Brütal Legend: Complete Guide

A player's guide to Double Fine's heavy-metal action/RTS hybrid: how the axe-and-guitar combat works, how to win Stage Battles, what to do in the open world, and how to clean up the 100% completion list.

Researched September 2026 — current as of the final PC build (PC release February 26, 2013; no patches since). Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Quick Start

• This is two games in one. The first few hours are a third-person brawler with driving. Around the time you raise your army, it turns into a real-time strategy game called a Stage Battle. Learn the RTS basics early — the campaign's big set pieces are all Stage Battles.
• Your three tools: The Separator (battle axe, melee), Clementine (a Flying V guitar that fires lightning and casts "solos"), and The Deuce (Eddie's hot rod, for travel and ramming).
• Guitar solos are spells. You play a short note sequence (a Guitar Hero-style minigame) and a power fires. Each solo has a cooldown, so don't waste them on small fights.
• Spend Fire Tributes at the Motor Forge. Fire Tributes are earned from story and side missions; the Guardian of Metal sells axe, guitar and Deuce upgrades there. Buying one early upgrade is an achievement ("One Hit Wonder").
• Do side missions between story beats. Ambushes, outpost defenses, mortar missions, races and hunts pay Fire Tributes and make the Stage Battles much easier.
• Fans are your RTS currency. In Stage Battles you build merch booths on fan geysers to generate fans, then spend fans on units and stage upgrades.
• Never leave Eddie idle in a Stage Battle. He can fly over the map, fight, cast solos and issue orders. The AI is beatable mostly because Eddie can be everywhere.
• Pick Gentle if you only want the story. Difficulties are Gentle, Normal and Brütal, each with its own completion achievement ("Groupie", "Roadie", "Legend").

Story Setup (no major spoilers)

Eddie Riggs (Jack Black) is a roadie for a terrible modern band who gets transported to a world built out of heavy-metal album art. Humans there are enslaved by demons; Eddie becomes the tour manager of a human uprising called Ironheade, alongside Lars Halford, his sister Lita, and Ophelia. The main villain is Doviculus, Emperor of the Tainted Coil (Tim Curry), with the glam-metal General Lionwhyte as an early antagonist. Metal legends cameo: Lemmy Kilmister as the Kill Master, Ozzy Osbourne as the Guardian of Metal, Rob Halford, Lita Ford and more.

The soundtrack is massive (107 licensed tracks from 75 bands) and plays through the Deuce's radio, the Mouth of Metal. You unlock more songs by exploring.

Core Combat

Tool | What it does | When to use it

The Separator (axe) | Melee combos, launchers, ground attacks | Your default damage vs. grunts

Clementine (guitar) | Ranged lightning/fire; combo finishers with the axe | Crowds, fliers, enemies you can't reach

Guitar solos | Spells cast via a short rhythm minigame | Big fights, puzzles, summoning, army buffs

The Deuce | Ramming, mounted weapons after upgrades | Travel, run-over kills, races

Double Team | A paired attack with one of your units | Stage Battles and escorts; each unit type has its own

Tips for melee:

• Mix axe and guitar. Axe hits knock enemies into the air; guitar hits finish them. Button-mashing the axe alone gets you surrounded.
• Solos have cooldowns. Treat the Facemelter (the face-melting damage solo) and the Earthshaker (a ground-shock area solo) as emergency buttons for crowds, not openers.
• Blocking and rolling matter more on Brütal. Enemies punish long combos.
• Your army units follow you in many missions. Use Double Team with them — it is stronger than most of Eddie's solo attacks and it's required for three achievements (Double Team with every unit of each faction).

Stage Battles (the RTS part)

Stage Battles are where most players struggle, and where most reviews criticized the game. Once you know the rules they are straightforward.

The loop

• Your stage is your base. If it's destroyed, you lose. The enemy stage is the objective.
• Fan geysers are spread across the map. Build a merch booth on a geyser to generate fans over time.
• Spend fans at your stage to summon units. Better units cost more fans.
• Upgrade your stage to unlock stronger units. Mangus, your sound guy, handles construction and warns you when your booths or stage are under attack.
• Push with Eddie in the air. In Stage Battles Eddie sprouts wings and flies, so he can scout, drop in to fight, and hand out orders anywhere.

