The purpose of this guide is straightforward: I want to walk you through every enemy I’ve run into in HOPE 01, what each one throws at you, and how to come out alive. If you’re pushing for a clean run or trying to knock out quest-related kills, knowing which enemies will punish you for standing still is half the battle. I’ve organized everything by type — robots, flesh and slimes, cultists and other humanoids, and finally the bosses.
I put this together because the early game in particular throws some genuinely nasty surprises at you, and a few enemies will delete your health bar before you even register what hit you. Some of what’s below is confirmed from my own encounters; a couple of damage details I’ve flagged honestly as still unverified so you’re not going in with false confidence.
Robots
These are the mechanical threats. Most of them telegraph their attacks well enough that positioning and a bit of patience carry you through.
| Enemy | What It Does | My Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Turret | Attached to the ceiling and fires bullets at you. | Keep an eye upward before walking into a room. |
| Shocker | Moves toward you and uses an area-of-effect electrical attack. | Keep your distance and shoot it from range. |
| Rocketeer | Fires rockets at you, but moves relatively slowly. | Read the incoming rockets and dodge, or shoot them down. |
| Double Rocketeer | An upgraded Rocketeer that fires two rockets instead of one. | Same trick as before — the rockets can be shot down or dodged. |
| Flying Railgun Robot | Moves into a diagonal position relative to you before firing. | Its damage isn’t notably high compared to some other enemies. |
| Railgun | A robot vehicle with a very long-range attack that can pierce armor. | Use hard-hitting, armor-piercing weapons. |
| Ranged SWAT | A heavily armored enemy that fires a burst of bullets. | Dodge the incoming fire. |
| Shield SWAT | Carries a shield covering most of its body. | Overwhelm it with ammo, or aim for the exposed head above the shield. |
| Leg Breaker | A robot with a siren on its head that fires a large projectile at roughly knee level. | If it connects, it’s very likely to break your legs and stop you running. |
| Swarmer | A relatively rare enemy that fires many small tracking rockets. | Roll toward the rockets at the right moment so they explode behind you. |
A few things worth expanding on. The Railgun is where your loadout really matters — since its attack pierces armor and reaches from very far away, I lean on hard-hitting armor-piercing weapons like the CARAVANEER BOLTSTUG or the DEADEYE LONGSTUG whenever possible. If you’re not carrying something that can punch through armor, this fight drags and the long range punishes you for it.
The Leg Breaker deserves its own mention because losing your run is a brutal punishment mid-fight — that knee-level projectile is aimed low, and if it lands you won’t be running away from anything else in the room. I also want to flag that this is one of the enemies Hermes will ask you to kill during his quest, so keep it in mind if you’re ticking off side content. For a full rundown of that chain, my all quests walkthrough covers it.
The Swarmer gave me the most trouble of this group simply because I didn’t expect the tracking rockets. It shows up rarely, found either in the tunnels of the Mil-Sec area or in the Submarine area. Once I realized rolling toward the rockets makes them detonate on the floor behind me, it stopped being scary — the timing just has to be right.
Flesh and Slimes
This category is messier. These enemies don’t rely on range or armor — they close the gap and punish you for letting them get comfortable.
- Splitter — spits orange goo that slows you down while you walk through it, so avoid standing in it.
- Rolling / Saw Slime — clings to the ceiling, drops when you get close, and rolls at you for contact damage.
- Knife Slime — carries a knife and performs a series of blade attacks. Be careful fighting it up close.
- Gun Slime — pulls a gun from inside its body and fires three bullets at you.
- Grabber — a Slime variant that uses small tentacles to grab you and stop you escaping easily. The exact damage it deals still needs confirming.
- Orphan — a hard-hitting humanoid flesh monster with a large mass of flesh attached to one arm. It hits very hard and is one of the enemies capable of dealing the most damage during the early game.
On the Grabber, you can escape by shooting it or by running and jumping away — but shooting it is by far the safest option, in my experience. Trying to physically wriggle out while it’s latched on rarely ends well.
The Orphan is the one I’d honestly tell you to respect most in the early game. That mass of flesh on its arm isn’t for show, and the damage output is among the highest you’ll face before you’ve built up your survivability. Pick your moment rather than trading hits.
Cultists and Other Humanoids
Humanoid enemies tend to be faster and more aggressive, so spacing matters more than raw defense here.
- Ranged Cultist — a robed cultist that spits several projectiles in a parabolic arc. Keep moving to avoid them.
