Boss battleshave been a staple of video games for decades. They’re present in nearly every genre, be it RPGs, shooters, or adventure titles. When executed well, a boss fight can be one of the main highlights of a title. Series likeDark SoulsorMonster Hunterare known for their focus on making these battles challenging and rewarding, all the while providing players with enough variety to keep things interesting.
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Most games that include boss battles tend to play it safe by designing bosses with giant health bars and a handful of attacks that players can memorize to plan out their approach. Across the years, though, some developers have gone above and beyond to create unique, innovative fights that linger on in gamers' memories to this day. These are some of thebest, most innovative fights in gaming history.
9God Of War - The Stranger/Baldur
Few fights in gaming are as cinematic and engaging as the very first boss battle in 2018’sGod of War. The mysterious stranger shows up at Kratos and Arteus' house soon after the funeral of Kratos’s wife, and attacks the grieving protagonist. It’s a long, tough fight intertwined with multiple cinematics and QTE sequences.
The Stranger fight is great for a number of reasons, with the main one being the way it sets up the plot. Barely an hour into the title, Kratos meets his match, who clearly knows his true identity. The whole sequence does a brilliant job of establishing the main antagonist, introducing the key Spartan Rage mechanic, and getting playersinvested in the story.
8DMC: Devil May Cry - Bob Barbas
Released in 2013,DmC: Devil May Cryis not the fan-favorite entry in the long-running series. Fans complained about the poorly balanced combat, with others questioning the necessity of rebooting the franchise in the first place. However, one thing carried over from the old games – epic boss battles.
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The Bob Barbas battle, where Dante faces a sensationalist news reporter who also happens to be a demon, is not the most difficult fight of the game, but it’s certainly the most compelling one. It changes the players' POV to chopper camera angles, taking them across earlier areas of the game. The fight is also made particularly visually compelling thanks to Barbas’s true form, a haunting head composed out of hundreds of screens.
7Elden Ring - Radahn
FromSoftware is known for hellishly difficult boss fights and a tough but fair combat system. It’s difficult to point out just one innovative boss battle out of the dozens of fights across their many games. After all,FromSoft’s formulais so innovative that it inspired a whole new subgenre of gaming!
The Radahn fight fromElden Ringis a strong candidate. It’s a battle of truly epic proportions, where the Tarnished can call upon a number of NPCs to their aid, set in a vast red desert field. The large arena allowing for a multitude of approaches, combined with Radahn’s arsenal of devastating ranged and melee attacks, make for a tough encounter, but also one of the most memorable ones inElden Ring.
6The Simpsons Game - God
Games set in the world ofThe Simpsonsare usually a good time.The Simpsons: Hit & Runis a classic, andRoad Ragewas a decentCrazy Taxiclone with a story mode.The Simpsons Game, released in 2007, may not have received the same acclaim, but it was still a good time and featured one of the most unique final boss fights in the history of gaming.
At the end of the campaign, the players assume control of the entire Simpsons family to face God himself in aDance Dance Revolution-inspired battle. As he sends mobs down the vertical rows reminiscent of games likeGuitar Hero,the players must tap the corresponding arrow keys to keep them from reaching the Simpsons. The concept may sound trivial, but it was actually a pretty tough sequence, with plenty of self-referential humor thrown into the mix.
5Undertale - Flowey
The Flowey encounter in the indie hitUndertaleis widely considered one of thebest final boss battlesin gaming. It is a long, exhausting sequence that is the perfect culmination of the creativity, ingenuity, and humor that was put into creating this game.
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Not only is Flowey difficult to beat, but he also talks to the players themselves. Bosses that break the fourth wall are few and far between, and Flowey, in particular, can throw one off their game with his quips and taunts.
4Fallout - The Master
Nowadays, pacifist playthroughs and using dialogue choices or the Charisma stat to avoid combat is a fairly common occurrence in most RPGs that havedialogue as a gameplay mechanic. It wasn’t always that way, though.Falloutwas the first game where players could defeat the final boss without ever pulling out their weapons.
With the Speech skill maxed out, and enough points put into Intelligence, the Vault Dweller can talk the Master, the game’s final enemy, into killing himself. Alternatively, it can also be achieved with slightly lower statistics and Vree’s autopsy report, obtained earlier. Today, it may seem like just a fun little gimmick, but back whenFalloutfirst came out, this option was truly groundbreaking.
3Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - The End
Hideo Kojima’sMetal Gear Solidseries has always been the home of some truly revolutionary game design approaches. It also introduced its fair share of unique boss fight concepts that other games have failed to recreate as well. Fighting The End inMetal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eateris certainly one of them.
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The End is a legendary, 100-year-old Russian sniper with skills so sharp that he can take Naked Snake out no matter where he currently is on the map. He is also an expert at camouflage, and in order to find him, players have to rely on catching a glimpse of his rifle’s lens in the sunlight or their AP Sensor to spot movement, but only if The End is nearby. It’s one of the few boss fights in gaming where spotting and getting to the enemy is a lot harder than actually taking them out.
2Batman: Arkham City - Mr. Freeze
With an open-world Gotham City, excellent traversal mechanics, and plenty of satisfying, fluid combat that’s synonymous with Rocksteady’s Batman games,Batman: Arkham Cityis considered by many to be the best in the series. It also features a number of memorable boss fights againstDC’s iconic villains.
The Mr. Freeze encounter is one of the most original ones in the entire series. In order to effectively damage him, players have to take up a different approach every time. This forces them to leave their comfort zone and use techniques and abilities they weren’t as familiar with up until that point, making the fight all the more challenging but also a great opportunity to expand one’s skill set.
1Metal Gear Solid - Psycho Mantis
The firstMetal Gear Solidgame gave rise to the stealth genre as players know it today. The PSX title forced players to be sneaky and patient like no other game before it and also featured a whole array ofmemorable boss battles. But it was the Psycho Mantis fight that truly took players by surprise back in 1998.
Mantis was a character with psychic abilities, and this was reflected in the fact that he could read players' save data. At the start, he would make quips about the games they’ve played or their progress inMGSso far. Attacking him was pointless, as he could read inputs and anticipate the player’s every move. The only way to finally deal damage? Physically switching the controller to another port on the console.
