Hades 2 | Polyphemus Boss Guide

Those of you reading this guide around the time it was written (May 9th, 2024) must have really put the time into Hades 2 so far to already make it to the surface city of Ephyra. When you finally make it up here with Melinoë and complete the incantation to let her stay up here for a good amount of time, you have a whole slew of new bosses blocking your progress to Mount Olympus. And, first up for the bosses you fight by ascending, not descending, is Polyphemus. Yes, this is the very same Cyclops who gave Odysseus and his men such a hard time in the Odyssey.

Polyphemus is working with Chronos now and is ready to both kill and eat whoever is trying to get past him, which is primarily Melinoë. So, here's everything you need to know to beat this giant oaf in Hades 2 as well as a thorough breakdown of all the moves at his disposal.

Overview Of The Cyclops, Polyphemus

He's, Unsurprisingly, A Very Simple Fight

Compared to almost every other boss fight in Hades 2, Polyphemus is about as simple as they come. The guy basically has two attacks, a summon attack and a jumping attack, with some slight variations on each. That said, you can get unlucky with the type of sheep that spawn in the arena, and you might also struggle avoiding the actual jumping part of his attacks rather than the shockwaves he creates.

The basic 'game plan' for fighting Polyphemus is also pretty simple, as it should be. This large Cyclops, when he decides to move, moves pretty quickly and covers a lot of ground. But, in between his attacks, he's pretty much entirely stationary. So, the core 'loop' when fighting Polyphemus is to keep your distance when he's jumping, Dash through the shockwave he creates, get a whole bunch of hits in after he lands, and then get out of the way when he starts to move again.

Polyphemus' Range Of Attacks

Mostly It's Just a Bunch of Different Shockwaves

Once again, Polyphemus really doesn't have a lot of different attacks. While the number of them may seem like it's comparable to Hecate or Scylla, most of them boil down to being slight variations of each others or new flavors of 'slamming the ground'.

Disclaimer: The game doesn't really have any 'official' names for the attacks, so we just came up with our own.

Still, these attacks each have their unique telegraphs and their unique ways to deal with them, so let's go over each one in-depth, one-by-one, and tell you how exactly you're meant to avoid them:

Honestly, we don't expect many people to struggle all that much with Polyphemus. The only time we really did was during a 16-Fear Run with the Vow of the Unseen and we got incredibly unlucky as he had 2 different highly aggressive sheep spawn in the arena that constantly pestered us. Still, that doesn't mean Polyphemus is 'easy' overall, he just takes a bit less time to memorize and learn.

(Author: JAKE BUCHALTER)