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Enemies in video games are meant to challenge you, but these enemies went too far. Here are 10 of the most evil enemies you hated in new and old games.
Basilisks [Elden Ring]
The Basilisk is a tradition in the Dark Souls series– they’re always awful. These weird little lizards with fake giant eyes can end your game instantly if you hang out in their deathblight gas clouds for too long, making them an absurdly high threat whenever they appear. They’re always in the darkest, deepest sections of the map, lurking around and ready to ambush you with a sudden Game Over. And they’re much worse in the Elden Ring DLC.
During an optional boss fight against the Divine Beast Dancing Dragon in the Ancient Ruins of Rauh, an entire swarm of Basilisks will drop in mid-battle, turning a fairly easy boss into a nightmare. These things will swarm you and cover the field in instakill gas, forcing you to carefully pick them off one by one in the arena that suddenly feels way too small. It’s an evil encounter – we can just feel the developers pointing and laughing when they cooked this one up.
Even worse, the Basilisks return as weird statues in some of the underground catacombs of the expansion map. The statues cause deathblight build-up just by looking at you – that’s just pure evil. At least the statues don’t move. They aren’t traditional enemies, but they’re still evil in all the ways we love from Elden Ring.
Kraken [ED6]
Earth Defense Force 6 is all about escalation. In this time-traveling shooter, you’ll have to face off against an infinitely growing alien invasion that only becomes more powerful as you cycle through the timeline like an absurd version of Groundhog’s Day. With each reset, the aliens become more powerful – and more evil, and the developers of EDF6 have outdone themselves. They’ve created some truly evil enemies.
The bomber androids aren’t even close to the worst – even when you’ve got to face down entire legions of crazed robots that leap on their own grenades, causing massive explosions that’ll send your little soldier guy flipping through the sky. No, the most evil enemies in EDF6 are the Kraken.
The final evolution of their smaller squid-like brethren, the Kraken are absolutely massive underwater invaders that glide through the sky like they’re underwater. They’re armed with an array of weapons – explosive shotguns or deadly ray guns – and each one carries a massive energy shield. These shields are much, much bigger than they look. If you’re even close to a Kraken, they’ll block your rockets and make those shots blow up in your face. These things are diabolical and they’re even worse when they cluster up in groups.
Want to beat them? Get a gun that shoots so fast you can knock off their shield arms before they can even block. There are more tricks to fighting these things, and that’s what makes them special – this is a weird, impressive enemy that only works in the wild sci-fi world of EDF.
Iron Maiden [Resident Evil 4 Remake]
Resident Evil 4 Remake is every bit as good as the original, making some of the most evil enemies from the first game even more cruel. The remake adds more horror to Resident Evil 4 and makes series protagonist Leon S. Kennedy slower, even if he can move while aiming this time around. That slower run speed makes a huge difference in RE4 when you’re dealing with enemies as evil as the Regenerators.
Found in the final act of the game, the Regenerators are slobbering mutants that can only be defeated efficiently by shooting the hidden weak spots in their bodies. You’ll need thermal goggles and a scoped weapon to target the internals and take them out – which feels a lot more difficult in the remake, especially as the Regenerators sway around, extend their arms to grab you or flop around like fish on the ground. They’re also just really gross and scary!
And there are worse versions. The Iron Maidens are spike-covered monsters that can end Leon in a single attack – whenever one appears, you need to focus on it 100%. Their bite attack can’t be parried, and when they die they’ll shoot spines in every direction. One of their weak points always spawns on their back. They’re evil – which fits. It’s right there in the name of the game.
Poison Headcrabs [Half-Life 2]
Because regular Headcrabs weren’t bad enough – the developers at Valve hit us with Poison Headcrabs. Half-Life 2 was going too well. You were having too much fun. Time to put the fear of headcrabs back into players. The original Headcrabs are a creepy, gross little creature that live in vents and lunge at players from the darkness, but by the time Half-Life 2 rolled around, they’d devolved into cuddly little creatures. They’re still gross but in a familiar way.
That’s why Half-Life 2 hit us with Poison Headcrabs. These black versions hiss – triggering our ancestral lizard brains – and bite with a poison that lowers your health to 1. One more hit and you’re gone for good. Thankfully, you do regain your health from a Poison Headcrab bite. Unlike other games, the poison bite instantly lowers your health then it restores to its pre-bite number after a period of time. Basically, if you’re fighting just on Poison Headcrab, you really can’t die.
Too bad you’re never fighting just one Poison Headcrab. Later in the same spooky city of Ravenholm, you’ll encounter Poison Zombies that pack an entire brood of Poison Headcrabs on their back – throwing them out like candy to ruin your day permanently.
Shark-Giants [Bloodborne]
There are plenty of enemies in the Dark Souls series of games that are diabolical – they can infect you with permanent status ailments, kill you instantly, or deliver advanced poisons that’ll drain your health fast. One of our most hated enemies doesn’t do any of that. It just hits you with a really, really big anchor.
The Shark-Giants are diabolical enemies found in the Fishing Hamlet area of the Old Hunters DLC for Bloodborne – the final area of the expansion and one of the spookiest locations in any of the Soulsborne games. There are a total of four Shark-Giants in the entire area, and each one is a chore to beat. They’re massive mouths full of rows of teeth that leap and scream at you, swimming around in the water, charging and swinging. They’re not just a nuisance. They’re a life-ending threat that’s better to just skip. The only saving grace of these creatures is that you don’t have to fight them.
