The Hardest Final Bosses In Video Games
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The final boss is an essential component of gaming. What was initially an exciting mystery in the retro console days, where players would wonder who or what the final boss would be, is now a mandatory element practically synonymous with rolling credits on a modern video game.
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While the expectation for a final boss is that it will test all the skills players have learned through the game, that’s not always the case in practice. Sometimes, a final boss is a bit too easy, or it poses a challenge, but it can’t hold a candle to the high of a previous boss fight from earlier in the campaign. These bosses don’t have any of those issues. They are the hardest final bosses in video games, and they absolutely do not pull their punches.
Updated on September 20th, 2025, by Evan Regan: Ah, the mighty final boss. Few things in gaming are as fulfilling as taking down the big bad, saving the day, and best of all, watching the credits roll on a completed gameplay experience. Lots of boss fights can be satisfying to conquer, but when they come with the added bonus of knowing that a game has been officially beaten? Well, that’s a special kind of satisfaction right there. The thing is, these final bosses won’t just roll over. They often represent the toughest challenge in their respective games, and when that’s not the case, they still act as one hell of a skill check to close things out. To give credit where it’s due and honor these absurdly difficult final bosses, this list has been updated with five new entries, each more challenging than the last.
SA-X – Metroid Fusion
Samus, Meet Other Samus
This final boss comes with a bit of a caveat: it’s almost impossibly difficult until players figure out the trick to it, and then it’s a cakewalk. The thing is, finding that trick requires a lot of trial and error, and in most cases, multiple deaths and restarts before the pattern becomes clear. During that process, this may be one of the most frustrating boss fights in the entire Metroid series.
SA-X isn’t an unexpected presence in the final stages of Metroid Fusion; it follows Samus around throughout the campaign, setting up ambushes and stalking her through the BSL Station she’s investigating. SA-X is an X-Parasite, a being that initially infected Samus before mimicking her appearance and running amok on planet SR388. As such, it fights like an identical copy of Samus, complete with her blaster and missiles.
The first phase is the hardest part, because the SA-X is relentless and impossibly precise. It has access to an Ice Beam that deals heavy damage, and it also uses Super Missiles and a Screw Attack, just like Samus. Players need to keep moving throughout the fight, pausing only to get one or two shots off at the boss before moving again. If they can lure it to the ground level, then charge up a shot before using their own Screw Attack to fly over SA-X’s head, the boss will try to follow with a Screw Attack of its own that will miss every time. That miss opens it up for that charged shot that was prepared earlier. That’s the trick, but learning this method organically and setting it up during the fight is a tall order. The second phase, when SA-X morphs into a massive alien parasite with bits of Samus’ armor hanging off of it, looks much cooler, but its attack patterns are easily exploited by climbing up high, and Samus’ Screw Attack phases right through the boss, negating any damage she might otherwise take.
Hades, God Of The Dead – Hades
Two Phases At The End Of A Long Run Is Cruel
The eternal challenge of the roguelike genre is to complete the entire game in a single run. While that success will almost certainly come after many failures, the pressure of reaching the end of the game and facing a final boss, knowing that death means starting over from the beginning, is unmatched in almost any other gaming genre. Hades is the quintessential example of this.
An average run of Hades takes players anywhere from 35 minutes to an hour, depending on their build and skill level. Investing that much time just to reach the surface world is taxing. While many players likely weren’t surprised when Hades, God of the Dead, appeared as the game’s final boss, there are surprises in store in this fight nonetheless.
After depleting Hades’ health bar, he starts monologuing. It’s never a good sign when a villain does this, and sure enough, Hades gets right back up for a second phase, complete with faster attacks and a devastating laser beam ability that players can only block using sparsely placed pieces of the environment. It’s a brutal fight and has certainly ended many lengthy runs prematurely, but boy is it ever satisfying to pull out a win.
Sans – Undertale (Genocide Route)
Sans Refuses To Let The World End
Playing a Genocide Run in Undertale is a disturbing experience, as players unknowingly (or knowingly) fulfill the will of Chara, a vengeful human soul who seeks to end the world. Spurred on by Flowey, who is really just hoping to survive the slaughter, players must fight and kill every single monster they encounter in the game to complete a Genocide Run.
