Remnant 2: How to complete Imperial Gardens and earn the Crossbow weapon

Remnant 2 Imperial Garden opening area
(Image credit: Michael Hoglund)

Remnant 2 is Gunfire Games' latest take on the Souls genre. Guns mixed with heroically challenging combat make for one of the most incredible gaming experiences at times. Adrenaline is sure to find you around each and every corner.

Sometimes these things find themselves to be rather challenging, and that's where we come in. We're here to bring you some easy-to-follow guides in hopes of helping you take on the world on Remnant 2 when things get annoyingly tricky.

Enemies and where to go

  • Root Flyers: As the name implies, these guys float around. They also shoot annoying energy balls at the player that deal a decent amount of damage but are easy to avoid. Sidestep around these guys and take these suckers out!
  • Root Slasher: These guys come at you first as a hulking giant slasher. Dropping them is step one, killing their flying form is step two. If left alive, they bury themselves and emerge once more in their hulk form.
  • Empowered Slayer: Remember the arrow guys in earlier areas? These are the same, except overpowered. They still teleport, but their arrow attacks drop from the sky in rapid succession. If not avoided, these attacks will easily kill players at higher difficulties.

Coming into this area, you'll arrive at a standard checkpoint. Use it and move ahead. Winding through turns will lead to a few areas of interest right away. One such area is a false floor which leads you to a Blood Moon Room, inside I found a Full Moon Circlet. This amulet increases ranged and melee damage by 10% after not being damaged for 7 seconds. It's a remarkable amulet to use at the start of every fight, especially if you're decent at dodging attacks.

Check every corner, and make sure to blow up the walls you see that look like this:

Remnant 2 screenshots

(Image credit: Michael Hoglund)

Aim for the giant orange object inside to take it down. Some will lead to hidden areas with a few scattered items; others will give you an alternative path forward. One such item I found near the entrance of the Imperial Garden was a melee weapon named Edge of the Forest. This weapon gives terrific weak spot damage, as well as a higher percent chance of causing a critical hit.

Continuing, you may come across a locked door at the front of the compound. Don't worry; there's a way around this. Head off to the right of the door and into what I'd call a floating forest. There are numerous floating creatures to fight, including archers and behemoths.

Head out and continue looping toward the compound. The way forward will eventually split off in a different direction. Ignore that for now and continue back around. You should see a few items, including a Tome of Knowledge and the Ring of the Forest Spirit, which increases relic healing effectiveness by 15%.

Remnant 2 screenshot

(Image credit: Michael Hoglund)

Once you return to the compound, look for symbols resting on the ground, as shown above. These symbols will correspond to a dial seated at the top of the area you're in. Find all four symbols and put them in any order on the dial to unlock a hidden passage leading to the Crossbow. A secret primary weapon that packs quite a punch when upgraded.

Boss: Mantagora

You might notice the tiny red thing in the photo above. That's Mantagora, the most boring and reclusive boss in the game. No, seriously. This was the most tedious fight I had during my entire playtime of Remnant 2. 

The boss only attacks you once you hit it first. When you do, you'll enter into the boss phase, where it screams a little bit and will shoot at you if it's flying directly above. This doesn't happen as often as you'd think, as during my entire fight, Mantagora attacked me a single time.

The rest of the fight I spent waiting to see it again. Mantagora takes a flight path around the entire dungeon. For long periods of time, the boss won't be visible while it's flying underneath or around some other floating islands. When you do see it, shoot and don't stop. Use every second it's in range to hit it to get this fight over with.

While the area I was in was cleared before the boss fight, when I did hit MantagoraRoot Flyers would appear. So, engage them; they're the only fun you will have during this entire segment. It took me a total of 20 minutes to finish Mantagora. She never appears for much longer than 10 to 20 seconds.

Quick Notes:

  • Keep track of its flight pattern. Sometimes you'll need to wait for it to come back to initiate the fight again. There were actual minutes sometimes between shots I took at the boss.
  • When over you, careful of its bombing attack. 
  • Every time you deal a decent amount of damage, get ready for enemies to spawn alongside some elites.

Once defeated, you'll receive Momentum Mutator. When striking a critical hit, gain +1.5% crit chance and crit damage for three seconds, up to a maximum of 10 stacks.

Michael Hoglund
Contributor

Michael has been gaming since he was five when his mother first bought a Super Nintendo from Blockbuster. Having written for a now-defunct website in the past, he's joined Windows Central as a contributor to spreading his 30+ years of love for gaming with everyone he can. His favorites include Red Dead Redemption, all the way to the controversial Dark Souls 2.