It’s a sad fact of life that you will sometimes have to deal with enemies, and nowhere is this truer than in video games.
It’s safe to say that at least 90% of our favourite titles have baddies that the player has to contend with, and yes, I did make that statistic up, please don’t come for me.
If a game is competently made, these foes will provide a challenge, but a reasonable one that leaves the player feeling satisfied as opposed to infuriated.
Every once in a while, though, even fantastic games will have that one particularly overpowered enemy that seems completely impervious, no matter how much practicing or leveling up you do, and it’s those adversaries that we’re looking at for today’s list.
While not all of these foes are completely avoidable, and some are even good to seek out for the rewards they offer, all of them can mess you up if you come in over-confident or under-prepared.
I’m the massively OP, Ashton from TripleJump, and here are 10 Tough Video Game Enemies that Players Always Try to Avoid.
10.
Basilisk – Dark Souls It’s well established that the Dark Souls series is filled to the brim with difficult enemies.
Almost all of the nasty foes that players encounter will test every skill they have.
However, few of Dark Souls’ enemies have players noping out as quickly asthebasilisk does.
These frog-like creatures appear in every installment of Dark Souls to date, but it’s the especially off-putting variety from the first gamethat we’re choosing to highlight here.
Though they admittedly aren’t especially hardy, they do spit out a debilitating cloud of status effect gas.
“What status effect?” I hear you ask.
Oh, just this little thing called Curse.
Sounds chill, right? Well, no, this is Dark Souls.
Everything’s out to get you, remember? Curse has different effects in each of the games, but the original Dark Souls really goes in hard.
If a player is unfortunate enough to get cursed, not only do they die immediately, but their health bar is cut in half.
This can only be reversed with a Purging Stone, a rare item that unwittingplayers aren’t likely to have.
My advice? Don’t jump into sewers.
Really shouldn’t need to say that.
9.
Big Daddy – Bioshock The city of Rapture has certainly seen better days by the time that players get there at the beginning of Bioshock.
Long before your plane crashes into the sea, the place hasalready descended into chaos, with gene-spliced residents fighting everything that moves and the remaining “normal” humans descending into their own personal variant of madness.
To cap it all off, there are also foes who willtear you to bits if given the opportunity – the Big Daddies.
These mostly-gentle giants patrol the city, making sure that their respective Little Sisters can harvest Adam without any splicers hassling them.
Make the mistake of bothering them yourself, and the metallic monstrosity will immediately cease their whale noises so that they can introduce their drill to your face.
If unfortunate enough to engage with one of these opponents, players will encounter a barrage of attacksthat will easily kill them down if they’re not careful.
Strategic planning and upgrading can change the tide of battle, however, they’re still a force to be reckoned with.
With great risk comes great reward though, and defeating a Big Daddy will allow you to either save or harvest its Little Sister, granting you the precious Adam that’s necessary for progression.
You’d better not be harvesting those Little Sisters though, or we’ll be very upset.
8.
Arch-Vile – Doom II Most people would like to avoid all demons, if given the choice.
Sadly, poor Doomguy doesn’t have that option, but at least he’s armed well enough to take most of them on.
That’s not to say that there aren’t any enemies that could pose this iconic muscley boy any problems.
One such foe is the Arch-Vile, a particularly nasty demon with nastier abilities.
It shows up in several Doom games, but never gets any more fun to deal with.
The Doom II variant is especially strong, and so it’s the one that we’re focusing on.
First encountered on the cheery-sounding map, Circle of Death, the demon in question towers over even Doomguy.
As soon as it appears, it laughs, which isn’t encouraging, and then summons a burst of fire that can easily be a one-hit kill.
As though that isn’t enough, this menace also has the ability to resurrect enemies, meaning that if you don’t dispatch it quickly, you’ll soon be in for an even worse time.
Better get on it fast, too, because the Arch-Vile is a speedy one.
Thankfully the variations in later games only summon enemies, and don’t resurrect already dead ones.
Is this better? Probably not, but at least the demons aren’t also zombies.
Speaking of … 7.
Witch – Left 4 Dead / Left 4 Dead 2 Like Half-Life, Left 4 Dead is a Valve series that’s seemingly allergic to second sequels, but don’t let that put you off, because the games are a pair of fantastic co-op zombie shooters.
Gameplay-wise, you can expect to fire big guns, kill zombies, and hang out with your mates, or in my case get eaten by zombies because you’ve accidentally shot your mates.
Darned friendly fire! None of the Special Infected are fun to deal with, in the sense that they are grotesque and do horrible things like spit toxic goo right in your face.
Of all of the varieties of shuffling undead on offer, though, none inspires more dread in players than the Witch.
