20 HARDEST Bosses In The Soulsborne Series

From Demon’s Souls to Dark Souls, from Bloodborne to Sekiro, we’re exploring the entire action-RPG genre released by FromSoft and listing the toughest bosses. These are the bosses that killed us so, so many times. Here are the hardest bosses in the Soulsborne series.

Ornstein & Smough [Dark Souls]

Ornstein and Smough are iconic in the Souls series for good reason. This is the boss fight that trapped new players and forced us all to get good. The pair of heavyweight knights appear at the same time, forcing you to jungle two opponents at once while timing your attacks so you don’t get stomped by Smough’s big butt or sniped by Ornstein’s spear. The combination of slow heavy and lightning fast make this boss difficult even today, but Ornstein and Smough feel lightweight compared to the bosses that came after.

Once you defeat one of the knights, the other will power up and become so much stronger. We always took out Ornstein first, then used the big pillars to carefully manage Smough’s butt stomps. Using the pillar, you can control the spacing between you and Smough, then sneak in some powerful attacks of your own. A careful approach goes a long way in the second phase of this fight, but after completing Shadow of the Erdtree it can feel positively tame compared to the unstoppable speed of future boss fights in the series. It’s insane to think how this meme boss has fallen thanks to FromSoft stepping up to make bosses even more sadistic.

Darkeater Midir [Dark Souls 3 DLC]

One of the most infamous bosses in the series, Darkeater Midir is a secret boss in the Ringed City DLC for Dark Souls 3 – and it’s totally optional for a reason. Darkeater Midir is an enormous dragon that’ll put your patience to the test. The giant dragon sprays fire everywhere if you’re not in the right position, and you’re better off fighting this thing solo. It also has an insane amount of health, forcing you to wait and react to his slow attack patterns. Like most bosses on this list, the difficulty is really all in your first experience – you have to bait out the right attacks to manage Midir or it becomes too unpredictable.

The only saving grace of fighting Midir is that it can be cheesed. The Pestilent Mist spell kills this thing fast. If it wasn’t so predictable, this boss would go way higher on our list. It’s also one of the most optional – but it won’t be the last optional boss here. And before we continue, let’s address something important about difficulty in Dark Souls games.

Because of how open-ended these games can be, your experiences are going to be completely different than ours – some bosses are easier, others are so much harder. This isn’t a definitive list of bosses that are objectively more difficult. If we did that, then basically every boss in Shadow of the Erdtree would take the top spots. Even the toughest bosses in these games can be made easy with lots of practice – but after seven Souls-like games and so many expansions, we’re still getting our butts kicked.

Maneaters [Demon’s Souls]

It might’ve been a challenging game when it first released back in 2009, but Demon’s Souls today is obviously the easiest game in the Soulsborne series. There’s an adventurous sense of discovery in Demon’s Souls – every boss isn’t a pure test of your skill. Some encounters are puzzles, platforming challenges, or just plain weird. FromSoft hadn’t codified the formula to pure difficulty just yet, but they did manage to make one of the most annoying enemy encounters in the entire series.

The Maneaters are a pair of gargoyle creatures that ambush you in the upper towers of Latria – the spookiest of the archstone locations. The Maneaters aren’t that difficult on their own. The real problem is the arena. You’ll have to fight these demons on an extremely narrow bridge with almost no room to dodge. Even going back into this fight today, it’s a tense experience as we try to deal with not one but two big monsters attacking from both sides of the bridge.

Because this is Demon’s Souls, you can pull some pretty goofy tricks with the right equipment. Slap on the Thief’s Ring and the Maneaters can lose track of you mid-boss battle. That’s just one of the ways that Demon’s Souls is unique in the greater Souls-like canon. In the future, FromSoft wouldn’t let you pull dirty tricks like that. Usually.

Laurence, The First Vicar [Bloodborne]

Depending on who you ask, Laurence is either just another Bloodborne boss or the hardest boss in the game. We’re stuck in the “pretty dang hard” camp, and it’s all because of Laurence’s annoying ability to shoot fire everywhere. This optional boss spawns in the Hunter’s Nightmare cathedral where you originally fought Vicar Amelia, and Laurence is a similar cursed creature. Really, the boss doesn’t get ridiculously difficult until its third phase. He’ll start barfing lava and filling the area with deadly spots – any AI companions you summon won’t survive for long here.

This boss is all about patience. Shooting him in the face is one of your better options to stun him and interrupt attacks, but you’ll need to sprint away to make room for healing. Everyone hates this boss. Some sickos like it. Enough people hate it that we think it’s a worthwhile entry on our list, and it’s just hard enough that it deserves a spot.

Godskin Duo [Elden Ring]

We’re going from one hated boss straight into another. The Godskin Duo is like Ornstein & Smough on steroids. Again you’ll fight two opponents at the same time – a big slow guy and a little fast guy. They can attack directly through each other and effectively kill you instantly whenever they want, forcing you to carefully position and attack when there’s a rare opening. These two enemies never stop attacking, and you might think the nightmare is over once one of them is down.

No, this fight is way too cruel for that. After defeating one of the Godskin Duo, they’ll disappear briefly then resurrect at full health. The boss health bar is actually a cumulative health bar where you’ll need to defeat this pair multiple times before they’re finally dead. This is easily one of the worst, most obnoxious and most despised boss fights in the entire series. It’s also required to progress in Crumbling Farum Azula, one of the last legacy dungeons of the base game.

Thankfully, there’s a way to cheese this pair into oblivion – they’re both weak to Sleep. Using anything imbued with St. Trina’s power will stun these guys fast. Don’t ask how a normal person would be able to figure that out when almost every other enemy in the game is totally immune to sleep, especially bosses, but using it here makes this fight a lot more manageable. We’re still counting it as super hard, because we didn’t know that trick on our first playthrough. We’ll be using it from now on. The Godskin Duo need to go.

Lud & Zallen, The King’s Pets [Dark Souls 2 DLC]

And you thought the Godskin Duo was bad, here’s another pair of bosses that’ll make you rip whatever hair out you had left. Lud & Zallen are a totally optional pair of tigers you’ll find in the Frigid Outskirts area as part of the Crown of the Ivory King DLC. These tigers are just a pain in the undead butt. Fighting them really isn’t even the worst part of this boss fight – it’s the sprint to their arena that’ll have you cracking controllers in two.

The Frigid Outskirts are a snowy area in a perpetual whiteout blizzard. Navigating it is hard enough while magical horses just keep spawning to harass you. There’s no easy way to see where you’re going. If you can make it across the white void and reach the bridge while being harassed by enemies the entire way, you’ll get the privilege of fighting two completely terrible tigers. Unlike most of the bosses on this list, I recommend just ignoring these things. You don’t get any loot. You don’t even get a sense of accomplishment. Go fight something more worthwhile like the Mirror Knight for the hundredth time.

Guardian Ape [Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice]

Another hated boss from an uncommonly difficult game, the Guardian Ape is an enemy that took us by surprise and killed us more times than we want to admit. There’s just something so odd about fighting a giant monkey with a sword in his neck – and the real difficulty comes when the ape takes his second form.

After taking down the first phase of the Guardian Ape, the creature rips its own head off and becomes an undead nightmare, carrying its own head and equipping itself with an enormous sword. Like any good-bad boss, he can poison you by throwing his own dung or grapple you with an abnormally big hitbox. He flails around like a wild animal, forcing you to back off or score oddly-timed deflects. All of the monkey’s attacks can be deflected, even if it doesn’t look like that’s possible. And while the Guardian Ape killed us more, the second secret fight that unlocks near his arena is even worse. The Guardian Ape returns as the Headless Ape boss where you’ll have to battle two of these monstrosities at the same time. Wonderful.

