The nine boss fights in Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater are some of the most unique encounters you will experience, with multiple approaches to defeating several of them. While non-lethal takedowns are an obvious alternative, there are some quick and easy methods at your disposal as well.
This guide is all about the fastest methods for taking down each of the nine bosses in Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater.
Ocelot
Using the environment to your advantage is the key to this fight. Since this is a heavily cover-based encounter, either fire at the beehives or lob grenades directly at Ocelot, based on his positioning. This should give you ample opportunity to return fire once he’s exposed. For maximum effect, force him out of cover whenever he is halfway through his ammo, so that you can double up on opportunities to shoot him, as he insists on emerging from cover to reload.
Bring Bug Juice to this fight to pre-empt beehive retaliation, and as many grenades as you can, though you will find more of the latter on your side of the chasm.
The Pain
You will definitely need Bug Juice as well as Smoke Grenades for this one. The Pain brings his own bees, so you will need to use water and the small rock islands as your shield, and Bug Juice when the need arises. Listen for dialogue cues in order to submerge long enough for him to lose line of sight, then clamber back up onto land to get off a few shots of your own, ideally with the wide blast radius of the shotgun to disperse his bee forcefield. If you do knock him down, quickly toss a Smoke Grenade to keep his bee swarm dissipated, then focus fire on The Pain himself.
Frag Grenades are not an option as they may be tossed right back at you.
The Fear
All of that bad food you have been finding is finally going to get put to some good use in this fight. Toss rotten or poisoned consumables all over the area, and The Fear will eventually climb down from his treetop perches to gather it up once he is exhausted enough. Chowing down on your bad food will cause him to lose even more stamina, giving you plenty of time to get in some damage directed at his head.
In the meantime, keep an eye on both him and any traps laying around on the ground, taking shots at any and every opportunity.
Using the Fake Death Pill to lure him out of hiding, and then using the Revival Pill while his back is turned in order to ambush him is also a viable strategy.
The End
There are multiple ways to quickly dispatch The End, one of which is practically an easter egg. The first method is to terminate The End well ahead of the actual boss fight in the storyline. A little while after besting The Pain you will be presented with a small window of opportunity to target The End. After the cutscene, there is a brief interval between its end and a scripted event where a guard wheels The End out of sight. And this is when you can snipe him and completely skip one of the longest, bordering on tedious, boss fights in the game. This method will earn you “The Early End” trophy/achievement, but lose you the opportunity to collect his camo and weapon in true combat. You can negate this by reloading a prior save, of course, which you should definitely make in case you flub the assassination in the first place.
The second method is a secret easter egg with two different potential outcomes. Simply save your game right when the encounter with The End begins. You will know you are on the right track when Snake has some unique dialogue with Para-Medic. Next, temporarily set your system time to seven days in the future. Return to the game, and reload the last save. Without spoiling, an easter egg cutscene should immediately kick in.
Another outcome can be arrived at by setting system time to less than seven days in the future, but this has no actual bearing on the boss battle whatsoever. This can even occur naturally, if you just so happen to save and quit without finishing this fight within a realtime day.
If you choose to engage in direct combat, be prepared to counter stamina drain as total loss will get you dragged right back to prison.
The Fury
Taking down The Fury in the relatively tight confines of his arena is difficult to say the least. Begin by sneaking up as close to him as possible and ripping away at his suit with the knife. This will weaken his resistance to all further damage. Now, keep your distance and maintain situational awareness of any exits for a quick getaway. Take opportunity shots at the explosive barrels when The Fury is near enough to them, but only short bursts of gunfire at his backpack tanks at other times, to avoid being sighted and cornered.
Shoot the water pipes whenever possible in order to keep the fires doused, and roll right through any spot fires to avoid taking sustained damage from them.
The Sorrow
A strange, if somewhat straightforward boss battle, if it can even be called that. The Sorrow has you facing all the enemies you slaughtered up until that point. Non-lethal runs will obviously be quick, but the most you will have to do as a natural born killer is simply evade the vengeful spirits as you wade downriver in pursuit of The Sorrow.
Submerge in order to avoid The Sorrow’s own attack.
The actual quickest way to finish this boss “battle” is to simply let Snake drown right at the beginning and then use the Revival Pill to return to life and continue onwards. This will prevent you from collecting your rewards for beating The Sorrow the expected way, where you only use the Revival Pill at the end, after coming into contact with The Sorrow’s corpse.
Volgin
A timed battle compounded by taking place in a tight space, this fight will test your sense of timing and close quarters combat capabilities. You can buy yourself some more of that time by wearing the Mask Face Paint which is modelled after Raikov, in order to throw off Volgin long enough for Snake to close the distance and flank him for a quick and early takedown, perhaps even with explosives. Note that this deception will only work the first time around. Beyond that, simply CQC him and then shoot him as often as the opportunity arises. While it is pointless to shoot at him when he is shielded by his electrical feed, the one time you can and should open up on Volgin is when he runs out of juice for his electrically-charged powers and heads to the circuit box to recharge.
Stow your weapon at all other times in order to avoid losing loaded ammunition, and attracting lightning strikes.
Placing a single Russian Glowcap in the arena can help redirect lightning attacks away from you twice per mushroom, giving you the window of opportunity you need to approach him head on. If you do get caught up in any of the electrical assaults, simply prone to evade the majority of them.
Shagohod
The pursuit stage of this encounter is straightforward. Once you are in the arena stage, this battle is down to conventional wisdom for anti-tank warfare: fire rockets at the spiral treads to stop Shagohod in its tracks and then focus its power plant, which crackles in electric blue, to disable it temporarily. You can cheese the reloading of the RPG by unequipping and re-equipping it for instantaneous reloads.
Eventually, with Volgin out of his vehicle, continue with the same strategy as before: rocketing the treads to immobilize Shagohod, and then sniping directly at Volgin, who is acting as a living power plant, once it comes to a standstill.
Chaff Grenades will come in handy to redirect incoming missiles which are telegraphed clearly by Volgin’s dialogue cues.
The Boss
Avoid close quarters combat with The Boss, which she telegraphs with a dialogue cue, as your weapon will be ripped right out of your hands and taken apart, forcing you to locate it before you can use it again. Quickly unequip your weapon if you are forced into face to face melee. Stealth is the name of the game, so keep your distance and wait for her to come to a halt in her search for you, then pop up and take as many shots as you can in order to stagger her. Reposition, rinse and repeat.
Appropriate camo can be a game changer in this fight.
Claymores are a very viable approach to defeating The Boss, but baiting her into them might take some effort and a good deal of luck. Placement near trees, where The Boss is most likely to run to cover herself, is your best bet for success.
Those are some of the quickest ways to dispatch all nine bosses in Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater.