Cyclops Boss Guide: ANOMALITH's Gravity Zone

Cyclops is the only boss in the game that comes with its own weapon. The rifle sits on a display in the sealed room behind the painted door, it has unlimited ammunition and enough damage to end the fight on its own, and the design reads clearly: this encounter is not about resource management. It is about three bodies, then five, and knowing which of them can be shot.

The fight takes place at Yotsubadai Heights, past the ceiling area and into the merged gravity zone. Getting there is the real gate — the door does not open until you have read the defence unit's second note and used the key on it. Trying the painted door repeatedly before the objective changes does nothing.

Before the arena

Two things are worth doing in the sealed room. The first is picking up the rifle; it is the only weapon the fight is balanced around, and walking in with a handgun turns a five-minute encounter into an ammunition problem. The second is reading what the room tells you, because the note describes both the creature and the weapon in the same breath.

Ammunition for the rifle is not a concern. Everything else you carry is.

Form one: the laser and the head

The first form fires a beam that tracks you, and the answer is geometry rather than movement — the low concrete barriers in the arena break the line. Step behind one, drop out of the scope to reposition, and come back up when the line is clear.

Damage goes to the head. Body shots on this form are close to pointless, and the rifle's low handling makes every wasted shot expensive in time rather than ammunition.

The form ends faster if you interrupt the charge. Continuous fire into the boss while the laser is winding up breaks the attack before it fires, which means the correct behaviour during a charge is to keep shooting rather than to hide. Hiding is for after the beam is already out.

Form two: two clones on chains

The body breaks apart and comes back with two clones chained to it. In this form the body is not a target: the chains are the tell, and the clones are the damage gate. Kill both clones and the body becomes vulnerable.

The clones are most dangerous at the moment they stop moving, because that is when they swing. Those swings can be parried, and this is the one place in the fight where the parry skill pays for itself — a parried swing leaves a clone open with no rifle round spent.

When both clones are down, the body stops being obvious. It blends into the background rather than glowing, so track the silhouette and the floor rather than the health bar. Losing it is the most common way this form goes wrong.

Form three: the eye and five clones

The final form is an eye with five clones. The rule changes slightly: the clones are not a gate this time, they are the interrupt. While the laser charges, clearing every clone breaks the attack outright.

If the clones are already gone and only the eye remains, the answer goes back to the first form's rule — sustained fire into the body interrupts the charge. So there is no state in this fight where the correct move is to stop shooting and wait.

The body's remains do not disappear when the health bar empties. The floating eye and the tendrils keep attacking and keep taking damage, and the fight is not over until they are gone. Players who stop firing at the empty bar take a hit from something they assumed was a death animation.

Why the cover matters more than the damage

The beam tracks, which means breaking line of sight is the only defence. The barriers are low, so crouching behind them is not the point — putting the concrete between the muzzle and you is. Standing beside a barrier and shooting over it is the same as standing in the open.

This is also why the fight rewards patience between forms. Every transition resets your position, and the players who lose here are usually the ones who keep holding the scope through a phase change and eat the first attack of the next form.

Common ways this fight goes wrong

The first is skipping the sealed room's rifle because the weapon you brought feels comfortable. Every phase is tuned around the rifle's damage, and a handgun turns the clone count from two and five into a much longer problem.

The second is shooting the body in form two because the clones are hard to track. The body takes nothing until both chained clones are dead — the immunity is the mechanic, not a bug, and the ammunition spent testing it is gone.

The third is holding the scope through a phase change. Each transition repositions the boss and resets your line; the players who eat the first beam of a new form are the ones who never dropped out of the sight picture.

The fourth is stopping at the empty health bar. The remains keep fighting.

What the fight is teaching

Cyclops is the game's lesson about target hierarchy. There are three answers to "what do I shoot" in this encounter — the head, the clones, the eye — and each one is correct only in its own form. Shooting the body is never correct, in any of them.

It is also the fight that makes the case for carrying one gun and learning it. The rifle is not a reward for preparation; it is a demonstration of what the game feels like when ammunition stops being the constraint.