Manus, Father of the Abyss [Dark Souls DLC]

The final boss of the big expansion to Dark Souls was our first taste of the future. Manus is a twisted monster in the deepest section of the cursed city, and he’s unlike anything else you’ve faced so far in the original Souls game. Manus is fast, strong and unleashes an array of aggravating magic attacks that are difficult to learn and even more difficult to dodge. Some of his attacks will hit you from behind, forcing you to intuit when they’re about to land while you’re focusing on Manus himself.

Because Manus is so early in the series, guarding is actually an incredibly useful strategy. Instead of rolling through all of his attacks, guarding with high stamina makes this fight so much easier. The intensity of this fight really outclasses anything else in the original Dark Souls or even its sequel – the mix of teeth-grinding melee combos and magic attacks turn Manus into a chaotic whirlwind battle we won’t soon forget.

Fume Knight [Dark Souls 2 DLC]

While Manus is beloved for his difficulty, lore and just his awesomely intimidating design, the Fume Knight is infamous for all the wrong reasons. Dark Souls 2 is a game with a knight problem. There are so many big knights with big swords – seriously, how many knights can you cram into a single game. The Fume Knight is just another knight, but he’s also easily the hardest required boss in the entire sequel.

The Fume Knight is fought at the end of the Brume Tower DLC area, and he’s got everything you hate – a gigantic sword with ridiculous range that deals extreme damage, lots of different attacks with difficult-to-read tells, and extremely high defense so you’ll need a whole lot of patience to survive this fight. In the second phase, which triggers at different times seemingly at random, he’ll infuse his sword with fire and deal even more damage. He also goes completely berserk, turning up the temperature in a way we absolutely were not used to in Dark Souls 2. It might be the Dark Souls 2 slower pace, or just our expectations, but the Fume Knight hit us hard with a roadblock that took days to overcome. There are way harder bosses before and after the Fume Knight on our list, but we expected Dark Souls 2 gameplay. If you’re not prepared, the Fume Knight will get you every time.

And what even is the Fume Knight?! He’s a really big knight with a really big sword. The Fume Knight isn’t encouraging us to watch a two-hour lore video on the origins of the Fume Knight’s really big armor. He’s a big generic knight guy that’s so much tougher than any of the final bosses in Dark Souls 2. That’s why Fume Knight is so difficult. He’s a Dark Souls 3 speed boss in Dark Souls 2 – one of the best strategies online tells you to take off all your armor to fight Fume Knight, because you need speed more than anything to dodge through his attacks. And it really works!

Bed of Chaos [Dark Souls]

Dark Souls is the game that cemented the Soulsborne style – exploration mixed with challenging (but fair) difficulty. No more easy bosses like the Dragon God from Demon’s Souls here, where you don’t even fight the boss. No more puzzle bosses. Dark Souls puts a sword in your hand and throws a tough opponent your way. Usually. Almost always. There’s still a few nonsense bosses in Dark Souls, and the king of the gimmick bosses is the Bed of Chaos. Is this boss actually hard? No. Not even remotely.

And still this boss will kill you so many times. If you don’t know exactly what you need to do, the Bed of Chaos chews you up and spits you out – it’s almost a cruel joke. Walking into the arena, you’ll need to destroy glowing orbs instead of fighting the weird mass of roots. Once you start breaking orbs, the floor will begin to crumble beneath you. Falling into a bottomless pit is seriously the only real danger here. You’ll have to time your jumps, which were previously not required, to safely make it across the gaps and defeat the little bug at the center of the room. That’s really it. Killing a tiny bug. This boss really belongs so much further up on our list, but we died too many times to let it go. If you haven’t mastered the awkward jumping mechanics in Dark Souls, this boss is practically unbeatable. We’re putting this boss here out of pure spite.

Nameless King [Dark Souls 3]

One of the most optional of the optional bosses, just reaching the Nameless King is going to be impossible for most normal players that aren’t reading guides. This ridiculous boss fight is found in the secret Archdragon Peak area. This area can only be unlocked by using a gesture in a specific obscure location – now that we’ve been trained to use gestures to unlock secret areas, we’re using gestures on everything that’s seemingly cryptic in Elden Ring to unlock areas too.

