Ghost achievement explained

[Morente]

It seems I just can't unlock the "Ghost" achievement.
I already did 2 consecutive playthroughs, in the first lenghty one the problem might have been the encounter with granny rags and slackjaw, where I poisoned her with a dart but as you might have heard there seems to be a bug there.
So I did a second speedy playthrough to unlock Shadow and Ghost (which are basically the same anyway aren't they?) where I never even visited granny or slackjaw and killed some of the key targets to end the mission more quickly as I had a nonlethal run before. I poisoned Campbell, killed the twins (one by steam the other by choking and then throwing off the balcony) and also killed the regent, but spared lady boyle and havelock. In the end I had everything as I wanted I guess with Ghost checked on every end mission screen (Did not kill anyone obviously not all the time) but the game only unlocked Shadow and Mostly Flesh and Steel for me without Ghost!
What should I have done differently? Killed Boyle and Havelock also, killed no one even though it does not say that in the description? Or is it just bugged? I might have stumbled into a language trap here because I played it in english but it's not my native language and I was confused by the "or" in the achievement's desciption, but even as I read the translated description I think I did everything right, so anyone has any suggestions?

Sorry for the lenghty text for such a small problem just wanted to get everything in there that might cause the problem :)

[wille44]

Ghost and clean hands are notoriously unpredictable achievements. I also had a run with checked boxes for no kills/detections through all the missions and didn't get either of them. I probably let weepers drown under the sewers when I sleep darted them (assuming they fell in the water) but I also did everything right for ghost and something just prevented it from popping.

[Morente]

Yeah it seems a bit weird, I might do a third run just for Ghost but wanted to check first if there was something I did wrong so that I could not have gotten the Achievement anyway with my last playthrough

[marstinson]

Ghost and Shadow achievements are related, but different. Any alerts (three red suspicion indicators) will blow both of them. You're allowed to kill anyone and still get Shadow, but killing anyone other than your legitimate targets will fail Ghost and killing anyone at all fails Clean Hands. That would include finishing Granny Rags' poisoning side-quest back in the High Overseer mission, although the fail doesn't show up for a few more missions. Then there is a lady you rescue from thugs in another mission who then wanders off and gets killed by Weepers or Rats, which also blows Clean Hands, so it's not necessarily buggy (except for that whole Granny Rags/Slackjaw mess), but "very picky" might be a good description.

[wille44]

Which lady, this is the first I've heard something like that. I already knew granny rags though.

[Morente]

Wow marstinson you might have finally cleared up where I failed all the time!
In every playthrough I saved the lady always without getting spotted but I did not know that she would get killed afterwards and the kill counts as one of mine!

wille44: When at the start of the level, where Samuel has let you off the boat you would go up, pass the first wall of light, then being in that courtyard where on the left hand side is the lab of that rat intestines scientist and on the right hand side theres the art dealer. Look directly at the second wall of light, you can bypass that one by going left and down where there is some sort of small arch and behind that there are two guards harrassing a woman about some elixir, when you wait to long they kill her, so I always saved her by now,
Though I'm not exactly sure when she shows up there, if it is the first Mission where you have to asassinate Campbell or the second one in the Golden Cat...

[SadisticPotato]

I have killed nobody and i did not get spotted at any mission... No Achievment. Do i really have to start a new game or is it enough if i gain these stats at every mission by playing them again?

[Morente]

I'm not sure, I think you have to start over again. DId you by any chance encounter the Granny Rags bug, where if you choke her in the confrontation with slackjaw near the end it secretly counts as a kill? If so, you could just replay from that point on and then finish the game.

[jesseenns]

in my run threw of the unholy trio. it gave me cleanr hands, but not ghost or shadow. check mark in both boxes across all missions. for granny rags i stopped timed grabbed the key and was out of the room before it wore off.. felling pretty juked...

