Into the Darkness is the 43rd main story quest in Final Fantasy 16 (XVI). This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of the Into the Darkness main scenario chapter.
- Starting Location: Drake’s Fang
- Requirement: Complete Riddle of the Sands
- Reward: None
- Quest Info: Clive enters the crystal mines of Drake’s Fang without encountering a single republican guard – or at least, none that has survived the incursion of orcs ferried over from Waloed, who have slain and sated their hunger for flesh upon the nation’s erstwhile allies. Clive sticks to the shadows as he presses on to Castle Dazbog in pursuit of Hugo Kupka.
Objectives:
- Make for Castle Dazbog
- Enter Castle Dazbog
- Defeat the undertaker
- Explore Castle Dazbog
- Make for the inner sanctum
- Return to the hideaway
Make for Castle Dazbog
At the start of the quest, you are inside the mine areas of Drake’s Fang. Follow the linear path ahead until you encounter your first group of enemies. This is the first time you encounter the Orcish monsters in the game, and while they are technically monsters they act largely like the normal soldiers in combat.
Deal with the first group, then follow the path under the fallen wood nearby.
After the second set, pull the lever to the right of the large door to continue.
Keep following the linear path, dealing with the Orcs in your way. After you pull the second lever to open a door, check the immediate left of the tracks on the ground for a chest. This contains the accessory The Favor of Lightning (Lightning Rod) which increases Lightning Rod damage, useful if you are using it.
To progress, you then need to head through the door on the right wall.
In the next room, you’ll encounter a new enemy, an Orcish Warlord. These are the main unique enemy for the Orc faction. This large enemy attacks regularly with both melee and magic attacks, along with warping around, making them somewhat annoying to fight at times. Most of their attacks are single swings with their large club which can be easily dodged through.
When warping away it will sometimes immediately shoot magic orbs at you, so watch for when it warps and the tracking shifts as you may have an attack coming at you immediately.
In this first battle against one it won’t have any named attacks, but watch out for if it curls into a ball as it will then perform a large blast around itself.
After it’s defeated, pull the lever on the right wall to continue into Castle Dazbog.
Enter Castle Dazbog
After the scene, follow the linear path ahead and progress through the gate.
Defeat the undertaker
In the next area, you’ll fight the first boss of the quest, called The Undertaker. This large enemy acts sort of like Hugo in the fight from before, with their normal attacks largely focused on lunges and slams. At the start of the fight it will immediately use its most common named attack, called Spirits Within. It will shoot a large laser in front of itself in an arc. This can be easily avoided by quickly moving behind it, allowing you to attack it while it is still performing the attack.
After that, keep attacking and watching for the heavily telegraphed normal attacks it does. It will only attack once each time it does something, so you can dodge and then gets some hits in between each attack. Whenever it uses Spirits Within again try to quickly circle behind it. The other named attack it will perform during the fight is called Exhume, where it will stay in one place and a series of magic jets will appear from the ground. Avoid these and wait for the named attack to finish before attacking again and finish it off.
Explore Castle Dazbog
Inside the castle, make your way up the stairs ahead to the second floor. There are a number of pickups down the hallways you can grab for healing items, and a number of spectral enemies will appear while you are moving.
When they are defeated, progress through the door in the middle of the landing.
There will be more enemies in the next room, and you’ll be prompted about the Bravery status effect. This isn’t as notable as something like Protect as it only causes the enemies to do increased damage, not an issue if you clear out the enemies quickly.
When that group is dealt with, continue out the next door and up a floor. Here you’ll be in a long hallway, and will need to deal with more enemies including a Lich.
When they are all dealt with, go through the door in the middle of the hallway to continue.
Make for the inner sanctum
After the scene, before leaving the current room you are in, there is a chest right beside the bed that contains the accessory The Favor of Earth (Upheaval). Make sure to grab it before leaving.
Take the stairs down to the next large open area, where you will have to fight another large group of spectral enemies before you can continue. No bosses here though, so take them out how you like, then proceed through the last set of doors.
After heading inside, you’ll be fighting Titan as Ifrit. In this first section, you’re just on foot dealing with him. The attacks are pretty similar overall to what Hugo did during his fight, even with some named the same, just slower. As he is about twice as tall as Ifrit most of his attacks are downward swipes or stomps, so watch above for these coming in. A named attack he’ll do pretty early in this fight is Geocrush, where he jumps toward you and causes a large area of damage when he stomps.
The other one he’ll likely do very early is Voice of the Land, which like the Hugo fight is a series of damaging areas that appear on the ground.
After the first stagger, he’ll jump away from you and start flinging stones. You can dodge these as they approach, or continually shoot them with Fireball.