Rules of thumb

Situation | What to do

Opening | Claim every nearby geyser first. More booths early wins more games than any unit choice.

Enemy attacking your booths | Fly back and fight personally — Eddie plus a solo usually beats a small raiding party.

Stalled mid-game | Upgrade the stage before you spend fans on more low-tier troops.

Losing a big fight | Pull surviving units back toward your stage and rebuild rather than throwing fans away piecemeal.

Pushing the enemy stage | Bring your whole army at once. Trickling units in feeds the enemy.

Controls that make it easier

• Orders: You can give simple commands (follow, attack a point, defend) to your entire army or to one unit type. There's even an achievement, "Armchair General", for winning a single-player Stage Battle using only orders.
• Double Team in Stage Battles: Every unit has a team-up with Eddie. Some are huge (for example, the Fire Baron's team-up creates a ring of fire, and the Tainted Coil's Pain Lifter can hit a crowd with an "Agony Ball"). Use them on the enemy stage or on grouped armies.
• Solos in Stage Battles: Some of your solos buff or rally your troops rather than hurting enemies. Save them for the push on the enemy stage.

The three factions

Faction | Theme | Leader | Style

Ironheade | Classic 70s/80s metal, humans | Eddie Riggs | Balanced; headbangers as cheap infantry, strong ranged and heavy options later

The Drowning Doom | Goth/black metal, undead | Drowned Ophelia | Tricky units that punish clustered armies

The Tainted Coil | Industrial, demons | Doviculus | Heavy, brutal units; strong late game

You play Ironheade in the campaign. All three are available in skirmish vs. AI and multiplayer (1v1 up to 4v4), which is the best place to learn the other factions' units before trying the Brütal-difficulty AI.

Campaign Outline

The main missions (named after their Steam achievements) run roughly in this order:

Mission | What to expect

Welcome to the Age of Metal | Tutorial: axe, guitar, the Deuce

Exploited in the Bowels of Hell | Early act; the human rebellion begins

Lair of the Metal Queen | Early-mid act

Battle for Bladehenge | Lionwhyte's arc comes to a head

Pilgrimage of Screams | Mid act

Sanctuary of Sin | Mid act

It's Raining Death | Late-mid act

Dry Ice, Wet Graves | Drowning Doom arc

Sea of Black Tears | Late game

Only about a third of Steam players finish "Battle for Bladehenge" and roughly one in seven reaches "Sea of Black Tears" (per Steam's global achievement stats), which tells you where people bounce: the Stage Battles.

The campaign is short by open-world standards — side content is where the length is. If a Stage Battle is walling you, back out and grind a few side missions for Fire Tributes to upgrade Eddie; a stronger Eddie carries RTS fights.

Open World: Side Content and Collectibles

Everything below counts toward the stats-screen completion that unlocks "Metal God" (100% completion).

Collectible / activity | Count / target | Notes

Bound Serpents | 120 | Chained serpent statues; free them to earn Fire Tributes. Achievements at 40, 80 and 120.

Legends | All | Lore monuments that tell the world's backstory when activated. "Now You Must Tell the Tale".

Vistas | All | Viewpoints scattered around the map. "Tourist".

Motor Forges | All | Hidden forges you summon. "Flowerslave".

Mouth of Metal songs | All | Found by exploring. "Voices From Beyond".

Mt. Rockmore | Four heads | Carve the Razputin heads (a Psychonauts gag). "Whispering Rock".

Secondary missions | Ambush, outpost defense, mortar, racing, hunting | 20 combat side missions for "Protector"; all races; all hunts.

Motor Forge upgrades | All | "Loyal Customer"; needs lots of Fire Tributes.

Efficient cleanup order:

• Finish the story first — the whole map is open afterward and you'll have better upgrades.
• Drive systematically region by region; Bound Serpents and Legends are the bulk of the work.
• Races and hunts reward Deuce and weapon upgrades, so do them before grinding Serpents.
• Buy every Motor Forge upgrade last — you'll have tributes to spare after the Serpents.

