Horizon Forbidden West: How to Beat Slitherfang Easily

The Horizon Forbidden West Slitherfang is the giant snake-like machine that you’ll encounter very early on in the game. It’s pretty huge and can spit acid, which will deal significant damage to Aloy if the attack lands. To help you beat this slithery snake, we’ll be running you through the best method to quickly destroy the Slitherfang and disable some of its most powerful attacks.

The Slitherfang is an enormous, fast combat machine that can lash out from long range. When it’s in its coiled stance, it has access to its full arsenal as its rotating body parts snap into place.

All Components of the Slitherfang in Horizon Forbidden West

• Body: Hard outer casing protects its synthetic muscle and operational systems.
• Sonic Hood: Large, vibrating metal plates found on the back of the Slitherfang. They’re only vulnerable when extended. Detach or destroy these to disable the ranged Sonic Blast attack.
• Earthgrinder: Serrated soil churners capable of crushing nearly anything it ensnares. Tear off to collect.
• Glowblast Canister: Glowblast storage. Tear off to collect this resource or shoot with a Plasma Arrow to detonate.
• Metalbite Sac: Metalbite Storage. Destroy to disable Acid attacks or leave intact to add loot to the carcass.
• Sparker: Shock storage, found on the side of the Slitherfang. These blue canisters can be torn off to collect this resource, or shot with a Shock Arrow to detonate.
• Purgewater Canister: Purgewater storage. These canisters can be torn off to collect as a resource or shot with a Purgewater Arrow to detonate.
• Acid Canister: Metalbite storage. These are green canisters found on the sides of the Slitherfang. Tear them off to collect these as a resource, or shoot with an Acid Arrow to detonate and deal massive elemental damage.
• Resource Container: Storage canister for valuable resources. Tear off to collect its contents.
• Data Nexus: Central processor. Especially vulnerable to damage if exposed. Found deep inside the chest of the Slitherfang.
• Purgewater Sac: Purgewater storage. Destroy to disable Purgewater attacks or leave intact to add loot to the carcass.
• Shock Orb: Three Shock Orbs can be found at the very end of the Slitherfang’s tail. These are used to power all Shock attacks and spin on their axis to charge up.

Beating the Horizon Forbidden West Slitherfang Easily

Exploit Its Elemental Weaknesses

As formidable as the Slitherfang may look, it’s actually relatively easy to take down if you know where to focus your attacks. You can make even lighter work of this machine snake by exploiting its Frost, Fire, and Plasma damage weaknesses.

If you have weapons that have these types of elemental ammo, it’ll make defeating the Slitherfang much faster, though, in the case of the first boss fight, you’ll instead need to focus on exploiting its weak points and using its own weapons against it.

Use Its Weapons Against It & Target Weak Spots

Your priority here is to focus on taking out the Shock Orbs on the end of its tail. Not only are these relatively large targets, once removed, but they can also be used as a heavy weapon against the Slitherfang itself and disable all of its Shock attacks.

With the weapon the Shock Orbs drop, you’ll next want to focus on the Sparkers on the front and sides of the Slitherfang (or your left if you’re facing it head-on). As the weapon deals Shock Damage, you’ll trigger a massive elemental reaction, dealing heavy damage to the Slitherfang itself.

With those removed, it’s time to take care of the Earthgrinder just below the head, on the front of the machine. You can just use your standard arrows here (if you’re facing it early on in the game), or use Precision or Tear Precision Arrows if you’ve got access to them to make light work of detaching this.

Finally, use any of your arrows to focus on the Metalbite Sac on the very front of the Slitherfang, just below the Earthgrinder.

By destroying this, you’ll cause a huge explosion, disabling all of its Metalbite-based attacks and dealing significant damage.

Keep Your Distance & Dodge to Easily Avoid the Slitherfang’s Attacks

At this point, the Slitherfang won’t have a ton of attacks left, so you can simply focus on picking off its various other parts with your arrows. Just keep your distance, and you’ll be able to avoid most attacks and lunges it comes at you with.

Now that you know how to beat it quickly, we wish you happy hunting those Slitherfangs in Horizon Forbidden West. For more tips, tricks and guides, head over to our wiki, or see more of our coverage on the game below.