We’re quickly nearing the end of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, but there are more bosses to fight and secrets to find along the way as the story ramps up toward its conclusion. Our spoiler-free walkthrough can help you battle through everything Shinra has to throw at you as you approach the end of the game. Keep reading below to find strategies to beat every boss and find every secret.

Check out the rest of our Final Fantasy 7 Remake guides so you don’t miss a single secret or collectible. You can also read our FF7 Remake review.

Chapter 17 Walkthrough: Deliverance From Chaos

Make sure all four of your characters are outfitted with weapons and Materia before you leave Aerith’s room. Open the chest in the corner to grab the Reinforce Staff weapon for Aerith. As you follow Tifa and Aerith out of the room, be sure to check the cells on either side of the hallway for chests with an Enfeeblement Ring accessory and a phoenix down. There’s also a chest near the exit of this hallway with an ether.

As you move through Hojo’s lab, you’ll be blocked by debris and attacked by more of Hojo’s Unknown Entity specimens. Once the way is clear, cross to the east side of the exit hallway to find a break room with a vending machine and a bench.

Soon after, you’ll make your way through an area called “The Drum.” As you pick your way among the white pods, look for a path that leads north and then east. It hides a Poison Materia at its end.

Ahead, use the specimen pods heading north to reach a treasure chest with a phoenix down, before following the path south. You’ll find another break room here, so make use of the vending machine and bench before you continue.

You’ll rejoin Barret next and fight a slew of enemies–first Monodrives, then some Unknown Entities, and finally a M.O.T.H. Unit robot. This last one has a saw blade around its lower body that can tear you up if you get close, so when that’s spinning, hang back and use (ideally Thunder) spells to do some damage. Watch out for its powerful electrical discharge attacks, too. Double-back to the break room if you need to after this fight to heal up before pressing forward. Past the next door, open the chest to find the Twin Stinger weapon for Cloud. After you meet up with Tifa and Aerith ahead, check the room just past the test subject pods for a chest with 3,000 gil inside.

Switch groups and head up to the door to the Third Ward, where you’ll also find a break room. Use the switch to activate the test subject pods, then cross to find a chest with an ether inside before you switch back to the other group.

After fighting the Blast-Ray, look for a lever to extend a bridge to the central terminal. Head left across the bridge to pick up an orb of Time Materia. Open the door to the Third Ward and switch teams.

Inside the Third Ward, get ready to face some Unknown Entities. Be sure to interrupt their Thundaga spells to avoid major damage. In the room full of cages, go around the ones on the east wall to open a chest and get a mega-potion.

You’ll battle some Guard Dogs in the next room. When they’re dead, leave through the door and turn left to find a chest with 3,000 gil in it. Head the other way and you’ll find an enemy called a Zenene. Stay clear of it when it rolls up and charges at you, then close the distance to pummel it with a few of Tifa’s Unbridled Strength attacks. It won’t put up too much of a fight if you continually hit with ATB abilities, but dodge clear of its various attacks.

You’ll fight a pair of Zenenes in the next room. When they’re dead, use the switch on the west wall to open the door and reveal a chest in the cage just outside, which houses a Force Bracelet accessory. On the other side of the room, the ladder will lead to a chest that contains a mega-potion.

When you exit the Third Ward, go down the stairs and head south to another staircase to find a chest behind it, which contains an ether. Back above and in the other direction, you’ll run into three Sentry Launchers. Hit them with Thunder or drop one of Tifa’s Chi Trap ATB abilities on them to quickly stagger them. Continue to the end of the path to open the way the Second Ward.

Switch parties and head into the Second Ward. After you fight two Zenenes, you’ll pass through a hallway into Robotics Testing. Turn right to go east and duck behind the crates to find a chest with an Astral Cuff armor.

You’ll fight a M.O.T.H. Unit next, and in the room after that, a new enemy called a Sledgeworm. These guys pop up out of the holes in the ground to slug you with hammers, poisoning you and doing a bunch of damage. Your marching orders are to dodge clear of them when they pop out of the holes, then respond with Punisher melee attacks and Thunder spells to stagger them. When they pop out of the ground, be sure to get out of the way–among the attacks they like to drop on you is one that causes Stop, which freezes you in place to wait for more brutal moves.

