Boss fights in Wanted: Dead are considerably less challenging than most normal encounters, save for August. You’ll find August at the end of the game’s second mission and, while he’s honestly pretty easy once you know what to do, the fight has some gimmicks that can make it seem like one of the hardest parts of the game. This guide will break down all three of August’s phases in order to make for a much less frustrating experience free from some of the trial-and-error that some players may find necessary for beating the boss.

When the fight starts, you’ll find yourself in a combat arena with a slew of synth melee fighters gunning for you. While this is no different from the encounters you’ve just cleared to get here, there’s one important difference. Namely, August is waiting on a bridge nearby shooting at you with his grenade launcher. This attack can kill you in a couple of hits, so you obviously want to keep away from his shots. While, yes, you can dodge around every few seconds and shoot at him to enter the next phase more quickly, there’s an easier way to do this. Head to the area with the umbrella pictured below.

While you’re standing in this spot, August’s grenades can’t hit you. Now, you may not think you need to take out the whole horde of enemies, but you absolutely don’t want to fight August in Wanted: Dead with them waiting to obstruct you. Hopefully, you went into the fight with a full adrenaline bar. If you didn’t, you’re going to want to attack the synths and deflect their strikes in order to build it up. Use it as soon as it’s available and then use your finisher on one of the ones that are glowing, which will allow you to take out at least a few of them with ease.

How to beat August in Wanted: Dead

After enough of this, August will jump down off his bridge. You need to keep focusing on the other synths, though. Just keep hitting them and deflecting their attacks. Once they’re all dead, turn your focus to August. His second phase isn’t dangerous at all. He walks around shooting at you, very occasionally striking you with a knee lunge. Just run up to his face and keep attacking him. He’ll often enter a state where, if you hit him, he’ll dramatically throw you off of him, but just rush back in afterward and keep slashing him.

Screenshot by PC Invasion

Once you get his health down enough, you’ll enter phase three. Here, August puts his gun down and decides to get physical. Stay close to him and parry his strikes. When his attack flashes red, shoot him with your handgun. If you’re not good at parrying, you can also bait his attacks. Move close to get him to aggro his strikes and then dodge away. When he’s done attacking, roll in and hit him before rolling away. But it’ll be in your best interest to get parrying down anyway, as you won’t be able to make it through the game without using it.

After a while, he’ll glow white and you can use a finisher on him to do some extra damage, but he’ll go back to attacking you after. If you’re not happy with either the parry or dodge-baiting methods, you can also keep away from him and shoot him with whatever gun you feel like. But by utilizing parries, he really isn’t much of a threat. That’s all you have to do to beat August in Wanted: Dead.

Screenshot by PC Invasion