Shibuya HAL Clears Probably Stolen on Its Hardest Rock Bottom Setting After Nine Hours

NEO-PORTE — Shibuya HAL cleared Probably Stolen on the hardest setting of its Rock Bottom start on Nov. 3, finishing the run in a stream of more than nine hours that she billed as the series’ real final episode. The clear unlocked the achievement for beating the game on hard mode from rock bottom, which she had checked at the start and found to have the lowest unlock rate of any in the game.

She opened by reading out the hard-mode penalties: rent that climbs 10 percent each time, pricier upgrades at 50 percent more, and reputation that rises at 0.75 times the normal rate and falls at 1.25 times. She picked her perks, then began the first day with 19 credits and only a toolbox, selling off a crowbar and bandages she would have preferred to keep. The early days were tight enough that she doubted she could cover the rent, and stolen stock kept chipping away at her inventory.

“Wow, I did it, I really did it.” — Shibuya HAL, after the achievement unlocked

The run turned on small upgrades and a few recurring characters. A customer she had lent money to early on repaid roughly four times the amount, nearly 4,000 credits. Eleanor, a customer whose mother had been jailed, came back late in the run to say her mother had been released and the two were living together again. Her parting gift was a perfume that refills itself every three days and raises a customer’s trade bonus by 15 percent, which HAL then used on high-paying upper-world buyers.

On the final day she thinned out her fish tank, sold off her last stock and bought the shop outright for 25,000 credits. The achievement popped as she did. Asked in chat what makes the game fun, she pointed to its world, a story woven lightly into the play, and a sense that each new run could go better than the last.

Afterward she browsed the achievements she still lacks, which she said were mostly self-imposed challenge runs, and tried out an apprentice-style start that hands the player tools, credits and guides she had gone without. A publisher’s update is planned, and she wondered aloud whether she would play again once it arrived. She signed off to eat and sleep, and said she would play Apex when she woke. Chat marked the clear with congratulations and thanks, and the stream drew one Super Chat.