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A comprehensive step-by-step guide for all achievements.
Spoiler-free hints are not yet included but I’m working on them.
Disclaimer
Just in case you didn’t read the description, this walkthrough contains spoilers.
I’m working on a spoiler-free hint version, but that takes actual brainpower so it may take a while.
Unmissables
You will get these if you play the game through to the end, but I’ll say roughly when you should expect to get them just in case.
1. Perfect Rating
Earn your first 5-star rating
You’d think this would be an actual achievement, but no – your first ride with Liam will ALWAYS get you 5 stars.
2. Heart on Your Sleeve
Acquire the Feelgrid
Rewarded during Night 1, after a ride with Savy.
3. First Night
Make it through your first night in Los Ojos.
Rewarded at the start of Night 2.
4. Stanzmaschine
Find the underground night club Savy mentioned
Rewarded at the end of ‘Night 2 – Early’, after a ride with Oona or Carlos (even if you kick Oona out of the car).
Optionals – Part A: The Painless Ones
I guarantee you’d get at least two of these on a blind playthrough. They’re sensible things like ‘pick up a particular pax’ or ‘get a particular ending to this pax’s story’.
5. Worst Driver Ever
Earn your first 1-star rating
Fastest way? Gideon, Night 1; berate her, a teenager in battle armour, for telling you how racism works.
Best way? Either of the next two achievements; they both include an automatic 1-star rating. You will need to have a 5-star rating when you pick up the pax in question, but if that’s a struggle, then just keep picking very easy/guaranteed 5 star paxes like Carlos, Liam, Allie, or Oona.
6. Puker Face
Clean up backseat vomit, a rite of passage for all drivers
Give Luke (the premium pax that appears in the north of the map) a ride.
7. Playing both sides
Discover where Savy was working when she disappeared.
Getting tough now, this one has a whole second step.
1. Go to Stanzmaschine and ask about Savy.
2. Give Charlie (the premium pax that appears in the east of the map) a ride.
For this achievement it doesn’t matter how this conversation goes, but Text Me Back! will contain more Charlie-based instructions.
8. No, Officer
Refuse to play ball with a corrupt LOPD officer
In your first trip with Carlos or Allie, they will ask you to stop in a restricted zone to pick them up. First things first: other than this achievement, don’t. Carlos and Allie are both automatic 5-stars – they complain that you didn’t stop… but they still give you all 5. It’s dumb and I hate it, but here we are.
Anyway, for the achievement, you need to choose ‘I couldn’t risk losing the star‘, which will make you stop in the restricted zone. After the ride, the LOPD will stop you and ask for a donation to get you off of a larger fine. You can either just say ‘No.’, or make sure to have less than 10 coin before picking up the pax – in which case they don’t ask for the bribe.
9. A Friend in Need
Rescue Allie from the Radix protest.
1. Pick up Allie before Night 5 (she’s available right from the off)
2. Choose her during the riot in Night 5 – Early.
Again, how the conversation goes doesn’t matter. You can kick her out of your car immediately after picking her up if you’re heartless… or if you get locked into the choice because you wanted to ask her a simple question… grumbles angrily… stupid emotions…
10. It’s Never Lupus
Solve a medical mystery with Carlos
Pick Carlos up before Night 4. A little after that he’ll ask you down to his clinic – go, and then go again on another night (the second visit can be night 6, but the first can’t).
You’ll be treated to what even I have to admit was an enjoyable conversation in which you can’t miss the achievement.
11. Get Free
Help Gideon break out of her mech suit.
You can get this after your second interaction with Gideon, but you need to play them both right. In her first journey, call her out as little as possible – you need a good rating, else you won’t be able to see her again. In the second journey, just agree to help her escape. You can grill her a little bit for information (grumbles some more about Allie) but don’t push too far.
Optionals – Part B: Conscious Effort
These are doable if you think about it, but you probably avoided them on your first run because you thought managing your money actually matters (spoiler: it doesn’t)
12. Hit Bottom
Run completely out of money and fuel
The thing about this achievement is that it completely disillusions you to the rest of the game.
First off, you don’t actually need to run out of fuel (which is good, because it’s literally impossible) – just go to a recharging station when you have less than 3 bars of power and less than 5 coin. It will force you, no matter how hard you try, to take about 20 coin from Capra… along with the achievement. As for how to deliberately get your money down, there are a few ways:
- Crashr can be expensive. I recommend Luisa’s; she has a comfy bed and an oddly cute story.
- Get fined by the LOPD – see No, Officer
- Give money to Sam or Carlos
- My favourite: Just drive back and forth between charging stations. It takes no in-game time, and you can do a trip there and back from STEVE to Servo, which (if you only charge at STEVE – the most expensive) takes out 5.05 coin per trip.
