Among the many things Soulsborne games have improved over time, I believe one of the greatest upgrades has been the bosses, and particularly their difficulty, as seen in Elden Ring.
Instead of being artificial challenges, FromSoftware has perfectly understood the formula for creating beings that are both powerful and fair, instilling pure satisfaction rather than frustration.
The studio’s latest major release is the most reliable example of their supremacy when it comes to boss fights, allowing you to take more than 50 attempts on a single encounter and still feel the urge to continue.
Therefore, in order to recognize this talent for designing masterful duels that repeatedly crush our sense of accomplishment, I invite you to read this list of the ten hardest Elden Ring bosses, ranked (SOTE included).
10
Godfrey, First Elden Lord
Two Phases of Pure Pain
If it weren’t for the opportunity to face his illusory form before the actual encounter, I’m sure Godfrey, First Elden Lord would be much higher on the list.
In a way, the first phase is simply a replay of the Golden Shade fight, as it repeats moves that, despite demanding precise timing that includes jumping instead of dodging, eventually become manageable through repetition.
The problem, however, arises when he transforms into Hoarah Loux, at which point the difficulty spikes to a whole new level thanks to his relentless aggression, which leaves very little room for error and even fewer openings for attack.
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With grabs that result in instant death, area-of-effect attacks that cover almost half the arena, and a relentless, overwhelming speed, I’m genuinely grateful he doesn’t have that many hit points, because otherwise I’d still be fighting him on my first playthrough.
9
Rellana, Twin Moon Knight
An Unstoppable Siege
Despite FromSoftware’s decision to undervalue one of the DLC’s main bosses by not giving her dialogue, cutscenes, or a proper arena, Rellana, Twin Moon Knight offers a fight that speaks for itself.
In most bosses’ cases, it’s easy to predict when a combo begins and ends, but it’s precisely this expectation that makes this warrior deadly: you never know when she’ll stop chaining sword strikes.
In addition to having a wide and complex movement pattern, including ranged and area-of-effect attacks in her second phase, Rellana emulates Hoara Loux in that she practically never stops attacking, forcing you to adapt on the fly throughout the entire fight.
With fast weapons, you can slash her between combos, and with slow weapons, you can break her stance, though these are essentially your only two options for consistently defeating her, which is one of the greatest feats Shadow of the Erdtree demands at the start.
8
Dragonlord Placidusax
A Dragon-Shaped Nuclear Bomb
At the edge of the world, suspended in mid-air and time, an ancient monarch awaits you, far removed from his most powerful form, yet determined to make you taste defeat as many times as possible: Dragonlord Placidusax.
This majestic yet broken beast, with its colossal health bar, is among the most spectacular fights in video game history, a feat that thankfully extends beyond mere aesthetics to the mechanics, offering a considerable challenge.
He flies, teleports, breathes fire, unleashes lightning, and summons a nuclear bomb that silences even the soundtrack, making him vulnerable only to patience… and the fact that several of his limbs were severed to give you a chance.
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You rarely know where it will attack from, but you can be certain it will find a way to reach you, no matter where you are in the arena. We have to thank FromSoftware for not making it as fast as Midir, because if that were the case, not even Hidetaka Miyazaki himself could beat him.
7
Maliketh, the Black Blade
Acrobatically Destructive
Speaking of compassion, I can’t think of another word to describe what FromSoftware felt when creating Maliketh, the Black Blade, as it’s the only sensible explanation I can come up with for why they didn’t embrace his full potential.
His first phase as Beast Clergyman and his second phase in his ultimate form boast two of the most complex attack and movement patterns in the entire franchise, forcing you to dodge in every direction, run, jump, hide behind pillars, and so on, praying for a moment’s pause to attack.
Regardless, even if that alone is more than enough to earn him a spot on the list, his difficulty is limited because both forms share the same health bar, making it a DPS race to see who can deplete their opponent’s health first, something not so common in Elden Ring.
If it were like other bosses, where each phase has a full health bar, the game’s completion percentage would be considerably lower, because Maliketh possesses an agility and movement capabilities rarely seen in a FromSoftware game, in addition to the ability to reduce your maximum health.
The developers took a stand and prevented thousands of players from smashing their controllers against their TVs; however, it’s clear that this is one of the most remarkable challenges in the base campaign. If you don’t explore and therefore lack the power to defeat him in under two minutes, you’re going to experience a nightmare I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
6
Mohg, Lord of Blood
A Dynasty That’s Hard to Stop
Considering it’s one of the two most hidden Remembrance Bosses in the game, designed to be faced in the final hours of your adventure, it’s more than logical why Mohg, Lord of Blood is among the most demanding challengers in the entire game.
With overwhelming damage, the ability to inflict bleeding, attacks with deceptive and lengthy windups, and a phase transition that allows him to ignore half the damage you’ve dealt up to that point, he’s a less complex boss than others on the list but with a more difficult gimmick.
He doesn’t have quick, five-hit combos that are impossible to avoid, but rather slow, rhythmic charges that confuse you for milliseconds and force you to spam your roll to no avail, paired with his healing abilities that prolong the fight and leave you without resources before you know it.
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If you don’t have the tear that prevents its phase change from damaging you, you start the fight knowing you’re three flasks short, and that’s quite noticeable when you’re already having trouble. It’s easier than the others in subsequent playthroughs, but on the first one… It’s a pretty big roadblock.
