Every Bloodborne boss ranked from best to worst

Bloodborne might be one of the more streamlined entries in FromSoftware’s library, but it still has more than its fair share of bosses. At their best, there are few, if any, boss fights that can compare to any game on the market. At their worst, they’re stains on an otherwise world-class experience. We’ll be covering all 27 of Bloodborne’s main bosses. We’re not including the intermediary fights in the early Chalice levels for the sake of space.

Every boss in Bloodborne ranked

Not all twenty-seven main bosses in Bloodborne are created equal, with the best of them elevating what a boss fight can be, regardless of what game you compare them against. The least of them make you question why they’re even in the game.

1. Orphan of Kos

The final boss of the Old Hunters DLC and the expansion’s best, the Orphan of Kos, is a disturbing reminder of human depravity in the face of the unknown. The fight is fast and chaotic, and the Orphan has attacks that hit like a truck and cover the entire arena. Taking it down is one of the game’s most satisfying and sorrowful experiences.

2. Gehrman, The First Hunter

Gehrman makes the most sense to be the final boss of Bloodborne, and his fight is fantastic. In a Hunter graveyard filled with pure white flowers and framed as Gehrman providing a mercy kill by force, the encounter with the First Hunter showcases what it’s like to fight your character if they’d had decades of practice.

3. Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower

Lady Maria, Gehrman’s greatest apprentice, lives up to her name both from lore and battle perspectives. The only boss in the Old Hunters DLC not to be transformed for her transgressions, she’s as deadly as she is beautiful, with a soundtrack that enhances her three phases past what mechanics she adds to them.

4. Ludwig the Accursed / The Holy Blade

The Old Hunters DLC was almost wall-to-wall banger boss fights, with Ludwig setting the bar early and high. As the ultimate corruption of what it means to be a Hunter, his fate as the Accursed is as disturbing as his return to sanity as the Holy Blade. Both of his phases are distinct, with the first like fighting a rapid, mindless beast, while the second pits you against a shadow of one of the greatest combatants in the setting.

5. Father Gascoigne

One of the first bosses you’ll fight in the game, Father Gascoigne, has to test everything you’ve learned about the game, then push you to learn even more. His first Hunter form is like fighting a cracked mirror, then his second beast form turns the fight on its head, forcing you to unlearn bad habits. His soundtrack is also one of the best.

6. Martyr Logarius

One of the game’s optional bosses, Martyr Logarius, is the final guardian of Castle Cainhurst, a lich-like creature of decrepit form that belies a fast and ferocious fighting style. Armed with a hooked staff and sword reminiscent of Soulbrandt from Demon’s Souls, he’s mobile and hits hard, with a pension for summoning the damned.

7. Laurence, the First Vicar

We first learn of Laurence in the Grand Cathedral and finally face his bestial form in the Old Hunters DLC. At first, he seems like just a fire-element Cleric Beast, but his most list evolves throughout the fight, becoming increasingly erratic and powerful. He eventually loses both legs, crawling around on the ground spewing lava from both ends.

8. Vicar Amelia

The beast guarding the Grand Cathedral, Vicar Amelia, isn’t the first fight in Bloodborne that showcases the game’s grandiose design, but the atmosphere, soundtrack, and lore implications are some of the best on offer. Amelia’s attacks are slow but powerful for this point in a playthrough, and unless you come with Numbing Mist, be ready to fight through her healing.

9. Mergo’s Wet Nurse

The one true Great One you fight in Bloodborne, Mergo’s Wet Nurse, is the penultimate encounter if you fight Gehrman, and it’s worthy of the spot. It isn’t the hardest boss in the game, but it is one of the most cinematic, with the creature attacking with its six curved blades, summoning darkness clones of itself, and the battle set to a simple music box theme.

10. Darkbeast Paarl

Fighting Paarl without knowing how to stagger him is a chaotic mess of a boss encounter. He skitters around his arena, taking cat-like swipes at you and generating electrical explosions whenever you get too close. The fight is one of the first to showcase the power of breaking a boss’s limbs, as doing so to Paarl makes the fight a bit of a joke.

11. Cleric Beast

The first boss most players are likely to encounter is one of its better ones. Cleric Beast is a slow, relatively hard-hitting boss. Like Paarl, it teaches the power of breaking limbs and has easy-to-read attacks in an arena that makes good use of its size. The Beast sets the expectation Bloodborne would later defy with the eldritch horror elements, and its soundtrack is also on the better side.