But if you’re as curious and stupid as we are, you’ll want to enter the well in the center of the Fishing Hamlet. If you do, you’ll have to fight two Shark-Giants at the same time. These elite versions are covered in gross barnacles and are even more aggressive than their topside brethren. Trying to beat these things is – not a joke – one of the biggest challenges in any of the Souls games. Defeating the final boss of the DLC is easier. Defeating the final boss of the Elden Ring DLC is easier. Think about that.
Cazadors [Fallout: New Vegas]
Cazadors are the latest flying problem to menace players of Bethesda open-world RPGs. First there were Cliff Racers, and now there are Cazadors. These oversized flying bugs are the bane of every new player’s existence. If you start up a fresh save file in Fallout: New Vegas and try to travel west, you’re basically signing your own death warrant.
Cazadors are ridiculously tough and fast for early game enemies, forcing players to turn back if you even think about going up to the abandoned main street in the crater area to the west of the starting town, you’ll have to deal with a swarm of killer Cazadors. They’re tough to hit and ridiculously fast – speeding straight up to your unsuspecting Courier and pumping them full of venom. Later in the game they’re not so bad, but early and repeat players have nightmares about these things. Even if you give yourself the Heartless perk from the Old World Blues DLC and make yourself immune to all poison damage, these things still suck.
Gloom Hands [The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom]
Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t put on the kid gloves for returning players – if you explore too far in the vast underground Depths area, you’re going to encounter the Gloom Hands. This bizarre enemy consists of a large puddle of gloom that grows, revealing multiple monstrous giant hands with eyes in the center. This relentless enemy will grab Link if he’s anywhere close, draining his life and dealing Gloom damage – a type of damage that can only be healed when you’re in sunlight. If you’re stuck underground, you’ll need special items to clear off the gloom and actually heal. Even worse, if the Gloom Hands appear on the Surface, they’ll blot out the sun with a red sky, forcing Link to retreat or defeat them if he wants to heal.
And defeating them isn’t easy. Basically, you’ll need a lot of arrows. If you’re lucky there might be a ruin to climb on to avoid their attacks – on foot, you’re basically totally screwed. The only way to win is to stock up on lots of Bomb Arrows and aim for the big eyes on the palms. Defeating just one eye isn’t enough, they’ll regenerate if you don’t destroy them all fast enough. And when they’re all destroyed, they’ll spawn a Phantom Ganon in their place. Seriously. One evil enemy transforms into an even-more-evil enemy. At least you can fight Phantom Ganon clones with your sword and shield. And yes, they also deal Gloom Damage. Have fun with that.
Frozen Reindeer [Dark Souls 2]
There’s one enemy that makes us question all of our life choices – like why would we go back and replay the worst part of Dark Souls 2. The optional Frigid Outskirts area is exclusive to Crown of the Ivory King DLC and requires finding a hidden coffin to ride into the whiteout field conditions. Whenever the blizzard is strong and you can’t see, Frozen Reindeer enemies will spawn and attack. And they never stop.
Navigating the area is difficult enough when you don’t have four-legging creatures circling you, using magic and smashing right through you with their antlers. They’ve got too much poise so you can’t stagger them easily, and they’ll follow you through the entire area. They have three separate spawn points, so even doing the Dark Souls 2 thing and killing them until they stop respawning takes forever. They can appear two at a time or even three at a time if you’re unlucky. They’re an evil enemy for an evil enemy that’s so bad you probably shouldn’t even attempt it. Don’t be like us.
Marauders [Doom Eternal]
Doom Eternal took Doom (2016) and pushed everything beyond – the music, the enemies, the platforming, the glory kills – everything is more ridiculous and a whole lot harder. So of course, regular enemies weren’t enough. You thought the Archvile was an evil enemy in the original Doom 2? Now we have a true rival to the Doom Guy. Marauders throw us off so completely because they function so unlike every other enemy in the game.
The Marauders are demonic hunters that punish the player for making mistakes. Their red shield is their most important gimmick – no matter what you do, where you aim or what angle you hit the Marauders from, their red shield will nullify the damage. If you shoot the shield too often by accident, the Marauders will summon a spectral demonic wolf to attack you, adding another enemy for you to deal with.
Marauders are lightning-fast – you’ll want to stay close, bait out their ax attack, then open fire with the Super Shotgun and Ballista combo. Ice Grenades don’t affect them. Chainsaws just don’t work. Not even the mighty BFG will hurt them unless they’re staggered. These enemies require a gimmick to fight, you can only hit them when they’re trying to hit you, making them one of the most evil game-changers in a game that’s already brutally difficult.
Tonberries [Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth]
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth can be a cruel game for players shooting for 100% completion. If you want to do every mini-game, every optional challenge, and every special hunt quest, you’ll need to fight some truly diabolical enemies. Malboros are evil because they infect your party with every status effect all at the same time. Cactuars are tricky to hit and have the annoying 1,000 Needles attack that literally deals 1,000 damage if you don’t dodge. Then there’s the Tonberry.
Tonberry, for my money, is the most evil enemy in FF7R. A single Tonberry isn’t that bad. Even King Tonberry, with his gang of little Tonberries all trying to stab you all at the same time, isn’t that bad. What makes Tonberry so evil is one of the final challenges of the game. In one of the final coliseum challenges in the Gold Saucer, you’ll have to fight 10 Tonberries at the same time. They don’t just slowly walk toward you and stab for an instakill – oh no, they have more than that. They’ll also teleport, launch homing attacks that stun you, and perform a separate attack that deals extreme damage if it lands. Even if you equip a Safety Bit to protect yourself against Instadeath attacks, this fight is still a dice roll. Even compared to the Hard Mode super bosses, defeating an entire gang of Tonberries is a slog.
