Difficulty, bosses, and Dark Souls Remastered, all these words are downright synonymous owing to FromSoftware’s excellent and brutal design choices that birth the soulslike formula. The bosses in Dark Souls Remastered stand at the pinnacle of hardship and any gamer who is a glutton for some challenge would gladly dive head-first into this game.
I take it upon myself the even more difficult task of curating the list of all the bosses in Dark Souls Remastered ranked by difficulty. Hoping it resonates with many players out there!
26. Pinwheel
Pinwheel is, without a shadow of a doubt, the easiest boss in Dark Souls Remastered. This boss seems to have an identity crisis, literally, because his whole design makes you think he’s made for the early game.
However, in reality, the absolute headache, the Catacombs, where you fight this boss, is meant to be accessed mid-game when you are properly leveled up.
To boot it, the boss’s health is smaller than a pea. Additionally, most of his weak attacks can either be rolled through or just simply a face tanked. Trouble does arise when he starts summoning copies, so you might want to watch your back, but even these things die in one shot.
25. Ceaseless Discharge
The sheer sight of the Ceaseless Discharge makes it seem like you are in a world of hurt in Dark Souls Remastered. Furthermore, he has ludicrous damage that can one-shot the unaware and has a gargantuan health bar. However, there is a built-in cheese for this fight that makes this boss fight trivial.
Instead of fighting him head-on, you can just run back to the altars, all the way to the arena fog gate. Stand here and in a stupid attempt to try and get you, the Ceaseless Discharge will jump over and cling to the cliff for his dear life.
You can take this time to bash his clinging hand and watch as he falls to his fiery grave. Yup, that’s all you need to cease this apparent ceaseless being. The only reason why it’s not lower is cause this cheese does require some brain cells to work.
24. Asylum Demon
Asylum Demon could be one of the harder bosses in Dark Souls Remastered for new players if you forget about one small detail, YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO FIGHT HIM THE FIRST TIME. Exit the arena when you first face him and gather your gear only to return to the fight.
Your returning plunging strike will be enough to take away around half of the boss’s HP. From here it’s a simple fight. His attacks come out slower than a turtle and are highly telegraphed. Furthermore, his sweet butt is literally for the taking here. By placing yourself between his cheeks, you can deal damage with a relative and be done with this fight before he makes any dent.
23. Dark Sun Gwyndolin
The fight against Dark Sun Gwyndolin is playing a game of red-light-green-light from your childhood. The boss stands in a seemingly infinite corridor and shoots all manner of ranged spells at you.
The strategy here is to use the pillars on the side to take cover from the spells and run up to him as he recovers. Keep this up and this sun will soon fade away.
There are a couple of spells that might still get you behind the pillars so you need to be vigilant for that. This includes the ultra beam and a shotgun blast. It’s just a matter of running up to the boss at the most opportune of times and hoping he doesn’t start spamming spells out of the blue.
This preschool game of a boss fight can be hard initially when you are unaware of his attacks, but it gets incredibly boring and easy to deal with when you know all his tricks.
22. Taurus Demon
The Taurus Demon is a better tutorial boss fight than the Asylum Demon. It encourages you to explore different opportunities to think out of the box when facing a boss. There are a couple of ways to end the fight quickly, including a dev-made cheese.
Imbuing your weapon with the Gold Pine Resin will dish out insane damage to the boss. Or, you can lure him to the edge of the bridge and throw him off the side to end his misery (a bit of practice required).
And finally, the best way to fight him is to go atop the tower with the archers and perform plunging attacks on the boss. Just a few plunges and the Taurus Demon plunges into the abyss.
The boss is harder head-on since the arena is pretty narrow and his attacks have a decent amount of tracking. You can wait for him to attack, roll through it, and use the long recovery to lay into him.
21. Iron Golem
Next is the boss at the end of the frustrating Sen’s Fortress, i.e. Iron Golem. As with most giant things in Dark Souls Remastered, just camping behind the boss’s ankles will ensure your victory.
He can’t reach you here owing to his size and you can take your time and whittle away his health from here. His grab attack is the only dangerous attack you need to watch out for.
With enough pressure from your side, Iron Golem will eventually start wobbling and drop to the ground like a toddler and that’s it, his breaths are limited now. The wall-less arena is a more bothersome bit of the fight so be careful.
20. Centipede Demon
This is another one of those fights where the arena is more of a nuisance than the boss itself. Luckily, there is a simple way to bypass this annoyance. Stick to the right side of the arena, jump over the lava bits, and make your way to the hidden large land section behind the corner. This is your safe haven, you needn’t worry about the lava here.
