Mortal Shell 2 Tar Golem Guide: No, You Still Can't Win Trophy

The Tar Golem is the major scripted encounter at the end of Mortal Shell II’s Prologue. Its missable trophy, No, You Still Can’t Win, requires you to take the Tar Golem to its minimum health. If that opportunity is missed on the Prologue run, New Game Plus does not replay the encounter, so a fresh save is the clean retry route.

The Tar Golem is reached through the Disciple’s Grotto route near the end of the Prologue.

Use Disciple’s Grotto Beacon as the practical route anchor, then continue through the rocky path toward the arena.

From Disciple’s Grotto Beacon:

1. Continue onward / down from the Beacon.
2. Use the updraft / launch route to reach the higher path.
3. Continue through the rocky route toward the arena.
4. Pass through the wider Bone Gate section.
5. Enter the arena and use the encounter trigger that awakens the Tar Golem.

The encounter is part of the Prologue progression. The trophy condition, however, is a separate objective you can miss.

The trophy requirement is:

Take the Tar Golem to his Minimum Health

Use that wording literally.

Your goal is to reduce the Tar Golem to its minimum-health state during the encounter. Do not assume the trophy requires a conventional permanent boss kill, an extra finishing hit, or a specific universal HP number.

The Prologue continues after the Tar Golem sequence whether or not you satisfy the trophy condition, so achievement hunters should treat the fight as a one-time objective for that run.

The Tar Golem uses heavy axe attacks and punishes long, greedy offense.

A safer approach is:

• use Guard / Perfect Guard against attacks that can be guarded
• dodge attacks that are clearly unblockable or too dangerous to defend normally
• keep enough stamina / defensive resources available to react
• use short punish windows rather than long attack strings
• prioritize reaching the minimum-health state over trying to force a fast finish

This guide does not assign frame-perfect parry timings or a mandatory weapon / Shell.

If you are also working on a later parry trophy, keep that separate from this encounter; the Peter’s Perfect Parry guide covers the Nameless Captive challenge.

If the Tar Golem sequence ends without No, You Still Can’t Win unlocking, the same Prologue encounter is no longer available to replay normally on that save.

The clean recovery method is:

1. create a fresh save / character
2. replay the Prologue
3. return to the Tar Golem
4. take it to minimum health before the sequence ends

Some players may use platform-specific save backups for repeated attempts, but this guide does not make save manipulation the default method.

No. New Game Plus does not replay the Prologue Tar Golem encounter.

NG+ begins at Marrow Keep, after the Prologue section that contains this fight.

That means starting NG+ is not a replacement for a missed Tar Golem trophy attempt. Use a fresh separate save instead.

For the wider reset / carry-over rules, see the New Game Plus guide.

If you care about achievements or trophies, do not rely on the Prologue skip for the only save you want to use for opening completion goals.

The skip bypasses two confirmed Prologue trophy opportunities:

• Mid Summer? — accept the flower crown interaction and enter the Festival
• No, You Still Can’t Win — take the Tar Golem to minimum health

You can still recover either by replaying the Prologue on a fresh save, but NG+ does not restore these opening encounters.

See the Skip Prologue guide for the full missable-trophy decision.

At the end of the Prologue on the Disciple’s Grotto route.

Yes. The Tar Golem sequence is part of the Prologue route, while the No, You Still Can’t Win trophy condition is optional.

Follow the requirement exactly: take the Tar Golem to its minimum-health state. This guide does not assign a universal HP number.

The trophy requirement is not worded as a conventional kill. It requires taking the Tar Golem to minimum health.

Not through normal return travel on that Prologue save. The clean retry is a fresh save / character and another Prologue run.

No. NG+ begins at Marrow Keep and does not replay this Prologue encounter.

No, You Still Can’t Win.

Not before securing the two confirmed opening trophy opportunities, unless you are comfortable replaying the Prologue on a separate fresh save.