Halo Infinite: How To Easily Beat Bassus

Despite the skepticism leading up to its release, "Halo Infinite" came out on top with generally favorable reviews across the board (per Metacritic). The game was widely praised for bringing the story focus back to the iconic Master Chief while seamlessly adding new elements like a semi-open world formula and dynamic combat enabled by a varied arsenal of weapons.

The reviews weren't all sunshine and Warthogs, however. Many players found the boss fights lackluster and artificially challenging by virtue of large health pools and punishing mechanics. Of the nine main bosses, Bassus is widely considered the worst offender in this regard — to the point that fans took over the comments section of a Kotaku piece calling the Adjutant Resolution the "most annoying boss," chiming in with some very colorful words for Bassus instead. Understandably, not many players like his bullet-sponge HP bar or untelegraphed jumps that can take you out in almost one hit.

Fortunately, with the right know-how, you can take out this hulking brute in under ten seconds — even on Legendary difficulty. Here are all the cheese strats to help you easily beat Bassus in "Halo Infinite."

There are a few ways to clear this fight without taking a single hit. The most common method involves graplling onto the top of one of the doorways in the winding corridors of the arena. This will move you out of his hammer-swinging range, though it might take a few attempts to get the positioning just right. Once you've found the sweet spot where Bassus's AI doesn't know what to do other than move erratically and throw combat lines at you, it's just a matter of whittling down his health until he's done. That's if you don't run out of ammo first, however.

While the easiest to execute, the doorway method is also the slowest and least efficient. So, why waste time gunning him down in tiny increments when you can blow him to smithereens as soon as the fight begins? Before triggering his intro cutscene, you can pile as many fusion coils as you can find in the exact spot where he appears, and treat him to a nice explosion as a greeting. Unfortunately, the explosion strategy doesn't always finish Bassus off for good. Depending on your aim, his particular positioning, and how many coils you've gathered, there's a chance you'll have to take out the last of his health yourself while he's charging at you.

If you'd rather avoid having to engage with Bassus at all, it's best to go with this third, fool-proof method: Bring a marine with you and give him a Skewer gun.

Getting a Skewer is the easy part, since there are a few lying around in the area. Getting the marine to come with you is a little trickier to pull off, since the level design specifically prevents them from following you into the boss room. But it's not impossible, it's just a matter of getting a marine into the passenger seat of a Warthog and driving it into the gravity lift entrance. Once the Warthog is stuck on the ceiling due to a mash of unintended physics interactions, the marine in the passenger seat — but not any in the gunner seat or elsewhere — will jump out and follow you into the boss room as if you were in the overworld.

As soon as the Skewer-equipped marine is up there with you, you're all set. Just hit the console and watch as your buddy obliterates Bassus without you having to lift a finger. Chances are, he'll most likely be dead before the fight even starts: A Reddit post demonstrating this strategy on Legendary difficulty shows just what happens when a boss dies mid-cutscene (courtesy of u/IronHonour). Now that's what we call a speedrun.