220 hours of gameplay and 36 days. That’s how long it took Trackmania expert ‘Bren’ to complete ‘Deep Dip 2’, arguably the trickiest map in Trackmania’s history. He was not alone, however, as two and a half hours later, ‘eLconn21’ managed to cross the line and secure second place. But what made this challenge incredibly tough to complete?
Hosted and created by ‘SparklingW’ alongside 15 well-known mappers, Deep Dip 2 features a dizzying 1900-metre tower, requiring players to perform everything from the Trackmania skill textbook and more just to get through its 16 non-checkpointed floors. Frighteningly, the higher up you go the more challenging it gets, and one wrong move sends you all the way back down to the bottom.
Those who have heard of the game: “Getting over it with Bennett Foddy” will understand the frustrating nature of climbing a map, making a mistake and watching in despair as your progress resets back to the very beginning. Deep Dip 2 shares those exact feelings, as not only does it require an immense amount of skill, but it also requires a strong mentality.
To progress through the floors, consistency is key to clearing each obstacle flawlessly: hundreds of thousands of attempts require hundreds of gameplay hours. In the end, the times set by the two victors were 66 minutes and 42 seconds, and 105 minutes and 38 seconds respectively – no mean feat given the difficulty.
One of the most challenging obstacles players faced was an ice slide on the 10th floor. It makes the tyres slippery and requires your car to complete a full 360 to gain enough speed for the following jump, with more ice to be tackled on landing. Eep.
Then there’s a curved vertical dirt block on floor 16, which requires a lengthy wall-ride, a perfectly-judged block collision, another wall-ride and up onto the next obstacle. Phew.
The prize pool has been raised by the Trackmania community, with the winner receiving 50%, second place earning 30% and third place taking 20%. At time of publication, the prize pool stands at around $32,500. The third place title has yet to be claimed, but players ‘Lars’ and ‘Hazard’ are both in contention.
The full replay of the final attempt by Bren can be found here, and eLconn21’s second-placed run can be found here, both of which are from start to finish without any major mistakes.
It may look easy but after 220 hours of practice, you might be able to beat it too.
Do you think you have what it takes? Join the Trackmania discussion in our Discord server.