But the Nameless King is one of the toughest battles in all of Dark Souls 3 – maybe in the entire series. This boss summons magic from the sky while riding on the back of a dragon, looking like the most metal Dark Souls boss we’ve ever seen. You’ll be wrestling with the camera as much as the Nameless King himself as he quickly flies around the sky and jumps out of view. Annoyingly, the Nameless King unleashes giant blasts of lightning that make dodging and fighting back even harder. And in Dark Souls 3 tradition, the boss attacks relentlessly – pressuring you almost as much as a Elden Ring late-game boss. Still, for being a base game boss from an official Souls game, this is one of the most impressive encounters you’ll need to track down. This guy looks like a God of Thunder and he’s gonna wreck you.

Demon of Hatred [Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice]

In terms of pure challenge, Sekiro might be the most difficult game in the entire Soulsborne series because it asks so much of the player. You can’t progress if you don’t master deflect and other techniques that are so critical to the combat loop – in Dark Souls or Elden Ring, you can grab different weapons, tailor your build toward a boss and squash them flat with the right equipment. That’s never an option in Sekiro. The only option is to get good.

Right when you think you’ve got deflecting figured out, you’re stuck fighting the Demon of Hatred.This optional boss found at the very end of the game is one of the most infamous because it asks you to throw out all your skills in Sekiro and fight a Dark Souls boss instead – minus the shield or heavy armor or magic that might make a big enemy like this easier to beat in Dark Souls. The Demon of Hatred is a giant monster that shoots fire everywhere between freak-outs where it combos the ground on a non-stop loop. If you don’t have patience, this fight might be the hardest in the game – and you’ll just have to take it slow, bait out the right attacks, then get in a few little hits between combos.

I recommend climbing on the walls and tricking the Demon of Hatred into falling off the ledge. That’s way more satisfying than a forty-minute fight against a big dumb screaming psychopath monster.

Messmer the Impaler [Elden Ring DLC]

We’re entering the cream-of-the-crop bosses now. These are the bosses that made our jaws drop because they just won’t die – and Messmer The Impaler is the real first skillcheck of Shadow of the Erdtree. Before you’re allowed to progress past the Shadow Keep area and into the final dungeon, you’ll have to climb the Specimen Storehouse and take down Messmer. This boss is kind of like the mascot of the entire Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, he’s a cruel conqueror that leads a crusading army into the Realm of Shadow and you can see his dirty work everywhere. The giant stakes of burned bodies and the Furnace Golem war machines are all his – and Messmer summons ancient flames as his primary weapon with a creepy abyssal snake hovering over him.

Like all the nastiest bosses in Elden Ring, Messmer has two forms – and his second form is when the fight gets real. Messmer unleashes waves of fire after shedding his skin and turning into a true hybrid of man and snake. He also moves much faster, zipping around the battlefield and summoning giant serpent heads to attack you independently, making this fight so much more hectic. You’ll need to load up on fire resistance to survive Messmer’s flames and avoid his spear, because this guy is just as hard as advertised. The only way to make him easier is to use the expansion’s new buff system that gives you defense bonuses that only work in the Realm of Shadow. Collect lots and lots of tree fragments, upgrade yourself, and summon a buddy. You’ll need all the help you can get.

Messmer is an interesting character in his own right. He’s a forsaken son of Marika, the most important character in the entire Elden Ring canon, that’s seemingly been exiled but remains completely loyal to his mother, enacting horrible massacres in her name while she condemns him for it. The strange seal he removes from his eye is one of Marika’s talismans, and removing it is Messmer’s way of discarding whatever humanity he has left, fully embracing the role of a Base Serpent.

And while Messmer is a really important lore character, the next boss on our list might be one of the least important.

