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How To Win Every boss battle In The Last Of Us Part II
Fight smarter, not harder
The Last Of Us is a dark, gritty, often hyper-violent game which thrives on the awful realism at the heart of humanity. To that end, there are no cartoonish boss battles with larger-than-life characters and huge health bars like previous Naughty Dog offerings Crash Bandicoot or Jak & Daxter.
But while most of the game is about stealthily sneaking by big hoards of zombies or taking out patrols of Wolves or Scars more methodically, there are a few moments when the game pitches you in direct opposition to much stronger foes in more of a one on one contest. Below, we tackle some essential tips on overall combat, which might help you through your regular gameplay but will be especially crucial in these distinct boss battles. While most of the combat in the game can be avoided if you're both stealthy and quiet enough, these bosses must be defeated to progress, so make sure you come prepared.
General Tips
There's a wild and wonderful array of creatures in The Last of Us Part 2
© Sony Interactive Entertainment
Generally, combat in The Last Of Us Part 2 should be approached slowly, taking down your enemies silently with either the bows or stealth grabs. If they spot you, run away and hide. Try and get past them without combat, especially on the higher difficulties. While you can’t skip the boss battles, skipping the other battles will ensure you have lots of ammo and resources, and these are crucial to winning the boss battles. The game does provide a decent ammo boost for a few of them, but in general you want to keep your best guns fully loaded for the fiercest foes. Humans and runners can — and should — be taken out with a pistol to the head, or an arrow - the latter is preferable as you can retrieve your ammo - or just by sneaking up behind them and choking them out, so try that.
As well as keeping your ammo stocked, you’ll want to keep your Molotovs, Trip Mines and other area damaging resources. Medikits and Arrows should be the priority, but if you have an abundance of resources, you might want to use these on the tougher mid-level opponents, but just be sure to keep enough back.
Finally, if you’re struggling with a stealthy approach, using R2 to throw a brick/bottle at your enemy then rushing them with a melee weapon is an action heavy way to take them out while conserving resources. This is definitely not quiet though, so be prepared to run and hide again afterwards, or to try and melee your way through if there’s fewer enemies left.
Spoilers ahead; they start off minor then become fairly major: you’ve been warned.
The Bloater
Don't let this guy grab hold of you
© Sony Interactive Entertainment
The first enemy you meet is actually during one of the game’s many flashbacks. Playing as a young Ellie and assisted by Joel, you need to make your way through a hotel. After clearing it of some reasonably easy enemies, you’ll be ambushed by a Bloater as you squeeze your way through a tight corridor. Despite being the weakest boss in the game, because young Ellie has a far less varied arsenal, that point on bullet conservation becomes even more critical here.
The good thing about this boss battle is that Joel is a huge help. As in the first game, Joel does most of the fighting while Ellie chips in; that means that even though you’re controlling Ellie, the Bloater will go for Joel far more often.
He won’t die, but he also won’t kill it without your help. Avoid the Bloater’s eye line and let it go for Joel while you pick off headshots. If it spots you and chases you, just run. Eventually, it’ll lose interest and head back to Joel. However, the battle does end with the Bloater grabbing you, only for Joel to rip it away from you and finally kill it. This is a scripted cutscene though, so don’t let it catch you in the hope that Joel will bail you out: he won’t.
The Second Bloater
Fire is your friend in the second Bloater boss fight
© Sony Interactive Entertainment
The Last Of Us Part II has some great story beats, but serving up two Bloaters as your first two boss battles probably isn’t one of them. The latter ones make up for that fact though, and these two at least play very differently, so it does feel like two distinctly different experiences.
This time, you’re playing as Day Three Ellie, so you’ve got no Joel to help out, but you should be fully stocked with enough tools to take it down.
You should throw a Molotov cocktail immediately as the fight begins, as this does good early damage and allows you to hide. If you’re fast, you can get a second shot in, but this cuts down on your getaway time, and you should be careful not to overlap with the fire from the first one, as this reduces the damage over time you’ll be dishing out.
While you can’t sneak up on the Bloater for a stealth attack, it is important that it doesn’t know where you are and can’t charge at you. The arcade machines give ample cover and will slow the Bloater down, so make sure you make use of them. Smoke bombs will help in a pinch too.
Once you have enough distance, there are two main ways to dish out big damage: a shotgun to the head, and Trip Mines. Both of them include you giving away your position, so don’t expect to be able to stand and deliver. If you can get the drop on it, place the Trip Mine, shotgun blast it in the head, then run. As it chases you, it’ll set off the Trip Mine and that’ll give you the chance you need to hide. Rinse and repeat until it’s dead; by the time you run out of shotgun shells it’ll hopefully be either dead or weak enough that the pistols and rifle can take care of the rest.
The Rat King
The Rat King reminds you that The Last of Us Part 2 is a horror game
© Sony Interactive Entertainment
While not the most significant from a story POV, the Rat King is destined to be the most remembered boss battle in The Last Of Us Part II. A huge roiling monster made of undead zombies morphed together in a thundering ball of arms and legs, the Rat King reminds you that, underneath all of the cinematics, The Last Of Us Part II is a horror game.
There are several stages to this boss battle, but the first one is simple: run. Tips are light here: just don’t crash into things and hold down sprint. Just be warned that there are a lot of twists on the run, and if you find yourself face to face with a door that won’t open, you’ve gone the wrong way. By this point, you’ll already be dead, so as the camera switches angle for the kill shot, see if you can spot the corridor you should have gone down.