When you get up to where Hojo was, turn around and head up north instead of pursuing him to the south. In the second room at the end of this path, spin around and check the southeastern corner for a chest with two remedies inside.

Heading back the other way, enter the room with the test subject pods and turn right from the stairs. Head to the back of the room, behind some crates, to find a chest with a Chain Bangle armor in it.

You’ll hit a battle with the Brain Pod miniboss next. This thing likes to spew poisonous sludge in an area around it with its Noxious Whirl attack, so stay clear and hit it with Thunder and Barret’s ranged attacks as much as you can. After it takes some damage, it’ll replicate itself to make a whole bunch more Brain Pods. Keep yourself as healthy as you can as you try to whittle them down using abilities like Cloud’s Triple Slash and Barret’s Maximum Fury. The pods aren’t too tough, so once you start staggering and clearing them out with melee attacks and ATB abilities, you shouldn’t have too hard a time coming out victorious. You’ll leave the Second Ward right afterward.

At the door to the Fourth Ward ahead, you’ll find a break room where you can heal and stock up on items. Fight off the Unknown Entities, then switch teams for a big battle. These will all be enemies you’ve dealt with before, including Sledgeworms and Unknown Entities. Tifa is particularly good at driving up the stagger meter on Sledgeworms with her basic attacks, especially with Unbridled Strength. Use Aerith to back her up with Thunder spells and you should make short work of the robots, as well as the Unknown Entities.

You’ll eventually find your way back to the Central Terminal to open the door to the Fourth Ward and switch parties again. Inside the Ward, enter the big pipe, turn left, and follow it to its end to find a chest with a mega-potion inside.

Boss Fight: Swordipede

The Swordipede looks a lot worse than it is. Melee attacks are pretty ineffectual against this giant robot, which is basically all sawblades; Cloud’s sword will bounce off the sides of the creature, and it has a saw in its head that’s likely to mess you up if you’re in front of it. Forego melee in favor of big elemental spells: Thunder, surprisingly, doesn’t seem especially effective against the Swordipede, but Firaga and Aeroga hit for huge damage.

The Swordipede has a few big attacks you need to watch out for that’ll send it spinning around like a big saw blade, dropping electric bombs out of the air, and flying around trying to electrocute you. None are particularly dangerous as long as you move to avoid them. Concentrate on ranged attacks and landing big spells when the boss is floating around and you should hit it very hard, very quickly, without much danger.

Halfway through the fight, the Swordipede will blast through the wall and attack your other party. Take advantage of the prompt to hold Square and access the menu during the cutscene, which will allow you to swap high-powered Fire and Wind materia from one team to another, should you need to do so. Once you’re outfitted, repeat the process against the Swordipede at the Central Terminal. Move to catch it as it floats around the middle so you can hit it with spells–if you’re not careful, they’ll hit the pillar in the center of the room and get interrupted. A few big magical blows should put this one down for good.

When you’re done, follow the gooey trail. You’ll hit a bench and vending machine when you reach the roof.

Boss Fight: Jenova Dreamweaver

Fighting Jenova Dreamweaver is all about managing the battlefield and watching your positioning. The creature has two big tentacles sticking out of its sides, and your primary goal is to keep hacking those off to limit its attack capabilities and push up its stagger gauge. Avoid going behind Jenova, however–there’s a third big tentacle back there that’ll send you flying if you tempt it, and you can’t cut that one off.

Get in close with your melee team and start wailing away on Jenova, while keeping an eye on what it’s up to–if you see it readying its “Cast Aside” attack or start to see purple smoke swirling around it, dodge away and wait for the attacks to pass. Punisher counter-attacks are good for use against the tentacles, as is Tifa’s Omnistrike, which can nearly cut one off in one shot. When the tentacles are gone, go to town on the boss. Meanwhile, Jenova’s generally somewhat resistant to magic, so Aerith is best used as a support teammate here, although big spells will still hurt the boss as well.

