How to unlock the secret ending in Hi-Fi Rush

Those looking to get the most out of Hi-Fi Rush will have plenty to do after the credits roll. You can tackle the Rhythm Tower and see how many enemy waves you can clear, and of course, you can replay levels on higher difficulties and aim for better ranks. But in particular, one postgame activity may catch your interest: an entire extra story quest leading to a secret ending. If you wish to learn how to unlock the secret ending in Hi-Fi Rush and conquer the challenges associated with it, then feel free to keep on reading. It goes without saying, but expect heavy spoilers from here on out.

What are the requirements to unlock the Hi-Fi Rush secret ending?

Right after beating the game, you will be explicitly tasked with going back to previous levels and finding the Spectra Doors hidden within them. Each of these doors contains a special challenge that requires you to defeat enemies under specific conditions. We already have a guide detailing how to find these Spectra Doors and conquer their respective challenges. But if you wish to find them yourself, the game will indicate which stages contain a door by displaying the word “Spectra” on the level selection menu.

Upon beating all of these Spectra Door challenges, you will unlock a brand-new area that you can enter by speaking to Peppermint at the hideout. This area, the Spectra Hub Room, features eight more Spectra Door challenges for you to tackle. Most of these challenges serve as more difficult variants of the ones you found in the main levels. After you finish all of them, you will gain access to the conspicuous door at the far end of the Spectra Hub Room. This door leads you to the secret ending of Hi-Fi Rush, so here’s how to best every challenge required to unlock it.

You have a lot ahead of you if you want to unlock the secret ending of Hi-Fi Rush. Screenshot via PC Invasion

Spectra Door Challenge 9

This challenge involves defeating every enemy while staying off the ground as much as possible, much like the Spectra Door challenge in Track 1. It even starts off the same way with a wave of flying bomb-throwing enemies that you have to Magnet Grab between to stay airborne. Once you clear that wave, however, things become complicated, as the next wave features standard robot enemies that remain grounded unless you launch them. While you still can afford to fall to the ground a few times, you really have to minimize these moments so the timer doesn’t run out. For the initial wave of flying enemies, every time you defeat one, try to perform a double jump or midair dodge before you Magnet Grab to reduce your chances of touching the ground.

For the grounded enemies, the most obvious solution is to immediately launch one into the air using your dashing heavy attack. Once you do, perform your regular aerial light attack combo, but don’t initiate the Beat Hit, as that will send the enemy to the ground without killing them. Instead, perform three light attacks, wait for a beat, and then perform three more to stay in the air until the enemy dies. Alternatively, you can use an aerial Jam Combo if you have a section of your Reverb Gauge stored up. You can even call in Peppermint after the third hit of your light attack combo to keep the enemy in the air and deal some extra damage.

Spectra Door Challenge 10

Just like the challenge in Track 2, this one restricts you so that you only inflict damage on an enemy within 12 beats after parrying an attack. The strategies for this challenge aren’t too different from the ones for the Track 2 challenge, except that you will be dealing with more shielded enemies. Just like before, your partners’ attacks will only affect enemy shields within those 12 beats, so make sure you parry first. Also, keep in mind that the 12-beat rule only applies to the specific enemy that you parried. So if you parry an enemy and try to attack the other one within the 12-beat limit, your attacks won’t affect them.

The first wave features two enemies with blue shields, so you need to have Peppermint selected for this one. To help speed this part up, you can actually parry one of the enemies right as they bring their shield up, as that technically counts as an attack. As soon as you see the enemy move, press the parry button one beat afterward. Doing so successfully will immediately shatter the shield without the need for Peppermint. Additionally, the parry will trigger the 12-beat limit and allow you to get some early hits in.

After this initial wave, you will have to contend with two green shielded enemies that require the use of Macaron. For this wave, you will want to use Macaron’s parry counter to break the enemy shields faster. Normally, Macaron can only break a shield after performing two of his standard attacks, not exactly ideal when operating under a time limit. But by performing the parry counter, Macaron will unleash two punches that can destroy one of the shields in one fell swoop.

Spectra Door Challenge 11

This challenge echoes the one in Track 3 by only allowing you to deal damage using parry counters. The challenge only pits you against two basic enemies, one short-range and one long-range foe. It sounds trivial, but the challenge forces you to defeat both of them within an extremely tight 23-second time limit. Sticking to Macaron’s parry counter will give you the best chance of success, as that one deals the most damage in the shortest amount of time.

For the ranged enemy, don’t bother trying to chase him down. Moving towards him will cause him to run away from you and waste time, so just stand still and parry counter the blaster shots once they come out.

Screenshot via PC Invasion

Spectra Door Challenge 12

For this challenge, you have to consistently stay in rhythm with your inputs much like the challenge midway through Track 10. But while that one required a Just-Timing score of at least 85%, this one demands that you maintain at least a 90% score by the time you finish off the last enemy. To make things extra tricky, the music that plays during the Spectra Hub Room challenges moves at a faster tempo than the prior challenges. Make sure that you keep pace with the faster timing as you deal with the enemies here.

