The Best and Worst Bloodborne Bosses

“It’s that time of year again”

Well, after Sony’s tease of announcing and then retracting the news that the Demon’s Souls remake would be coming to PC, I’m in a bit of a bad mood when it comes to PlayStation exclusives. I’ve been wanting PlayStation games to come to PC for years, since I never had a PlayStation until the PS4 came out, and it looked like I might have finally be getting my wish when Sony announced that Horizon Zero Dawn, the fantastic robot-dinosaur-open-world-archery-climbing-post-apocalypse-action-adventure game, would be coming to PC, I was thrilled. Add on to that the fact that my favorite PlayStation exclusive game, Bloodborne, has been swirling PC-rerelease rumors for years now, and I thought for sure we’d see a Steam edition of Bloodborne sooner or later. But with this Demon’s Souls fuck-up, I’m not sure anymore. Seems like I won’t be getting a computer version of Bloodborne or the new Demon’s Souls, at least not any time soon. Damn.

But none of that changes the fact that I love Bloodborne. It’s easily one of my favorite games of all time; I’ve beaten it three times now, have every achievement for both the main game and the DLC, and I’ve faced off against the toughest monsters and torn them to shreds. For those who might not be familiar with some of From Software’s non-Dark Souls games, Bloodborne is basically Victorian Dark Souls; you run around and swing giant anime swords at horrible Lovecraftian monstrosities, all while meeting weird, confusing characters who give you weird, confusing background lore and weird, confusing items that I never really use. And while it’s a fantastic RPG and action game, cutting down werewolves and squid-monsters alike, it’s also a scary game. Not jump-in-your-face kind of scary, but creeping dread at what might be around the corner and oh no it’s a giant snake ball and I’m dead again.

Which is why I think Halloween is a great excuse to talk about my favorite game and some of the scariest boss monster designs in modern gaming. Because anything vaguely spooky or cosmic-horror-ish in appearance is a great addition to my now annual tradition of Halloween blog posts. Let’s start with the worst bosses. Oh, and of course, spoiler alert.

32. Laurence, the First Vicar

Normally, with games that have as high a level of quality as Bloodborne, it’s misleading to say which bosses are “The Worst,” since all of them are pretty good. That’s not the case with this guy. I hate Laurence. He’s a shitty boss. He’s just a reskinned Cleric Beast with some extra damage and a stupid second phase. Sure, he looks cool, and throughout this list I’ll be giving a lot of points to different bosses just based on design, but adding fire doesn’t save this guy from the fact that he is just a clone of a different boss and is also a piece of shit. Laurence was actually the last boss I beat in the game, and for good reason. He sucks. Thank you, next.

31. Keeper of the Old Lords (and other Chalice Dungeon Bosses)

Bloodborne has this optional segment of Chalice Dungeons, see, where you can wander through procedurally-generated dungeons to look for loot and new weapons. I think that’s pretty cool, and adds a nice level of randomization and end-game content, which I especially appreciate now that I’ve memorized the layout of the entire game, it seems. Some people hate them because they all kind of look the same and the loot is dumb, but I like them because it’s more canoodling with freaky monster things and intense boss battles. Though I agree that the loot’s a red herring since you can (and I did) beat the game with your starting weapon; the real treasures are the friends we made along the way.

That being said, the boss battles are also a sticking point for me; normally they’re great, and they introduce some sort of fancy new boss that you can’t see in the regular game. But most of the time, they’re recycled versions of main game bosses, or worse yet, strengthened versions of regular enemies that wander the dungeons and would, normally, just take one or two hits. Like the Keeper of the Old Lords; sometimes he’s a pushover with some dogs, but then other times he’s a boss who also happens to be a pushover with some dogs. There are a couple variations of these bosses where the game just gives gobs of health to normal enemies, and it’s just kind of… meh. It would be like getting to the castle in Super Mario and finding that, instead of Bowser, Peach was captured by a giant Goomba. That’s no fun.

30. Undead Giant

In general, the bosses of the chalice dungeons are the weakest part of that portion of the game. Which is a shame, because almost every other boss in the game is a cool, unique monster that’s a lot of fun to fight. But, again, this guy is not one of them; he’s just a big dude covered in tumors who has a sword and sometimes an absolutely over-powered cannon. Kind of like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or maybe, more accurately, the Predator. Plus, if you use one of the dungeon variations, like the one that saps your health, the attacks from this guy can one-shot you. Which is fucking frustrating to be killed right out the gate over and over again.

