How to Find and Beat Every Legendary Animal in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is packed with a number of legendary creatures that span the spectrum of the animal kingdom, with each one ready to face off against anyone brave enough to tackle them. With a total of eight creatures to hunt, each one scattered across the span of the game’s massive open world, it can be a little daunting to get the job done. Not only are the creatures somewhat hidden to begin with, but actually fighting them can be quite difficult due to their unique abilities. Thankfully we’ve already hunted down each beast and come back with a bunch of tips to help you on your quest.

To start the process of hunting the legendary beasts you must first start the Daughters of Artemis questline which can be picked up from the priestess at the temple of Artemis, located along the northern edge of the Sacred Lands of Apollo region in Phokis. Upon accepting the quest, you’ll first have to prove yourself by hunting the first legendary beast—the Kalydonian Boar.

Kalydonian Boar

Found directly west of the temple of Artemis where you first accepted the quest, the Kalydonian Boar is situated on a swampy marshland high up on a plateau. The fight itself is perhaps one of the most difficult you’ll face throughout the game as the Boar hits hard. Before attempting this fight you should try to unlock the Venomous Attacks and Bull Rush skills. Keeping poison maintained on the boar will help to decrease its attack and defense, allowing you to make a few more mistakes during the fight without going down while also dealing damage over time. Bull Rush can be used both offensively to attack and defensively to evade, as using it will give you a brief window of invulnerability as you perform the animation. By consuming adrenaline to use Bull Rush you will also heal a small amount, which can help when you start to get low on health too.

The fight itself will cycle between two phases. The first is you versus the boar, and during this you just need to keep up poison while dodging its attacks. The boar will mostly use charge attacks, which are easy to dodge but can be a little tricky as the attack comes half a second after the boar finishes its charge. The best way to fight the boar when it is alone is to try and stick to the flanks and rear of it, as this will limit the moves it can use, giving you more time to chip away at its health bar.

Once you’ve dealt enough damage, the boar will retreat a bit and call in a few smaller boars. These lesser boars charge in, usually from behind you, so it’s important to pan around and find them before they tackle you. The boars aren’t particularly tough by themselves but they will often charge at you in turn and if you’re not careful, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and stun locked by them. Take your time with each boar, focusing on taking out one at a time where possible while dodging the others. Eventually you’ll take out the last one, which will prompt the Kalydonian boar to return to its usual fighting pattern. Repeat this two or three times and the fight will be yours

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The Hind of Keryneia

The giant deer of Keryneia can be found in an isolated patch of swampland located southeast of the synchronization spot in the Artemision Point in Euboea. While this fight isn’t nearly as tricky as the Kalydonian Boar, this mighty deer can still pack a punch if you’re not careful.

To beat the Deer of Keryneia you should try to avoid tackling it head on as that’s where most of the attacks come from. Along with its charge attack, the deer has a number of fast antler attacks that can easily catch you off guard and pin you down. During this fight try to stick to either the sides or rear of the beast, as this will give you the most time to react to any oncoming attacks. Keep sidestepping while chipping away with Venomous Attacks and you will eventually take down the beast with minimal effort.

The Nemean Lion

The Nemean Lion can be found inside a crater located in the central area of the Sinkholes of Herakles in the southern regions of Argolis. While this lion might look particularly daunting, the fight itself isn’t too bad so long as you take out the lesser lions in the pit before engaging the Nemean Lion, which can be done from the safety of the cliffside with your bow.

For the fight itself, you should try to focus on dodging over attacking as the lion has a number of swift attacks that deal a lot of damage if they connect. Maintaining poison on the lion will help reduce the sting of these attacks and keep a steady amount of damage ticking off of its health bar too. Keep dodging its attacks, making sure to slip a couple of your own attacks in where possible and the lion will eventually fall. Using a quicker weapon like the daggers, or the spear with its longer reach will make this fight much smoother for you as the lion has a habit of dodging out of the way of slower attacks.

The Kretan Bull

The Kretan Bull is located towards the western edge of the Fertile Battleground, in a large clearing on the mountainside along the southern coastline of Messara. As you would expect, the bull’s main attack comes in the form of a charge, and if it connects it can dish out some serious damage, so you’ll want to be extra careful to dodge out of the way of these where possible. To play it safe you should use the long dodge (by holding the dodge button) as the short dodge can sometimes leave you slightly within the attack radius.

Beyond the charges, the bull fight is fairly tame in comparison to some of the other creatures. As with the other encounters, keeping poison maintained can help reduce the damage the bull does while chipping away at the health bar, so as long as you keep this up while sneaking in a flurry every now and again, the bull should go down without issue. The only thing you should be careful of is when the bull starts to wildly stomp around. When the bull is bucking like this you should hang back and avoid trying to attack it as you will take damage if you get too close.