Watchdog of the Old Lords [Bloodborne]

The Watchdog of the Old Lords is easily one of the hardest bosses in the entire Souls series – but we’re not talking about the normal Watchdog. The first encounter is in one of the early Chalice Dungeons, which are randomly generated gameplay zones that are really only required if you want to see everything Bloodborne has to offer. The Watchdog of the Old Lords guards the path to reach the most secret boss in the entire series – if you want to fight Yharnam, Blood Queen of the Old Labyrinth, you’ll need to progress through a Defiled Chalice Dungeon.

While inside the dungeon, your maximum health is lowered by 50% – you’re always at half health, enemies do more damage, and your healing is busted too. Everything is working against you in this Chalice Dungeon, and the Watchdog of the Old Lords doesn’t make it any easier. This boss has lightning-fast attacks and leaves behind blobs of deadly lava in its wake, shrinking the already small boss arena and forcing you to play almost perfectly. This is literally one of the most diabolical bosses in the entire series, and all because you’re put in a severe disadvantage. Normally, the Watchdog of the Old Lords isn’t much of a problem. You probably defeated it in one try on your first fight. The rematch is so much, much worse.

And worst of all, if you do defeat the Watchdog, you’ll just have to fight an Amygdala next. While it isn’t quite as bad, it’s almost as bad. And for all your effort fighting through the hardest bosses in the entire series, you’ll finally encounter Yharnam at the deepest, darkest dungeon in Bloodborne. She’s a total pushover. The journey really is more important than the destination.

Sister Friede [Dark Souls 3 DLC]

One of the most evil bosses in any Souls game, Sister Friede is an unusually cruel endurance test. The bosses in Elden Ring might be harder, but none of them pull the rug right out under you like Sister Friede does – a boss that just keeps going and gets worse with each new phase. The seemingly simple boss is found at the end of the Painted World of Ariandel DLC and she’s required to beat before you can enter the Ringed City expansion. She’s also harder than anything else in that expansion, forcing you to fight three full phases before she’s gone for good.

Sister Friede seems so simple in her first phase. She’s an icy nun with a magical scythe, leaving trails of frost – she’s very quick, able to leap behind the player in a split second and unleash a combo before bouncing away again. She’s perfectly manageable here, but things get bad when we reach Phase 2. After taking her health down to zero, she’ll summon Father Ariadne to join the fight. Now you’ll have to deal with two bosses at the same time.

Father Ariadne is a rampaging undead priest that slams his burning bowl as he stomps around the arena, absolutely destroying any flow you might’ve had while fighting Friede. The new enemy essentially forces you to back away and wait for a rare opening. They don’t even have separate health bars. You’ll only be able to defeat them both at the same time.

And that isn’t even the end. The fight continues into Round 3 – one of the very rare three phase fights in the entire Souls series, and one of the few that plays dirty by forcing you to actually deplete the boss health bar multiple times in a row. Once the pair are defeated, Friede respawns one more time as Blackflame Friede, an immensely powerful version with new elemental attacks that spread magical fire from every attack. She’s a whirling nightmare and just getting to this third phase is a test of your patience. This might be the most aggravating boss on the list just because it takes so long to reach her most difficult phase – the rest of the bosses on our list have the courtesy of being short.

Bayle The Dread [Elden Ring DLC]

There are two giant dragon bosses in Elden Ring – and both of them belong on our list, but we’re going with Bayle. Bayle is the more aggressive, more dangerous, and more overwhelming boss between Bayle and Placidusax, which makes perfect sense if you’ve been following the lore. Both dragons fought each other to a stalemate, Placidusax losing two heads while Bayle was completely torn apart, missing most of his wings and sporting shattered bones for arms. Bayle is also one of the most entertaining bosses thanks to the unhinged performance from the NPC you can summon named Igon. This guy just bellows curses from the top of his lungs as he fights Bayle, and the distraction is totally worth it for the full boss fight.