29. Rom, The Vacuous Spider

Look, I get that Rom is important from a story perspective; she’s hiding the moon ritual so that one of the Great Ones can have a baby and turn everyone into monsters or some such shit, and her design is kind of cool, but that doesn’t change the fact that the boss fight’s a pain in the ass. Running around a big empty field while Rom keeps teleporting away and flinging giant crystals at you, just to get surrounded and beat to shit by a bunch of weird-ass spider guys, it just isn’t fun. It’s mostly the teleportation thing, and the fact that Rom barely fights back, that gets to me; just let me smash the spider already!

28. Witch of Hemwick

Hey, remember when I said that I hated bosses that teleport, don’t fight back, and are really lame? Well, how about a boss that does all that, self-heals, creates fake versions of itself, and can turn invisible? Well, that’s the Witch of Hemwick in a nutshell; her only redeeming grace is that she’s by far the easiest boss in the game and that the treasure you get from beating her is super helpful. Otherwise, she’s just annoying.

27. Micolash, Host of the Nightmare

There’s literally nothing special about Micolash; he’s just a regular dude, honestly. He runs really fast and he wears a birdcage on his head and he can shoot tentacles out of his hands, but here’s the thing; you can do all that too. Trying to pin down this coward is just irritating because he’s impossible to catch and, in the second half of the battle, also starts to teleport. Like the other shitty bosses. Why isn’t Micolash below the other two, then, if he’s so lame? Well, his arena is pretty cool; it’s basically the library in Hogwarts. And some of his cut dialogue makes him sound like Ozzy Osbourne.

26. Pthumerian Descendant

I’ll be honest, I don’t really remember much about this guy’s boss fight, except that it was in the chalice dungeons and didn’t really give me all that much trouble. He’s red, he’s got some swords, he reminds me of some sort of giant bird, and that’s about it. But hey, at least we’re at the part of the list where I no longer think the bosses are objectively terrible! At least he doesn’t teleport!

25. Pthumerian Elder

Just the boss above, but with a flaming old person cane that can turn into a flaming scythe, which instantly makes this old lady metal as fuck.

24. Merciless Watchers

Hey, I’m noticing a trend; all the lowest-quality bosses got relegated to the most obscure and optional part of the game. Hmm, I wonder why that is? Surely it isn’t because they’re all pretty easy and uninspired? It couldn’t be. But, regardless of how the bosses of the chalice dungeons were buried there, I won’t lie that one of the funniest moments in this game is watching these three tubby guys run at you andthey immediately roll with the reflexes of a cheetah. Also, when you kill them, you can see their butt crack before they disappear, which is just also objectively funny.

23. Beast-Possessed Soul

This one, another chalice dungeon boss, actually shows up in the main game as a regular enemy, but he’s tough to find and not-so-tough to fight, meaning that I beat him to a pulp before I even know what he was. But he looks like a cross between Goofy and Satan, and he can throw fireballs, a move that I don’t think shows up anywhere else in the game, so he’s alright.

22. Bloodletting Beast

The Bloodletting Beast, yet another chalice dungeon boss, looks just like three or four other tough enemies and bosses throughout the game, from the Scourge Beast to the Abhorrent Beast and other Beasts. I kept getting them confused as to which was which, since they’re all kind of the same. But they’re also all fun to fight, so I can’t hate on them too much. Oh, yeah, and there’s also a headless version of this boss that can shoot out worms, just the like the giant ape in Sekiro. Glad to see From Software’s got a thing for worms.

21. Living Failures

Honestly, the only reason that the Living Failures get so high on this list is because the giant flower-tree in the middle of the stage is really cool, they exist at the end of one of the best areas in the game, and their cosmic meteor attack is incredible to watch. Other than that, though, they don’t put up much of a fight, and just kind of exist to give you a brief win before the real final boss of that area shows up in the next room, the boss who you’ll probably lose to a few dozen times.

