that needs 3 skulls to unlock. Above it is a window that you can break open with a charged shot. Jump through that window and you’ll have bypassed the locked door.
2-1
DON’T OPEN ANY NORMAL DOORS
To clarify the challenge: “Normal doors” are any door that is not the one leading out of the spawn room.
You will very quickly reach your first door before fighting any enemies. Instead of going through, go behind the short ramp that you went down to get here. There’s a breakable wall you can use your newly acquired red arm to explode down.
Once you go through and grab the secret, you’ll be outside the level. Jump atop the tunnel you were just in and head up to roughly this position:
See that giant neon-pink tower in front of you? You’re going to have to jump around it. You can use the Pump Charge Shotgun to your advantage if you wish, but you’ll need it again soon, so make sure to heal up. Remember that you can jump out of a dash to keep your dash momentum, and make use of your wall jumps to get extra height as you need it.
Behind the tower are several jump pads scattered about. Land on one to bounce back up to the main level.
After this you can progress through the level normally, or just avoid most of/all of the enemies. When you get to the dash-jump tutorial section (pictured below), make sure you have 51 or more health so you can Pump Charge Shotgun jump soon. Also, MAKE SURE you don’t overshoot the jump and open the normal door by accident.
Instead of opening the door, climb onto those prong things just outside of it. From here, you can (dash-)jump, strafe/dash back to the tower, walljump off of it, and then Pump Charge Shotgun explosive jump for that last bit of height to reach the end of the level. Be sure to make liberal use of your air dashes while you do this, as they recharge very quickly. You can also grab the Red Secret orb before doing this so that you can go in with 200 HP, allowing you to simply use the Pump Charge jump 3 times without needing to heal.
Once you make the jump, the end of the level is freely accessible.
2-2
BEAT THE LEVEL IN UNDER 60 SECONDS
This is a flat-out speedrun challenge. My tips for you are:
- Keep in mind that you do not technically need to kill ANY enemies in this level, you just need to shoot the electric boxes to open the doors. Killing enemies is a waste of your time if you’re playing for speed and nothing else.
- The electric boxes can be shot from any range with a hitscan weapon, provided you can see them and you can aim. Make use of this by shooting them from far away instead of wasting time by walking up to them.
- You should absolutely memorize the positions of the electric boxes, and maybe even memorize a quick way to reach them. Wasting time trying to reach them or having to search for them will all but guarantee your failure.
- When planning your route, make sure that you’re back-tracking as little as possible.
- There is one section where you have to make your way up a revolving staircase. Instead of walking around in circles, you can use an explosive jump to fly straight to the door at the top.
- There is at least one section where you have to go through a narrow hallway that is crowded by enemies who like to bodyblock you. Remember that your red fist has an explosive punch that can push them out of the way.
2-3
DON’T TOUCH ANY WATER
There are two secrets that will make this challenge possible for you: 1) There is a breakable wall that lets you skip the underwater section that takes you to the blue pedestal, and 2) There are 3 electric boxes hidden throughout the level labelled “WATER CONTROL.” Breaking them all removes water from the level, which you DO need to do.
Right out of the gate, you’ll want to jump over the large stretches of water with a dash-jump. Progress normally into the room with the dam and the large fall into a grinder behind you.
Go up to where I am in the below picture, facing the grinders and looking down. You’ll notice a small slope you can drop down onto without touching any water. Drop down onto it.
Once you’re standing on that slope, face away from the grinder to find a crawlspace you can slide into. There you’ll find your first water control box.
Now grab the blue skull and head back into the previous room. Walk around the water on the floor and look at the wall to your left. You’ll notice it has a crack, allowing you to blow it up. This lets you into the room where the blue skull pedestal is without forcing you to go underwater.
Progress normally, still taking care to avoid the water. Once you reach the checkpoint that leads into a large room, made a left. You’ll want to wall jump off of the wall that I’m shooting at in the below image, because that will take you into another secret room containing your second water control box.