This eventually leads them to Sans, who initially agreed to help Toriel protect any humans that landed in the Underworld. However, he is eventually forced to reckon with the fact that helping the genocidal Frisk would mean bringing about the end of the world. Instead, he stands in their way, preventing them from reaching Asgore.
This results in the most absurd boss fight in Undertale. Sans throws a mixture of bones and beams and applies gravity to his attacks, forcing players into a pseudo-platforming sequence where they must move their Soul around Sans’ attacks by leaping between ledges and through gaps. Sans also manipulates the player’s access to the Fight menu, attacks them while they’re choosing an attack of their own, and will even take control of their Soul, preventing them from controlling it. It’s already a hard fight just by its nature, but when Sans starts messing with the player’s mind, it hits another level.
Yang – Sifu
Revenge Doesn’t Come Easy
The entire Sifu experience is a lesson in mental fortitude. Part-roguelike, part-Soulslike, with an interesting twist on each that allows respawning (albeit at an older age) and level-skipping to make things slightly more manageable. Sifu gives very little leeway for players to breeze through any section. Instead, it emphasizes mechanical mastery and rewards it with the benefit of starting the next level in a better spot, age-wise.
Waiting for players at the end of this gauntlet is Yang, aka. The Leader. Yang killed the player’s sifu at the game’s outset, kickstarting their entire quest for revenge. While every boss fight in Sifu poses a stiff challenge, Yang is a special breed. Players would do well to have a strong grasp of both parrying and dodging when coming into this fight; even then, they’ll likely lose many times before they succeed.
Yang’s strikes and sweeps are swift, damaging, and grant no reprieve. Players seeking a moment to land a strike of their own will be hard-pressed to do so, although the Charged Back Fist, Flowing Claw, and Chasing Trip Kick will open up a brief opportunity to attack, at least in the first phase. Yang’s faster and more aggressive second phase is a different story, and players are better off parrying and blocking whatever they can and wearing down the boss’s Structure meter that way. If players are trying for the Wude ending, good luck, as perfectly parrying Yang’s rapid strike combos is really the only reliable way to accomplish it.
Nyx Avatar – Persona 3
Sorry… There Are How Many Phases?
Back in 2006, the Shin Megami Tensei series was a highly-regarded JRPG franchise, and its spinoff series, Persona, was more of an unknown. For the first three games (the chronology is a bit confusing), Persona was a more or less formulaic copy of the Megami Tensei games, with their intense difficulty, turn-based combat, and demon recruiting mechanics. Along came Persona 3, technically the fourth game in the series, with a unique focus on a social simulation aspect that played out separately from the demon-fighting gameplay the series was known for. The rest, as they say, is history.
These social aspects took on the guise of playing through daily life as a Gekkoukan High School student in the town of Tatsumi Port Island, while moonlighting as a force for good, fighting back evil at night during the town’s mysterious 25th hour, known as the “Dark Hour.” This dual-life dynamic lends itself to some excellent storytelling and character-building opportunities, offering great context to the frequent bouts of demon fighting. At the end of every Full Moon Mission (Persona 3’s name for each major campaign dungeon), players will fight a boss shadow represented by an Arcana—essentially representations of Tarot cards.
The game’s final boss, Nyx Avatar, throws a bit of a curveball the player’s way. Once they reach him—immediately after a rematch against Takaya—they will select a party and jump into battle as normal. When they attack for the first time, they might be surprised by how much health Nyx Avatar loses. There must be something else to this fight, right? Correct. After depleting Nyx Avatar’s health bar once, it will take on a new Arcana, and a brand-new health bar will appear along with it. Here’s the “fun” part: there are 14 Arcana in the game, and Nyx Avatar has a health bar for every single one of them. To make things even more difficult, each Arcana comes with strengths and weaknesses, both of which the boss mimics. No matter which party setup players go with, there will inevitably be a phase (or several) where they can’t target the boss’ weaknesses. Those moments up the challenge significantly, and as the fight goes along, Nyx Avatar will dish out some devastating attacks of his own, meaning that players need a perfect balance of survivability and damage-dealing in their party to even stand a chance.