Quirky achievements worth planning

• Silence, ground walker! — Get 5+ seconds of hang time in one jump (use a big ramp in the Deuce).
• Coolest Thing Ever — Jump the Deuce over a Hextadon.
• Carnivore — Run down 20 animals with the Deuce's Coiling Maw upgrade equipped.
• Boar Bather — Ride a Razorfire Boar into the Sea of Black Tears and survive.
• Quill Tosser — Kill a Tollusk using only Ground Urchins.
• Beast Master — Ride one of every ridable animal.
• Beard Beard Action Beard! / Norwegian Sendoff / A Face Like a Beast — outfit-based gags using the Mountain Man Threads, Black Metal Threads and Zaulia Threads.
• Cry Me a River / If You Want Blood, You Got It — faction-specific kills using the Eye of Sorrow and the Disgorger.

Multiplayer and Skirmish

• Modes run from 1v1 to 4v4 Stage Battles; you pick a faction, claim geysers, and destroy the other stage.
• The PC version includes both multiplayer map packs, Hammer of Infinite Fate and Tears of the Hextadon, for free.
• As of 2026 the online population is very small. Plan to play skirmish vs. AI (five difficulty levels) or arrange games with friends. The achievements "Victör", "Subjügator" (10 matchmade wins) and "Cönquerer" (50 wins) are among the rarest in the game for that reason.
• "Hammer of Fate Champion" can be earned against the Brütal AI instead of ranked players, which is the realistic route today.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Ignoring side missions. Under-upgraded Eddie makes later Stage Battles feel impossible.
• Playing Stage Battles as a brawler. Fighting on the front line while your booths get raided loses games. Watch Mangus's warnings and your fan count.
• Spamming cheap units. Upgrading the stage unlocks units that trade far better.
• Forgetting Double Team. Team-ups are some of the highest-damage moves in the game.
• Treating the Deuce as just transport. Its upgrades make it a combat vehicle, and many achievements need it.
• Starting on Brütal. The RTS AI on the hardest setting punishes weak economies; learn the flow on Normal.

Advanced Tips

• Economy first, always. In both campaign and skirmish, grabbing extra geysers early is the single biggest advantage.
• Snipe booths, not armies. Fly Eddie to enemy merch booths and destroy them; it starves the AI.
• Stack your army before the final push. Stage defenses shred small groups.
• Learn each unit's Double Team. Several achievements (Ringleader, Dollpocalypse, Euthanasia, Painkiller, Death From Above) are about getting a lot of value from one team-up or one unit ability — practice them in skirmish.
• Brütal difficulty campaign: keep upgrades maxed and treat every Stage Battle as an economy race.
• "Six Degrees of Schafer" needs you to play with/against someone who already has it — easiest via a community achievement-hunting group.

PC Tips

• The PC version launched in 2013 with mouse-and-keyboard and controller support; a controller is more comfortable for driving and solos.
• The Steam store page is age-gated for mature content; that's normal.
• There have been no patches since the PC port, so fixes for modern setups come from community guides rather than updates.

FAQ

Is Brütal Legend an RTS or an action game? Both. The first stretch plays like a brawler with driving; from about the midpoint the key story missions are Stage Battles (RTS) where Eddie fights alongside and commands his army.

How long is it? The main story is short for an open-world game; 100% completion (120 Bound Serpents, all Legends, vistas, side missions and upgrades) takes much longer.

Is multiplayer still active? Barely. Expect empty matchmaking in 2026; skirmish vs. AI works offline and covers most multiplayer achievements.

Can I play as the Drowning Doom or Tainted Coil? Yes, in skirmish and multiplayer. The campaign is Ironheade only.

What's the hardest achievement? Multiplayer wins ("Cönquerer" at 50 matchmade wins) due to the population, then "Metal God" (100% stats) and "Iron Fist" (beat the Brütal AI).

Is there a sequel? No. The game's art director, Lee Petty, later directed Double Fine's Keeper (2025), which Double Fine promoted to Brütal Legend fans on Steam.

Sources

• Brütal Legend — Wikipedia
• Brütal Legend global achievements — Steam Community
• Brütal Legend — Steam store page
• Brütal Legend news — Steam