Progress normally, grabbing the red skull and taking it to its destination pedestal. Once you do, turn around and slide into the crawlspace behind said pedestal. In there you’ll find your third and final water control box.
Once you do that, you’ll get a message about the water being removed. Now you can just finish the level normally, without being forced to pass through that very last waterfall on the exit door.
2-4
PARRY A PUNCH
The aforementioned “punch” refers to the attack that the last boss of the level does, where he winds his arm all the way back and then punches. The timing is a bit tricky, but there’s no real penalty for dying if you’re just trying to beat the challenge. Make sure you’re using the blue arm (the red one cannot parry), stand in front of where he’s going to punch, and do your best to time a parry. If you get hit, no worries, just keep retrying until you get it. You’ll know when you land one: There’s a whole animation of him recoiling and it’s all pretty badass. Once you do land one, beat him like normal.
3-1
KILL A MINDFLAYER WITH ACID
Mindflayers are the blueish-green flying enemies that teleport around and shoot homing projectiles/twirl that laser beam around. Two spawn on this level, and the one that you will want to kill spawns in the very first room after the malicious face.
The trick to doing this easily is to use the secret tunnel that takes you to the Red Orb. The tunnel is below the bone bridge and is completely filled with acid.
Kill the statue enemy and the four common enemies, leaving only the mindflayer. You will want to damage the mindflayer as much as you can without killing it, so that the acid can get the finishing blow. In my testing, 10-11 shots from the secret revolver put it at very low health without killing it. As you do this, try to stay as healthy as you possibly can so you can survive the acid tunnel.
As a note, if you’re playing on Violent difficulty, the mindflayer will become enraged and turn red when it reaches low HP. This will make it harder as it will move more erratically, which means it won’t stay put in the acid for quite as long, but it will give a very obvious cue as to when the mindflayer is at low health. I personally did the challenge on both Violent and Standard and felt that standard was easier (challenges persist across difficulties, so feel free to do it on Standard).
Once you’ve damaged the mindflayer to low HP, jump into the acid tunnel and move to the back, then wait for the mindflayer to teleport in. As soon as the mindflayer enters the acid, climb out and grab the Red Orb to fully heal and overheal to 200 HP. If the mindflayer survived, it will likely follow you into the Red Orb room. Don’t shoot it and avoid taking damage from it if you can.
Once you’ve grabbed the red orb, dodge the mindflayers attack then jump back into the acid so it will teleport and follow you back in. Cycle this as necessary until it dies on its own. On one of my completions of this challenge, the mindflayer died as it teleported out of the acid, but it still counted as an acid kill and completed the challenge for me.
Important note: If you pick up the Red Orb but fail to complete the challenge and die, the Red Orb will NOT respawn when you yourself respawn at the checkpoint. You will have to press ESC and restart the whole mission. Luckily, the mindflayer is practically in the first room of the mission, so this doesn’t cost you much time.
3-2
DROP GABRIEL IN A PIT
To clarify the challenge: You’ll notice that the arena that you fight Gabriel in has no walls, and is surrounded by a bottomless pit. Your goal is to push Gabriel into the pit.
The way that I finally did this was by juggling him in between his first and second phase. When you beat his first phase, he’ll get stunned for a good long while, and during that stun you can juggle him in the air for about a quarter to a half of his health bar. To help with this, try to end his first phase with him already close to the edge of the arena. If he’s in the center of the arena, you’ll have a harder time pushing him all the way out. Once he’s stunned, shoot him horizontally so he gets knocked into the pit. You might also want to use the knockback blast of your red arm to help with this. It’s important to note that if you juggle him for too long, he’ll forcibly break out of it and enter his second phase, so you want to stop juggling him the moment he’s outside of the arena to give him time to fall into the pit.
Once he falls into the pit, he’ll shortly respawn back on the arena. Now just fight him normally and you’re right as rain.
4-1
DON’T ACTIVATE ANY ENEMIES
The goal is to not step into any areas that cause enemies to spawn. This is pretty easy and leans on knowing one secret breakable panel near the end of the level.