Shao Kahn – Mortal Kombat (2011)
The Epitome Of Unbalanced Fighting Game Bosses
The soft reboot of the Mortal Kombat franchise from 2011, affectionately known as Mortal Kombat 9 by fans but officially titled Mortal Kombat (2011), was NetherRealm Studios’ first and most significant attempt to modernize the franchise. It was the first game to introduce X-Ray attacks, now a staple of the series, which returned in Mortal Kombat X before being replaced/renamed with Fatal Blows in Mortal Kombat 11 and Mortal Kombat 1.
Unfortunately, even X-Ray attacks can’t do much to stand up against the final boss of Mortal Kombat (2011), Shao Kahn. Fighting games have long struggled to implement boss fights effectively. When the entire campaign revolves around 1-on-1 fights with AI characters who each have deep health pools and unique movesets, making a “more challenging” version of those fights is hard to nail down. Unfortunately, MK9 swings too hard in the direction of making the Shao Kahn fight challenging. It succeeds, but maybe a little too well.
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The main issue, which fighting game fans will be all too familiar with, is input reading. Shao Kahn always knows what players will do before they do it, or at least right when they do it. Unlike when fighting a human opponent, who will have a delayed reaction to player attacks, Shao Kahn reacts instantly. Not only that, he doesn’t just block incoming attacks but consistently responds with a pixel-perfect counterattack. That’s without mentioning how many of his attacks have super armor, making them uninterruptible. It is possible to bait his upward swing, jump behind him, and hit him with an uppercut, repeating the process until victory. However, players trying to fight fair are in for a rough time. Half the challenge is the fight itself; the other half is keeping a cool head when “Shao Kahn Wins” appears for the hundredth time.
Death Egg Robot – Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Twelve Hits, No Rings, No Escape
The original Sonic the Hedgehog trilogy had a trend that persisted through the final bosses of each game. Regardless of how well players did leading up to the final encounter, they would enter the boss fight with zero rings. While the remasters of this trilogy, along with Sonic Origins, provide a bit of grace by allowing players to carry over any rings they had with them upon exiting Death Egg Zone, if they die in the final confrontation, they respawn with zero rings.
While all three final bosses are difficult, there’s something particularly brutal about the Death Egg Robot fight in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The Egg Crusher in Sonic 1 takes up an entire room, allowing for more maneuverability, while the Giant Eggman Robo in Sonic 3 has a much larger hitbox for players to attack. The Death Egg Robot is a devastating blend of the opposite.
The room where players fight is no bigger than an average boss room in Sonic 2, even though the boss itself is much bigger than average. Meanwhile, the only place players can safely attack is the boss’s “casing,” where Eggman’s head is visible. Hitting the boss’s arms, legs, or jetpack means taking damage, and since players don’t have any rings, that means a restart. The Death Egg Robot won’t just stand there either; it has attacks of its own that must be avoided. To win, players must land 12 clean hits on the Death Egg Robot, which doesn’t even sound easy. Actually accomplishing it is an extreme test of patience and persistence.
Nameless Puppet – Lies Of P
Cut Your Strings
The Soulslike genre has long sought to match the pedigree of the genre originator, FromSoftware. Despite those efforts, very few non-FromSoft games have successfully accomplished that endeavor. Some have come close, but none have gotten the blend of exploration, challenge, and freeform build-crafting as close to perfect as Lies of P.
Inspired more by Bloodborne than Dark Souls, Lies of P is an alt-history cyber-horror retelling of The Adventures of Pinocchio starring “P,” a puppet created by Geppetto in the fictional city of Krat. Geppetto has gone missing, and P is tasked with finding him. However, when he does, Geppetto offers to turn P into a real human. If P agrees, he is killed, but if he refuses, Geppetto activates another of his creations: the Nameless Puppet.