5
Bayle the Dread
FromSoftware’s Toughest Dragon
If you take everything I said about Placidusax, add incredible speed, and throw it all in a frying pan, you get Bayle the Dread: a serious contender for the most difficult dragon FromSoftware has ever created in all its years of making relentless flying beasts.
As a boss that knows no personal space, because it can close gaps in the blink of an eye, it’s a box of surprises whose fire and lightning abilities are at its mercy, draining your life completely at short, medium, and long range.
While it doesn’t teleport, it moves so fast you could easily say it does, and unlike Placidusax, you can’t just approach its mutilated body to consistently and easily damage it. Instead, you have to hit its head directly while dodging its claws, bites, and even tail swipes.
However, like its winged arch-rival, it indeed can summon nuclear bombs, only this time it’s itself dropping from the sky while shooting fireballs and leaving trails of lava in its wake. It’s a marvel, but if you don’t have the right weapons (yes, the Dragon-Hunter’s Great Katana), you can only be grateful that it’s an optional boss.
4
Messmer, the Impaler
An Insatiable Glass Cannon
Suffering the same condescension as Maliketh, Messmer, the Impaler sees its devilish difficulty capped by having a health bar for both phases, because I think FromSoftware itself knows that doing it differently was too risky.
And the arguments are really similar to those of its deadly counterpart in the base game: rapid combo chaining, a set of choreographically complex moves with numerous attacks each, excessive damage, and, thankfully, little poise to compensate for everything else.
Nevertheless, once you reach the second phase, the fight becomes a delirious Orochimaru-esque frenzy from Naruto, with dozens of giant snakes appearing from all sides, charging at you at incredible speeds, and obstructing your camera to the point where you don’t even know where you stand.
Honestly, I recommend playing with a heart rate monitor to make sure Messmer doesn’t give you cardiac issues, because the duel is insane. Few fights require such offensive and defensive precision, but that’s what makes it great.
3
Malenia, Blade of Miquella
You’ll Lose Count of Your Deaths
As the face of all Elden Ring promotional materials, FromSoftware not only didn’t disappoint with Malenia, Blade of Miquella, but surpassed all gameplay, narrative, and audiovisual expectations for this icon.
Of course, her main strength lies in her mechanics, where she stands as the highest mountain to climb in the base game. It’s no coincidence that she’s confined to an extremely difficult and slow-to-access area, because the developers knew they were protecting us from a phenomenon with few precedents.
And it wasn’t enough for them to give her an incredibly long sword, lightning speed, the power to heal with every hit, the ability to parry, and the power to inflict the game’s most deadly status effect (scarlet rot), as they also gave her Waterfowl Dance, the most devastating and difficult-to-dodge attack in the history of the entire genre.
Considering it has two phases, each with its own life bar, Malenia is the ultimate challenge that appeared to the studio in a collective nightmare from which they extracted the most vile version of a boss, though we must thank them until the last second, since it is a divine fight from beginning to end.
2
Margit, the Fell Omen
A Tutorial for Torture
I’m sure you’re wondering how Elden Ring‘s first main boss, not even in its most powerful form, can be considered harder than the Goddess of Rot, and the answer lies mainly in a forgotten detail of these rivalries: context.
Unlike the other bosses, positioned at points in the game where you have a high level, fully upgraded weapons, and a greater understanding of the mechanics, Margit, the Fell Omen appears at the very beginning to teach you that there will be challenges you simply won’t be able to overcome unless you return with significantly more power.
I can’t recall a boss with whom I made so little progress despite dozens of attempts, and that’s because Margit penalizes those of us accustomed to the Dark Souls formula with his multi-attack patterns that are difficult to read, secondary attacks that interrupt your attempts to punish his main combos, and his ability to quickly turn around when you try to flank him.
I was so humiliated that I was forced to level up and upgrade my weapons to even stand a chance, something I never did with any other boss.
Malenia killed me fewer times, and these days I can defeat her without a single hit, but Margit still scares me because every time I start a new Elden Ring playthrough, he easily splits my head in two if I try to rush into Stormveil Castle right away.
1
Promised Consort Radahn
Fighting Against a Real God
If you add up all the boss deaths I’ve accumulated while playing Elden Ring, you get the number of attempts it took me to defeat Promised Consort Radahn, the only time in my life I truly felt that FromSoftware lost control.
During his first phase, it’s a demanding fight with the typical characteristics of speed and few opportunities to punish. During the second, he’s an emissary from Hell itself, sent to disturb the peace of millions of players regardless of their class, build, level, skills, or even talent.
Every attack has a light sub-strike in dozens of different combinations, every charge has a series of clones, every spell has a kilometer-long area of effect, and every contact between Radahn’s blades and the player leaves your health bar in negative territory, because this boss is designed to make you suffer.
Even the frames seemed to take a sabbatical when facing him, because they too didn’t want to witness the scale of the destruction, making the fight even harder than necessary and forcing even the most stubborn players to Google the most effective weapon and armor to deal with the Consort.
All of that was true before his nerf, but even his multiple balance adjustments haven’t changed things much. It’s certainly a much more manageable fight now, but I’ll never tire of recounting, like a bard witnessing the glory days of a warrior, just how extraordinarily imposing the final boss of Shadow of the Erdtree was.