Jenova has a lot of punishing attacks it’ll throw at you. Watch out for Vengeance, a laser beam that hurts quite a bit, after you kill its tentacles–get behind a column to avoid it, or guard through it, because it’ll knock you down otherwise. It’ll regrow the tentacles periodically, so keep cutting them off to pressure it and get more damage in.

In its second phase, Jenova will introduce more attacks to threaten you. Watch out for the swirling smoky pit that will move around the battlefield; if it catches one of your characters, it’ll hit them with Stop, freezing them in place for a time. You also want to avoid the Mourning Wail attack, which will catch any characters too close to Jenova in a whirlwind they can’t escape. Jenova will also add some ranged attacks and spells like Bio and Aero to its repertoire, so make sure to spend some time on healing and additional protection like Barrier and Manawall.

When you cut off the tentacles, Jenova will be pressured and briefly vulnerable, but it’ll also use an attack called Rejection to hurt you if you get in close. Use ranged attacks and abilities like Tifa’s Chi Trap to do damage to the boss while keeping yourself safe.

The third stage sees Jenova at its most aggressive, with tentacles growing up out of the ground. You’ll want to eliminate these, even though they keep regrowing, because they’ll limit your movements; the good news is, Tifa and Cloud can cut them down quickly with moves like Triple Strike and Omnistrike, and Aerith’s spells are effective as well. Kill the tentacles as quickly as you can, though–Jenova will ready attacks like Dream of Vengeance, which turns every tentacle into a Vengeance laser gun, and Dreams of Quietude, which fires orbs that can put Stop on your characters, making it much harder to avoid those attacks. In the meantime, watch out for Jenova casting a Reflect spell on itself that will bounce your spells back at you; focus on the tentacles around the room instead.

Destroying all the tentacles quickly will further pressure Jenova and leave it open to attack. At this point, you should be close to staggering it, so lay into it with stagger attacks like Focus Thrust and Focus Strike to push Jenova over the edge and get in some serious damage.

When Jenova’s down to about a quarter health, you’ll hit its fourth and final phase. Jenova will now teleport around the battlefield, summoning up tentacles and attacking you with third-level elemental spells like Firaga and Aeroga. Keep up the same strategy as before–send Tifa or Cloud around to hack down all the tentacles around the room to cut back Jenova’s ability to fight. You’ll see the floor turn purple around the tentacles as you destroy them, indicating that acid will drop on you from the ceiling, so keep moving to get clear. When the outlier tentacles are all gone, close in and cut off its Left and Right Tentacles to pressure Jenova.

Watch out for the boss’s various big attacks: Quietude will send those pools of purple smoke that will Stop your team, while Vengeance will cut through you with powerful lasers, and Mourning Wail will trap you in a whirlwind. Jenova will sometimes alternate barriers, so check the icon next to its name to determine if you should hit it with physical attacks or magic. Just keep your team healed and maintain as much damage as you can to finish off the boss.

Boss Fight: Rufus Shinra

After some more story scenes, the son of Shinra’s president, Rufus Shinra, will appear to challenge Cloud to a one-on-one fight. This is a duel similar to the ones you fought against Roche and Rude, requiring a lot of blocking and a lot of well-timed attacks to get through Rufus’s defenses. The big outlier here is Rufus’s dog, Darkstar, which you’ll want to deal with first so you can take down the boss unimpeded. Darkstar heals Rufus whenever you do much damage to him, so until the dog is put down, you won’t make much progress.

Rufus and Darkstar have a bunch of tandem attacks, where the dog knocks you down or holds you up, and Rufus closes in for a shotgun blast and a lot of damage. Generally, try to stay back from the two of them, forcing the dog to extend its leash to come after you, so Rufus can’t close the gap easily to back it up. If you stay too close for too long, you run the risk of the team comboing you extensively for a lot of damage. Watch out for Darkstar casting Lightning on Rufus; when it does, Rufus will shoot a lightning blast called Thunderclap at you. You can dodge it, but you’ll need to pay close attention, because it hurts bad to get hit.

You can pressure Darkstar with Punisher attacks, but the best way to push up its stagger meter is to damage Rufus. Your best bet is to use Triple Strike when Rufus is reloading or between attacks. Hitting both the dog and the master will break Darkstar’s leash, giving you a chance to lay into the dog with melee attacks while Rufus is staggered. Don’t overcommit, however–Rufus will eventually start trying to shoot you, so get clear before he recovers.

