Trackmania players have been trying to complete a challenge map so ludicrously hard there's a $30,000 prize for reaching the top, and over a month after release no-one's done it

A standout moment for Trackmania was the release of Deep Dip in November 2022, a 14-floor map that represented the greatest challenge in the game's history. Each floor was put-together by a different creator, and asked different things of players, and the goal is simply to get to the top. But there's one very important kicker: not a single checkpoint. You miss a jump on Deep Dip, and you're going all the way back to the bottom.

Deep Dip wasn't the first «tower» map the game had seen, but the challenge was so extreme it was accompanied by a $1,000 prize pool to be shared among the first finishers, and anyone who was anyone in the Trackmania scene had to at least try it. One such figure was YouTuber and Trackmania stalwart Wirtual, who at the end of April posted a history of Deep Dip showcasing his own eventual completion of the map, which doubled-up as an announcement for Deep Dip 2 (thanks, RPS).

Sadly, they didn't call it Deep Dip 2: Dip Harder, because that's the general idea. Everything that players love-slash-hated about Deep Dip, but cranked up to the max: This time with 16 floors of ludicrously escalating challenge, a community funded $30,000 prize pool, and still not a checkpoint to be seen anywhere. The map was released on May 4, 2024.

Over a month later, not a single player has completed Deep Dip 2, and watching their attempts is absolutely agonising. Every single floor of this thing is a nightmare which, in and of itself, is not a problem. But when you combine that with the absence of checkpoints and the vertical construction that means any tiny error can wipe out the last three hours of play… well, if this thing isn't responsible for a few smashed controllers, I'll eat my hat.

We live in an age where any new release is ripped-apart within days, and community challenges like this are rarely any different: especially when there's that giant prize waiting at the end (the $30,000 will be split between the first three players to complete the map). But Deep Dip