How to easily beat Midgardsormr in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

Midgardsormr in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is one of the most iconic bosses from the original game. It’s given a fresh new look and is just as terrifying as the original. While the PlayStation 1 version was an optional enemy you could avoid—but shouldn’t if you wanted Beta—this one is a required boss. Although it moves quickly and is frightening, your party should be able to handle it.

I went in with Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa and easily overcame this foe.

We’ll go over attacks to keep an eye out for, phase changes, and anything you can do to abuse weaknesses or stagger the boss a little easier. Your strategies and party makeups might differ, but here’s what we did going into the swamps of the Kalm region.

Disclaimer: This features spoilers for a Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth boss in Midgardsormr.

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How to defeat the Midgardsormr in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

Midgardsormr's stats (Image via Square Enix)

After you’ve completed the various sidequests, it’s time to head into the swamp. The Midgardsormer in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has a wealth of attacks. This includes an infuriating headbutt, quickly knocking people in melee range away. You can likely block it, but if you’re in the middle of pressing a button, it will go badly. As you can see above, it has 13,472 HP and is weak to ice and resistant to fire.

It is also immune to the majority of status ailments. Use its elemental weakness repeatedly if you want to put pressure on it to increase stagger more quickly. I used Snow Flurry and Blizzard/Blizzara to deal enough frost damage to pressure him. Then, I repeatedly used Cloud’s Pressure Thrust to deal more stagger.

One important attack to be aware of is Devour. Midgardsormr in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth rears back and strikes at everyone in a huge AoE in front of it. Once you’ve begun to inflict punishment on it, you’ll see a new target pop up: its Cranial Dome. This is your new target for the boss since you can’t target the main body anymore.

This attack is dangerous but has a finite reach (Image via Square Enix)

It also starts using Snap, a quick strike to one character. When it Coils up, it’s getting ready to Devour again, so be aware. At around 75%, it’ll get ready to cast Scorching Breath, which deals a line of fire and sweeps across the battlefield. Get behind a tree or something to avoid this incredibly high damage.

It also likes to use a poisonous attack at this time: Corrosive Fluid. At this point in the Midgardsormr fight in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, it’s quick to use attacks like Chomp and Bite to deal large amounts of damage.

At 50% health, it uses an ability to draw in the heat around itself and prepare another mighty Scorching Breath. This is when I learned you can simply get out of the blast’s range in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

Hot times are comin' (Image via Square Enix)

You can also expect Beta to be cast soon; sorry, long-time fans, but it doesn’t appear that you'll learn Beta in this Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth fight. Midgardsormr sets the field ablaze with fire damage, giving you more obstacles to be concerned with, like burning trees. He also introduces a new attack, Toxic Waters, covering the field in poison damage, which he tends to follow up with a tail swipe.

It’s important to keep an eye on the boss. He can dive under the swamp and ambush someone, but at least Midgardsormr in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has a telltale shimmer on the water. However, when he pops up, he likes to use Scorch Breath again, so keep an eye out.

Beta will get cast again at around 25% health, but if you’re close to the boss, you won’t take more than 250 or so damage. It seems like if you’re farther away, you can get caught in the huge gouts of flame. I never did stagger Midgardsormr; I defeated it with a Cranial Dome health of 50% and around 95% stagger. You may get a final Beta as well; if you’re fast enough, you can kill the boss first. You gain the following rewards:

• 163 EXP & 10 AP
• 650 Gil
• 50 party EXP

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At this point, watch the awesome cutscene and get a very interesting cameo—it’s not how this scene originally played out, that’s for sure. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is now available exclusively on PlayStation 5. You can read our review here.

Check out more FF7 Rebirth gameplay guides:

• How to easily beat Galian Beast in FF7 Rebirth
• How to easily beat Gi Nattak in FF7 Rebirth
• How to easily beat Titan in FF7 Rebirth
• How to easily beat the final boss of FF7 Rebirth