The boss fight with Leo Steiner and the entire skirmish leading up to it is the culmination of Polina Petrova’s campaign in Call of Duty: Vanguard, who was also one of the leading names in saving Misha in Stalingrad.
Along with the big shootout with Steiner’s soldiers, this level is among the most challenging in the game. I think it’s of a similar difficulty to that of reaching the airfield mission, so expect to find yourself running around, changing weapons, and probably dying a few times. The icing on the cake will be the boss fight against Steiner himself. In this fight, you’ll have to move quickly, stay calm, and strike when the time is right.
Here is how to defeat Steiner in CoD: Vanguard.
Beat His Army
Before you get to Steiner, you need to take care of his soldiers. If you just want to learn how to beat Steiner in the boss fight, you can move right on to the next section.
For me, defeating Steiner’s soldiers was much harder than defeating the man himself. Here are a few tips I discovered along the way.
First, you’ll want to keep moving as much as possible. There are lots of crawl spaces to duck under, tables to jump over, and obstacles to hide behind. Keep the enemy disoriented and try not to be an easy target. The issue here is that, if you keep moving all the time, you might lose your sense of direction. Use the main staircase to stay oriented.
You’ll run into three Jagermorders here – the heavy infantry guys with LMGs. To kill Jagermorders, follow the same rule: move around so they can’t pin you down, take cover, and move away from their smoke screens to get a better shot.
Once you have a clear shot, unload on them with a high-caliber weapon.
To make things easier during this big fight with Steiner’s army, you can man the machine gun at the top of the staircase. Try not to spam it, though – the enemy will catch on to you quickly and flank you.
Another important factor in this big fight is ammo. You won’t have access to any of the most overpowered weapons in CoD Vanguard here, and you’ll notice that ammo is kind of scarce. You need to keep switching guns and make sure you always have a few mags ready. There are rooms with grenades and guns throughout the building so keep moving through them to restock.
How to Kill Steiner in CoD: Vanguard
Once you’ve sorted out Steiner’s army, it’s time to deal with their leader. The Steiner boss fight is intense from a cinematic standpoint but it’s fairly easy to execute once you understand the mechanism.
In fact, if you’ve played The Last of Us, the fight with Steiner is quite similar to Ellie’s boss fight with David. It’s all about sneaking around and getting behind him to strike.
Use Crawl Spaces and Move Around
The first you need to do is map out all the crawl spaces. You’ll use these to move around and get behind Steiner when he’s looking for you elsewhere.
However, don’t think you’ll safe when crouched under an obstacle – he’ll be looking for you and bending over to check whether you’re hiding under stuff. Crawl under tables and other obstacles only to avoid Steiner once he sees you.
Attract His Attention and Run
Once you get a good feel for the space, it’s time for action. Get out from hiding and attract Steiner’s attention. You can actually do this by pressing the Up Arrow – the same button you used throughout the level to attract enemy fire. When you tap the Up Arrow, Polina will whistle and Steiner will come chasing.
It’s important to realize that this boss fight isn’t only about sneaking around. Attracting Steiner is something you should keep doing – he comes running after you, you run and hide. And, now that you know where he is, you can sneak up behind him. Make sure you have the best audio settings to hear enemy footsteps in CoD: Vanguard so you know when he’s coming. So, whistling, turning off the gramophone, and other distractions are the best ways to lure Steiner out and know where he is.
Otherwise, you’ll spend a lot of time hidden, waiting for him to show up randomly.
Strike at the Right Time
Finally, once Steiner is looking for you, that’s when you need to hide, quickly go around him, and strike.
Strike by tapping R3 once, and this will trigger a small scene where Polina stabs him but he shakes her off and disappears. You need to repeat this three times and the fight will be pretty much over.
After that, you just follow the bloody trail outside and prepare for an epic revenge scene where you don’t control the character but can enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Final Word
Once you get the hang of it, killing Steiner in CoD: Vanguard isn’t hard. You just need to stay patient and think strategically.
More importantly, don’t just wait around for him to get close to you – this will take forever. Instead, keep attracting him, then quickly run away, and strike him from behind. Don’t worry, one shot won’t kill you, so you can risk him finding you and firing off a round. Just make sure to get out of his line of sight as soon as he catches you.
Also, don’t make the same mistake as I did: when you get behind him, tap R3 once instead of tapping repeatedly. Tapping R3 once will trigger the little cutscene, while tapping several times might just make Polina swing her knife around and get killed in the process.