The best you can hope for is to sneak around the wailing woman without her noticing.
It will first be obvious that something is off when you hear the unmistakable sound of sobbing.
Hopefully you’ll hear it, anyway, because if you don’t and she happens to notice you instead,well… it was nice knowing you.
Once alerted, she’ll rush after the player that disturbed her mourning and hit them like a ton of bricks, almost guaranteeing that they’ll be knocked down immediately and slashed to pieces by her claws.
Witch? More like bit-…whoa! No, we can’t say that! Let’s move on.
6.
Mr.
Shakedown – Yakuza 0 The Yakuza series is full of huge boss fight spectacles, random street thugs, and utterly bizarre side stories, soit takes quite a lot to be a stand-out amongst all of the nameless goons Kiryu and friends fight across the entire saga.
One of the toughest random encounters, and one which unprepared players will find themselves dreading, occurs thanks to the entity known as Mr.
Shakedown.
First appearing in Chapter 2, this massive wall of fists makes it his purpose in life to go around taking money from anyone and everyone.
Technically, I should say walls of fists, as there are actually four different foes going around calling themselves Mr.
Shakedown, and they all have different motivations for taking your money.
Some are fairly standard, like paying for booze and hostess clubs, while one of the others uses the cash to….
fight sharks? Then, of course, there’s one who doesn’t need the money, but fights alternate player character, Goro Majima, because he’s jealous of his long hair.
It is true that these lads can be used as a convenient way to grab a ton of yen, as they are absolutely loaded, but if you end up losing, they’ll take all of your money instead.
Beaten up and robbed.
Could this day get any worse? 5.
Phylakes – Assassin’s Creed: Origins The first of the games to shake up the relative linearity of the series, Assassin’s Creed: Origins reimagined the game as anRPG, splitting players’ opinions right down the middle as to whether this improved the series or not.
One thing everyone who played it could agree on, however, is that the roaming bounty hunters known as the Phylakeswere a massive pain in the arse.
These particular baddies start to show up and hunt main character, Bayek, after he assassinates the Phylakitai in Alexandria, with one appearing in almost every region of the massive map.
While each of these regions has a suggested level, the Phylakes tend to be much tougher, and even once you surpass them, they can still be a hard fight.
One of the most annoying things about them, however, is that they patrol around the region they’re in.
This means that even though you may be trying to stealth your way through a mission in an area that you thought was far enough away, they could just rock up and blow your cover, or simply kill you outright.
With many of these bounty hunters being so high level, you’re almost certain to want to leave them until late in the game.
If you don’t, though, be prepared to Phylaki-die.
You know, like Phylakitai? I’m here all week.
4.
Ubermorph – Dead Space 2 To be honest, there’s not a single enemy in the Dead Space series that I would particularly like to engage with.
Even the fairly standard necromorph is not especially pleasant, thanks to their… well, I mean, just look at them.
I’m certainly not going to be inviting them to any get-togethers.
They’d ruin all the good china.
One of the toughest Dead Space enemies, though, is the Ubermorph, a particularly off-putting variant that shows its ugly mug in Dead Space 2.
The sickly-looking mass of flesh is reminiscent of Resident Evil 4’s Regenerators, with an ability to reform any lost body parts incredibly quickly.
Thankfully, it isn’t encountered properly until fairly late in the game – Chapter 14, to be exact – meaning that you go through almost the entire runtime without ever having to worry about avoiding it.
As soon as it appears, though, it will stalk Isaac Clarke through the last two missions of the game, creating an ever-present, virtually indestructible threat.
It’s best to avoid as many of Dead Space 2’s enemies as possible, as you’re better off saving ammo for the final boss, but this one in particular should be given the widest of berths.
3.
Malboro – Final Fantasy Series We’re not going to lie, we debated for a while whether to include the Malboro or the Brachiosaur from Final Fantasy VI on this list, which is quite similar but has a few devastating AOE attacks to boot.
Due to the shear infamy the Malboro has gained amongst Final Fantasy fans, though, we’d have been remiss to ignore it.
Making its first appearance in Final Fantasy II, thishulking mass of tentacles and hatredhas showed up in almost every Final Fantasy title since.
Even though it first appeared in the series’ second game, though, it wasn’t until Final Fantasy IV that it gained its most well-known attack: Bad Breath.
This particularly nasty and odorous attack has the ability to inflict some, if not all, status ailments on the characters.
Even if some of the afflictions don’t connect properly, it can also cause standard physical damage.
In the first games where Malboro uses Bad Breath, it only hits one party member at a time, so even though it’s still not a pleasant attack, it can be managed to some extent.