First, right out of the spawn door you will want to jump to the green stripe near the door (pictured below). Standing there won’t trigger enemies. If you don’t seem to get enough height for your jump, you can climb on top of the spawn room.
Climbing up vertical walls in this game can be accomplished by boosting yourself with ground pounds. When you ground pound by tapping Ctrl in the air, if you jump right as you hit the ground, your jump will go slightly higher than your previous max jump height. This means with enough ground pounds and well timed jumps you can just keep jumping higher and higher. You can also ground pound jump (I’ll call this a GPJ) and then wall jump at the height of your jump for extra height, then GPJ again to get much more height much faster (a wall-jump GPJ, or a WGPJ for short I guess). You can fit three wall jumps into the same jump by strafing back into the same wall you wall jumped off of right after wall jumping. So basically, GPJ, then wall jump, strafe back into the wall and wall jump again, repeat that once more, then WGPJ, then repeat until you have climbed the vertical wall. Also you can just explosive jump if you have the health, but for this challenge you won’t have enough health to explosive jump every time, so it’s necessary to WGPJ at some point in this level. The very first jump is probably the trickiest, so feel free to explosive jump for this one specifically.
Anyways; WGPJ up the spawn room for more height if you need it, then dash jump over to where I’m shooting in the picture below (on the green stripe near the door). You really want to be right up against the wall when you land or else you may spawn enemies. Remember to use your dashes while in the air and to use wall jumps on the wall next to the green stripe if you need just a bit more height.
Next, WGPJ up the wall where you landed.
Next, you’ll want to WGPJ up the wall I’m shooting at here. There is a gap between you and the wall this time, so you can’t just press up against the wall: You’ll have to jump, strafe to the wall to wall jump off of it, then strafe back to a safe landing before ground pounding. Other than that it’s a regular WGPJ.
Once you’re up here you can pretty much just walk to the secret that’s in plain view. Once you reach it, dash jump to where I’m shooting below:
Once you’re up there, walk to the back of the roof. Towards the back and in the center is a breakable floor tile.
You can use your red fist to break through it. Once you do, drop down and you’ll be at the end of the level without having to spawn or fight any enemies.
4-2
KILL THE INSURRECTIONIST IN UNDER 10 SECONDS
The easy way:
Get the arm upgrade from 4-4, then return to this level. Place the blue skull on the proper pedestal to start the Insurrectionist fight, then go to the red skull area. You can actually place skulls on pedestals from a distance with the Whiplash arm, so while still in the red skull area and while holding the red skull, aim at the pedestal where you can place it to start the Insurrectionist fight. As soon as the whiplash places the skull down, stand on the glass next to where you found the red skull. The insurrectionist will do his high jump attack and jump aaaaalll the way over to you, smashing through the glass and falling into the bottomless pit where he dies instantly.
Here’s the hard way that I did it:
1. Clear out the level of enemies without taking ANY multi-weapon powerups.
2. Locate the second red orb: It is above the area where you first see the Stalker (sand bomb) enemy cover the Malicious Face with sand behind a gate. DO NOT take the red orb yet, but know that when you take it it will spawn two malicious faces.
3. Place both skulls at the end of the level to spawn the Insurrectionist, then die to him. When you refight him after dying in this level, he skips his intro animation, starting the fight faster.
4. Once everything is in place, grab the red orb then run from the malicious faces before they can damage you (or kill them without taking damage if you’re a gamer). You want as much health as you can for the Insurrectionist.
5. Go to the double gun powerup near where you find the red skull. Underneath the door to this area is a secret orb containing a second double gun powerup.
6. Grab the first and then the second double gun powerups from the red skull area, then run through the doors to the blue skull area and grab the third powerup there. Every time you grab a new powerup, the timer resets, and the powerups stack giving you four guns.
7. The moment you grab the third powerup, red-fist punch through one of the windows to your right and dash jump towards the insurrectionist fight. There are some pillars here you can platform across so you don’t all into the sand. On the way to the fight, get out the green shotgun and overcharge it by pumping it until the lights blink.