- Melee Robed Cultist — pulls several tentacles from its robe and attacks with a barrage of strikes. Maintain your distance while fighting it.
- The Rusher — a humanoid monster with blade-like arms. It runs at you and, once in range, charges for heavy damage. Keep your distance and be ready to dodge the charge.
- Infected Scientist — an infected scientist with a slime-like substance covering its face. It throws slime pieces that explode after a short delay with a relatively small area of effect.
One note on the Infected Scientist: you’ll need to kill these for a quest, so don’t just skip past them. The exploding slime has a small blast radius, which makes it more forgiving than it first looks — just don’t stand right on top of where a piece lands.
Other Enemies
Two more worth calling out before we get to the bosses.
The Eye Bat can be found in the Submarine area. It summons three eyeballs that attack you, but the Eye Bat itself isn’t especially tanky. Focus it down first before you deal with the summoned eyeballs — killing the source cuts the problem short.
The Shark is a special enemy found in the shallow water in Shasta’s Gauntlet. It attacks while you’re in the water, and you can roll to avoid its attack. Jumping may also work, though I haven’t been able to confirm that yet. Since the source of all this is a living document, I’ll expand this section as I run into more enemies and can confirm their attacks, mechanics, and weaknesses.
Church Boss
The Church Boss is located in the Temple Rail, on the left side, inside the ATHENAEUM corridor. It’s a large mass of flesh attached to the ceiling — which should tell you most of its attacks come from above and from its body.
| Attack | What Happens | How I Handle It |
|---|---|---|
| Triple Body Slam | Three consecutive slams with its body. | After the third slam there’s a short window to attack before it starts again — use it, then move. |
| Large Body Slam | A much larger slam with an area roughly three times the size of the previous attack. | Keep a greater distance when you see it coming. |
| Flesh Balls | Releases three balls of flesh that spawn different types of enemies. | Stay aware of the spawned enemies — they make it harder to focus on the boss. |
The rhythm to this fight is reading the slams. The triple slam gives you a genuine opening after the third hit, so I use that window to land damage rather than panic-rolling. When the large slam winds up, that’s my cue to back off further than feels natural — the area is three times bigger, so your usual dodge distance won’t always cut it. And when the flesh balls come out, don’t tunnel-vision the boss; those spawned enemies will punish you for ignoring them.
The Twins
The Twins are located in the Entertainment District, on the left side of the rail, inside the Auto Arena door.
The fight starts with the Blue Twin, who uses a ranged green attack and switches to melee when you close in. After you defeat him, the Red Twin spawns — and this is the part that caught me out. He’s invulnerable for a short period of time after spawning, with a green halo indicating when he can’t be hurt. Wait that window out. Once he’s vulnerable, he attacks with a ranged melee strike, extending his arm to punch you from a distance.
Beat the Red Twin and both twins spawn again, turning it into a two-boss fight. Their attack patterns don’t change from their individual phases, and there are no extra gimmicks or special mechanics here. My honest advice: bring enough firepower to kill them fast, because this phase is a pure damage check. Keep shooting and overwhelm them. You receive an item the first time you defeat the Twins.
The Drone
This one is genuinely dangerous and can kill you fairly quickly if you’re not prepared. For my own fight I went in stacked: Tier 3 armor, the third health upgrade, an end-game weapon, and an attack drone. I wouldn’t walk in under-geared.
The boss can fire a heavy-hitting Energy Ball. It opened the encounter with this against me while I was directly underneath it, and it took me from blue health to yellow health in a single hit. It didn’t use the attack again during my fight, but I wouldn’t count on that being a reliable pattern — be ready for it, especially right at the start.
It also spawns spikes on the floor. These are fairly easy to see, so keep your eyes on the ground while you’re moving around the arena. The trickier mechanic is the Shield Drones: the boss summons smaller drones that activate its shield, and you have to destroy those smaller drones to bring the shield down. Once it drops, empty as much of your magazine into the boss as you can before the shield comes back. The maximum number of drones appears to be 3, though that still needs confirming.
On paper the fight is simple, but all of these mechanics layered together make it lethal. You’re constantly moving, watching for floor spikes, and hunting drones to kill the shield — and if you don’t manage that movement carefully, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and die. So keep moving, watch the floor, prioritize the shield drones when they appear, and once the shield is down, pour everything into the boss. If any of these encounters send you hunting across the map, my maps guide should help you find your way.