Like all dragons, Bayle’s head is the weakest part. Too bad Bayle is so relentless, there’s rarely any time to hit it with melee attacks. That’s where Igon comes in. If you’ve unlocked Messmer’s Spear using his Remembrance orb, this boss suddenly becomes one of the easiest on our list. Tossing explosives spears like arrows and burning Bayle turns an impossible fight into a pretty manageable one, but we’re sticking by our pick. Bayle’s wings magically restore in the second half of the battle, making him more agile and deadly, spouting flames that are difficult to dodge without any NPCs to get Bayle’s attention. Distracting Bayle and pelting him with spears is the strategy that made this boss fight possible, and if you tried to take him on by attacking his feet, you’re much braver than us.

Orphan of Kos [Bloodborne DLC]

In the universe of Souls games, the more pathetic you are, the more powerful you become. That’s definitely true of the wailing soul at the end of the legendary Bloodborne: The Old Hunters expansion. The Orphan of Kos is at the end of the creepy, mutated Fishing Village location, where a throng of slug-like worshippers mourn the remains of a dead god. The creature on the shore isn’t totally dead though. The mother gives birth to a surrogate, and the child claws out of the womb fully grown as an ancient, wrinkled man complete with pink placenta. That’s Bloodborne in a nutshell. It’s sad and weird and disgusting all at the same time.

But you won’t feel sorry for the Orphan of Kos for long. The Orphan is one of the most mobile bosses on our list – even if you lock-on, you’ll have difficulty keeping track of his movements as he leaps and screams, slamming the ground with his gross placenta sword. One of his worst attacks is an echoing scream that summons a massive electricity discharge that covers the entire beach. The only way to avoid it is by sprinting to the entrance and waiting for him to finish his tantrum.

The Orphan of Kos only becomes stronger after eating the placenta, turning into a bigger and scream-ier version of himself, adding even more magic to his repertoire and generally becoming the worst (or best) version of himself. The Orphan might be the most unpredictable final boss here, but he isn’t the fastest. When it comes to lightning-fast reflexes, nothing beats the next boss on the list.

Isshin, The Sword Saint [Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice]

The boss fight to end all boss fights. Isshin, The Sword Saint is a test of every skill you’ve learned in Sekiro with the difficulty turned up to eleven. This guy demands perfection from the player, unleashing complicated attack combos you’ll need to memorize if you want a chance at victory. The Sword Saint even cheats by whipping out a gun and taking pot shots at you mid-fight, all while you’re deflecting flurries of sword swings and parrying lightning strikes.

Isshin, The Sword Saint is the final boss of Sekiro, probably the hardest game in the Souls series, and we were still shocked. Compared to certain Elden Ring bosses on our list, Isshin isn’t the worst – not even close. What really makes Isshin so hard is what makes Sekiro in general so hard. There’s no tricks you can pull. You can’t outlevel your enemy. You can’t change your playstyle, learn a magic spell or summon an NPC to help you. There are no builds that can improve your chances against Isshin. The only way to do it is to freaking do it.

And it’s going to take a lot of practice. Sekiro is a game all about parries and perfect timing – and Isshin overwhelms with a variety of different attacks, making it difficult to parry any single attack combo without suffering scratch damage. After defeating Isshin for the first time, I didn’t think there could be a harder boss fight. How naive we all were. The cruelty hadn’t yet been fully unleashed. While Isshin is very difficult, if you learn his attacks you will eventually win. We can’t say the same for the next boss.

Radahn, Consort of Miquella [Elden Ring DLC]

There are only two bosses that could ever top the list of toughest in the Souls series. For second place, we’re going with Radahn, Consort of Miquella – the final boss of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. Radahn is one of the few bosses in the entire series you’ll have to fight twice, first as a twisted brute in the Caelid region, and now in his fully-human form. Radahn might be smaller here, but he’s just as much of a beast.

