7 Boss Fights You Can Win Before they Even Start

Boss fights are arduous encounters that eat up your time, resources and will to live. But sometimes the videogame gods smile upon us, delivering a loophole that lets you win a boss fight before it even starts. Consider these seven boss fights you can beat before they even get going, and subscribe for a video like this every Thursday from Outside Xbox!

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[nemoniemand]

Fun fact, if you unequip everything as well right before Malenia, you can finish the battle early by losing your will to live 70% faster

[MedskiPurnamski]

In Silent Hill you can easily win the final boss fight by emptying all of your bullets from the inventory before you go down the stairs to enter the boss battle. To win you just need to stay alive for a few seconds by running around the area until the fight automatically ends. Apparently the devs were trying to trick you into thinking that the boss battle will require every last bit of ammo you have when in reality the final cutscene automatically triggers after you run out of bullets. So the more ammo you have when entering the boss fight the longer the time you'd need to fight it.

[jediphobic]

For the mimic tear fight, you can actually do better than going in naked: If you've finished Rya's questline, you'll have the Daedicar's Woe talisman. Equip it before you enter the fight. It causes you (and your mimic) to take double damage. Just remember to remove it after you're in the boss room.

[Chanse]

In Metal Gear Solid 3, The End has a number of interesting interactions. The most commonly known is the 2 week wait during the boss fight and he dies. But the very first time you see him, he is actually just sitting in a wheel chair. You can shoot him before he is wheeled inside to skip the boss fight entirely and before The Fear.

The boss fight will actually be replaced with an Ocelot unit patrol.

[AndyKennett]

In Bravely Second, there's a boss that has the ability to control one of your party members, but while he's doing so, his own hp is temporarily set to 0 (tho he can't be hit at this time). With the the help of a previously obtained class with "undo" skills, as soon as he returns to his normal state, you can make his hp go to what it was up to 3 turns ago, which if done immediately, would instantly kill him.

[colin]

To add one more to this list, Muffet from Undertale (for the Neutral and pacifist runs).
If you buy an item from the spider bakery way in the beginning of the game and eat it during her boss fight, she accuses you of stealing it, receives of telegram from the spiders at the bakery that you did not, and she cancel's the boss fights. Her fight is also a nightmare.

[danielturner]

In botw, speedrunners will shoot an arrow and enter a cutscene to fight ganon. The arrow will freeze in place when the cutscene starts, but continue to deal damage. This allows them to beat windblight immediately.

[RainWelsh]

Getting the Shift slab in Deathloop became a hell of a lot easier once I realised you don’t have to chase/fight Charlie, you just need to set up a few strategically-placed turrets on the upper landing and then cause just enough noise to lure him into your kill box.

Actually, turrets are the solution to a lot of problems in Deathloop. Julianna’s coming? Just crouch in the fast food truck with turrets covering every angle. Need some cover for your escape? Turrets! Turrets for every occasion!

[lysander]

In the original DeusEx both the other cyborgs agents from the first chapter have kill words you can discover during the game. If you find the hidden documents the killword becomes a dialogue option, literally ending the fight before it starts

[ort]

A messed up one that’s always worth mentioning is the grand champion in the Oblivion Arena.

You tell him his backstory, and he becomes so depressed that he want you to kill him.

[n_tas]

Couple from me; The End in MGS3, who can be killed shortly after a cutscene ends (and one of the wheels off his chair will get a small measure of vengeance on you), and both Anna and Gunther in Deus Ex if you find their kill phrases before you encounter their boss fights. The phrases become dialogue options and if you choose it they just explode, which is hilarious.

[liamo.]

I remember the final boss of Ratchet and Clank 2, the mutant protopet. You could stay on the last platform with the upgraded sniper rifle and just keep blasting and buying more ammo until it had 0 health, then just swing into the battle and one-shot it with the wrench

[nairisoso]

Mike's "undergrad student" comment and delivery is one of his best

[CCSMrChen]

8:30 the original SNES line referred to yoshi as an egg-throwing maniac. The GBA version (released in 2002) refers to Yoshi as a "cutie" without a "navel" which I'd say is a reference to oranges! Cuties as a product were released around 2001 and over 20 years later they are still a thing regularly packed in school lunches or in a big bowl at a picnic. Navel oranges are the classic orange. In the Japanese version the pre-fight message says something like "What if I just give up "Navel-less Flower"? Ah! No, nothing..." So the navel weakspot clue is there in the Japanese version but not in the American. Then the clue came back in the GBA remake.

[kalythai]

In Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, in a Dark Brotherhood contract to kill the mage Celedaen. If you read the dude's diary that he left around, you learn that he is transitioning to become a lich and is currently very vulnerable. His soul is currently tethered to an hourglass in his inventory and needs to keep it on him to live. So you, a sneaky assassin, can pickpocket the hourglass off him and he immediately drops dead in Oblivion's hilarious ragdoll physics. Boss fight averted.

[superskh]

I knew Saren would be here! Technically Dragon Age Origins has a similar "use morals and logic to avoid a fight" with the werewolf/Dalish elf conflict. You can fight either side to the death by choosing which one you want to support, or you can talk down Zathrien who created the werewolf curse in the first place and everyone can live in peace. Less of a singular boss in this case, but it would be the final fight of the conflict that you're avoiding. Do love when Bioware includes roleplaying strategies to avoid more violence.

[MysteriousJojo]

The final (and only) boss of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided can be completely avoided if you find his kill switch beforehand, so you can just instantly kill him in a cutscene. You can also kill the final boss of Human Revolution in 5 seconds if you happened to bring the laser rifle with you, because it lets you shoot through the wall she's hiding behind instead of having to run around hitting a bunch of buttons to lower it like intended.

[Roccondil]

The Luigi's Island one is really interesting as the developers actually accounted for the players doing it really fast before the dialog! Apparently there must have been some speedrunning testers in the QA department...

[Chris_Sizemore]

I've got this habit I developed in Fallout 4 after multiple playthroughs. When the Minute Men ask you to recapture the Citadel you bring every single mine that you've discovered since the start of the game. Maybe even buy some more mines before you go. Instead of heading straight into the dinner, walk up to the walls of the Citadel and skirt around the outside to the huge gap in the wall. You know, the one the Mirelurk Queen is going to come crashing through once you killed off her hatchlings. With enough mines this goes from a difficult fight that kills all but one of your helpers (the essential radio operator), to starting a settlement with 3 extra guards.

[nhandam]

Entry #1 blew my mind away. That was the most frustrating boss fight in Halo Infinite in my opinion. Your trick is so clever.