Shadow Of The Colossus Walkthrough & Guide Part 4: How to defeat the Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Colossi

Shadow of the Colossus is an all-time classic, and though it's a fairly straightforward game it can still be a little easy to find yourself lost and confused about how exactly to take down a colossus or even how to find them initially. We've been charting our journey through the game in this walkthrough, and we're now fully into the second half of the game. On this page we tackle battles with the tenth, eleventh and twelfth colossus, offering tips on how to find and beat them. Find the rest of our walkthrough in the index below...

Shadow of the Colossus Walkthrough Index:

1. The First, Second, and Third Colossi 
2. The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Colossi
3. The Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Colossi 
4. The Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Colossi (You are here)
5. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Colossi 
6. The Sixteenth Colossi and the Finale
7. Supplemental: Shadow of the Colossus Tips, Tricks, Unlockables and more

The Tenth Colossus: Dirge

Locating the Tenth Colossus

Head outside the temple, the next colossus is due west. Go across the bridge that’s northwest of the temple, once on the other side you’ll want to head a bit south and travel along the cliffside.

The reason you should do this is the terrain beside the cliffside has the least amount of obstacles to move around. Eventually, you'll reach a mountain range, travel north alongside it and shortly you'll come to an opening on your left, go in there.

You will exit into a valley, proceed to the bottom of it. 

There will be a big cave opening leading underground, go inside and the path will take you down to an underground desert and begin the battle with the next colossus.

Defeating the Tenth Colossus

This colossus is a massive worm-like creature that tunnels underground. It’ll move through the sand very quickly so you have to use your horse for this fight. The Colossus itself won't always be visible when its underground, but you should see a big mound of sand moving around to mark it.

You need to keep your horse moving as fast as it can, as the colossus will chase after you. It’s fast and has a nasty attack where it’ll jump out the sand and try to ram you. Despite how intimidating this colossus is, the fight is very easy.

Basically, when the colossus is chasing you, you will see its very large eyes poking out of the sand. Equip your bow and fire an arrow at one of its eyes(while still on horseback), if you hit your mark then the colossus will lose its sight and begin veering off course. It’ll crash into the wall of the arena, when this happens the beast will be stunned and a large portion of its body will be sticking out of the ground. This will be your chance to get on it.

Quickly move towards the colossus on horseback and once there, leap off onto it and hold on to the hairy section of the beast. The entire exposed part of its body should have hairy sections for you to grip on to and its body is shaped a snake, so there’s only one direction to go. Move up its body to the first major weak point, it should only take 2-3 good stabs to make it fade.

At this point, the colossus will have recovered and begun tunneling underground again. Repeat the process of shooting its eye with your bow. Once the colossus has crashed into the wall again, leap onto it and keep moving up its body. You will find another weak point farther past where the first was. Get in 2-3 good stabs on this weak point and the colossus will die.

The Eleventh Colossus: Celosia

Locating the Eleventh Colossus

Head outside and circle around to the back of the temple, the next colossus is due north. Take the bridge between the two pillars leading north, at the end of the bridge take the path to the left that leads out to the other side.

Once on the other side keep going directly north, run right beside the base of the gigantic bridge. Eventually, you should reach a small canyon, you’re going to want to go down into it. If you’re facing north, you will want to turn right and follow the small canyon in an eastward direction. You should see a path you can take down into the canyon from this point, there's an old pillar right beside the path if you need a landmark. You’ll have to dismount from your horse to take the path down.

At the end of the path, you will be greeted with a pond, swim across it. Once on the other side, you should notice a path that leads up to an entrance to a big structure, go inside. Once inside, take the stairs to the left and jump across the big gap. When you land on the other side, the next colossus battle will begin.

Defeating the Eleventh Colossus

This fight is much faster paced than the previous ones, and the arena the battle takes place in is more confined. As you can see the colossus is small relative to the others you’ve faced, but it’s really fast and will charge you like a bull. You’re going to have to roll out of the way of its charge or else it’ll knock you out for an extended period of time. It’s really easy to get charged and hit again by the colossus while you’re recovering, so you really don’t want to get hit at all.

You probably noticed that there’s no hair for you to grab on, it’s a heavily armored beast. You can, however, break some of the armor off, and you’re going to have to use the environment to trick the colossus into taking a fall. At one end of the boss arena is a big ledge that drops off into a canyon. The way you’re going to force the boss off this ledge is by using fire to scare it off. (Yes the boss is scared of fire)

As you probably already noticed there are four pedestals with large bonfires on the top of them. You will need to climb up the side of one of these pedestals and wait a bit. Once you’re up there, the boss will get impatient and eventually charge the pedestal, doing so knock a flaming torch off onto the ground. Careful to not stand too close to the edge though cause when the colossus hits the pedestal it will shake the whole thing and you can get knocked off.

