From the towers of Cathedral Ward to the toxic depths of Blighttown, FromSoftware's Dark Souls and Bloodborne games — collectively known by the portmanteau Soulsborne — are absolutely filled with difficult enemies. It has come to be expected of these games that bosses are always a challenge, and most minor enemies aren’t to be trifled with either. But sometimes, developer FromSoftware takes its reputation for difficulty too far with enemies that are unduly punishing or which rely on chance rather than player skill to defeat.
Some of these foes rely on distanced cheese tactics while others are simply overpowered. Rest assured, players who struggle to overcome the following enemies are not alone, and it isn't always a fair fight.
10 Blowdart Snipers
During the descent to Blighttown, the Chosen Undead must face daunting enemies, many of which can inflict poison status. A common game mechanic in FromSoftware games, the Blowdart Sniper takes this trait to an untenable degree.
They will incessantly pepper the player with poisonous darts from their distant perches. Even worse, the darts have as much blowback as arrows, capable of knocking players off ladders and scaffolding with a well-placed hit, often resulting in instant death. Up close, these enemies are swiftly beaten, but they make the journey into Blighttown one of the most painstaking sequences of Dark Souls.
9 Mimics
These crafty enemies hearken back to the Dark Souls franchise's roots in tabletop RPG games. Anyone who has rolled a D20 for a game of Dungeons & Dragons is likely to have encountered a Mimic before — deadly monsters that disguise themselves as treasure chests and crates, waiting like a venus fly trap for unsuspecting players.
Try to open one of these bad boys and the player is greeted with a gaping maw full of fangs capable of inflicting tremendous damage. Without very close inspection, there’s no way to distinguish between a genuine chest and a Mimic. One ill-fated encounter is all it takes to have players start hacking at inconspicuous barrels and boxes just to be safe.
8 Wheel Skeletons
Loathed from Reddit forums to YouTube channels, the Wheel Skeletons feature a design as crude as their move set. They are depicted as human skeletons tied to the interior of spiked wheels, which they use to run over the Chosen Undead.
These enemies are first encountered before meeting Pinwheel, one of Dark Souls' most lackluster boss fights, and represent a prime example of minor enemies being more deadly than major foes. Their attacks not only deal a staggering amount of damage but also depletes player stamina, rendering escape nearly impossible. Most of these enemies lurk at great distances from bonfires as well, requiring tedious and dangerous backtracking in order to retrieve souls and progress further with the game.
7 Skeleton Beasts
These monsters resemble werewolf skeletons and can be found in Dark Souls’ Tomb of Giants. Low on health and with few potential attacks, the Skeleton Beasts make this list for their raw damage potential.
Dealing as much as five hundred damage per strike, their wild attacks often ignore even the best armor Dark Souls can offer players, making them an annoyance for series veterans and noobs alike. They’re a particular nuisance around the tomb's many pitfalls and chasms, as they are capable of knocking the player to their doom with a casual flick of the wrist.
6 Jailers
Wearing pointed hats and wielding red-hot branding irons, these imposing enemies from Dark Souls III make the list for their unique ability to reduce player max health. When their lanterns glow red, the player's health bar will decrease in size no matter how much time and effort has been put into building it up. After half a minute, the health bar will return to its normal capacity, but the health itself will not regenerate, leaving the Ashen One in grave danger from even lesser enemies.
Beware when searching the Irithyll Dungeon, as multiple Jailers roam the tunnels and can make quick work of even seasoned players.
5 Basilisks
The danger surrounding Basilisks is their ability to inflict Curse status upon players. In the original Dark Souls game, the only other enemy who wields this ability is Seath the Scaleless, one of the game’s most iconic bosses. When afflicted with this status effect, the Chosen Undead's health is cut in half permanently and they instantly die, forfeiting their hard-won souls. This lost health is not restored to its full capacity until the curse is removed with a Purging Stone.
In early patches of the game, this ability could stack in successive encounters, potentially resulting in the player's health being reduced to as little as one-eighth of its true capacity. This also represents a rare instance where developed FromSoftware decided that the enemy was too difficult, and capped Curse's impact at one-half of the player's health.
4 Brainsuckers
One of the creatures most directly inspired by the work of H.P. Lovecraft, Bloodborne's Brainsucker does just as its name suggests and sucks out the brains of hunters who fall victim to its grab attack. This results in a loss of significant health and points of Insight. What makes the Brainsucker most annoying, however, is its speed. When it spots a target across a graveyard or along a castle corridor, it will race at the player, making it almost impossible to escape if unprepared.
In the cathedral, a fan-favorite Soulsborne location, groups of these tentacled terrors will swarm the player, essentially passing them from grab attack to grab attack until the poor hunter is left drained of thoughts, Blood Echoes, and patience. When going up against these horrors, make sure to equip Bolt Paper, one of Bloodborne's most useful items, to stand a chance against them.
3 Winter Lanterns
These otherworldly abominations represent one of Bloodborne's freakiest enemies and are profoundly frustrating to encounter. Simply looking at these Lovecraftian nightmares induces Frenzy status at a rapid rate, which both paralyzes and drains the health of would-be hunters.
If the player survives the damage, the Winter Lanterns will descend upon them with a grab attack that can easily finish off even high-leveled players. These enemies are few in number but guard some of Bloodborne’s most useful late-game items, so be sure to tread with caution to avoid these annoying creatures.
2 Chime Maidens
Though they don't have much health or pack much of a punch themselves, Bloodborne's Chime Maidens easily make the list of most annoying Soulsborne enemies due to their ability to summon minor enemies indefinitely. A uniquely frustrating version of these maidens appears in the mezzanine outside the School of Mensis during the fight with the One Reborn, casting homing spells and healing the boss throughout the fight.
The Chime Maidens are also some of the most challenging enemies in the Chalice Dungeons, ringing their bells from deep within the labyrinth and summoning an endless horde of spiders and ghouls to fight on their behalf. They can also appear in-game anywhere that the player has used a Beckoning or Sinister Bell, so watch out for these soulless summoners when enjoying Bloodborne's PvP gameplay.
1 The Archers of Anor Londo
From Yharnam to Lordran, there is no more annoying enemy in the Soulsborne series than the Silver Knight Archers of Anor Londo. Perched upon distent parapets and lofted causeways, these enemies can fire their arrows leisurely from an untouchable distance, leaving the player at the mercy of the game engine's random number generator. These arrows not only cause damage, but they're also infamous for knocking players off ladders, bridges, and staircases, which typically results in instant death or at least toilsome backtracking.
One segment of the ascent to Anor Londo infamously places players on a narrow walkway as a wide-open target for a pair of Silver Knight Archers. Survive this duo, and there's no foe in Soulsborne that cannot be surmounted.
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