Dark Souls may not have been the first entry in the Souls series – that honor belongs to the original Demon’s Souls – but it was the first to really solidify what it meant to be a Souls game. Dark Souls took the gaming world by storm and never let go again, offering a degree of challenge that few modern games replicate well.
To be expected, its difficulty was primarily found within its many boss fights. Time and time again, players found themselves roadblocked, either seeking help to overcome Dark Souls’ challenge or forcing themselves to get better. Franchise veterans likely have no trouble with these bosses nowadays, but they once served as Dark Souls’ many gatekeepers.
Updated on December 13, 2020, by Reyadh Rahaman: Primordial dragons, ancient lords, and fierce fiends of all kinds block the Chosen Undead’s path in one of the darkest journeys in gaming history. Each boss poses a different threat, though there are some that stand apart from this others due to unique challenges that force the player to think outside the box. For no amount of sun-praising or roll-spamming can deliver one from death if they step through a fog gate unprepared.
15 Asylum Demon
As the very first boss all players encounter in the game, the Asylum Demon is everyone’s first true test in Lodran. Initially, most will find the Asylum Demon trickier than most final bosses from other games. That is until the player discovers the first big rule about Dark Souls combat: positioning is key.
Attacking this demon from behind makes this fight remarkably easy, though coming across this strategy organically can be difficult when the stress of the battle is bearing down upon the Chosen Undead.
14 Bell Gargoyles
This multiple foe fight hits the player right when they might start to begin feeling confident about their battle prowess. Dealing with all the threats leading to the Bell Gargoyles’ means someone would have had to deal with numerous Balder knights, a horde of buffed and maddened hollows, as well as possibly a couple of black knights.
Though, nothing can prepare one for the primary gargoyle’s flurry of long-range attacks accompanied by aerial assaults. Furthermore, the firebreathing stone beast that spawns midway through the battle can cause the scene to become frantic.
13 Iron Golem
Sen’s Fortress is one of the more punishing and frustrating areas due to the entire structure being a network of traps, tough enemies, and loot tantalizingly placed in the worst spots. At the end of this march of misery, the Chosen Undead will be accosted by a boss too large for their fighting area.
The battle with the Iron Golem is easily the one with the most mismatched boss size to boss room ratio. The golem itself takes up a huge portion of the precarious high platform. The metal fiend also has plenty of attacks that can send the Chosen Undead flying off the area to their deaths in some of the cheapest tactics seen in the whole game.
12 Ceaseless Discharge
Due to the narrow path that the player must fight this lava-leaking demon on, there is little chance of dodging some of the heaviest hitting attacks in the game. The Ceaseless Discharge is one of the hardest optional bosses in the game…if someone chooses to fight them head-on. This is one of those situations where the Chosen Undead is not meant to stand their ground but perform a tactical retreat.
If the player heads back the way they came after triggering the start of the fight, the burning colossus will chase them until the ground disappears beneath their titanic feet. They will grab onto a ledge, though at this point they are helpless. All the player needs to do to end the battle is loosen the monster’s grip with a few simple strikes.
11 Centipede Demon
According to the lore, this hideous monstrosity was one of the very first demons to be created after the Witch of Izalith formed the Bed of Chaos, and it remains as one of the mightiest of their kin to this day.
Able to unleash ridiculously high damage with its longest arm, the Centipede Demon can also jump insanely high into the air and detach parts of its body that can attack independently. To top it all off, the boss room is mostly lava and greatly limits the area that the player can stand and fight.
10 Capra Demon
The Capra Demon’s level of difficulty comes not from well thought out boss design, but a cramped arena where players are expected not only to fight off the Capra Demon but his two rabid dogs right out the gate. It’s not unusual for an unprepared player to enter the fog gate and immediately get mauled by two dogs.
It’s not so unfair when players can’t break out of their grasp right away, but it makes for an overwhelming fight that promises instant death on a level no other boss fight does, not even Ornstein and Smough. If nothing else, the staircase in the boss room makes the Capra Demon an easy enough boss to cheese.
9 Seath The Scaleless
Seath the Scaleless isn’t so much hard as is he annoying. Not only is he fought twice over the course of the game, but his first boss fight is also completely unwinnable. Players are designed to die as soon as they first challenge Seath and the dragon can even Curse players, cutting their health in half at a point where not having full HP will pose a problem.
The second fight is simple enough, but the fact that Seath requires an extra step to kill (breaking his wand) elongates the fight a bit too much. This is the only defining feature of the battle, but it isn’t particularly engaging. When it comes down to it, it’s the Cursing that makes Seath a challenge.