Jump down and grab the flaming torch with the [R2 button]. Once in hand, the colossus will begin cowering and backing away. Position yourself so the colossus will back towards the ledge mentioned earlier, you can even hold the torch up just like your sword to shine some more light.

When the boss stops backing up, move closer to it so it begins backing up again. Don't get too close though as it’ll try to hit you away with its paw. Eventually, the colossus will back up over the ledge and go crashing into the canyon below.

This fall with shatter the armor on its back and expose the weak point on its back. The fall will also momentarily stun the Colossus, so jump off the ledge and land onto it’s back. Once there, get off as many good stabs off on it with your sword as you can. You will only need to land 2-3 good stabs on the colossus to kill it, but it’s pretty hard to accomplish this all in one attempt.

Eventually, the boss will recover, and it will begin running around flailing in an attempt to buck you off. There is a very short window between when it stops running and starts shaking where you can stab it, but you have to time it perfectly. Just as its flailing begins slowing down, get ready to press the [square button] to charge your sword and stab it. Again it should only take about 3-4 good stabs to kill the colossus.

(Note: If you aren’t able to kill the colossus before your grip meter runs out, getting back onto the Colossus is a very difficult task. The best way to go about it is to go back up to the arena where the fight started and stand on the pedestals with the bonfires just as you did before. You should be able to leap off of them onto the exposed part of the colossi’s back.)

The Twelfth Colossus: Pelagia

Locating the Twelfth Colossus

The next colossus is due northeast of the temple. You’ll want to take the same bridge north of the temple that you did for the last colossus, at the end of the bridge take the path to the left that leads out to the other side. Once on the other side begin heading northeast, you’ll want to be on the right-hand side of the gigantic bridge from the opening cutscene.

There will be another bridge you need to cross shortly here, you can spot it easy cause it’s between the remnants of an old archway.  Cross it and it will take you to a forest, once in the forest immediately veer off the path and to your right.

Make your way through a bit of brush, you should notice another path off to your right that takes you out of the forest, go down that path. Follow the path until you see a waterfall and some collapsed rubble blocking your way, then dismount from your horse.

There should be a large tower to your right, there’s a bit of railing you can grab on to here. Move around to the other side of the tower and drop down to the path below. Follow the path as it goes up vertically, at the end you can jump down into the water below.

Don’t jump in the water before this point or you’ll get pulled away in the current. Once in the calm water, proceed through the archway in front of you to begin the battle with the next colossus.

Defeating the Twelfth Colossus

Most of this area is underwater, with three structures spread throughout. The colossus will move about the water partly submerged, and it’ll fire energy projectiles at you when it sees you. The way you avoid getting hit by the projectiles is to drive and swim underwater. Drive down and make your way to one of the structures mentioned earlier.

Once at a structure, climb up out of the water and get on it. This is just the first level of the structure, there will be four towers on raised platforms that you need to be aware of. In the middle of the first floor is a cylindrical stone object you can hide behind, you’ll need to stay behind when the colossus fires projectiles at you.

Get the colossus’ attention by whistling, dart out from behind cover so that it sees you. If you crouch behind the cylindrical stone object for a bit, the colossus will hunch down and look for you. When it does, this is your chance to run out, get on one of the raised platforms and jump off onto the colossus.

You will be hanging onto its face here, keep climbing up until you are on its head. It will shake periodically, so just be aware that there is hair on its head you can hold on to if need be.

Around the rim of its head will be these green objects that look a lot like teeth. What happens is if you hit these stones with your sword, the colossus will move in the direction depending on where you hit. So if you hit the teeth on the right side of its head, the colossus will move to the right.

What you want to do is position the boss in front of one of the structures. Once in front, jump off its head onto the second level of the structure. There will be another cylindrical stone object that you can hide behind here, get back there and make sure you still have the colossus’ attention. If you wait a bit, the colossus will eventually pull its front legs out of the water onto the second level of the structure.

This will expose the weak point on its hairy underbelly, run out and jump onto the hairy section of its belly and hold on. This is the only weak point on the colossus, so you’ll just need to stab away at it until the creature dies.

You probably won't be able to finish the colossus all in one go, so just repeat the whole process again at one of the structures.

» NEXT: Part Five - The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Colossi »

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