From here it’s just a matter of dodging to the left for most of Centipede Demon’s dumb stretchy attacks and attacking his dangly limbs to cut them down. The only two moves you need to look out for are when he leaps like a frog into the air and sends a fireball down to the ground or his foot stomps.
A valuable piece of advice: you can cut the boss’s tail to get the Orange Charred Ring, which raises your defenses against lava. You can easily get the ring on your first attempt and equip it for a second real encounter. Many of his attacks and the lava in the arena will become water to you with this on.
19. Moonlight Butterfly
The Moonlight Butterfly could easily be ranked lower if only I had played with a sorcerer/ranged build. For melee users, this giant bug can be a bit of a problem. Again, the trouble here lies in the arena design and the fight mechanics.
The boss stays airborne most of the fight, out of reach from melee attacks. From here she likes to send a flurry of magical projectiles, which are annoying to defend against but nothing too crazy. Now and then, the boss gets tired and descends to chow down on some moss. This is it, this is your opening. You can lay into the boss and run her HP dry with a good enough weapon.
Sorcerers won’t face this issue since they can keep firing their spells and be done with the fight much earlier on. Carry a bow and a few arrows if sorcery isn’t your thing and this fight will be over in no time.
18. Seath The Scaleless
Before we get to talk about the fight, you should know that cutting off Seath’s tail will reward you with the legendary Moonlight Greatsword. You can bait the boss to destroy the crystal that protects him and run behind him as he begins to charge his attack and cut off that tail to claim that sweet sword for you.
As for the fight, the boss is nothing to write home about. Pretty much every attack of his can be dodged by just camping out his stomach or running away. The only real attack you need to watch out for is his chest beam attack since it’s all he can do to protect himself.
His tentacle flailing attacks rarely go off unless you are near his tail. Any damage you could take during this fight can be healed by just running away and using an Estus in the safety of the distance.
17. Gaping Dragon
The fight against Gaping Dragon is much more challenging if you don’t take out the mage before engaging the boss. The presence of the mage buffs the boss to the point where this sewage lizard can easily one-shot you.
Next, you should hone in on his tail first. Cutting it not only rewards you with the Dragon King Greataxe but also disables his deadliest attack the tailspin that spans across an entire football field and hits like a train.
After that, you can either bait out his charge attacks and exploit it since it takes years for him to recover from it or stick to his hind legs and lay into him. All you have to worry about is the grab attack as it seems to have a magnet attached to it due to how large the hitbox is.
16. Capra Demon
The arena is a recurring theme in many fights and it’s true for the fight against the Capra Demon. The damn arena is smaller than my bathroom. Not to mention the pair of dogs that makes your life even more miserable. You either kill the dogs or they kill you, you choose! The Capra Demon himself is just a faster and smaller version of the Taurus Demon.
The easiest way to mitigate this problem is to run to the right side of the Capra Demon, dodge its attacks, and then make a beeline for the stairs. The dogs will most likely follow you up there before the Capra Demon himself, and even if they don’t, just hop off the stairs since they have a landing recovery animation you can exploit.
Put down the dogs and continue to loop the ledge drop to take out the Capra Demon. You just need to be extra aware of the arena’s narrowness before you go crazy with your dodging.
15. Stray Demon
The Stray Demon is the Asylum Demon on steroids. You can’t get greedy during this fight like you can in the previous version. You can’t exactly use the same tactics as before since he is more learned now.
The loop of the fight goes like this; hug and bite his butt cheeks and wait for him to spam his slam and AOE blast. Run away before the blast and return to the cheeks and caress them before bailing again. Keep this annoying loop up and he’ll go down.
However, keep in mind that the boss hits like a bus, and most of his attacks can one-shot you, thus putting him higher on the list.
14. Crossbreed Priscilla
Crossbreed Priscilla is the single most inconsistent boss fight in all of Dark Souls Remastered. The problem lies in the fact she becomes invisible as soon as the fight starts. Now you have to track her by looking at her footprints on the snow on the ground.
This is where the uneven experience stems from. I have somehow managed to track her perfectly on my first try but in later runs it just doesn’t seem to work since she can teleport too while being invisible. It is just a matter of blocking attacks coming from thin air while flailing your weapon around and hoping it lands.
She does leave her invisibility act later in the fight where things become more manageable. Don’t forget to cut her tiny tail to get yourself Priscilla’s Dagger.
13. Gravelord Nito
Take what I said about the Capra Demon’s dogs and apply it on a higher scale but with a slightly more open arena and you have the boss fight against Gravelord Nito.
