I’m planning on doing the “hurry up it’s raid night” achievement”, as I want that Raynor loading banner and it requires you to complete ALL WoL achievements. The “hurry up it’s raid night” achievement requires you to complete the campaign on normal (or higher) in less than 8 hours. I know that time aboard the Hyperion doesn’t count, however, I’ve seen several different comments on YouTube videos and also have a few questions of my own that are unanswered online (that I have seen so far). Firstly, is it possible to get the achievement through the archives? Or do I have to start a new campaign? I’ve seen some comments say that you can, and some say that you can’t, I’d like a definitive answer on this, if anyone has one. Also, do cinematics and in-game cinematics count toward mission time? By in-game cinematics I am referring to, say, the mission where you unlock BCs, and they pan to the DTs and tell you about the DTs, or the mothership, and so forth. Does save scumming the thing work?. Obviously, to complete it in under 8 hours, you want the fastest times. If I am not sure I can rush the mission with the units I have, can I save and then rush the mission, fail, and load my saved game? Will the unsaved failure count towards my 8 hours or not? Lastly, can I skip missions to get this achievement? I know you need “a minimum of 19 missions” to finish this achievement. However, I have already finished this campaign before. Can I still skip some missions, or since they are in the archives, they will count towards my time played? Any and all (hopefully definitive) answers are appreciated! Yes, I know that it’s 2019 and people either finished the achievement or aren’t doing, but I’m still asking anyway.
I did it recently with starting new campaign. Completed 20 missions (1 additional for researches in lab, because last mission is pretty difficult).
Doing achievement from Archive should work (as I heard), but if there are all 27 missions there it will be much more difficult because you need to do 27 missions in 8 hours instead of 19-20 missions in 8 hours.
Save-loading and cinematics are not counted in the result time. But not 100 % sure about that.
Yah just start a new campaign, and do it on normal. Skip the missions where you focus on exposing mengsk if you can, and skip the Zeratul crystal missions. I did it in about 5 hours, but it was because normal is soooooo easy and I skipped bonuses or additional objectives.
If you started a new mission, then the goal here is to simply finish Char in 8 hours. That’s actually plenty. You just do the mission that you like or give you important unit for your play style.
While the archive is, indeed, worked, I’m not certain about the method they use to calculate total play time. You’d better start a new campaign or this achievement.
Save scum is your best friend.
Lastly, there is a setting to show in game timer. I’m not sure where exactly you turn it on. Find it and use it for better understanding of what count and whatnot.
My advice is.
Start a new playthrough. Save scum. Definitely skip In Utter Darkness. If you are good enough to do WoL on Brutal, you are good enough to beat the clock on Normal.
Use Zeratul strategy in Echoes of the Future. Skip time-consuming sidequests. Don’t overuse Drill in The Dig. Rush the Artifact Vault in Maw of the Void sooner.
A few neat gimmicks:
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Destroying all Protoss structures is also a way to finish “The Dig.” If you’re fast enough, you might be able to beat the level faster by destroying the Tal’darim before the time it would take for the Laser Drill to break through the temple doors.
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If you’re good at multi-tasking, and choose the right mission order, to go around maxing out on Protoss research as fast as possible, grabbing Orbital Drops will allow ya to quickly cheese “Gates of Hell.” Drop a couple ghosts/spectres by Warfield, and nuke the Nydus Worms to end the level.
Just use Hercules. You’re playing on Normal, if you fill them up you can just click, unload, A-move and win.
Destroying T’Ds in The Dig is neat strategy, because you are often waiting fot the laser, but it shouldn’t make that much difference.
Thanks all! Appreciate all the replies.
Tell us how did it go 
Wiping the Protoss in The Dig is significantly faster, probably 30 minute time save compared to letting the drill finish. Should definitely go for it if you need more time.
There’s definitely a time save, but 30 minutes seems really overboard. Doesn’t “The Dig” only take about 25 minutes normally? I would of figured that destroying all the structures (even using the Drill to help destroy the bases) would put you around the 15 minute mark.
If you’re expecting a response for “how it went”, sorry y’all. First, I’m grinding to diamond right now (and getting reallyyyyy close). After I’ll probably want to try it, but I’m going on vacation soon, so I don’t think I’ll make it. I guess I’ll tell y’all in September or something when y’all forget about helping me and then I’ll get called out for nuclear necrobumps. ¯\(ツ)/¯
Edit: don’t think I’ll need to; completed whole campaign on hard only using save/reload twice, so normal should be a breeze in under 8 hours for 19 missions. I guess if I fail I’ll make a new post 
I just got the achievement from the Archives, but in order to do it I had to complete ALL 29 missions for less the 8 hours. It seems that for some reason they all count. For example on my original playthrough I choose to safe the colonists and went for Safe Haven mission, but I got the achievement only after I finished Haven’s Fall mission on normal from the Archives. I had completed Haven’s Fall on Brutal, but it took me around 1 hour, when I finished it on normal for around 18 min(Safe Haven took me 13 min on normal) I got the achievement. When I calculated the total time for all 29 missions on normal it was 7 hours and 35 min.
Probably because you were using the Archives from a run where you did all the missions. If you were to start from scratch with the “new campaign” button, it would only count whatever missions you played, counting the time for the missions you skipped as 0.