How to beat Méndez in Resident Evil 4, Méndez boss strategy

Méndez is the boss near the end of Chapter 6 in the Resident Evil 4 remake.

You'll want to bring the ideal guns and use the best strategy to conserve your health and ammo for taking on Méndez in Resident Evil 4 - especially on Hardcore and Professional difficulties.

To help you finish Chapter 6, we've detailed the best strategy for how beat Méndez below.

Please note that this is a guide for the remake of Resident Evil 4 so the exact boss strategy might not be the same in the original version.

For more help, you can visit our Resident Evil 4 walkthrough.

How to beat Méndez in Resident Evil 4

Here's our Resident Evil 4 Méndez boss strategy:

Preparing for the Méndez fight

For the Méndez fight, we recommend you bring the TMP weapon. You can purchase this from the Merchant for 10,000 Pesetas on Standard difficulty. You don't need it to beat Méndez, but it will make your battle a lot easier. That said, we managed to beat Méndez our second try by using the Red9 handgun.

We also suggest you bring at least one spare knife, as you'll be parrying a lot during the fight, so your main knife might break.

If you happen to have fish, eggs, or vipers to spare in your inventory, then you should also make sure you have Charms equipped that increase your healing from these sources. Charms are randomised rewards from the shooting range, however, so you might not have any healing ones before the Méndez fight.

If you don't have these items or Charms, then we recommend buying a First Aid Spray from the Merchant if you can afford it. The Merchant refreshes his First Aid Spray stock pretty regularly throughout the game, so if you have room (and don't mind spending the money), it's always good to have extra healing going into a boss fight.

Fighting Méndez strategy - Phase 1

You should break all the boxes and barrels on the bottom and top floor first to get all the resources you can hold. They contain ammo, health items, and crafting resources, but keep in mind that their contents are randomised for each encounter.

For the actual fight itself, you should go to the top floor and shoot at the eye on Méndez's back. This is where the TMP comes in handy, as its high rate of fire is great for attacking the eye.

When Méndez takes enough damage he will be downed and you should then run to him and use the knife where the prompt appears above him

In between shooting down at Méndez's eye and knifing it when he's downed, you need to parry and crouch when the symbols appear. These can pass by very quickly, so the sooner you can down Méndez the better, which is why the TMP is so good during this first phase of the fight.

Lastly, you'll want to balance your health items and knife durability if Méndez does catch you. You'll lose health if you choose to mash the button to escape, but you'll lose knife durability if you use the knife to escape.

Fighting Méndez strategy - Phase 2

Méndez moves to the back wall after you've damaged him enough, and your new strategy during this fight should be to shoot the red barrels in his hands when they appear and use your long range weapons to damage his body when there aren't any red barrels.

We found it best to do this from the top floor.

Just like in the first phase, when Méndez takes enough damage, he will fall to the floor. Jump down when this happens and press the knife prompt to damage him.

Méndez can still grab you when he lunges forward, but he'll also throw flaming pieces of wood. You can avoid these fire attacks by running to the left or right just before he throws the first one. On Standard difficulty, he will throw two flaming pieces of debris.

Keep repeating the pattern of destroying red barrels and shooting Méndez at every other opportunity to down him and once he's taken enough damage the fight will end.

You'll get Méndez's False Eye for defeating him, which can be sold to the Merchant, and if this was your first time taking on Méndez, you'll also get the 'Grilled Big Cheese' Trophy or Achievement. Luis would be proud.

Our Resident Evil 4 walkthrough can help you through the village with guides on the Large and Small Cave Shrine puzzle solutions, the Church dial puzzle, and Del Lago, El Gigante, and Méndez bosses. When you reach the castle, you have to tackle the Treasury sword, Wall With Four Slots, Dining Hall bell, and Grandfather Clock correct time puzzles, along with the Dungeon Garrador, two giants, and Ramón Salazar bosses. The island is up next, and there's still brain teasers with callibration puzzles, keycard locations, and a hidden wrench, along with final bosses Krauser and Sadler.

Fighting Méndez on Hardcore or Professional

Most of what we recommended above for taking on Méndez on Standard difficulty applies to fighting him on Hardcore and Professional, except for a few alterations:

• Make sure you create a manual save right before the fight if you're playing on Professional, as there is no autosave.
• If you can't get a good angle on the eye on his back during the fight's first phase, shoot Méndez anywhere.
• You might want to switch to a shotgun when Méndez is close to get some powerful shots in before switching back to a handgun or the TMP.
• Méndez is more aggressive, and gets up quicker when downed - so either try and fight him from the bottom floor to make the knife prompt in time, or just keep firing at him instead of jumping down to knife, as you'll probably miss the prompt.
• Grenades are a big help when Méndez is down, but you might want to save them for the next fight.
• Bring multiple spare knives if you can! As Méndez is more aggressive, you'll be parrying a lot more.

Rifles can also help with causing a big amount of damage either when Méndez is downed, or when he's far away in the second phase of the fight. However, in our experience, you need to have a good aim or improved rate of fire to use the rifle and have enough time to dodge and parry when the prompts appear.

Good luck taking on Méndez!

If you'd like more help with the Resident Evil 4 remake, you can visit our walkthrough for more puzzle solutions, boss guides, and Request help.