FromSoft’s long-running series of 3rd person action adventure titles, commonly referred to as Soulsborne games, are probably most known for their punishing difficulty. But it’s fair to say that while difficulty is often the draw of games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne, the strange, terrifying, and straight up gross bosses are another of the series’ strengths — assuming you’re into that sort of thing.
While everyone finds different things gross, we tried our best to be objective in picking the five most disgusting bosses across the various Soulsborne games — though arachnophobes will certainly disagree with us not including The Duke’s Dear Freja from Dark Souls II. Below, in order, are the bosses that got the closest to actually making us retch over our controllers.
#5 – The One Reborn
The name of this Bloodborne boss is accurate: a dark fog coalesces across the moon, then a mass of goopy skeletons drips its way out of the fog like it’s being born, nice and slow. The look on its face suggests that even the boss is grossed out by its own state, perhaps because it’s clearly not a successful birth (unless the goal was to make a giant six-legged centaur-thing with very little flesh and a lot of skeletons and goop).
It’s just so… wet.
#4 – The Rotten
Continuing the theme of “lots of bodies forming a larger body”, number four on our list is the Dark Souls II boss The Rotten. While it’s got a more complete body than the One Reborn — and it’s significantly less wet — the suffering, grasping bodies that form The Rotten are a more horrifying kind of gross-out. Try not to think about what the middle of The Rotten must be like.
Being on the bottom is clearly the worst job.
#3 – Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy
This two-phase Elden Ring boss doesn’t start out too bad, unless you really hate snakes. But after doing enough damage, the boss gets serious, pulling an artery-coated sword out of its throat and more clearly revealing its face — which is placed uncannily beneath the serpent head. The wet, writhing sword is gross, where it came from is gross, and there’s something about Rykard‘s face that’s simply not OK.
Obviously, you never wanna get hit with a sword, but this one seems like one you’d want extra badly to avoid.
#2 – Orphan of Kos
Another Bloodborne boss, another disgusting birth. This time, rather than a nice, nondescript black cloud, the boss crawls out of its dead mother, looks up at the moon, and starts crying — way to make things uncomfortable, man. While the opening cutscene is plenty gross, the truly disgusting aspect of this boss is its weapon: the Orphan of Kos wields its own placenta. Like Rykard’s sword, the Orphan’s placenta is a weapon we really wouldn’t want touching us.
Again, just way too wet.
#1 – Ludwig, the Accursed
Coming in at number one is the oft-memed Ludwig. It’s probably no surprise that another Bloodborne boss tops our list, as half of the roster is some kind of horribly twisted and moist monster. Ludwig stands out for a few reasons, however. His arena is dark and covered in blood, and its margins contain piles of corpses. Ludwig himself is a sight to behold, with a face that looks halfway between human and horse. It’s the uncanny valley affect, and Ludwigs mournful expression serves to make his visage all the more horrifying. To make matters worse, he’s got a secondary mouth, full of eyes — you get a nice view inside as Ludwig approaches on hand and hoof. As one of the hardest bosses in the game, we saw a lot of Ludwig, but never did get used to looking at him.
Ah, you were at the top of my list all along. My true disguster. My guiding gross-out.
And there you have it — the Soulsborne bosses that grossed us out the worst. Did we miss one that makes you particularly sick? Let us know why it’s nasty in the comments!
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DanielD
Unabashed FromSoftware fanboy still learning to take his time with games (and everything else, really). The time he doesn't spend on games is spent on music, books, or occasionally going outside.