12. Watchdog of the Old Lords

The fight against the Watchdog of the Old Lords is one of the most technical in the game. Knowing when to attack, when to dodge, and understanding the spacing of its moves allow you to completely control the fight. It’s a good thing, too, because the Watchdog is one of the major hurdles you’ll need to overcome to complete the Chalice Dungeons.

13. Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen

The final encounter of the non-Root Chalice Dungeons, taking on Yharnam, is a fight against the past for the sake of the future. While her fight isn’t as epic or interesting as the best Bloodborne offers, it’s still suitably exciting and demands you to learn on the fly.

14. Moon Presence

The secret and true final boss of Bloodborne’s base game, the Moon Presence isn’t the most interesting fight in the game; it is one of the most important from a lore perspective. Like the rest of Bloodborne, there are some twists you’ll need to contend with, and the creature both looks and moves as unnaturally as you’d expect.

15. Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos

One of the later hidden bosses, Ebrietas, would be lower on this list were it not for the second phase. She spends the first phase of her fight flailing wildly at you, turning to her cosmic powers only when things grow dire. Her attacks, even in the second phase, aren’t particularly flashy save for the lasers, but there is a desperation and resignation to them that makes her almost pathetic.

16. Blood-starved Beast

An early-game boss design-built to obliterate low-level players with a specific weakness to walking to the left, the Blood-starved Beast is a poison-riddled monstrosity with fast attacks that can easily one-shot the unprepared. One of the most cheesable bosses in Bloodborne, if you know what to do, one mistake will send inexperienced Hunters back to the dream.

17. Shadows of Yharnam

The best multi-boss fight in the game, the Shadows of Yharnam, all use different weapons and strategies that complement each other. While it is possible to control the pace and flow of the fight, the first time you fight these three, it’s liable to get confusing quickly. Thanks to the fight’s three phases as you deal damage and the trio’s evolving movesets, the Shadows are a wake-up call in a game full of them.

18. Amygdala

Amygdala’s fight has some good ideas — ripping its own arms off to extend its attacks — and the boss’s design is creepy and disturbing. It’s not, however, the most innovative fight, as the creature tends to simply slap at you or occasionally shoot lasers. It’s not a bad boss, but it’s not a great one, either.

19. The One Reborn

The first real stinker of a boss in Bloodborne, the One Reborn, harkens back to the Tower Knight from Demon’s Souls thanks to the enemies on the platforms above the arena but lacks any of the earlier fight’s charm. Slow, plodding, and able to kill you seemingly from nowhere, this boss is as entertaining to fight as it is to look at.

20. Living Failures

The one stain on the Old Hunters DLC, the Living Failures, have one interesting attack with a very obvious counter. They’re content to spend the rest of the fight flailing uselessly at you, and their only threat is the obscene amount of damage they inflict and the fact they spawn endlessly.

21. Celestial Emissary

Another mob boss with one central, main enemy, the Emissary, is an earlier, even worse version of Living Failures with even less interesting lore. The encounter is part ad control, part wailing on a slow-moving hit sponge that’s both uninteresting to fight and less satisfying to overcome.

22. The Witches of Hemwick

Not just a duo boss, but one that needs trash mobs to be even remotely threatening, the Witches of Hemwick are enemies repurposed as bosses who can deal damage but rely almost entirely on the mobs to enable them to do so. The music and arena are also sub-par, making this fight mediocre at best.

23. Micolash, Host of the Nightmare

Micolash has the same problem all human NPC enemies have in FromSoftware games: they don’t conform to any of the rules player Hunters need to, and even if he could, his fight is awful. He uses one attack in his first phase and adds two others in his second. His lore is the only interesting thing about him, which is why he’s not farther down.

24. Pthumerian Descendant / Elder

The Chalice Dungeon bosses aren’t usually very good, and the Pthumerian Descendant and Elder fights are testaments to that lack of quality. While they have varied move pools and an exciting design, fighting them is a test of patience before it’s one of skill. Every attack timing is wonky, the attacks themselves do a ton of damage with little room for dodging, and they tend to have too much health for where they are.

25. Bloodletting Beast

Bosses bigger than the player are never fun, but the Bloodletting Beast takes it to another level. It’s more mobile than something of its size should be, and because you’ll only be able to do damage around its legs, keeping track of what it’s doing is sometimes impossible. Paired with wonky attack timings and the ability to cross the entire arena in a blink, this boss is more annoying than fun.

26. Rom, The Vacuous Spider

Rom is the worst boss in Bloodborne because you spend so little time fighting the boss herself. She’s almost no threat. Her spider mobs are the real bosses, and you’ll need to deal with dozens of them to defeat her. The only cool thing about her fight is the arena; in the Chalices, she doesn’t even have those.