You’ll face Stefano Valentini earlier in The Evil Within 2 than you might have expected. He is tough, powerful and annoying — especially if you’ve focused on stealth over combat. In our boss fight guide, we’ll show you how to beat him using his own tactics against him.
How Stefano fights
Stefano has multiple abilities and attacks:
- Teleportation, which makes him hard to shoot
- A knife-throwing attack, which is fairly difficult to dodge
- A close-quarters slash attack, which is difficult to dodge
- A dash attack, with multiple stabs
- Explosive boxes, which he conjures around the battlefield
- In the distance looming above the battlefield, he also has his Aperture camera monster. If it sees you, it’ll try to smash you (and the walls around you).
In short, he has the advantage. Our solution: Don’t fight him on his own terms. Make Stefano come to you.
How to beat Stefano
Our strategy revolves around only two weapons: Your warden crossbow and your shotgun. (You could substitute another weapon for the shotgun, but we like it because it’s powerful, especially at close range which is where you fight him.)
It’s also fundamentally a defensive strategy. Let Stefano be the aggressor and come to you. You can predict and adapt to his movements and set traps that he can’t avoid.
- When the fight starts, turn around and head toward the back wall, stopping anywhere between the two partial walls that offer you cover from Stefano and the Aperture.
- Use your warden crossbow to shoot traps (primarily explosive and shock bolts) between the partial walls and the back wall.
- Wait for Stefano to come to you.
- When he gets caught in the trap, shoot him with your secondary weapon.
- Run to the other wall, and repeat the process.
That’s it, in five steps. There’s more, of course, but repeating that pattern is a reliable way to use Stefano’s tactics against him.
There are a few more things to keep in mind:
- Don’t run out into the open if you can avoid it. Those partial walls are important. If the Aperture sees you, it’ll attack and break a wall. Lose one, and you can adapt. Lose two, and it becomes a different, harder fight.
- Don’t attack Stefano from a distance. He’s so likely to teleport before you can get your shot off that it effectively amounts to wasting ammo. Make him come to you.
- Use the partial walls for cover from Stefano and the Aperture.
- Peak out behind the partial walls to see where Stefano is.
- When Stefano teleports, charge him. This spooks him, and he’s likely to teleport away rather than toss his knife at you from a distance.
- Shoot the floor with a bolt, and stand between Stefano and the bolt. He’ll charge right into your trap.
- You can fire multiple explosive bolts in the same area, so that when Stefano walks by and detonates one, both explode and he takes twice the damage.
- You need to fire at Stefano the moment he walks through a shock bolt trap. Hesitate, and he’ll be gone before you can fire.
