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Walking, driving, building, and deliveries make up the bulk ofDeath Stranding 2: On The Beach’sruntime. The vast majority of combat encounters can be avoided too, if you prefer to be less than non-lethal, but non-confrontational at all. But there are some scenarios where, unfortunately, violence is the only answer.
These scenarios encompass Death Stranding 2’s boss fights, with the second one you encounter being the Mech Octopus after a surprise return of Higgs. Right from the dead, somehow! The Mecha Octopus is quite unlike any other enemy you have fought so far, so you’ll have to rely on skills other than brute force this time around.
When Do You Encounter The Mecha Octopus Boss Fight?
The Mecha Octopus is fought in Australia, right before you arrive to the West Fort Knot (F1) Distribution Center. You will be informed before you arrive that there is something going on there, you’re just not sure what. You have to pick up the Main Order for this event to begin. The Main Order in question isNumber 12: Investigate The Unsual Tar Currents Near F1.
This Main Order is picked up at The Musician’s shelter. Seeing as this is way up in the mountains, it can be a bit inconvenient to leave it for later. It is a long journey to West Fort Knot (F1) from here though, andthere is no cargo that needs delivering. So if you prefer, you may pick up this order now, and just head to West Fort Knot (F1) when you are ready, rather than returning to the Musician’s shelter to pick it up later.
However,the boss fight will begin as soon as you enter the tar-covered area of West Fort Knot (F1), and there are no other areas nearby for fabrication. As such, make sure you’ve crafted everything you need before coming here, and try not to bring any excess cargo you don’t need, or don’t want damaged.
If you want however,you could build a Postbox outside to store your itemsin if there’s too many you don’t want to lose.
Recommended Gear To Bring
The Mecha Octopus is a new type of enemy, one you most likely won’t have encountered yet at all. It is a mech enemy, which would probably make all those anti-mech stats on weapons finally make sense.Being a mech enemy, Blood Grenades and the like are functionally uselesshere, not even working as a pseudo-smokescreen like it can be used on humans.
As such, you’ll want tobring an MP Assault Rifle and MP Shotgun. These will deal great damage, seeing as tranquilizer rounds and rubber bullets are fairly ineffectual. The Grenade Pistol can also be useful if you have it unlocked, though with how precise you need to be with some of your attacks here, it can sometimes not be worth the hassle.
You should have gotten anMP Shotgun after completing the last Main Order for the Musician.
As with other boss encounters, it is incredibly helpful tobring along all the Blood Bags you can carrysince they don’t weigh much, and as such, will keep Sam light and agile. In your dedicated Grenade Pouch,bring along all MP Grenades. They don’t deal a massive amount of damage, but they’re still better to have over Blood Grenades in this instance.
A final weapon that can be helpful here isthe Custom Electric Rod. While its melee capabilities will be of no use in this fight, its thrown ones will be. It deals very high damage in general, but this goes doubly so for mechs. While it might still be hard to get a precise shot on the Mecha Octopus' weakpoints, any weapon should still deal incredibly high damage.
The Maser Handgun also has good anti-mech damage, thoughits relatively short-range and slow charge time make it unsuitablein this particular battle.
Anything else you have, ensure to store it away in advance so it doesn’t get damaged, and so Sam remains nimble.
How To Defeat The Mecha Octopus
Moveset
The Mecha Octopus is a dangerous enemy, one thatcan slide across the battlefield with ease but also tower over youat a moment’s notice and make the camera the real boss battle. Positioning is what will help you succeed here, especially with how easily Mecha Octopus moves around with its attacks.
Mecha Octopus is a much more active battle than the Giant BT boss before this. While you don’t have to worry about the debris quite as much, they also move around much more,making it somewhat hard to keep your weapon trained on a specific weakpoint. Just keep on the move, and focus on specific parts of its body at a time.
Sadly, while it may be obvious once you have destroyed certain weakpoints,it will never lose access to any of its moves. As such, Mecha Octopus is always as deadly right by the end as they are when the fight first begins.
Strengths And Weaknesses
Being a mech enemy, the typical strategies won’t work quite the same as they have thus far. WhileMecha Octopus will still take damage from most means, certain tools, such as Blood and EX Grenades, lose their effectiveness. This means you mustrely almost exclusively on MP weapons, such as the Assault Rifle and Shotgun.
There is a Lightweight (LW) version of the Shotgun. This has more limited functions and is much less powerful than the regular MP version.Avoid this one at all costs if you want to deal high damage.
However, the most obvious weakpoints on Mecha Octopus should be literally glaring.On the joints of each tentacle, there will be a glowing orange spotthat can be destroyed for massive damage. There is another glowing weakpoint in its eye, two more on the underside of its back, and a final one in the joint connecting the back to the head. This final one is much harder to hit.
You can damage Mecha Octopus by hitting it anywhere, but it will take a negligible amount of health unless you aim for the weakpoints. The MP Assault Rifle is great for when Mecha Octopus is at a distance, thoughyou’ll want to rely on the MP Shotgun for the most partotherwise. The boss tends to stay down low for most of the fight, making it easy to get up close and blast the weakpoints on its tentacles.
Once the tentacle weakpoints are destroyed,you can swap back to an MP Assault Rifle to take out the eye and the two weakpoints on its back. You should easily have it defeated by the time every weakpoint is destroyed.
