Technomancer (PS4) - collision glitch and skip tests in Prologue
5While playing on the unpatched PS4-version, I noticed this strange effect that will hereafter be referred to as "collision glitch". While it's active, Zach can sink into corners more than normal, and it's even possible to go through walls in several places. But as for its usefulness in speedruns? Well...
Note: we did some of this testing with Kazooie; he is the player on one or more of the clips.
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0:00 - a basic demonstration of the glitch.
In short, moving or evading against certain type of collision can activate the collision glitch. First spot in the game where this can happen is the small niche behind Master Connor. Evading against it causes noticeable lag, too, although I'm not sure how the lag plays into things.
Once the collision glitch is active, Zach can sink deeper into walls. It's a rather fickle glitch, overall. Hard to tell when it activates, and it also ends easily. If you use any prompts (talk, search, etc.) or save & reload, the glitch will end.
(Note: sometimes it seemed like talking to Master Connor several times was also a prerequisite to creating more lag in the spot behind him, thus helping with the starting of this glitch...? It's hard to say what exactly is essential for starting it since it's a new and non-obvious glitch.)
0:57 - This is the first out of bounds I discovered in the game. Going OoB in the Prologue base doesn't seem to be particularly useful, although you can do some vaguely amusing things like fight a tutorial while out of reach.
(Not on the vid: walking off the ledge just causes you to fall endlessly.)
(Wasted potential: I tried for an hour or two, but didn't find a way to go beyond the gates and reach the city early. The Prologue base and the main game base seem to be two different maps, so there's a chance that the town wouldn't exist in any capacity yet. But it would've been fun to explore anyway, who knows if there would've been a big OoB-area there.)
1:46 - Once you leave the base on your first mission, here's the first spot where you can start the glitch again: on top of the pile of metal and rubble to the left of the starting point.
2:00 - I was curious whether it would be possible to skip any activities in the Prologue, so I went out of bounds from the right side shortly after the first dialogue with Sean Mancer. With great difficulties you can push through walls here and eventually reach the top of the mountains, from where you can keep "leaping" between mountain tops to keep moving further out of bounds.
To note, in some points it may be necessary to save & reload to end collision glitch so that the collision reacts differently to Zach. Especially at 3:06 it's very easy to fall down through the floor if the collision glitch is still active.
You have to move out of bounds quite some ways since the two closest ledges leading down are disabled at the moment. They only become usable after doing the "observing" side mission.
3:33 - Eventually, you can drop down back in bounds from here. Game continues like normal until you reach the dome, although Sean Mancer is unusually quiet...
3:53 - Unfortunately, there are no events loaded inside the dome, making the Prologue unwinnable. It seems like this is the type of game where deviating from the script at any point only causes softlocks... What a buzzkill!
In other words: a potentially powerful glitch, but due to the nature of the game, it might only help with minor shortcuts. (There's no telling if it works on any other version of the game, either.)