How to beat the Saddler boss in the Resident Evil 4 remake

He’s back: in a grosser form

Well you’ve made it to the final Chapter 16 showdown in the Resident Evil 4 remake: Lord Saddler. Given that this is the final boss of the game (if you don’t count the boat!) you can unload on him to your heart’s content, and bust out all of the weapons from storage you haven’t been using. Here’s how to use said weapons to actually take him down.

Phase 1: Take out his eyes, then run up and knife his head

First things first: As a rule, you’ll want to keep moving down the linear path of the arena and finding new pickups/ammo for the fight. Saddler will often move this process along by jumping onto platforms or leaping all over the place, so follow him and keep blasting his eyes (located all over his body) along the way. This strategy also has the added benefit of utilizing multiple red explosive barrels that appear along the path to deal extra damage to Saddler.

In what is definitely a “giant enemy crab weak point” situation, you’ll need to take out Saddler’s eyes to put him in a downed state (which allows you to run up to him and use a prompted knife strike on his “main” eye). Any weapon will work for blowing up his ancillary eyes, but we fancied pistols/magnums at close range, and rifles at long range.

Saddler is extremely mobile, so you can’t always hang back and snipe him from afar. When he gets close, try and run behind him (or to the side of him) to get a better vantage point on his eyes: he’ll also get a bit confused when it comes to pathing, giving you a few extra seconds to react to his attacks.

When he summons bugs to his side as adds (additions) to the fight, you have two choices. You can keep focusing on Saddler, as he’s nearly ready to move into phase two at this point. Or you could quickly mow down some of the bugs, then re-focus up back on Saddler. Either strategy works well, especially since the bugs don’t do too much damage.

Phase 2: The tendril arena

This part of the fight is extremely simple and brief. Saddler will make one last ditch effort to take you out with his tendrils, which can be easily avoided (manually or with the dodge mechanic):

• When a tendril is raising up on the left (like the one in the gallery above), head to the right side of the arena
• When a tendril is raising up on the right, head to the left side of the arena
• All other tendrils can be dodged when the dodge prompt appears on screen (circle/B)

Keep shooting at the gold orb. Eventually, Ada Wong will throw a rocket launcher down to the small arena. Take it and shoot it at said orb and you’re done with the boss battle. You’ll get the gold trophy/achievement “You’re Small Time!” as well. The only thing left for you to do is escape the island (by following the linear path) and riding the boat out.

How to easily escape the island on the boat

The main thing to note is that you have plenty of time to escape, so don’t lay on the gas too much.

Instead, only accelerate when there’s a straightaway or there aren’t that many hazards in your way. Otherwise, lay off the gas and coast around some of the tougher sections, then hit the trigger throttle again. Rinse and repeat until you make the final jump and you’re out of there.