After a short scene, he’ll throw a huge stone at you, and you’ll be prompted to use your new attack Brimstone. This is activated in the same manner as the Eikon abilities as Clive, with a similar cooldown setup. Brimstone also functions like Titan’s abilities with the timing wheel, where if you are using it to damage you want to let go of 
when the circle is in the red section, which causes it to do increased damage. For using it now to avoid Stone Throw, you can start charging it, then if the stone hits you during the charge it immediately goes off.
After this, he’ll come back to your level and you can resume attacking him. Brimstone has a pretty long cooldown so you can use it in the first half of the stagger bar, but sit on it in the second half to use during the damage part. He won’t do any other new attacks now, so keep putting in damage. After the second stagger, you’ll likely have dealt his whole health bar and a Cinematic Evasion will occur, followed by a Cinematic Clash prompt.
After this there will be a scene, and the fight will progress to the second phase. Outside you’re now playing a runner game for a short section, where you are running toward Titan while avoiding obstacles. The easiest way to avoid them is just dodging with 
, as the evasion animation will actually move you through and around them.
After a bit, you’ll automatically jump onto the tentacles to progress closer. This running section functions the same, though there will now be crystals bursting out of the ground you need to avoid. After the second run, there will be a Cinematic Evasion prompt, followed by a Clash prompt.
Following this you’ll be back on solid ground, fighting Titan’s remaining arm. The next three sections of the fight here function effectively the same, so keep in mind how the attacks here work. Most of the attacks will show a damage area on the ground where his attack will hit, so avoid this while the attack is occurring then attack his hand when it is still.
The first of the attacks, he will hold his fingers out then stab then into the front of the platform, sending out waves of crystals. Jump over then and then attack his fingers.
The second attack, he will pull back and then punch toward the platform, covering either the left or the right side. Move out of the damage area and wait for his fist to go by, then attack his arm.
The third attack, he will hold out his fingers and sweep his hand across the platform once or twice. Jump over the lowest finger, then wait for the next attack as he doesn’t hold his hand around during this one.
The fourth attack, he will slam his fist down on one side of the platform, which also sends out a damaging wave you can jump over before attacking his fist.
The final of these unnamed attacks, he will hold back his hand, then swing toward you sending a bunch of stones towards the platform. After this, he’ll, likely go back to the first attack grabbing the platform and cycle through them all again.
When you stagger him you can continue attacking his arm, you will normally only be allowed two combos before the stagger ends early automatically. There will then be a Cinematic Evasion and you will end up on another platform.
On the second platform, he’ll immediately use Stone’s Throw, tossing a huge rock at you. You can avoid this be either dodging through it, or by using Brimstone to blow it up when it hits you.
He’ll then resume doing the same attacks as prior, though likely in a different order. He’ll do one more new attack now called Granite Rain, where he’ll toss a bunch of rocks into the air that then fall onto the platform. Stay out of the lit-up areas to avoid these.
Continue attacking him to stagger again, and you will have another Cinematic Evasion prompt before landing on the final of the three platforms.
The new thing he will do now is sometimes strike the platform with one of his tentacles. This functions the same as when he slams the hand creating a damaging wave that you can jump over.
After the third stagger, there will be three Cinematic Clash prompts, then you will be thrown high into the air and fall back down. This section is similar to the Phoenix section from earlier in the game, where you aim and shoot fireballs. As you are falling the rocks with an aura around them are the ones that will hit you, so you need to shoot them. You can charge up a shot to destroy them in one hit more easily. After a while, a tentacle will appear in the air, which will also hit you after a short while. Three charged shots will take it out. There will then be one more Cinematic Clash, ending this section of the fight.
Now in the final section of this fight, you are falling down a large hole with Titan still attacking you. In this section, the movement is a little different, as you effectively only move left and right relative to the walls, and can lunge towards Titan if he gets too far away. Most of Titan’s attacks are single swings that you can dodge as normal.
After the first stagger, he’ll sometimes also run along the wall before lunging toward you. You can dodge this by waiting until he jumps toward you and you see the yellow light around him.
He will also sometimes use Stone’s Throw, tossing a huge chunk of the wall toward you. You can avoid this by using Brimstone, or just dodging when the stone is about to hit you.
The final new attack he’ll typically do is called Earthshaker, where he will punch one side of the area, causing a large wave of crystals to shoot down the wall. You can avoid this by just moving away from the wall he is punching toward, the crystals don’t have a large range.
After the second stagger, you will have a set of Cinematic actions to finish out the fight. First, an Evasion and Strike immediately, then after a short scene there is a Clash, an Evasion, and a final Clash to finish off the fight.
Return to the hideaway
With Titan defeated, select the Hideaway on the world map to complete this main quest.
This finishes Into the Darkness Main Quest in Final Fantasy 16 (XVI).
Next Quest: Out of the Shadow
For all other Quests refer to Final Fantasy 16 (XVI) Walkthrough.
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