Strange Brigade – Hints for the Forsaken City Final Battle on Extreme Difficulty

In my opinion, the final battle in the Forsaken City mission (Mission 7) of Strange Brigade is the hardest of all the battles in the game. I finally completed it on Extreme Difficulty and thought I’d pass on some hints for how I did it.

Introduction

Even on Normal difficulty, I found the Forsaken City’s (Mission 7’s) final battle to be pretty tough. On Extreme difficulty, it was practically impossible. In general, the problem is that there are so many enemies that you can barely move through the arena. So, instead of being able to use your skill to weave through the mobs and destroy the enemies, you have to change your mentality towards getting them away from you so you can recover enough to kill them. This Guide will relate the things I found that finally let me do that.

Equipped Items

1. Amulet and Grenade – Probably the most important thing to do is change your amulet power and grenade type to some kind of decoy. That means you’ll have to have enough gold (52,560 coins) to unlock the Decoy Grenade and then use one of the following characters with their decoy amulet (which you’ll have to have unlocked with a Skill Point):
   
   • Prof. Archimedes de Quincey: Desert Mirage — Trick foolish enemies into attacking an illusionary double of yourself. Strike quickly before the mirage fades away.
     
   • Frank Fairburne: Call of Seteki — Summon undead warriors to your side and turn the demon-queen’s own necromancy against her.
     
   • Anjali Khan: Call of Seteki — Summon undead warriors to your side and turn the demon-queen’s own necromancy against her.
2. Primary Weapon – In general, I found my default rifle, the Gehrig-Delgane S1, to be the best for this fight. There are multiple waves of projectile-firing enemies that spawn up above the arena and shorter-range weapons like shotguns can’t reach them. Also, lower damage weapons (like SMGs) take too much time to kill nearby enemies. Unfortunately, the Gehrig is part of the Secret Service Weapons Pack. So, unless you’ve bought that or the Season Pass (which includes it), you’ll have to use another rifle. The gems I used on the rifle are:
   
   • Montu’s Brutal Gem: The blessings of the war god are with you. Deal increased damage to your foes!
     
   • Sekhmet’s Healing Gem: Sekhmet’s Thirst for blood consumes your weapon, healing you with every kill!
     
   • Anubis’s Gem of Armourbane: The god of the dead makes your shots break through the armour of your chosen targets.
     
   • Quickfire Gem: The fates guide your hands. You fire and reload with greater speed.

Single Player vs Multiplayer

I’ve seen several comments about how the difficulty ramps up between single player and multiplayer. In this fight, regardless of mode, you’ll face three waves of “bosses” (the plain old charging bulls (thank goodness not what I call the “button bulls” or what the spousal unit calls the “A Door a Bull” from earlier in the mission)). Many of the comments say that it’s actually easier to beat this fight in single player than in multiplayer since the hordes are less populated and the bulls only show up singly instead of in pairs. Of course, the problem with single player is that if things go bad, you die and have to re-start the checkpoint. Whereas in multiplayer, you can be revived by another player.

My experience was that in single player, I was dying during the second wave of bulls. With two people, we were dying during the first wave of bulls (the addition of that second bull makes a big difference). With three players, we generally died during the third wave of bulls (until we finally beat the thing). Having the additional player didn’t seem to ramp the difficulty up noticeably more from having just two players, and gave us a bit more leeway in reviving dead party members.

Pre-Checkpoint

Prior to this fight, I’d never paid any attention to what I came into a checkpoint with. In this case, it makes a difference. If at all possible, before entering the arena, make sure you’re fully healed, have your spare bottle of healing potion, have a good 3rd weapon from a chest, and have your ammunition cache filled. I say this because those items show up with you each time you restore your checkpoint following your upcoming multitudes of deaths (at least they did for me). Here’s a YouTube video I found showing just before where the checkpoint/entrypoint to the fight is:

