How to defeat HOG-7 HEDGIE in Atomic Heart

HOG-7 HEDGIE is the first true boss in Atomic Heart, with everything prior being a superior version of standard enemies. This guide explains how to tackle and defeat the boss because it can crush you repeatedly if you don’t pay attention to your surroundings.

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How to beat HOG-7 HEDGIE

To beat HOG-7 HEDGIE, you need a lot of firepower. If you scan this enemy, and you should because it’s a missable scan, you’ll see that it has very few weaknesses for you to exploit. Given how much health it has and how many bullets you’d need to destroy it without an exploit, it can seem insurmountable. However, the arena you’re in can aid you in your battle, as can careful monitoring of the boss’ attack patterns.

There are short podiums in the arena that you can hit with a Shok attack. When you do this, it’ll trigger a statue to rise up out of the ground. Once you’ve brought up a statue, stay close to it and wait for HOG-7 HEDGIE to roll up into a ball and start rolling around. It’ll roll towards you and hit the statue, causing it to fall over. At this point, you should be able to see some glowing parts that have stuck out of the boss to cool down. Shoot any of these with a shotgun or pistol, and they’ll explode, dealing massive damage.

You can also trigger this cooldown mode in HOG-7 HEDGIE by fighting it on foot and dodging its attacks. After a few attacks, the boss will roll toward you and then stand up while its glowing discs cool off before it goes on the offensive again. Use that brief window to destroy a disc and make HOG-7 HEDGIE regret that it ambushed you.

Keep firing at the boss between these cooldown periods to deal damage over time and slowly whittle its health down. We found that using at least one energy weapon to deal damage during the more frenetic periods helped us conserve ammo. This boss is extremely agile and doesn’t mess around when it’s trying to flatten you. Save your bullets for the cooldown mode, so you’re guaranteed to deal damage.

How to kill HOG-7 HEDGIE without making a single shot and destroying all statues

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One of the Trophies/Achievements in Atomic Heart is called Strike, and it requires you to kill HOG-7 HEDGIE without firing a single bullet at it and destroy every statue in the arena. This isn’t easy, but it’s definitely possible, even on your first playthrough. The statues are easy to destroy, just hit the podiums with Shok and lure the boss into smashing them. Then, when it’s in cooldown mode, run up to it with a melee weapon and try to damage one of the glowing points to blow it up and deal some significant damage.

Even if you can’t master the statue technique, you can hit HOG-7 HEDGIE with your melee weapon and cause damage outside of the cooldown mode. It won’t be much, but it will eventually lead to the boss’ death. The key to this Trophy/Achievement is not to fire a gun. It’s better to leave all of your firearms and ammo in one of the vending machines and instead stock up on health pods so you can heal your way through the damage HOG-7 HEDGIE will dole out. The Trophy/Achievement will pop as soon as the boss dies, provided you’ve used all the podiums to destroy all the statues and haven’t fired a single round.