The Lykaon Wolf

The Lykaon Wolf can be found in a clearing along the hillside in the northwestern corner of the Dioskouroi Peninsula, located on the southeastern slip of land of Lakonia. This fight is particularly nasty as, much like the Kalydonian Boar, the wolf will happily call upon its friends to join the fight and overwhelm you with sheer numbers. By itself the Lykaon wolf is fairly straightforward to beat, with the occasional lunge to avoid. You should mostly fight it as you would a normal beast, applying poison where possible. For the majority of this fight however, you’ll want to continuously cull the surrounding lesser wolves as their numbers can easily swell and become unmanageable.

The best way to tackle the horde of angry wolves is by using a weapon with a large sweeping arc attack like the staff or axe. These weapons allow you to strike multiple opponents at once, and when combined with the Venomous Attack skill, you can easily spread the debuff across the entire pack with a few swings. If you’ve unlocked explosive arrows, firing these off when the wolves gather together can also help you dish out a large chunk of damage to several of them all at once, just make sure you’re far enough away to not get caught in the blast yourself. Once the nearby wolves are dealt with, simply go back to working on the Lykaon wolf, alternating between it and the lesser wolves as you whittle away the boss’s health bar.

Kallisto the Bear

Kallisto the Bear can be found along the southeastern border of the Golden Fields region in Arkadia. Compared to the other beasts, this fight is fairly tame as the mighty bear doesn’t really have any particularly nasty skills or attacks to watch out for. Kallisto’s size makes it easy to flank around to the sides and avoid most of its attacks, which also leaves it vulnerable for you to land a combo or two as you go.

Liberal use of debuff skills like Flaming Attacks or Venomous Attacks will make the fight go much quicker as they help to constantly drain away health. Since the bear attacks quite slowly, you should have enough time to deploy a number of heavy attacks too, which should help to push down the bear’s health bar much quicker than using light attack combos.

The Erymanthian Boar

The Erymanthian Boar is located along the western border of the Erymanthos Foothills region, found in the northern area of Elis. Much like the initial boar fight, this angry pig can be unpredictable and difficult to read. While it doesn’t call upon a number of piggy friends like the first fight, the Erymanthian Boar instead has a large toxic cloud attack that can seriously affect your ability to fight.

For this encounter you will want to try and stick close to the sides and rear of the boar where possible, once again maintaining poison on it as much as possible to reduce health and attack damage. Keep up this constant dance of dodging and attacking and eventually the boar will perform a crooked leap and stumble, which is your cue to do a long dodge backwards and get a safe distance away from the boar as this is when it unleashes the toxic cloud. Lead the boar away from the cloud and continue the fight until the boar goes down.

The Krokottas Hyena

The Krokottas Hyena can be found towards the southern border of Skandeia Bay, located on Kythera Island. Depending on your fighting style, this fight can either be really easy or really difficult due to the hyena’s extremely agile moveset. To give yourself the best chance at taking down this beast you’ll want to bring a fast weapon like the dagger, sword or staff. Death arrows can also be effective against the hyena if you’ve poured a lot of points into hunter abilities. The arrows themselves can be unlocked once you turn in at least two of the other legendary animal pelts.

During the fight, it can be difficult to keep track of the hyena as it will frequently dart around the battlefield, so take your time and be ready to dodge if you think you’re about to be attacked from behind. When the hyena is dashing across the field, it can sometimes attack as it leaps, which can be difficult to predict, so you should try to close the gap whenever you can to force the hyena to fight you instead of leaping all over the place. The hyena will sometimes perform a leap that will pin you down too, and while this doesn’t deal much damage, it can be fatal if you’re running low on health. As with the other beasts, simply maintain poison and chip away at its health bar and eventually the hyena should fall.

Mercenary Fodder

If you’re having a particularly hard time tackling the legendary animals, there’s a way to exploit the mercenary system in the game to help tilt the odds in your favor. By tricking a mercenary into hunting you and leading them into the den of one of the legendary animals, you can often change the encounter entirely into a three way skirmish, using the unwitting mercenary as a distraction as you sneak in your own series of attacks in the background.

To do this, you should head into a town or village and start committing crimes like stealing from citizens or outright murdering random people in the streets. Once you’ve racked up a two out of five bounty level, head out towards your intended legendary animal and a mercenary should eventually show up so long as you’re near a road. Once your bounty hunter arrives, catch their attention and lead them straight into the beast’s lair. For best results, you should unlock the stealth skill Vanish, which lets you force both the animal and the mercenary to forget about you for six seconds, which should encourage them to start fighting each other.

As the fight goes on, simply sit back and watch it unfold or chip in with your own volley of arrows to help keep things balanced until one of them goes down, after which you should jump in and finish off the weakened winner.

Andy Moore is a gaming freelancer based in the UK. When he’s not writing, he can be found staring blankly out of the nearest window, or spending way too much time on Twitter.