This challenge pits you exclusively against fire-based enemies, so you will want to bring out Korsica to make things easier. If the enemies leave trails of fire on the ground, don’t hesitate to use Korsica so they don’t become a problem later. Additionally, you should use her as soon as the boxing robot enemy lights his hands on fire for an easy opening. Also, keep in mind that both the triple hook combo and the spinning fire uppercut from the boxing enemy can be parried using the same eighth-note triplet rhythm. Once the phoenix enemy spawns, the usual strategy of Magnet Grabbing it and performing the following dodge command should work here.

Spectra Door Challenge 13

This one is fairly straightforward, as it simply asks you to beat every enemy within a minute and 32 seconds. For the first wave, focus on the bike enemy and destroy its shield generator as soon as it deploys one. If you ignore the shield generator and head straight for the bike enemy, it will zip away from you constantly, wasting precious time. If you’ve been performing Beat Hits at the end of your combos, you should have filled up enough of your Reverb Gauge so that you can repeatedly use high-damaging Jam Combos on the four-legged enemy once it spawns.

There are only a few challenges left to go on your way to unlock the secret ending of Hi-Fi Rush. Don’t falter now.

Spectra Door Challenge 14

This is another “don’t move the left stick” challenge, and it’s arguably even easier than the last one. The challenge in Track 7 features several enemies with shields, and although you could simply use your respective partners against them, it was more efficient to use your special attack against them to avoid running out of time. Unfortunately, the default input for activating the special attack involves pressing in the left and right sticks, which may have led to an accidental slip-up.

With Challenge 14, even though you’re technically fighting more difficult enemies than before, none of them have shields. This gives you less incentive to even bother with the left stick, allowing you to focus exclusively on your Magnet Grabs, dodges, and parries. Only the buzzsaw enemy may potentially give you trouble due to its fast, multi-hit strings. But it only has two that you need to watch out for: one that can be parried in a four-quarter-note rhythm and another that you parry in a five-eighth-note rhythm. Keep those two rhythms in mind and you should take the enemy out with little to no issue.

The secret Hi-Fi Rush ending is a short while away. Screenshot via PC Invasion

Spectra Door Challenge 15

One of the harder challenges, this one asks you to defeat a bike enemy, a green shielded enemy, and a standard fire enemy without taking damage. The real problem is the bike enemy, as once it sets the shield generator down, the other enemies can easily aggro and overwhelm you. And as mentioned before, the bike enemy will continually move away from you while the shield generator is active, so it’s not practical to go straight for it.

You can make this challenge a lot easier for yourself using a simple luring strategy. Stand far away from the shield generator so that the other two enemies move towards you. Once they get close, immediately head for the shield generator so you have enough space to safely destroy it. Then, focus on the bike enemy before dealing with the rest of the group. Keep an eye out for any enemy tells so that you can avoid accidentally taking damage and losing the challenge.

Spectra Door Challenge 16

In a similar vein to the Track 5 challenge, this one requires you to defeat four enemies with a Jam Combo so that you earn overkill bonuses for each one. You have a bit more leeway with this one since it spawns eight enemies, allowing you to miss four of them and still complete the challenge. However, the enemies are generally much tougher than in the last challenge aside from the four standard enemies in the first wave and the bigger sword enemy in the second wave.

For the first wave, focus on getting batteries to fill up your Reverb Gauge. You can use Quick Beat Hits on either the smaller enemies or the samurai enemy to get some batteries without dealing too much damage to them. Due to the samurai enemy’s high health, though, you can afford to use a full combo against him, which will reward you with more batteries upon performing the Beat Hit. And remember that you can still perform a Jam Combo from a Quick Beat Hit. So if you want to get an overkill bonus but don’t want to risk dealing too much damage to an enemy with a full combo, the Quick Beat Hit should help with that.

Hi-Fi Rush secret ending challenge: Dealing with the bigger enemies

The second wave spawns exclusively bigger enemies, so you can get away with performing a few more full combos on them to get more batteries. But if you want to get an overkill bonus on either the samurai enemy or the buzzsaw enemy, there is a way to do so somewhat consistently. Once you get them to low health, they will attempt to trigger the parry minigame that you typically use to finish them off. If they trigger this minigame, complete the sequence, but don’t perform the Beat Hit at the end. Do the exact same thing if they initiate the parry minigame a second time.

Once their comic book flashing effect goes away and they become vulnerable again, they should have low enough health to die to a Jam Combo. To be safe, you can try to initiate the Jam Combo from either a Quick Beat Hit or a short combo. You can also bypass the larger enemies’ parry minigame outright by parrying them as soon as they try to initiate it. After you parry them twice, you can try and use a Jam Combo to finish them off.

Screenshot via PC Invasion

How to unlock the secret ending of Hi-Fi Rush – After the challenges

With every Spectra Door Challenge cleared, you can now finally enter the Spectra Hub Room’s mysterious door. You discover that — shock horror — the Spectra program lives on even after Kale’s death. An AI replica of Kale taunts you for inadvertently reactivating Spectra, but just as it looks like a final showdown is about to begin, the machine in the back deactivates. The camera moves over to show that a cleaning bot removed the machine’s plug from the outlet, eliminating the threat just like that. The day has been saved, and you didn’t even have to lift a finger. Congratulations!

As a reward for accessing the secret ending in Hi-Fi Rush, you get a brand-new chip that lets you see the enemies’ hit points. This may seem like a strange reward considering all of the effort you went through to obtain it, but it may very well come in handy when tackling the higher difficulties.