The Lies of P Puppet of the Future boss is that giant robot you can spot patrolling a trench of poisonous water towards the centre of Venigni Works, and it's understandable if you find the towering iron puppet a little daunting—I certainly did. The good news is that the boss itself is actually quite easy, provided you drain the poisonous water that's filling his arena. If not, it can be grim as hell.
Even if you don't beat him, it's well worth running the gauntlet of his arena to grab the Booster Glaive weapon in the chest at the far end. But once I've explained how to get rid of all that poison, you should have no trouble beating the Puppet of the Future.
How to beat the Puppet of the Future
While you can kind of fight the Puppet of the Future while the trench is still filled with poison, it takes a long time, as you bait out attacks from the bottom of the ladder, and run in for quick hits, before waiting for your corruption build-up to dissipate. If you want to make the boss extremely easy, you need to drain his arena of poison so you can move freely. Here's where you need to go:
- After you drop the pipe shortcut into place, you'll find Red Fox and Black Cat hanging out at one end of the trench with a passageway nearby.
- Follow this, watching out for the puppet hiding on your first left, until you enter a room with some workshop puppets on your right and a pipe leading away to your left.
- You need to head all the way along this pipe, but watch out for the hiding legless puppets.
- At the far end of the following corridor, a furnace puppet wielding a shovel will burst through the wall, so I suggest quickly opening the shortcut door before fighting him, so it's easy to get back if you die.
Generally, his attacks are pretty easy to Perfect Guard—just make sure to watch out for him spreading fire around when he's stunned, and his unblockable downward slam where he glows red. If he gets you with this, he'll follow up with three more hits, unless you've unlocked the evade while on the ground P-Organ. Once defeated, return to where he burst out of, and pull the lever to drain the poison.
Now you can fight the boss using the entire space. The Puppet of the Future is very slow and only has a few attacks, so here are my tips for beating him:
- Bait out his attacks by sprinting and then use sprinting charged attacks to hit-and-run and chip him down.
- He has a lot of health, but you can speed things up by wearing the Puppet Destroyer's Amulet if you have it, or simply using throwable items to get extra damage as he slowly wanders towards you.
- Now the poison is clear, use the space and his slowness to your advantage by baiting him up-and-down the trench so you have space to avoid any attacks.
- The main attack to watch out for is when he raises both feet to slam forwards, since this has quite a wide shockwave.
When you've beaten him, you'll get a Quartz and a Radiant Ergo. Also don't forget that chest at the end of his arena with the incredible Booster Glaive weapon.