[Kronos - Il Porcospino]

A simple question:
If you killed Morgan with Steam.... how did you managed to take the girl OUT of the sauna? If you didn't, you just have killed a civilian.
Watch out!
Anyway, I got the Clean Hands achievement [took the key, freezed time and ran like hell in the Granny Rags/Slackjack confrontation], and now I'm trying to kill ALL and ONLY key targets, to see if it's this the meaning of the achievement

I'll be back [Terminator Style]

[ghost]

Don't kill anyone, perform all non-lethal key target removals. Play through the entire game without alerting anyone, no red marks above enemies' heads.

Skip Granny/Slackjaw (except when you need to do Slackjaw's quest to get rid of the Pendleton Brothers)

Sneak past everything. Blink and Slow Time are you bestest friends.

If you play the entire game like this, reloading when you alert someone, you will never be in trouble, never have to kill, and you'll be assured to get Ghost/Specter/etc.

[El_Coronel]

I just got my Ghost/Clean Hands. The only two issues I had were with Campbell and Granny Rags.

My solution to Campbell was to KO everyone in the building (my playthrough was trying to be no KO'ing of guards, just avoidance) so no one can come across Campbell in his chair.

Granny rags was done by following this video;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOiqe7VSbOg

Basically if you did it right, you should be able to choke and KO her and she won't turn into rats. I think you just need to time it so that her cameo is destroyed before you choke her.

[Laluzi]

Well, this is late, but your problem here is that you killed the Pendleton twins, Lady Boyle, and Admiral Havelock. Even if you went unnoticed throughout, you still had kills to your name, which breaks Clean Hands - which in turn breaks Ghost.

Now, as for other characters and getting killed - if you land a hit on a character or knock them out, and something else kills them (a fall, rats, other enemies, explosions) - that counts as your kill. Any casualties of a reprogrammed security device are also your kills. But if you don't touch a character and they die anyway, it doesn't count as your kill - meaning you can lure enemies towards other enemies and let them duke it out, and it won't hurt your Clean Hands. Note that rats sometimes appear to eat bodies, especially if there are dead bodies nearby, and if triggered, they can and will kill unconscious bodies. If an area seems ratty (if you see five or more rats scurrying around, because that's the minimum I've seen begin swarm behavior) or has dead bodies nearby, you may wish to move unconscious bodies to higher terrain - dumpsters, rooftops, chandeliers, crates.

I'm not sure the aforementioned woman would be a problem, because you never actually engaged her in combat - however, I always clear out those weepers before going up to her anyway.

Now, I have a question about Ghost. Does Ghost break if an enemy gets three 'levels' of alert, or when it pops red? Because there are things you can do that will set other guards up to three bars without actually being noticed (for instance, throwing a grenade into an area will attract all guards in a large radius and put them on high alert. Excellent if you want to lure them into rats/river krusts/weepers.)

[Streaton]

Originally posted by Laluzi:

Now, I have a question about Ghost. Does Ghost break if an enemy gets three 'levels' of alert, or when it pops red? Because there are things you can do that will set other guards up to three bars without actually being noticed (for instance, throwing a grenade into an area will attract all guards in a large radius and put them on high alert. Excellent if you want to lure them into rats/river krusts/weepers.)

When the bars go red is considered "alerted," anything below that is ok for the Ghost Achievement.

Also, the issue with the OP from a few years ago was most likely caued by choking out the pendleton because there's a woman with him and if you touch him/interact with him then she auto-alerts to you and it breaks the achievement. Easiest way to do deal with them and get the achievement is doing the non-lethal option.

[Boy Howdy]

Ok so I'm having this same problem. I have EVERY ghost/no kill box checked for EVERY mission. (This is PS3 by the way.) I heard about the weepers in-between the missions, so I went back to that part of the game and knocked them both out. They didn't drown, and I wasn't detected. WTF did I do wrong?

[Streaton]

Originally posted by CC Oogily Boogily:

so I went back to that part

Did you only go back to that area using the chapter selection or starting a complete new playthrough? You have to do it in one complete playthrough without using the chapter select tool.You are allowed to use auto-saves though, just not your own manual saves.