Travel Distance Estimation for Ultramarathon

The Ultramarathon achievement requires players to travel at least 960 km. This guide will list an estimation of travel distances for different activities, for better planning on how to get this achievement.

Introduction

Ultramarathon is one of the hardest achievements to grind in Dying Light 2. There is very little information about it, and most guides are about using a controller and placing rubber bands on the joystick for the player to run infinitely while being idle.

But how do you achieve this legitimately without spending several hours on the game? First it's needed to know what counts and what doesn't when it comes to traveling, and how far the distance is for different activities. Activities from the DLC Bloody Ties has no part in this guide.

What counts:

• Sprinting
  
• Dashing
  
• Swimming
  
• Climbing
  
• Using lifts
  
• Using the elevator in the VNC Tower

What doesn't count:

• Falling
  
• Using the Paraglider
  
• Using Fast Travel
  
• Using Zip Lines
  
• Using the Grappling Hook

In order to see your current travel distance, head to the main menu and click on Extras. Top right corner of the screen will show how much you've traveled in meters.

Prologue

Doing the prologue can give around 4780 meters, which takes around 1 hour speed-running it.
Statistically re-playing the prologue around 201 times will result in 960 km travel distance.

Prologue	Distance (m)	Time (h)
1 round	≈ 4780	≈ 1
≈ 201 rounds	≈ 960780	≈ 201

Using The Lifts

Using lifts grants travel distance. I've estimated the distances for some lifts in Central Loop.

New Dawn Park:
• West side of the Fish Eye
  
• South side of the Fish Eye
  
• East side of the Fish Eye
  
• North side of the Fish Eye
  
• Northwest side of the Fish Eye

Downtown:
• West of Artist Workshop (if it's Survivor Territory)
  
• North of Downtown court metro station

West: 30 meters | South: 20 meters











East: 30 meters | North: 20 meters











Northwest: 30 meters West of Artist Workshop: 37 meters











≈ 67 meters

Statistically going up and down for all the lifts mentioned here will grant roughly 468 meters, meaning it has to be done around 2051 times in order to get the achievement.

All lifts	Distance (m)
Up and down	468
≈2051 times	960000

VNC Tower Elevator

Going up and down the elevator counts for distance travel. According to Dying Light Wiki[dyinglight.fandom.com] the VNC tower is 310 meters tall. However when I tested the distance, going from the PK outpost up to the roof granted me around 315 meters. Going down from the PK outpost to the ground floor was around 45 meters, meaning taking the elevator from the ground floor all the way up to the roof will be 360 meters while standing still. This process also takes about 1 minute and 20 seconds. Walking around in the elevator can give around 510 meters.

Statistically using the elevator, while standing still, will require about 2667 rides (either up or down) which will take around 58 hours to do. Walking around during the ride will take 1882 rides and about 41 hours to do.

Jumping down from the VNC Tower will not grant any travel distance.

Standing still:

Elevator	Distance (m)	Time
1 ride	360	1 min 20 secs
≈ 2667 rides	960000	57 hours 47 mins

Walking around:

Elevator	Distance (m)	Time
1 ride	510	1 min 20 secs
≈ 1882 rides	960000	40 hours 47 mins

There's also a possibility to climb up the VNC Tower instead, in case you enjoy parkour more than running around in the elevator.

See this video to see how:

When I climbed the VNC tower starting from the safe zone in the PK outpost, granted me about 1526 meters which took around 14 minutes, however it is possible to do it faster.

Statistically it will take about 629 times to climb up the VNC tower and about 147 hours to achieve 960 km.

Climbing	Distance (m)	Time
1 climb	1526	14 mins
629 climbs	960000	147 h

Traveling Between Old Villedor and Central Loop

Traveling by foot between the two maps is a great way to farm travel distance. Depending on where you start, sprinting from Old Villedor to Central Loop by going through the metro as done during the Let's Waltz! quest will grant about 1,2 - 1,5 km. This can take more or less 5 minutes.

See this video that shows how to do it:

Sprints	Distance (km)	Time
1 time	1,5 km	5 mins
640 times	960	53,5 h

The Bridge to Renegade's Main Camp

At Newfound Lost Lands is a Renegade territory where their main camp is located. There's a bridge that can take you to the entrance, the distance between the entrance and the Nightrunner's hideout that's on the other end is approximately 445 meters.

Statsitically running through the bridge 2158 times, which will be about 1079 times back and forth, will grant the achievement

Bridge runs	Distance (m)
1 run	≈445 m
≈2158 runs	960000 m

Parkour Challenges

Parkour Challenges were tricky to estimate the travel distances, however it's estimated to give between 200 - 500 meters per challenge, depending on the type of challenge.

There are 17 parkour challenges in the game, excluding Paraglider City Tour (where the paraglider is needed). Let's say the average distance for the challenges are 250 meters.

Statistically doing all these challenges more or less than 226 times will grant the achievement.

Challenge	Distance (m)
17 challenges	4250
226 times	960000

Conclusion

After this experiment, it's safe to say that the most time saving method is riding the VNC Tower elevator and running around in it.

So when playing the game, keep in mind is that it's good to use the tall lifts, climb up tall buildings, walking between the two maps and doing the challenges. Walking to each challenge and doing them will most likely give a larger number than what was mentioned in this guide, which only included doing the actual challenge, and not what's in between.

A reminder that the numbers can be a little bit off since it was difficult to give perfect accurate distance estimations, but they are pretty accurate.

Thank you for reading this guide, hopefully it's helpful. More stuff will probably be added in the future. All pictures are taken by me using photo mode.

Fun fact, I learned that the going to sleep animation gives 2 meters.

[Heebe]

@inspy Kat: Thanks! I haven't tried the brujah booster or played anything from the new updates 😅 I might play through the game again in the future

@T12: You're welcome! Smart move by running everywhere on purpose

[T12]

Thanks man, this is really helpful information. I have purposely completed the game by running everywhere and have ended up with around 400km in 80 hours of game time. Looks like I have got a fair amount of lift rides to take then... Thanks again

[Inspy Kat]

Wow, this is interesting. But do you know how much time you can save by constantly using the newly added Brujah booster while running around the streets? I unlocked the "Ultramarathon" achievement a year ago using the rubber band method while on the roof of Saint Joseph Hospital — before even reaching the second region, but this achievement still bothers me.

[Heebe]

Nice, glad I could be of help :)

[balls]

managed to automate the VNC tower route using autohotkey, thank you for the numbers man. saved ~12 hours from previous progress (I would've had an extra 480,000m but one of the recent updates reset everyone's distance travelled which was very depreessing), so it should only take me around 45 hours of afk'ing to get this :)

[Heebe]

yes it is possible, going both up and down to any level counts. Completely agree with you, sadness

[Memestrina]

Isn't it possible to go from the top of VNC tower to the basement? Would that add some more meters or is it useless?
Either way, this achievement is so stupid and it's actually crazy they put it in, guess they had to use something to get to those "500 hours of gameplay" they promised during marketing

[LoneShadow084]

Wow, that sure is a lot of hours and an insane amount of repitition.

[Heebe]

I have 200 hours and before the new patch I had traveled like over 300k, now it's all reset.. pain. It's def the worst achievement ever since stuff like falling, ziplines, and paraglider doesn't count. It's also why I wrote this guide to estimate what I can do to get to 960k

[Dwemer]

i have like 270 hours into the game and i'm still playing with the same character since the game launch and somehow managed to only travel around 250k meters. I wish there were more interesting challenges with the achievement, like this it feels way to grindy.