However, in the original Final Fantasy VII, it gained the ability to inflict damage on all party members, which is the definition of a bad time.
I realize it’s probably hard to brush all those pointy teeth, but maybe try a breath mint next time? 2.
Shark Giant – Bloodborne – The Old Hunters We tried really hard to include only one Soulsborne foe on this list, but once these fishy folks reared their coral-covered heads during our research, we just had to count them in, if only so others could share in our pain.
First appearing in the Old Hunters DLC, the shark giants reside, rather appropriately, in the Fishing Hamlet, and are more than happy to ruin your day.
Thankfully, there are only four of them, but trust me, that’s more than enough.
Most players will first encounter the lumbering foe as they run between buildings looking for goodies.
However, things can go very poorly indeed if you head down the ladder in the nearby well.
Whilst exploring this somewhat damp area, players will encounter just one of the foes again – at first.
Once at half health, however, his sneaky ceiling friend will drop down, and regret will immediately set in, followed swiftly by death.
If players are persistent enough, however, they’re rewarded for their efforts with a weapon known as the Rakuyo, the same one they will have seen Lady Maria using.
It’s cool, but is it worth all this? Jury’s out on that one, but we’re gluttons for punishment, so we’ll go with yes.
1.
Lynel – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Don’t get us wrong –Breath of the Wild is a fantastic game.
It completely shook up the Zelda dungeon formula and has inspired a great number of titles in the years since its release.
Even so, it’s not without its own high-powered horror show of an enemy; the absolute behemoth that is theLynel.
While not exclusive to BotW, it’s this particular version that is the most infamous.
Seen roaming all over Hyrule, Lynels are part lion, parthorse, and all bad attitude.
There are a few different types, starting with the red-maned variety and going all the way up to the incredibly difficult, silver Lynel.
That is, unless you’re playing on Master Mode, which will throw in the gold variant, as well.
When a player first comes across one of these mountains of muscle, the Lynel initiates a staring contest, being sure to give enough warning so that Link can run away.
If he’s not sensible enough to do so, then the foe will rush over, and the player will have to prepare for a fearsome fight.
Calamity Ganon may be the main boss of the game, but if we were able to set these on him, it wouldn’t be long before he’d be Calamity Gone-on.
10 Tough Video Game Enemies that Players Always Try to Avoid
It’s a sad fact of life that you will sometimes have to deal with enemies, and nowhere is this truer than in video games.
It’s safe to say that at least 90% of our favourite titles have baddies that the player has to contend with, and yes, I did make that statistic up, please don’t come for me.
If a game is competently made, these foes will provide a challenge, but a reasonable one that leaves the player feeling satisfied as opposed to infuriated.
Every once in a while, though, even fantastic games will have that one particularly overpowered enemy that seems completely impervious, no matter how much practicing or leveling up you do, and it’s those adversaries that we’re looking at for today’s list.
While not all of these foes are completely avoidable, and some are even good to seek out for the rewards they offer, all of them can mess you up if you come in over-confident or under-prepared.
I’m the massively OP, Ashton from TripleJump, and here are 10 Tough Video Game Enemies that Players Always Try to Avoid.
10.
Basilisk – Dark Souls It’s well established that the Dark Souls series is filled to the brim with difficult enemies.
Almost all of the nasty foes that players encounter will test every skill they have.
However, few of Dark Souls’ enemies have players noping out as quickly asthebasilisk does.
These frog-like creatures appear in every installment of Dark Souls to date, but it’s the especially off-putting variety from the first gamethat we’re choosing to highlight here.
Though they admittedly aren’t especially hardy, they do spit out a debilitating cloud of status effect gas.
“What status effect?” I hear you ask.
Oh, just this little thing called Curse.
Sounds chill, right? Well, no, this is Dark Souls.
Everything’s out to get you, remember? Curse has different effects in each of the games, but the original Dark Souls really goes in hard.
If a player is unfortunate enough to get cursed, not only do they die immediately, but their health bar is cut in half.
This can only be reversed with a Purging Stone, a rare item that unwittingplayers aren’t likely to have.
My advice? Don’t jump into sewers.
Really shouldn’t need to say that.
9.
Big Daddy – Bioshock The city of Rapture has certainly seen better days by the time that players get there at the beginning of Bioshock.
Long before your plane crashes into the sea, the place hasalready descended into chaos, with gene-spliced residents fighting everything that moves and the remaining “normal” humans descending into their own personal variant of madness.
To cap it all off, there are also foes who willtear you to bits if given the opportunity – the Big Daddies.
These mostly-gentle giants patrol the city, making sure that their respective Little Sisters can harvest Adam without any splicers hassling them.