Nito himself is easy if you stick to him like glue since most of his attacks will pass over you. His only troubling attack is the AOE which is all about “run or die”. Pray that he doesn’t keep spamming this attack.
The thing that gets me the most is the waves of skeleton freaks that this boss spawns. The most troubling of them are these three standard skeleton soldiers who ended my career more often than I like to admit. Take them out to maintain your sanity.
And for the love of God do not trigger the giant skeletons in the left corner of the room. They have a pretty low aggro range so as long as you know they’re there you can avoid triggering them.
12. Chaos Witch Quelaag
Quelaag’s attacks mainly come from the front so it’s best to stick to her sides. Her sword attacks do have a weird hitbox and tracking to them so I find it best to dodge them anyway.
But the real danger here is the lava that builds up over time. You’ll need to reposition her since she causes a volcano to erupt in the spot you are fighting her on.
There’s also an AoE blast which has one-shot potential, a gigantic hitbox, and is difficult to predict. You can interrupt this by attacking her frontside but since you’re most likely on her side it’s better to run.
11. Demon Firesage
Remember what I wrote about Stray Demon’s AoE blast and the slam loop? Demon Firesage ups the ante by never giving you this opening since he likes to follow it up with another AOE blast or a hammer swing to the face.
There were times when this boss ended up trapping me in this loop so hope that his AI doesn’t go berserk on you.
Other than that though this boss is basically the Stray Demon 2.0 or Asylum Demon 3.0. Nothing else much to say for a reskin of a reskin.
10. Bed Of Chaos
The Bed of Chaos is one of those gimmick bosses. However, the gimmick here is platforming, and as you know, Dark Souls Remastered is known for its tight platforming gameplay. The whole fight is a battle of trial and error and eventual success.
In a nutshell, you need to first take out his “shield generators” on either side and then go for the pesky Lord in the core. The removal of the first thingamajig will cause the floor to start falling and you don’t get to see which sections will collapse until you’re a millimeter in front of them. Get ready to fall to your demise a lot!
If you manage to maneuver like the drift king, the intact sections will start erupting fire AOE that can either one-shot you or send you flying in those holes. Not to mention, the boss keeps on spamming wide sweep attacks too.
Take out the next generator and now the whole section in front of the boss collapses. You have to precisely jump onto the single root that leads to the boss’s core, which is an annoying task in itself with all the hell breaking loose. Scale the root and go inside the boss to finish the frail Lord in there and it’s over.
9. Bell Gargoyles
The trouble these Bell Gargoyles caused me, I could have placed them at number 1. But it is just a matter of being a noob and how well-prepared you are for the fight.
The fight with one of them is relatively easy but then his brother joins the fray mid-battle upping the challenge 2 folds. Then they both gain the ability to spam fire breath, multiplying the difficulty times 10. That fire breath could potentially cover half the arena should they wish which led to me being cornered multiple times.
If you upgrade your weapon a lot before the fight, then yes, this fight is surprisingly easy because you can five-shot them. After doing this once, I realized how striking the difficult difference is here when you can down the first gargoyle so quickly.
8. Gwyn, Lord Of Cinder
Putting Gwyn, Lord of Cinder at this spot might be controversial but hear me out!
On the one hand, Gwyn is arguably the most aggressive boss in the game. He is able to dish out incredible damage in a single combo and using an Estus Flask in front of him is like violating the law. However, you can PARRY him to high hell.
Parrying Gwyn makes the fight one of the easiest in the game. I wasn’t a parry master throughout the game but ended up practicing it on this boss. You’d be surprised how the tables turn when you get the parry rhythm down.
Still, I won’t discount this boss’s raw difficulty. He can be as easy as the Asylum Demon with proper parrying or a top-level threat if you can’t exploit this tactic.
7. Great Grey Wolf Sif
If you manage to fight Great Grey Wolf Sif after the Bell Gargoyles then expect a totally different difficulty experience. You must face her after you are done with Anor Londo. It is another controversial placement but that is what I went through and I have seen others do too.
Almost all of her attacks seemed to one or two shot me and her spinning Beyblade move is by far the deadliest move in her arsenal. She usually uses it when I think she’s going to use a charge attack thus this unpredictability caught me off guard many times.
Speaking of said charge attacks, these are also quite hard to predict since most of the time she just seems to walk towards you until you get close enough for her to hit you with the very tip of her blade.
However, there’s one glaring weakness that lowers her rating. Getting under her effectively sidesteps her entire arsenal until she repositions. It all boils down to dodging the initial hit and then camping under her for the rest of the fight. Don’t underestimate her for she is more bouncier than Mario.