The second phase drops you in a room with the Rat King and provides a flamethrower refill; you should have gotten the weapon itself a few minutes before finding the Rat King. It’s tempting just to empty the tank on it, but this won’t do enough damage to kill it and will leave you powerless to escape. Instead, try a short blast (around 25) and run away. The room is dark, twisty, and provides far too many opportunities for you to be closed in, so just running aimlessly won’t work. Try to stay in the central arena where you’re first dropped, or at least always try and circle back to it. The game sort of leads you down a red tunnel, but eventually this is a dead end. Try and make a burst past the Rat King via Pipe Bomb or flamethrower if you’ve strayed too far from where you started.
This is a boss fight played at speed, meaning you’ll be pretty much constantly running, ducking, popping up to fire, then running again. Short blasts of the flamethrower, rifle, or a quickly thrown Pipe Bomb is what you’ll be working with here. If you ever get a spare moment to make another Pipe Bomb, they’re worth it for the quick damage they cause, but don’t take any chances on making them if the Rat King is close.
About two-thirds of the way in, you reach the final stage of the battle. A second zombie will literally burst out from the Rat King and scuttle away, but the good news is you can ignore this one for now. Keep the pressure up on the Rat King; you’re close to defeating it but don’t get reckless, it’s just as deadly. Eventually, it’ll go down and you can deal with its offspring. This is basically an extra powerful version of the zombies that sneak around and stalk you, so have your rifle ready, listen mode engaged, and try to get the drop on it. Though far less powerful than the Rat King, you’re likely drained, so treat this like regular combat and be prepared to flee to try again from another angle.
Abby Vs Tommy
Sadly, the option for this boss fight isn't let beloved Tommy win
© Sony Interactive Entertainment
All that stuff about conserving ammo goes out of the window here. Tommy is a sniper and you won’t ever have to actually fight him, so don’t worry about that. Instead, you’ll have to make your way to him without getting taken out, so speed and safety are of the essence here.
There’s plenty of cars to hide behind, and Manny will guide you, but it’s easy to get caught out, especially with Tommy luring the zombies to you with gunshots. Stay low, but don’t be afraid to sprint. Listen to where Manny tells you to go, never stop unless there’s cover and try to take out the zombies before they get too close. Stealth is pointless here with Tommy making so much noise.
You’ll need to weave up the road to a van, from the van to a building, and then once inside the building, up the stairs. Manny does a good job of directing you, so just listen to him.
Once you’re upstairs, the zombies have gone and you instead have to fend of Tommy shooting directly at you. It’s pointless firing back, as the need to catch up to him rather than kill him. Always have your next cover planned - don’t just run forward aimlessly - and make a run for it as soon as Tommy shoots. He’s quick, but he still needs to reload so if you time your bursts, you’ll catch up to him in no time.
The Sledgehammer & The Last Scar
This fight is all about timing
© Sony Interactive Entertainment
Abby faces several Scars wielding sledgehammers on her journey, but only the first one has the mechanics of a boss battle. The mechanics are incredibly similar to her fight with the last Scar in her way as Haven burns too, so we’ve grouped them together here.
In the latter of these fights, Lev will help out and the battle has a final stage not present in the Sledgehammer fight, but Lev’s assistance is scripted so in raw ‘how do I beat this?’ terms, there’s not much difference.
It’s straight up hand to hand combat, so the temptation is to go toe to toe: don’t. Instead, you’ll want to tap L1 to dodge just as they swing their weapon at you, then quickly dive in with Square to land some body blows. The more damage you do, the more they swing, so while tapping L1 once is enough the first time, by the end of the fight you’ll need to leave room for three in succession, while still staying close enough to land a counter punch of your own.
In the second of these two fights, the final stage will see the Scar land on top of you. It’s not quite a quicktime event, but you will need to follow the button prompts on screen to pull an arrow from his shoulder - thanks Lev - and smash him in the face with it until he sags down in defeat.
Abby Vs Ellie
Abby vs Ellie: the Last of Us Part 2 boss fight you never wanted
© Sony Interactive Entertainment
The game’s main story concludes with you controlling Abby in a battle against Ellie, and no, you can’t just let her kill you. Well, you can, but you’ll be forced to play the battle over and over again. This is similar to Ellie’s battle against David in The Last Of Us, as an unarmed Abby is forced to skulk around while Ellie takes aim. Listen mode is a must here, so it helps if you’ve used your supplements to boost that.
Luckily, the room provides plenty of corners and getaways for Abby to utilise. Sprint as soon as Ellie sees you and don’t stop until there’s at least two objects blocking her vision. After that, it’s just a matter of stalking her movements and getting behind her. It’s best to do this via ambushing her around a corner or through one of the tight squeezes she occasionally lingers by. Beware of Ellie’s sharp hearing though; she’ll notice if you take more than a couple of steps behind her, so stay hidden until you’re extremely close.
After this, the game goes into cutscene mode again and you just have to watch it all play out.
Ellie Vs Abby
Mostly, you'll have to watch this one play out and enjoy the ride
© Sony Interactive Entertainment
The final boss battle is much more about the story than the difficulty, so there’s not much challenge here. This time, you’re playing as an injured Ellie fighting off a reluctant Abby; it’s the same basic strategy as the Sledgehammer battle, L1 to dodge then dive in for some attacks.
It’s more frenetic than those fights though, so you’ll be fighting and dodging much more often. After a while, you’ll grab Abby and hold her underwater, before the gameplay morphs into a cutscene which sees Ellie get a flash of Joel’s memory, and she decides to let Abby go. Abby and Lev sail off into the distance while Ellie sits there sadly and thinks about her choices.