Make the mistake of bothering them yourself, and the metallic monstrosity will immediately cease their whale noises so that they can introduce their drill to your face.
If unfortunate enough to engage with one of these opponents, players will encounter a barrage of attacksthat will easily kill them down if they’re not careful.
Strategic planning and upgrading can change the tide of battle, however, they’re still a force to be reckoned with.
With great risk comes great reward though, and defeating a Big Daddy will allow you to either save or harvest its Little Sister, granting you the precious Adam that’s necessary for progression.
You’d better not be harvesting those Little Sisters though, or we’ll be very upset.
8.
Arch-Vile – Doom II Most people would like to avoid all demons, if given the choice.
Sadly, poor Doomguy doesn’t have that option, but at least he’s armed well enough to take most of them on.
That’s not to say that there aren’t any enemies that could pose this iconic muscley boy any problems.
One such foe is the Arch-Vile, a particularly nasty demon with nastier abilities.
It shows up in several Doom games, but never gets any more fun to deal with.
The Doom II variant is especially strong, and so it’s the one that we’re focusing on.
First encountered on the cheery-sounding map, Circle of Death, the demon in question towers over even Doomguy.
As soon as it appears, it laughs, which isn’t encouraging, and then summons a burst of fire that can easily be a one-hit kill.
As though that isn’t enough, this menace also has the ability to resurrect enemies, meaning that if you don’t dispatch it quickly, you’ll soon be in for an even worse time.
Better get on it fast, too, because the Arch-Vile is a speedy one.
Thankfully the variations in later games only summon enemies, and don’t resurrect already dead ones.
Is this better? Probably not, but at least the demons aren’t also zombies.
Speaking of … 7.
Witch – Left 4 Dead / Left 4 Dead 2 Like Half-Life, Left 4 Dead is a Valve series that’s seemingly allergic to second sequels, but don’t let that put you off, because the games are a pair of fantastic co-op zombie shooters.
Gameplay-wise, you can expect to fire big guns, kill zombies, and hang out with your mates, or in my case get eaten by zombies because you’ve accidentally shot your mates.
Darned friendly fire! None of the Special Infected are fun to deal with, in the sense that they are grotesque and do horrible things like spit toxic goo right in your face.
Of all of the varieties of shuffling undead on offer, though, none inspires more dread in players than the Witch.
The best you can hope for is to sneak around the wailing woman without her noticing.
It will first be obvious that something is off when you hear the unmistakable sound of sobbing.
Hopefully you’ll hear it, anyway, because if you don’t and she happens to notice you instead,well… it was nice knowing you.
Once alerted, she’ll rush after the player that disturbed her mourning and hit them like a ton of bricks, almost guaranteeing that they’ll be knocked down immediately and slashed to pieces by her claws.
Witch? More like bit-…whoa! No, we can’t say that! Let’s move on.
6.
Mr.
Shakedown – Yakuza 0 The Yakuza series is full of huge boss fight spectacles, random street thugs, and utterly bizarre side stories, soit takes quite a lot to be a stand-out amongst all of the nameless goons Kiryu and friends fight across the entire saga.
One of the toughest random encounters, and one which unprepared players will find themselves dreading, occurs thanks to the entity known as Mr.
Shakedown.
First appearing in Chapter 2, this massive wall of fists makes it his purpose in life to go around taking money from anyone and everyone.
Technically, I should say walls of fists, as there are actually four different foes going around calling themselves Mr.
Shakedown, and they all have different motivations for taking your money.
Some are fairly standard, like paying for booze and hostess clubs, while one of the others uses the cash to….
fight sharks? Then, of course, there’s one who doesn’t need the money, but fights alternate player character, Goro Majima, because he’s jealous of his long hair.
Never stop being weird, Yakuza; we love you.
It is true that these lads can be used as a convenient way to grab a ton of yen, as they are absolutely loaded, but if you end up losing, they’ll take all of your money instead.
Beaten up and robbed.
Could this day get any worse? 5.
Phylakes – Assassin’s Creed: Origins The first of the games to shake up the relative linearity of the series, Assassin’s Creed: Origins reimagined the game as anRPG, splitting players’ opinions right down the middle as to whether this improved the series or not.
One thing everyone who played it could agree on, however, is that the roaming bounty hunters known as the Phylakeswere a massive pain in the arse.
These particular baddies start to show up and hunt main character, Bayek, after he assassinates the Phylakitai in Alexandria, with one appearing in almost every region of the massive map.
While each of these regions has a suggested level, the Phylakes tend to be much tougher, and even once you surpass them, they can still be a hard fight.
