What is the trick to the final boss fight in Uncharted 3?

Question

This may seem like a bit of a weird question, especially considering I beat the game on Crushing last night, but here goes...

What is the trick to winning the final boss fight against Talbot on the Crushing difficulty? While I did finally defeat him last night, it seemed due more to luck than skill. But there must be some pattern to it, or some sequence of events that must happen. However, it took me many, many attempts to finally overcome him, and during all these attempts I seemed to be getting a lot of successful hits, and fending attacks successfully. Some attempts I was fighting him for well over 3 minutes, but when I finally defeated him, it took just over 2.

In summary; I beat him, but I have no idea what the magic formula was that allowed me to do so.

Answer 1

Talbot's got a limited move set, and most of them involve quick-time events, for example:

• He takes a swing at you, which you dodge and counter
• Talbot pins your arm behind your back, where you bite his arm to get out
• You and he cross arms, but he drops the knife into his other hand for a quick slash (this appears to be the trickiest one - you have to go from mashing the circle button to hitting triangle and you have a very short window in which to do so)
• He knocks you down, and you kick him in the head to break his hold

Screwing up more than one of these in a row on Crushing seems to be a recipe for game over.

There's a particular pattern to when he goes for the final kill (and Sully shows up to take a shot) and I don't see much of a pattern about when this happens. It might just be a function of how much damage you do to him, as most of the videos I've seen where he goes down quickly, Nathan's always on the offensive, punching constantly when not involved in a QTE.

Here's a video of someone beating him on Crushing in about 2 and a half minutes, although there's no commentary or other prompts so it's tough to glean much information from it:

Answer 2

The magic formula is to keep attacking him... Standing around waiting is useless.. I countered him about 4-5 times in a row to beat him.

Answer 3

Just kicked Talbot's butt on crushing.

Stay on the offensive when possible. There seem to be a couple of action sequences you want to get into, which won't happen if you play defensive. It seems you have to get into the situation where Talbot grabs you from behind at least once, followed by the one where he throws you on the ground. In both situations, you want to hit that circle at the fastest rate you can. When he has you from behind, enough circles fast enough and Nate bites Talbot's arm, and gets away without damage. After that, the next time he puts you on the ground flat on your back, getting enough circles fast enough seems to block him from stabbing you, which gives Sully a clear shot at him. At least, I think that's what happened.

In the other situation, where you cross arms with him and he drops the knife, I never found the timing to counter this, and always got cut badly, but not fatally.

Answer 4

Always counter with triangle. When he gets you in any position where the knife might stab or cut you, press circle as fast as you can. Attack with square only when you have a clear shot.

Answer 5

For certain moves that Talbot performs you have to use triangle or circle circle to escape then triangle to counter. I will let you do the rest.