Radahn is located at the top of Enir-Ilum, a mysterious tower that leads to a giant Divinity Gate made from thousands of sacrifices. Radahn returns as his younger self, no longer infected by the Scarlet Rot. He wields a pair of giant swords and uses gravity magic to deal damage, launching himself around the arena like a madman and forcing you to react to his giant attack combos. You’ll barely have time to summon a Spirit Ash to help in this fight – and while you can summon more friends to fight Radahn, none of them are worth the cost. By summoning multiple NPC allies, you’ll further increase his already huge health bar. The only way to make Radahn manageable solo is by refusing to summon help and just fighting him – it’s scary, but trust me, it’s so much easier this way. Radahn has so much health, you guys. He just has so much health.

Get him down to 50% and he transforms into an even bigger terror. Joining up with Miquella, the pair fight together while Miquella calls down barrages of holy light from the sky, making Radahn even more impossible. Because all those extra magic attacks weren’t enough, Miquella also has the ability to instantly defeat you or your allies. Radahn’s difficult-to-dodge grapple attack holds you in place while Miquella attempts to take control of your mind. If you’re grabbed twice, it’s all over.

Like all big final bosses, dealing damage fast is the only way to survive. And Radahn can simply choose to kill you instantly if you get hit with the wrong combination of attacks that come out right after each other. Just look at the chaos of this footage. Radahn is such a difficult boss, he’s the sole reason why Shadow of the Erdtree is getting review bombed on Steam. We’re going to shout ‘skill issue’ because Radahn might be your hardest boss, but he wasn’t our’s. You can make Radahn easier by summoning a Spirit Ash and powering yourself up with as many Scadutree Fragments as you can find. The worst boss on our list doesn’t have that luxury. If anything, summoning a Spirit Ash friend is a liability.

Malenia, Blade of Miquella [Elden Ring]

The toughest boss we’ve encountered in any Souls game is Malenia, the warrior woman at the bottom of the corrupted Haligtree. The holiest location in the Lands Between is also one of the trickiest to find. The Tarnished will need two hidden medallions to ride the Grand Lift to a mysterious snowfield that eventually leads to the giant tree dungeon. Climbing down from the canopy, to the castle and finally underground leads to Malenia herself – and you’ll quickly learn why this is the cruelest boss in Souls history.

Malenia heals herself. Every attack from Malenia that lands will heal a small portion of her health even if you’ve blocked. She’ll also heal when attacking Spirit Ashes or other summoned allies. All of them are a new source of health and she’ll gladly take it if the NPCs aren’t dodging. That makes summoning help a big mistake for this fight – unless you’re summoning helpful players like Let Me Solo Her to do your work for you. Malenia is such a meme there are notable players that we know by name because they’re good at fighting Malenia. That’s how hard she is.

Malenia is even worse in her second form. She becomes an avatar of the Scarlet Rot, spreading the worst status ailment in the game with all of her attacks and slamming the ground, generating a killer plume of poison that’ll deal extreme damage if you’re affected. You’ll need to equip items purely to prevent Scarlet Rot build up, wasting precious talisman slots. The extra Scarlet Rot also makes her Waterfowl Dance attack worse. It’s already an attack that’s abnormally difficult to dodge. Add on vortexes of Scarlet Rot and after-images, and this is a tornado of all the meanest boss gimmicks. She heals herself, poisons you, summons copies of herself and has two full forms.

The only saving grace of this boss fight is Malenia’s surprisingly low poise. You’ll be able to knock her down to one knee and land a critical attack multiple times in this fight. For a time, summons like the Mimic Tear and a big butt stomp were enough to totally cheese Malenia into the ground, but that trick isn’t really viable anymore. I’m sure there are many more new tricks, especially with the DLC gear, that make this fight easier – but it’s too late for us. We already fought this boss dozens of times. For now, it’s easily the hardest boss fight we’ve faced in the Soulsborne series.

FromSoft are pioneers when it comes to difficulty, and while Shadow of the Erdtree has raised the bar for what games can expect from gamers, it isn’t even the hardest game we played in 2024. Other developers are picking up the baton and running with it – if you’ve played games like Nine Sols this year you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about.