How to Beat the Black Goat of the Woods – Alone in the Dark

This is it. The final boss fight in Alone in the Dark will have you going up against the Black Goat of the Woods – a malign carnivorous tree spirit, and perhaps a personification of H.P. Lovecraft’s own Shub-Niggurath.

For an entity of such importance, it makes sense that the fight is quite challenging. However, it may still come as a bit of a difficulty spike right at the end of the game after you’ve more or less breezed through the rest of it. This guide will give you all the tools you need to defeat the Black Goat of the Woods and enjoy your well-earned final cutscene.

General Tips

It can be hard to tell what exactly the boss is doing at any given moment, so just keep dodging as you move through the arena to pick up some more ammo or get into a more advantageous position. This will allow you to avoid most of the attacks.
There are plentiful ammo boxes scattered throughout the arena – don’t worry about running out of bullets.
During the phase where the boss spawns more minions, you should deal with them fast so as not to get overwhelmed.

Combat Strategy

Round One

The encounter begins in Chapter 5 after you’ve talked to all the Derceto residents and choose to “Wait for Miss Hartwood” or “Wait for Detective Carnby” by the fountain in the Conservatory. When you do, the big tree comes to life and goes on a bit of a rampage.

alone in the dark goat of the woods wait

alone in the dark goat of the woods fountain

After you regain control of your character, you should head up the fallen walkway directly to your right (Image 1) while collecting ammo and drinks along the way. Your journey will take you to the roof (Image 2) and then down into the Mezzanine (Image 3), and should generally top you off when it comes to health. Your difficulty settings will determine just how much stuff you’ll find, but even on Hard, you should get at least some extra healing. This is good because while the actual boss arena will have plenty of bullets, drinks are more scarce there, and it’s nice to come in well-stocked.

alone in the dark goat of the woods walkway — (1)

alone in the dark goat of the woods roof — (1)

When you enter the Mezzanine (Image 4), the Black Goat of the Woods will appear through the hole in the floor leading down to the Grand Parlor and attack you (Image 5). It will try smashing you with its head tentacles and spit some sort of acid at you. In our experience, the spit rarely if ever hits anything, so the main thing to watch out for there are the tentacles. These are best avoided by using the dodge button to move around. It will be faster than just walking and will help you avoid most of the attacks at the same time.

alone in the dark goat of the woods mezzanine — (4)

alone in the dark goat of the woods mezzanine fight — (4)

Your best bet in this fight will be to treat the Black Goat of the Woods as a Giant Enemy Crab – attack its weak points for massive damage. The weak points in this case look like patches of pearl-like tumors that periodically appear on the boss – like someone spilled some eldritch boba tea on it (Image 6).

alone in the dark goat of the woods weak spot — (6)

The best weapon to use for this fight is the machine gun. Even though a single bullet is enough to burst the Goat’s bubbles, the game’s controller-centric aiming and the fact that the boss keeps flailing and thrashing around can make landing that shot quite tricky. This makes the machine gun perfect for the job – you take aim in the general direction of a weak spot and unload, and you’ll be almost guaranteed to hit at least something.

Throughout the Mezzanine you’ll find several functionally unlimited ammo boxes, an assortment of melee weapons, and a few throwables. Your strategy then should be to start the fight by stocking up on anything you might be missing, then placing yourself close to the middle of the arena where the machine gun bullets tend to be.

alone in the dark goat of the woods mezzanine shotgun

alone in the dark goat of the woods mezzanine machine gun

From that spot, you should start sniping the Goat’s weak spots while continuously dodging whenever you’re not actively shooting. You do that five times and the boss will smash the floor from under you, bringing you down into the Grand Parlor (Image 7).

alone in the dark goat of the woods phase 2 — (7)

Round Two

The Grand Parlor is also conveniently stocked with ammo, melee weapons and throwables. The images below show the general placement of the precious ammo boxes.

alone in the dark goat of the woods parlor machine gun 1

alone in the dark goat of the woods parlor pistol

The general idea for the second round of this fight remains the same – you dodge the boss to the best of your abilities while popping bubbles on its body. Only this time, there are significantly more targets, and you’ll need to do it more times. The machine gun remains the undisputed GOAT when fighting the Goat, so early on make note of where the machine gun bullets are, and constantly circle back to those spots to restock.

When fighting inside the Grand Parlor, you will want to always keep moving. First, because the weak spots can appear all over the boss’ body (Image 8). And second, because it will constantly try to smash you with its hooves (Image 9), which will deal a decent chunk of damage even on the easier difficulties, not to mention on Hard. The Goat’s erratic movements can also place you in an unfavorable position where you get stuck between its hooves in some corner – try to avoid that by always moving towards the emptier parts of the arena.

alone in the dark goat of the woods parlor weakpoint — (8)

alone in the dark goat of the woods parlor dodge — (8)

Throughout the fight, the weak-spot boils will occasionally appear on the boss’ legs (Image 10). It’s not entirely clear whether shooting these actually deals damage to the boss or simply helps bring it down and lock it in place for a while. But you’ll want to do it regardless, as it can get really hectic to try and shoot the boss as it keeps thrashing around.

This weakened immobile state shouldn’t be mistaken for a similar phase where the boss falls and stops moving, but you don’t see any vulnerable targets on its body. During this phase, the boss is actually spawning minions to complicate matters for you (Image 11). From what we can tell, it’s pretty random which minions you’ll get, and it can be just about any enemy you’ve encountered throughout the game. The great news for you is that the boss won’t be spawning them infinitely, so as long as you keep dealing with these adds as soon as they appear, this phase shouldn’t give you too much trouble. A good strategy for this phase is to swap over to the shotgun and unload into the crowd of newly-spawned enemies to soften them up before finishing them off with the machine gun.

alone in the dark goat of the woods parlor leg bubble — (10)

alone in the dark goat of the woods parlor minions — (10)

Once you’ve pumped enough damage into the boss, it will bring down the entire manor on itself and get buried under a pile of rubble, allowing you to escape the madness and enjoy your well-earned victory.