But yeah. You can’t run out of money in this game. Bet you feel delighted about not donating to Carlos’ clinic now, eh?
13. A Night at the Babylon
Stay for a night at the bougiest hotel in Los Ojos.
The trick with this one is doing it fast. There are only three occasions I’ve found in which you can make more money than you spent just to sleep:
- Oona’s second ride. Near the end of the journey, choose ‘It’s easier to be strange when you have money’, and she’ll give you 30 coin (which is roughly two nights’ revenue… the economy in this game is so broken…)
- Sam’s second ride. Spoiler alert: Sam is a conman. If you fell for his con the first ride (or maybe you don’t even need to; I picked him up again once I found out) you’ll find him again pulling a significantly more lucrative con on Luke. Play along until Luke leaves, and then lock Sam in the car and demand half the score. You get over 100 coin. Yep.
- Night 6. It will not let you advance past this night, ever. SO, as long as you ignore Oona, you can complete everyone else’s stories – I got around 10 rides in, and I didn’t even know this was a thing… imagine how many you could get if you thought about it… … shame you can’t spend any of that coin, though.
So yeah. If you don’t have enough after night two and haven’t done Sam’s first trip then you’re pretty much screwed; just reload to your Middle or Late save and make sure to give him a ride.
Optionals – Part C: Text Me Back!
Alternate title: ‘THE ABSOLUTE FREAKING WORST’.
This achievement is the entire reason I decided to make this guide. It’s painfully arbitrary, and the only instructions I could find were poorly translated from a different language.
14. Text Me Back!
Convinced Savy to finally let you know she’s alive.
In a nutshell, you need to visit Stanzmaschine, then give Charlie 2 rides, and finally go back to Stanzmaschine. To do this as efficiently as possible:
Night 1: [Liam], [Savy], Allie, [Azul], Klaus
Night 2: Carlos, Stanzmaschine, Charlie*, Charlie
Night 3: Stanzmaschine, Anyone
You may have noticed a little asterisk in there. That little asterisk is why I hate this achievement with a passion – you have to have EXACTLY the right conversation pre-amble with Charlie, else the second Charlie ride will not appear. For some people this conversation may have come naturally, but I for one don’t see how accusing someone of being a kidnapper and then going ‘oops, my bad; must be a different Charlie’ is in any way ‘playing it cool’.
Anyway… rule of thumb, just don’t mention Savy or fear:
- How’s your night been?
- I needed to play it cool.
- I get it.
- {The stupid option, but you’re forced into it NO MATTER WHAT – I even went to Carlos’ clinic beforehand to make myself super chill, but NOPE.}
- Maybe I’m mistaken…
- No, no, axes are way too messy.
- Can I just ask you some questions?
- That would be a useful superpower.
After that, the conversation is open for you to explore – but don’t waste your time with ‘I wonder if he can tell me where Savy is‘. He pretty much just says ‘I don’t know’ and that’s that.
Endings
Only after writing this did I notice there’s no achievement for the ‘get caught and stay in touch with Savy’ ending… I wonder if that’s meant to tell us something…
15. Pink Slip
Get fired by Neo Cab for sustaining an imperfect rating.
In a nutshell: take every opportunity to anger you pax – if they ask you to do something just don’t play along. Added bonus is that it normally makes the trip a lot faster.
There are a bunch of ways to do this (and probably more efficient ones) but I did:
Night 1: Gideon, Agonon
Night 2: Carlos, Sam, Stella
Night 3: Oona, Sam
16. Emotional Victory
Stand up to Savy’s emotional manipulation and win.
Again, probably multiple ways to do this, but I found it was easiest to just not engage until right at the end. After waiting through all 3 hours of dialogue to get to the argument, pick the following:
- Don’t turn this on me. You’re the one who crossed a line here.
- This is just wasting time!
- I’m not going to re-hash old fights with you right now.
- Fighting like this is pointless!
- This has nothing to do with being meek or not.
- This isn’t why I came here!
- Attacking me isn’t going to help you.
- You think I’m phony? Your whole activist persona is fake!
- Of course.
- You can stop fake crying.
- But that doesn’t mean what you think it means.
17. Luddite
Smash your Feelgrid to pieces.
Not the worst ending, but probably the stupidest – go through all the work and get none of the reward!
Step 1. Get Emotional Victory
Step 2. Choose ‘I tossed it from the car before I could talk myself out of it.‘
18. Capra Leaks
Leak the stolen docs and swing the Sophie’s Law vote against Capra.
Arguably the best ending.
Step 1. Get Emotional Victory
Step 2. Choose ‘I stuck with the plan.‘