6. Four Kings
I don’t know why this boss is called Four Kings cause I have seen, at most, seven of them at the same time. Learn how to count FromSoft!
The bosses’ AOE scream grab attack will always catch you unless you have the reaction speed of a god. Additionally, his homing ring of death and spin-to-win move are annoying AF.
Their other movesets are also difficult to dodge. Luckily though you take minuscule damage if you are up closer to them during their sword attacks as you only take damage from the hilt so in theory, you can face tank them.
If you take too long, more Kings will appear throughout the fight. However, this rarely comes into effect unless they decide to use their broken gang spell-based attack.
5. Sanctuary Guardian
Taking into consideration that his move pool is incredibly diverse, featuring follow-up combos, projectiles, and counters. You can see why he’s this high on the list. I’ve always sucked at fighting the Sanctuary Guardian in Darks Souls Remastered. He was by far the most aggressive boss I’ve fought up to this point.
The most effective method is dodging away from his attacks and waiting for him to either use the wave attack which has a very long recovery animation (as long as you don’t get hit by the wave that is) and his charging headbutt which has a similar long recovery. Surprisingly, his HP is quite low so just punish these moves and you’re golden.
4. Artorias the Abysswalker / Knight Artorias
Knight Artorius is no pushover despite being clinically insane and injured when you fight him. Artorias moves more fluidly and faster than any other boss so far save for Gwyn. His moveset is completely erratic yet graceful and can follow up many of his moves with counter-attacks.
He also has one of those Beyblade move like Sif which is quite deadly owing to the follow-up second hit that is bound to hit you if you don’t dodge the initial spin attack.
To boot, he can also buff himself! Do not under any circumstance let him do this. His damage will skyrocket to near if not one-shot potential. You can interrupt this buff by attacking him continuously when he tries to do so.
Still, you need to be able to recognize and react to all of Artorias’s telegraphs otherwise you’re dead due to his aggression making healing windows limited in this fight.
3. Dragon Slayer Ornstein and Executioner Smough
The fight against Ornstein and Smough comes down to how effectively you can use the pillars. If you use them to separate them for brief moments to get some hits in, you win. If you don’t, you’ll either get cornered and/or die shortly thereafter. I tend to focus on Smough initially since Ornstein likes to dodge a lot and I can use Smough as a meat shield to block Ornstein’s attacks.
Smough’s attacks are easy to dodge outside of the occasional weird tracking of his charge attack. Once you down either one of them, you have to deal with either a super-sized Ornstein or a lightning-powered Smough.
For this phase, much like the Iron Golem, you can just camp at the boss’s ankles and lay into him. You need to watch out for some attacks that can still get you like their unique rendition of the slam AOE attack.
The second phase is only moderately difficult yet the first phase is enough to propel this boss so high up the list.
2. Black Dragon Kalameet
This environmental hazard turned full-fledged boss is frustrating to fight for many reasons. For a huge dragon, Kalameet’s speed is jarring.
Some moves take a while to come out like his neck swipe and other moves that come out nearly instantly like the charge swipe attack. All of these moves have potential follow-ups like his double foot stomp so the name of the game is good positioning. Kalameet also has some wonky lingering hip boxes like that of his neck swipe where you’ll get dragged with his head if you dodge into it.
There’s more! He can debuff you temporarily to take double damage meaning you’ll get one shot by most of his attacks.
And if you are going for his tail to get that sweet Obsidian Greatsword then let me shatter that dream. He has very few attacks where the tail is reachable so you end up playing a game of chase for the entire fight.
1. Manus, Father Of The Abyss
Take the ferocity and combos of Artorios along with the damage and weird hip boxes of Kalameet and a sprinkle of even more aggression and you have Manus, Father of the Abyss. He is the last boss of Dark Souls Remastered’s DLC so it is pretty much expected.
He should have been named the father of combos since this dude can chain together so many different attacks.
He’s got close-range swipes that seemed to clip you half the time despite dodging directly through them. A counter specifically designed to prevent you from smacking that booty.
A wombo-combo that will always connect with you unless you run the near-instant he yells. He’s got spells that all have similar tells and vary to a very high degree. And the punishment list goes on!
Combine all that with the fact that Manus is absolutely relentless, and the only safe opportunity you have to heal during this fight is during a slam attack or the womb combo if you dodged them properly. I forgot to add his health is the size of Jupiter. Good luck taking out Daddy!
I know this Darks Souls Remastered boss ranking might not coincide with many of your lists since personal experience and build choice make each player’s journey so unique. I made this list as a pure melee build, but I expect yours to be quite different, and that is the beauty of Dark Souls Remastered bosses.