20. Celestial Emissary

In a game about wolf-men and blood, seeing these otherworldly things show up around the two-thirds mark is a bit jarring. But then again, you might miss them entirely, since they’re all hidden in out-of-the-way places. And, interesting enough, the Celestial Emissary is basically just the main game’s version of the Living Failures; it’s a group battle with blue, blobby alien things that has a twist about halfway through the fight. The Living Failure battle twist is that they shoot meteors at you; the Celestial Emissary twist is that only one of them is the real boss, and when you piss them off they get really big. And, what’s more, the Celestial Emissary is a mediocre boss right before a much cooler boss, too. Does this all really make them better than the Bloodletting Beast? Yes. Also just because they look so fucking dumb.

19. Amygdala

After seeing these shrimp-like guys clinging to the walls of buildings, or perhaps not seeing them at all, depending on your progression, it’s surprising to suddenly have a chance to beat the crap out of an enemy that’s otherwise unkillable. Every other Amygdala in the game is just a set piece that scoops you up and takes you somewhere else, or it shoots lasers at you while you try to fight witches. They’re kind of neat, I didn’t dislike the battle, but much like every other giant monster in a Dark Souls game, it’s really easy to just spin around their legs and poke until they die. Thus does the Amygdala fall.

18. The One Reborn

Most people hate this boss, but I don’t really know why. Well, actually, I do; having to kill the bell ladies along the upper walls is kind of irritating, and when this guy starts vomiting everywhere, it’s pretty gross. But I have to give The One Reborn bonus points for being cool as all hell; a black ball engulfs the moon, and then this skeleton head pops out, only for you to realize it’s part of a massive conglomerate of rotting skeletons, and they fall to the ground in a heap before getting up and trying to smash the shit out of you. I still don’t entirely understand the design of this boss, and while that might normally be a bad thing, I think it really works here to capture the “unknowable eldritch abomination” vibe that the whole game has going for it.

17. Abhorrent Beast

The actual boss form of the Abhorrent Beast is just ok; much like the Bloodletting Beast, it’s another wolf-looking chalice dungeon boss. This one shoots lightning and wind and looks like he skipped leg day, but what really elevates him above his bloodlet counterpart is how he shows up in the main game. Technically, he isn’t a boss, and he’s really easy to miss if you don’t know where is and/or don’t actively hit random NPCs, but he’s one of the only beast enemies in the game with proper dialogue, and it’s pretty dang cool.

16. Vicar Amelia

Okay, Bloodborne, I get it, you like weird wolf monster things, and sometimes like to mix them with deer antlers, like a Wendigo or something. If combat wasn’t a great as it is in this game (it’s really great), and if most of the wolf bosses weren’t optional (they mostly are), I’d be so sick of wolves by the end of the game. Good thing both of the above statements don’t really apply. Also, I beat Vicar Amelia the first time I fought her, because I realized that she could regenerate health and I absolutely panicked. Normally that would have been the death of me, but I guess I got lucky and backed her into a corner, where I spammed her until she died. So it goes.

15. Watchdog of the Old Lords

This weird clash between a regular dog, horse, crocodile, and volcano is surprisingly difficult to fight, actually, but is different enough in style and appearance that I don’t really lump it in with the other beast bosses. It’s actually one of the good chalice dungeon bosses, too, or at least one of the unique ones, so hats off to that.

14. Ludwig, The Accursed/Holy Blade

So much about Ludwig’s boss fight is incredible. The arena is filled with crawling bodies, the first half of the fight is a manic, multi-legged horse fight, the second half is a calculated sword battle against a thirty-foot tall centaur, and the reward for finishing the fight is one of From Software’s most famous weapons, the Moonlight Greatsword. Not to mention the dialogue and the lore behind this boss battle, too; it’s just an incredible fight. Too bad I really hate the first half of it, where Ludwig moves too fucking fast to get a hit in before he tramples you beneath his feet.

13. Cleric Beast

It’s funny that I rank the Cleric Beast so highly, but literally consider its shadow realm form, Laurence, to be the worst thing in Bloodborne. But the Cleric Beast will always have a special place in my heart for being the first boss I killed the first time I played the game. It took me so many tries, so many runs to beat this thing, and when I finally did it, I was ecstatic. It was thrilling, back then. Now, being the first boss of the game, fighting this guy a cake walk. But sometimes sentimentality means more than challenge in a game like this.