8 Gwyn, Lord Of Cinder
Gwyn is either too easy for his own good or downright brutal. Anyone who has mastered the art of parrying will find him a chump, but getting to that point does take a considerable amount of effort and practice. Without parrying, Gwyn will relentlessly attack, changing up his moves on the fly.
Of the hard bosses, he’s one of the best designed, clearly telegraphing his attacks before each blow. He serves as an excellent stopping point for the game, forgoing traditional final boss flare for something more somber and poignant. Just don’t summon Solaire for the fight as he utterly trivializes the battle.
7 Sanctuary Guardian
The first of the DLC bosses, the Sanctuary Guardian does not let up for a single second. This is a boss fight that requires players to really understand the importance of dodging and their relation to telegraphed attacks. The Sanctuary Guardian also poisons with his attacks, making getting hit costly.
Despite his sheer speed, he can zoom in and out at a moment’s notice, making the battle incredibly tense. Considering the DLC is entirely locked behind him, he’s a wall that players will want to desperately climb over. Not even summoning makes the fight that much easier as his added health only makes his mania harder to deal with.
6 Four Kings
The Four Kings are actually incredibly easy…on a new game. Though since each New Game Plus cycle increases enemy stats and makes the game harder, the Four Kings will only get more challenging. Early in the game, they can be brute-forced thanks to Havel’s Gear. Later on, however, it’s a different story.
By New Game Plus cycle 2 or 3, the Four Kings will end up being a genuine 4v1 battle, as they spawn based on time, not health. The longer the fight goes, the more Kings there are to fight. This makes the battle grueling, especially since they hit insanely hard. A player will need to juggle multiple Kings at once, dodging and attacking whenever they can.
5 Bed Of Chaos
The single worst boss in the game, if not the entire series, the Bed of Chaos does absolutely nothing interesting and lasts way too long for its own good. Not only does it spawn bottomless pits in its arena, making instant death all too easy, but it also doesn’t attack in a cohesive manner, randomly swinging its arms.
The best way to handle the boss is by chipping away at it and then reloading the game to start from a safer ground. Most of the Lord Souls bosses are on the bland side, but the Bed of Chaos takes things to its unnatural extreme. If there was anything that desperately needed fixing in the Remaster, it was this boss.
4 Ornstein & Smough
The most notorious boss duo in gaming history, Ornstein and Smough ended many a player’s runs once they got to the end of Anor Londo. After such a difficult area, it’s only fitting players find themselves going up against two difficult bosses at once. Ornstein and Smough are, at their core, overwhelming.
Not only do they relentlessly attack at once, defeating one of the bosses only serves to power up the other. Furthermore, it is impossible to kill both at the same time. This is by far the hardest fight in the base game, but it’s also one of the most fun, pushing players to master the mechanics before they proceed any further.
3 Manus
As the final boss of the DLC, Manus offers quite the challenge. Fighting him late-game can negate some of his nastier elements, but he hits hard, he hits fast, and he has a lot of health. Manus is an endurance match through and through, requiring players to be well prepared. Considering how difficult it is just getting through the DLC in general, he makes a nice final challenge.
It is possible to summon Sif for this battle, but he doesn’t offer too much in the way of help. Nothing puts Manus in his place other than fine-tuned dodging and quick reflexes. Like Gwyn, he’s incredibly fun to fight. Unlike Gwyn, he’s nowhere near as easy to cheese.
2 Artorias
Arguably the best fight in the DLC, Artorias is basically insane Gwyn, lunging at the player from all sides to offer a chaotic sword fight. Considering how much buildup there is to this battle, it is morbid walking through the fog gate and realizing that Artorias lost his mind a long time ago.
Artorias goes through three distinct phases, each one more hectic than the last. It’s incredibly important to kill him as fast as possible since the fight only gets harder as it drags out. Artorias will not give players a single moment to rest.
1 Kalameet
The DLC’s secret boss, Kalameet is easily the hardest boss in the game. Since he isn’t a part of the DLC’s natural flow of progression, he’s allowed to be much harder than other bosses in the game. As far as Souls bosses go in general, he remains one of the series’ toughest challenges.
Fighting Kalameet without Gough wounding him is basically a suicide mission. Kalameet has high damage output, comes with an insane amount of health, and won’t hold back once players enter the boss arena. If nothing else, Kalameet is not all that frantic, but it’s very unlikely anyone will beat the dragon on their first try. Or second. Or third.
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