Start of Fight

Thankfully, the fight starts out pretty slowly. Assuming the side of the arena where the starting crystal is relative to the soul cage (or where your checkpoint restores) is the back and the respawn coffins are to the left, the first thing you’ll want to do is run to the weapon chest at the left, open it, AND LEAVE THE WEAPON THERE. You’ll want to always leave the two weapon chests open (the other one is on the right side — open it when you get the chance) and ready for someone to take the weapon. In general, there’s just no time to both open a chest and pick up the weapon without being swamped by enemies. For now, stay near the back and shoot the traps as the enemies slowly attack (picking off the stray single enemies as they near). If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to get to the first wave of bulls before having to move to frantic mode (I’d say that normally you should be able to get to the point where the Revenants (the running, gold-masked guys) show up a bit before that.

Frantic Mode

At some point, you’ll hit what I call “frantic mode.” Regardless of whether it’s just from too many mobs overrunning you or the bulls harrying you, from that point on, you’ll need to change your methods:

1. First, and most importantly, use your decoy weapons. Since the respawn coffins, ammunition chests, and a weapon chest are all on the left side, I consider that to be the zone you want to keep as clear as possible. So, whenever possible, toss a Decoy Grenade clear across the arena into the right-hand trap zones and start shooting the traps (note that the bulls are NOT attracted to those grenades – they ARE attracted to the decoy amulets). The majority of your kills should probably be via decoys and traps. Use this time to restock your ammunition and open that weapon chest if necessary.
   
2. When the bulls appear, run over to the right side into the trap areas, use your decoy amulet, and trigger some traps. Use your special weapon from the chest to continually shoot those bulls. If you’re in multiplayer, everyone should focus on the same bull until it’s dead. In multiplayer, you want to get rid of at least one bull as quickly as possible so that you don’t have to worry about being blindsided by one bull while you’re paying attention to the other.
   
3. Always face the bulls so you see when they’re charging. When they charge you, wait until the last second and roll out of their way. If you roll too soon, they’ll just follow you and kill you when you’re done rolling. If you roll too late, you’re dead. As soon as you finish your roll, face them and start firing at them. Repeat (a lot) as needed.
   
4. After killing each wave of bulls, you’ll be able to shoot the soul cage. Be careful of the fireballs that it shoots back at you. Watch them and roll out of the way when they get close. After the last (third) wave of bulls and the last (third) time you shoot the soul cage, don’t forget to approach the soul cage and use your amulet on it to destroy it. Watch out for enemies trying to kill you while you’re doing that and keep moving.
   
5. When you start to get projectile-firing enemies spawning up above the arena, at least one person should make killing them a priority. If you don’t, their projectiles can kill you in one shot.
   
6. Between the appearances of bulls and your use of decoys, circle the outside of the arena in one direction to drag the slower moving enemies through the middle trap area. Constantly activate the traps to kill them off.
   
7. If someone dies in multiplayer, toss a Decoy Grenade to the right side of the arena so you can get access to the respawn coffins without being swamped. Remember that the bulls won’t be fooled by grenades. If you have to, run over there with a decoy amulet and run back to get your team mate out.
   
8. Try not to use your health potion (either for preventative healing or to get out of the respawn coffin (that’s is the big advantage of multiplayer)). If you do use it, try to avoid immediately picking up a spare. Instead, look for the potion-carrying enemy which should spawn shortly after revival, shoot him, and pick up THAT potion. That way, there should always be a spare or two for emergencies.
   
9. In theory, you should be invulnerable during the animations (using the ammunition chest, opening the weapon chest, taking the weapon from the ammunition chest, opening a respawn coffin, using your amulet, or rolling). So, while you’re twiddling your thumbs waiting for those animations to end, you shouldn’t die (though I’ve done so during the “picking up the gun from a weapon chest” animation). The problem is that even though you’re invulnerable for those few seconds, you’re not invisible. So, the monsters continue to pile on and attack you. Once the animation is over and you’re no long invulnerable, those now-concentrated enemies will destroy you unless you immediately roll out of the area. That’s why you don’t pick up a weapon chest weapon immediately after opening the chest.