The first phase of the Nameless Puppet fight isn’t too bad; it’s not easy, but manageable. The toughest thing to manage is the range of its attacks, as the boss can cover a lot of ground very quickly to begin its combos. The second phase, though… yikes. The incredible range of its attacks remains, but now they come much faster, alternating between dual-sword and greatsword strikes with a half-dozen different multi-hit combos that seemingly come out of nowhere. AOE and jumping attacks are also added to the mix. The Puppet can pull out a pair of Pulse Cells to heal itself, too, which is just great. Players who have spent their time in Lies of P mastering the game’s parry system will have a great time fighting the Nameless Puppet. Everyone else, not so much.
Tabuu – Super Smash Bros. Brawl
That Wave Attack. That Damn Wave Attack
Sometimes, a boss fight can be a pretty manageable affair, with predictable attacks and decent opportunities for players to deal damage of their own. Everything will feel like it’s going right until the boss pulls out that one unblockable, unavoidable, and absolutely devastating attack. It’s not a wholly uncommon theme, but it is a frustrating one. Unfortunately, that’s exactly why the fight with Tabuu, the final boss in Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s Subspace Emissary story campaign, is so hard.
Prior to this, Smash Bros. final bosses weren’t all that much more difficult than previous battles against the standard character roster. The Master Hand in Super Smash Bros. was a cool (and surprisingly meta) twist ending, but a couple of attempts make the fight trivial. Meanwhile, the hardest part about the Giga Bowser fight in Super Smash Bros. Melee is getting Bowser to transform into Giga Bowser in the first place. Tabuu is another beast entirely.
The thing about this fight is that most of Tabuu’s attacks are totally manageable. They have clear tells, a workable dodge window that any character on the roster can handle, and even when they do hit, they don’t deal all that much damage. That is, all but one of them, a nasty little AOE called Off Waves. Intermittently throughout the fight, Tabuu will fly into the background, spread his wings, and unleash a trio of bright red shockwaves that cover the entire stage. Each shockwave deals massive damage (between 74% and 78% on Easy Mode, and anywhere from 100% to 200% on harder difficulties) and adds insane knockback as a bonus. Worst of all, it’s almost impossible to dodge. Players start the Tabuu fight with six stock lives, but there’s a very real chance they will lose one of them every single time Tabuu uses Off Waves, even if they have 0% damage beforehand. While it’s technically possible to sidestep or roll through each wave, doing so requires frame-perfect timing, and that’s the easiest way to deal with this attack. It’s almost better to tank the hit, take the stock loss, and pray that Tabuu’s RNG doesn’t make him use Off Waves more than five times.
Lord Of The Black Abyss – Arc The Lad: Twilight Of The Spirits
A Time-Consuming Battle That Can End In An Instant
The Arc the Lad series may mostly be forgotten now, but in its day, it was a strong competitor with Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics in the tactical RPG genre. However, it’s been a long time since this series saw a mainstream release. The most recent entry was Arc the Lad R, a mobile game that was shut down in 2022.
Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits was the sixth entry in the series. It was the first entry to launch on the PS2, the first to make the jump to 3D graphics, and the first to use a circular movement system instead of a grid-based system. This last change did a lot to push the series into the 6th-gen console era, but it also contributed to the absurd difficulty of the game’s final boss, The Lord of the Black Abyss.
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This boss is a giant brain with a bloodshot eye at its center. It summons smaller brains and has a damage-absorbing shield while those mini-brains are alive. If players move their party too close to the boss, it can siphon away their health to bolster its own (which is already substantial). Most devastating of all is the death ray beam it shoots out after all its brain minions are killed. The way to avoid this attack is to move every party member against the walls lining the arena, but it’s a pretty imprecise solution. A couple of paces off, and the attack will still connect, and boy, does it connect hard. There is a sweet spot positionally, close to the sides of the arena and far enough back to avoid the health drain attack, which takes some of the pressure off. In the end, it’s a small consolation. The Lord of the Black Abyss is a war of attrition, taking players, on average, well over half an hour to complete a successful attempt, while knowing full well that the boss’s death ray could end the fight within a turn or two.