One of the most annoying things about them, however, is that they patrol around the region they’re in.
This means that even though you may be trying to stealth your way through a mission in an area that you thought was far enough away, they could just rock up and blow your cover, or simply kill you outright.
With many of these bounty hunters being so high level, you’re almost certain to want to leave them until late in the game.
If you don’t, though, be prepared to Phylaki-die.
You know, like Phylakitai? I’m here all week.
4.
Ubermorph – Dead Space 2 To be honest, there’s not a single enemy in the Dead Space series that I would particularly like to engage with.
Even the fairly standard necromorph is not especially pleasant, thanks to their… well, I mean, just look at them.
I’m certainly not going to be inviting them to any get-togethers.
They’d ruin all the good china.
One of the toughest Dead Space enemies, though, is the Ubermorph, a particularly off-putting variant that shows its ugly mug in Dead Space 2.
The sickly-looking mass of flesh is reminiscent of Resident Evil 4’s Regenerators, with an ability to reform any lost body parts incredibly quickly.
Thankfully, it isn’t encountered properly until fairly late in the game – Chapter 14, to be exact – meaning that you go through almost the entire runtime without ever having to worry about avoiding it.
As soon as it appears, though, it will stalk Isaac Clarke through the last two missions of the game, creating an ever-present, virtually indestructible threat.
It’s best to avoid as many of Dead Space 2’s enemies as possible, as you’re better off saving ammo for the final boss, but this one in particular should be given the widest of berths.
3.
Malboro – Final Fantasy Series We’re not going to lie, we debated for a while whether to include the Malboro or the Brachiosaur from Final Fantasy VI on this list, which is quite similar but has a few devastating AOE attacks to boot.
Due to the shear infamy the Malboro has gained amongst Final Fantasy fans, though, we’d have been remiss to ignore it.
Making its first appearance in Final Fantasy II, thishulking mass of tentacles and hatredhas showed up in almost every Final Fantasy title since.
Even though it first appeared in the series’ second game, though, it wasn’t until Final Fantasy IV that it gained its most well-known attack: Bad Breath.
This particularly nasty and odorous attack has the ability to inflict some, if not all, status ailments on the characters.
Even if some of the afflictions don’t connect properly, it can also cause standard physical damage.
In the first games where Malboro uses Bad Breath, it only hits one party member at a time, so even though it’s still not a pleasant attack, it can be managed to some extent.
However, in the original Final Fantasy VII, it gained the ability to inflict damage on all party members, which is the definition of a bad time.
I realize it’s probably hard to brush all those pointy teeth, but maybe try a breath mint next time? 2.
Shark Giant – Bloodborne – The Old Hunters We tried really hard to include only one Soulsborne foe on this list, but once these fishy folks reared their coral-covered heads during our research, we just had to count them in, if only so others could share in our pain.
First appearing in the Old Hunters DLC, the shark giants reside, rather appropriately, in the Fishing Hamlet, and are more than happy to ruin your day.
Thankfully, there are only four of them, but trust me, that’s more than enough.
Most players will first encounter the lumbering foe as they run between buildings looking for goodies.
However, things can go very poorly indeed if you head down the ladder in the nearby well.
Whilst exploring this somewhat damp area, players will encounter just one of the foes again – at first.
Once at half health, however, his sneaky ceiling friend will drop down, and regret will immediately set in, followed swiftly by death.
If players are persistent enough, however, they’re rewarded for their efforts with a weapon known as the Rakuyo, the same one they will have seen Lady Maria using.
It’s cool, but is it worth all this? Jury’s out on that one, but we’re gluttons for punishment, so we’ll go with yes.
1.
Lynel – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Don’t get us wrong –Breath of the Wild is a fantastic game.
It completely shook up the Zelda dungeon formula and has inspired a great number of titles in the years since its release.
Even so, it’s not without its own high-powered horror show of an enemy; the absolute behemoth that is theLynel.
While not exclusive to BotW, it’s this particular version that is the most infamous.
Seen roaming all over Hyrule, Lynels are part lion, parthorse, and all bad attitude.
There are a few different types, starting with the red-maned variety and going all the way up to the incredibly difficult, silver Lynel.
That is, unless you’re playing on Master Mode, which will throw in the gold variant, as well.
When a player first comes across one of these mountains of muscle, the Lynel initiates a staring contest, being sure to give enough warning so that Link can run away.
If he’s not sensible enough to do so, then the foe will rush over, and the player will have to prepare for a fearsome fight.
Calamity Ganon may be the main boss of the game, but if we were able to set these on him, it wouldn’t be long before he’d be Calamity Gone-on.
Ugh, what a pun to end on the list with.
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