Once you’ve hurt Darkstar enough, Rufus will add some coins to his repertoire of attacks, which will give him new ways to hit you. Watch out for the Bright Lights attack, which fires lasers your way, but which is very dodgeable. You’ll also want to be sure not to get caught in the hail of bullets from Guns Akimbo, as it’ll leave you vulnerable to a follow-up strike from Darkstar.

Repeat the strategy of baiting and damaging Darkstar until you can finish the dog off, leaving Rufus on his own. At this point, he’ll start using his guns to help him zip around the battlefield. He’s pretty much invulnerable in most situations and will counter just about all of your attacks. You need to hit him at a particular moment: when he reloads. All other strikes will leave you vulnerable to his counters.

The trick here is to avoid all the big attacks, while guarding through the smaller ones. Bright Lights shooter a laser at you that you can dodge; Think Fast turns a handful of coins into bombs, so dodge backwards to avoid them; and Up In Smoke will stall you up if it catches you in its smoke cloud. You can avoid the fire of Guns Akimbo if you run sideways, but it’s a riskier endeavor than just guarding. You want your guard up most of the time to stop Rufus’s quicker, smaller gunshots, while staying ready to dodge the big ones.

Try to stay close to Rufus so that when he steps back to reload, you can close the gap quickly to attack him. Hit him no more than three times; when you see a sphere of distortion surround him, that means he’s ready to counter your next blow. Three strikes lets you hurt him without getting attacked back. But the better move is to save up your ATB and use Focused Thrust on Rufus when he’s reloading. That’ll put him down on one knee and give him a bunch of damage, slowing his next move and giving you a second to breathe or hit him again.

Keep repeating the pattern of avoiding his big attacks and catching him with Focused Thrust until you get your Limit Break. Use it on Rufus while he’s reloading and you’ll stagger him instantly. You’ll need to be patient, but keep up the damage while protecting yourself and your sword should win this gunfight.

Boss Fight: The Arsenal

The fight against the Arsenal isn’t about dealing damage right away–it’s about accomplishing a few steps to open the Arsenal up to attack. The good news is, there’s plenty of cover in the first part of the fight, allowing you avoid damage while you wait for your moment to attack. Stay back in cover when the Arsenal does its Saturation Fire, Homing Laser, and Voltaic Discharge attacks. When the boss readies its “Primary Fire” attack, step out and shoot its cannon, the weak point.

As soon as you blast the cannon, Red XIII will use the opportunity to stagger one of the drones projecting the barrier on the Arsenal. Hit it with your strongest attacks to destroy it, then repeat the process to take down the other two. Breaking down the barrier allows you to hit the Arsenal directly to do damage and push up its stagger bar.

Keep moving and blasting away at the Arsenal, while hiding behind debris and cover to avoid most of its attacks. When it activates its Physical Defense Protocol, start hitting the boss with Lightning attacks, particularly when it starts to fire up its Pulse Cannon. A big bolt of lightning will knock it out for a second, allowing you to continue attacking. That should prompt the boss to switch into a Lightning Defense Protocol, allowing you to continue with physical attacks. Watch for its wheels to stop being protected by a barrier, then attack those and try to cripple them to further stagger the boss.

In the next phase of the fight, the Arsenal will get more aggressive, blasting through the cover debris in the room and using its Firewall attack to trap you between two walls of flame. Keep an eye out for the Primary Fire attack, which you can interrupt by attacking the Arsenal’s main cannon, just like before.

Once you damage the Arsenal enough, it’ll create Firewalls to trap your team and charge up an attack called Cry Havoc. Turn around and duck behind the piece of debris behind you to avoid the attack, then lay into the boss with as much damage as you can manage. When it starts to charge up Cry Havoc again, you’ll only have a few minutes to destroy the boss once and for all. Use Lightning spells to do serious damage and finish off the boss before it finishes you.

Continue with our Final Fantasy 7 Remake Chapter 18 Walkthrough: Destiny’s Crossroads.