8. As soon as the Insurrectionist arrives, dash and immediately fire to make all four green shotguns do an overcharge explosion (while also dodging the damage with your dash invincibility). Usually, the Insurrectionist will jump way into the air after this, so take out your four railguns and airshot him. Immediately switch back to the green shotgun and do another overcharge blast as soon as he lands. This should be enough to kill him, provided all four guns landed every hit every time, and it will take just under 10 seconds.
If you’ve beaten the level before you can hold Tab to see if you completed the challenge. If you did, go ahead and finish the level, but if not you will have to restart the entire mission to respawn the double gun powerups and red orbs (this can be very annoying, I had to do it like 4 times. There are some enemies you can skip by just running past them, but make sure to clear out enemies near the double gun powerups and the red orb so they don’t get in your way as you run to the Insurrectionist).
Thanks, spiffy, for helping me solve this one!
4-3
DON’T PICK UP THE TORCH
Lighting fires is necessary for this level, and normally you would do so by picking up the torch and then punching fireplaces with it. However, you can also just light them with your shotgun’s right click grenade. This grenade can also dimly light your path.
Pictures aren’t very helpful here since it’s going to be really dark the whole time. Basically, you need to light three light-blue torches to get out of the first section of the level: One is dead ahead after the first door, one is to the left, and one is to the right. The torches to the left and right spawn enemies, which can be tricky to fight in the dark. The torch to the left also has you light some green torches along the way to open doors to it. If you can’t find an enemy, use the coin pistol ricochet as a homing attack to fight them blind.
Next is the four pillars section, where you have to light all four pillars then fight the enemies each spawn. This is basically the same as before, just use grenades instead of punching them with a torch.
After that, something wicked will this way come, so you need to move quickly. While normally you would place the torch in the final room of this level, you now need to place something else there to progress: The skull from the tomb of kings will do. After the four pillars fight, in the short hallway that leads up to the TRAITOR mural, one of the little windows on the left will have a crack in it.
Punch it down with the red fist and explore behind it until you find the Tomb of Kings (you can punch down the “KEEP OUT” barrier). Punch the first sarcophagus on your right when you enter and grab the blue skull off the skeleton within. For the challenge, that’s all you need to do in this room, though there is a fun optional fight you can take on if you would like. Leave the Tomb of Kings and light the torch on your way out, then continue with the level as normal (keep your pace up because of something wicked!), using grenades to light your path and the green torches you find to open doors. It’s useful to note that you can pretty much skip all the enemies on the way to the final room.
In the final room, place the skull on the pedestal and then do the final room like normal, and you’re done.
4-4
REACH THE BOSS GATE IN UNDER 18 SECONDS
You have to have beaten this level once before you can complete this challenge.
When walking to the boss gate, you may have noticed a slightly cracked open door on the way. Through that crack is a blue skull. Once you come back to replay this level, you can use your new tether ability (the Whiplash, which is bound to R by default) to grab the skull through the crack, which causes the door to open. Enter the room and go past the skull to a bounce pad, where you’re shot way up and can place the skull down on a pedestal that opens a door right next to the boss gate. Head out and you can reach the boss gate quite quickly.
Doing this in 18 seconds is where the challenge comes in: You have to move very fast. Before leaving the spawn room, double tap the Tab key to open the scoreboard thing. One of the lines on it is “CHALLENGE: NO”. When you reach the boss gate in time, this will change to YES immediately, so if you reach the boss gate and aren’t sure if you made it in time, just check this. If it says no, restart the mission.
Tips for going fast: Long straight corridors can be dash-jumped down. If you’re out of stamina for dash jumping, slide. Bounce pads can send you a bit too high up, so you can ground pound once you reach the top to go a second or so faster. The skull isn’t super precise when it comes to tethering it, just yolo a Whiplash shot at it and you’ll probably hit it without even needing to stop for the door. This took me maybe 3 or 4 tries, which all in all took less than a minute.