12. Blood-Starved Beast

I guess the reason why I like the Blood-Starved Beast is the atmosphere of it and its fight. Getting to it is a spooky jaunt through the burned-out, abandoned city below Yharnam, cleverly named Old Yharnam. You’ve got a bunch of wolf monsters, some skinny, ragged ones, a guy who shoots you with a chain gun, a church of crucified wolves, the whole works. And then you get to the very bottom and you’ve got this weird, flappy guy crawling around, looking creepy as hell. The whole area turns up the creep factor, and then there’s this rancid, jumpy thing that twists about like it’s in its death throes. Which it is.

11. Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos

I have no idea how to pronounce Ebrietas’s name, and likewise, I have no idea what Ebrietas is. A mass of arms and tentacles and wings that just barely work, Ebrietas is the secret hidden behind the Celestial Emissary. Sitting down in a hidden altar, Ebrietas is clearly one of the more Lovecraft-inspired bosses in the game. But the design is just so cool, some sort of weird, twisted angel descended from the heavens, hidden out of sight. I don’t remember much about the fight, honestly, besides that this weird lump can fly, but damn is the whole just really cool overall.

10. Darkbeast Paarl

Bonus points to this guy for just being one of the coolest-looking wolf monsters. A big, skeletal, electrified grinning skull dog thing that jumps around even faster than you do and blasts lightning out of its feet. Oh, you also get to fight it by following a secret tunnel out of the bottom of a secret jail and, if you beat it, you discover yourself back at the bottom of Old Yharnam, right near where the Blood-Starved Beast is. Everyone loves to talk about Dark Souls’ interconnected world, and while Bloodborne doesn’t have that as heavily, this is a great example of where areas connect. And Paarl is there to gatekeep you out of it.

9. Mergo’s Wet Nurse

I always wondered, when I got to this point in the game, why I had to fight Mergo’s caretaker instead of Mergo themselves. Isn’t it kind of anticlimactic to, instead of meeting your newborn sibling, to instead be introduced to the midwife who birthed them? But I guess Mergo is a baby god squid thing and wouldn’t put up much of a fight, so we fight this invisible, spindly crow thing instead. The fight is fine, honestly, but I give so many points to Mergo’s Wet Nurse for a) looking like a giant bird and b) having like eight swords which makes them eight times as cool.

8. Father Gascoigne

Alright, now we’re getting into the big leagues. There’s this gameplay feature in Bloodborne where, if you shoot your enemy at just the right time, they stumble and you can go in for a high-damage visceral attack. This is Bloodborne’s answer to the parry in Dark Souls, and it feels great when you get it just right. It’s incredibly satisfying. And while you can tank through most enemies by just dodging around them and smacking them with a sword, Father Gascoigne is one of the first bosses that you can stagger with the gun, and you’re rewarded for doing so because it does so much damage. And, considering that Father Gascoigne is the first boss you’ll fight (if you miss the Cleric Beast), that early in the game you’ll need all the damage you can get. Oh, and he turns into a werewolf halfway through, which looks awesome the first couple times.

7. Shadows of Yharnam

I think, generally, the best fights in Bloodborne aren’t the ones against giant monsters or weird dogs; they’re the fights against enemies the same size as you, who move the same way you do. I guess that’s why multiplayer battles in this game are so popular, but I never shelled out of the money for the PlayStation online service to fight people. So I had to settle for fighting the in-game human-ish enemies. And I personally think that the Shadows of Yharnam are pretty fun; normally I don’t like gang battles where you have to fight two or three different guys, but this one’s ok because it isn’t unfair. Mostly. And then when you do enough damage they turn into snakes and summon snakes from the ground, and that freaked me the fuck out the first time I played it, and I’ll never forget them for that.

6. Martyr Logarius

Hey look, another speedy human boss that you can parry with a gun! There’s gonna be a lot of bosses like that at the top of this list, because I think that they’re, well, the best bosses in the game. That’s why they’re at the top. But the best ones usually have more to them than just being a fast person with a sword. Martyr Logarius has got location going for him; he hides in a hidden part of the game that’s decently difficult to reach, but is also one of the coolest parts of the game because it’s so different from everywhere else. And he shoots magic skulls and makes a giant skull ball to attack with, so that’s a pretty neat spectacle. Ice, ice baby.

5. Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen

Queen Yharnam’s special to me mostly because she’s so tough to get to; at the very bottom of the one of the chalice dungeons, deep below the surface and buried beneath several other bosses and challenges, there’s this single woman, the founder of the city of Yharnam and one of the game’s final secrets. The fight is fun, from what I remember, though, since I was too scared trying to dodge her blood attacks to focus on the intricacies of it. Admittedly, there’s almost no reward for beating her besides the sense of accomplishment, but games like this thrive on that sense of accomplishment, so it’s usually enough.

4. Moon Presence

This weird cross between an octopus and a slab of gyro meat is the final “true” boss of the game. Getting to it is actually pretty easy, if you know what you’re doing, but it still gets bonus points for being a secret final boss. It moves like a wolf, bounding around the arena and swiping at you and shooting magic and such, so far so standard big monster. But it looks so cool, the arena is really neat, and it has this one move that can’t be dodged and drains your health to just one point, which is one of the most terrifying things in the game, if I’m being honest. It’s just such a neat fight. But it isn’t the best final fight, actually. That one goes to…

3. Gehrman, The First Hunter

I think there are a few reasons that make this boss one of the best. First of all, he moves real fast and can be parried with guns, so that’s a plus. Second, though, and spoilers for the ending, you fight him in the Hunter’s Dream, which is the hub world you return to after every death. So even if you think you’re very familiar with the safe space you’ve been calling home for the entire game, it’s no longer a safe space. Everything is on fire and Gehrman, your guide, is now trying to decapitate you. Plus he was in a wheelchair for the entire game and, like a miracle or like that asshole Grandpa Joe, he’s up and running around. It’s a beautiful boss fight and, depending on how you play, an incredible ending to the game. Just all around one of the best.

2. Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower

Oh, what a good boss this one is. Too bad she’s a DLC boss and not a part of the main game, though I guess at this point it doesn’t really matter. Lady Maria is the boss just after the Living Failures, the one that I mentioned will take you a long time to beat. And that’s because the fight with Lady Maria is tough as nails, but it never delves into being unfair. Whereas fights with, say, Laurence or some of the later chalice dungeon bosses, are stupidly hard, they’re stupidly hard because of bullshit reasons like cannons or absurd fire damage. Maria, on the other hand, is perfectly balanced. She’s got three phases, with each getting more frantic and maddening and switching up her moveset just enough to be even more intimidating than before. Plus, you can parry her, which is always a bonus. Oh, and her lore is stellar, too. Just an overall amazing boss fight. I’d say it’s perfect, but…

1. Orphan of Kos

We’re finally here. The best boss in the game. Lady Maria is a great, but there’s something about the Orphan of Kos that just elevates it above Maria. Maybe it’s the eerie, disgusting design. Maybe it’s the seaside arena, unique to the game. Maybe it’s the second phase, where the Orphan starts jumping around like one of flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz. Maybe it’s the fact that it took me about six months of playing on and off to finally beat the Orphan, and that I had to use so many parries to do it. Maybe it’s that, when I finally beat him, I felt so relieved. I had done it. I had beaten the game (minus Laurence, fuck that guy). Whatever it was, going toe to toe with this old fish man is, without a doubt, the highlight of Bloodborne‘s DLC, if not the highlight of the game.

Well, that’s all of them. All 32, give or take, of the bosses in Bloodborne. After going through all of them, I think what makes a great boss for these games is a combination of spectacle, visual design, but most of all, tight gameplay and combat. The best bosses are ones that you can’t brute force your way through. The best bosses are the ones that you have to learn their traits, learn the ins and outs of the game, and really utilize every tool in your arsenal. The worst bosses are the ones that use shitty gimmicks, or make you wait to fight them, or distract you with other things, instead of getting right into the battle. But the best ones take the greatest parts of Bloodborne, or any game, and push them to the limit. And I guess that’s a key for any part of game design; if you want to make a good challenge, take the best part of the game and turn it up to 11. At their best, bosses do just that. And Bloodborne is, without a doubt, one of the best examples of it.

I love this game. Thank you for taking the time to go through it again with me. And fuck Laurence.