Bloaters are the toughest infected you’ll find in The Last of Us Part 1. They’re armored and can shrug off multiple gunshots, and if they get into melee range, they can hit you with a one-hit kill. Fortunately, there are a few easy ways to beat a Bloater, which we’ll cover below.
How to kill a Bloater easily in The Last of Us Part 1
The first time you meet a Bloater in The Last of Us Part 1 is in the high school gym in Lincoln, MA. This fight is one of three mandatory encounters with the hulking infected in the game. However, it’s likely to be the toughest since this particular Bloater is tankier than the ones you’ll encounter later. Also, you don’t have access to your full arsenal and likely have few weapons upgrades which limits your options.
The big thing to avoid in any fight with a Bloater is getting into melee distance of it. If you do, it’ll grab you and instantly kill you. Unlike with Clickers, you can’t spend a shiv to get out of it.
The first thing you should do with a Bloater is to hit it with fire. A few Molotovs should soften it up. After that, equip a firearm and shoot the growths on its body. There’s one on its chest, one on its back, and one on its abdomen. Popping these will prevent it from performing its ranged attack.
It can charge at you, but this is an easy attack to avoid. Just make sure there’s always some sort of obstacle between you and the Bloater, and it’ll slam into it and be momentarily dazed.
The above tactics work on all Bloaters, but you get a better way to kill them when you reach the University of Eastern Colorado. There you find a flamethrower that stunlocks Bloaters and makes it a snap to take them out.
