Hot Lava Guide: Tips, Cheats, and Strategies

Our Hot Lava guide will help bring you up to speed with this awesome new action platformer for Apple Arcade. It brings you right back to your childhood when you leapt across sofas, chairs, and tables to avoid the floor, …

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Our Hot Lava guide will help bring you up to speed with this awesome new action platformer for Apple Arcade. It brings you right back to your childhood when you leapt across sofas, chairs, and tables to avoid the floor, which was covered in lava. Our imaginations were a lot better back then.

That’s without even mentioning the insane number of toys to collect. As you progress, you’ll unlock new action figures to play as, which you can customise with a variety of hats, back items, and accessories. This is even more fun when you remember that Hot Lava is kind of an MMO, as you’ll see other players playing alongside you while connected to the internet.

There are a bunch of different platforming mechanics to learn, objectives to complete, and collectibles to find in Hot Lava, and we’re going to help make it a lot easier for you with this guide. Let’s get into it.

Hot Lava Guide – How it Works:

Hot Lava is a first person platformer, whose closest comparison is Mirror’s Edge. You’ll pull off a variety of leaps, stunts, and tricks as you try and navigate platforming obstacle courses without touching the ground — which is coated in hot lava.

It’s made up of a number of different hub worlds, which contain mini obstacle courses that you can practice your skills in alongside other players, and levels. These feature lengthy obstacle courses to beat, and a number of objectives to complete within them. These range from beating the courses within a set time to finding a hidden collectible or even not dying a single time.

It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to beat a level 100% in a single attempt. Hot Lava encourages replay ability, as you’ll need to seek out hidden shortcuts that allow you to shave off the seconds as you head towards the shortest completion time. The collectibles themselves are often hidden in the unlikeliest places too, so you’ll need to scour the levels seeking them.

You’re also encouraged to explore the hub worlds, which include mini challenges that often revolve around a particular toy. These are dotted around the hubs and levels, and include balls to throw, pogos to bounce on, and more. It’s worth practicing with these as they can seriously help you in later levels.

Before we move onto general tips and tricks, we just want to quickly touch on the various different stunts you can perform. Mirrors Edge highlighted objects in red that you could interact with, and Hot Lava does the same. If you see anything glowing green, you can interact with it. This includes ropes and poles to swing from and slopes to slide on.

Then there are objects like trampolines, which allow you to jump much higher than usual. We recommend practicing and experimenting with these in the hub worlds to get the feel of them, as they’ll often come in very handy while tackling difficult levels.

Hot Lava Tips and Tricks:

Now that you understand the basics, let’s take a look at some more specific tips and tricks:

  • Play with a controller: Hot Lava is a very precise and challenging platformer, and the touch controls don’t really do it justice. You’ll struggle with the easiest jumps with the, admittedly naff, touch controls. When the challenge ramps up later, you’ll be wrestling with the controls as well as the difficulty level. Save yourself the trouble, and play with a controller.
  • Bind buttons to restart level and reset to checkpoint: You’re going to fail a lot in Hot Lava, so you’ll want to get back into the action as quickly as possible. We recommend binding restart level and reset to checkpoint to buttons that you won’t accidentally hit while playing. This will save you a lot of time versus pressing start and selecting the option you want each time you fail.
  • Seek shortcuts: Each level usually has numerous different shortcuts hidden in plain sight. They might be as simple as skipping certain platforms to cross the lava a lot faster, or as complex as seeking a hidden pole you can leap off to bypass a tricky section with ease. If you’re struggling to beat a certain time objective, seek these out.
  • Practice in the hub worlds: Practice makes perfect, and you’ll need to be perfect to beat the more challenging levels in Hot Lava. Don’t make life difficult for yourself and practice the various different manoeuvres you can perform while in the safety of the hub world.
  • Beat the star challenges over numerous attempts: Don’t try and get every single star in each level in a single attempt — it’s near impossible. They often work against each other too. Finding a hidden collectible takes you off the beaten path and sucks away time, making it impossible to beat the level in the required time to beat a challenge that requires speed. Try and beat just one challenge in each attempt, and spend some time getting to know the level if you’re struggling.

Head of Editorial
Glen has over a decade's worth of experience in gaming journalism, writing for Pocket Gamer, Pocket Tactics, Nintendo Life, and Gfinity. When he's not badgering everyone about the dangers of passive text, you can probably find him playing Wild Rift.