Game bosses are a staple of game design for
a reason. They’re fun. They work. But so many bosses are variations on the same
theme. Find them, start a fight, take them down to
0, move on with your day. Thousands of games are built with bosses that
exclusively follow that format. The game loop is designed with that pattern
in mind. But is that the only way? What if you made a boss that could stand there
and take whatever you could dish out? An impossible boss. Could that work? Impossible bosses cover a whole category of
beings that can’t be taken out by normal means. The specifics will be different game to game,
but the fight will take on some other form than what you’re used to. What you have to do might vary, but whatever
it is, it won’t be like an ordinary fight. Let’s talk about how you can put the fun
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too. Impossible bosses sound like a bad idea. ‘Oh, just make a boss but make it impossible
to beat.’ Yeah, thanks. That seems like it obviously wouldn’t work. Games stop being games pretty quickly if a
player will never be able to beat a challenge that the game puts in front of them. And yet, there are impossible bosses all over
the place. You can probably name a half dozen off the
top of your head right now. The idea works. So what are they doing to avoid what seems
like an unfixable problem? Impossible bosses aren’t normal bosses. They can’t be. A boss that works like all the other bosses
but is impossible to beat DOES make the game stop being a game. There has to be something more. Something else to what that boss is doing
for it to work. Impossible bosses twist the boss format into
something else. But that twist can play on a few different
angles. So why even make a boss impossible? Well, it does add some powerful new tools
to the toolkit. Let’s start with the narrative. It’s really common for impossible bosses
to be tied to a game’s narrative, more so than many other boss tropes. Whether it’s establishing a villain as a
threat, introducing a great set piece, or driving home a feeling of helplessness in
the player, an impossible boss can be especially good at tying together story and gameplay. Narrative-focused impossible bosses are setting
things up for the long haul. They’re great as the first encounter with
a recurring villain. RPGs LOVE to use this through ‘forced-to-lose’
boss battles. Paper Mario 64 starts out with a fight against
Bowser, where, after a few bonks to the head, Bowser decides to cheat, pull out this game’s
MacGuffin the Star Rod, becomes invincible, toys around with you a bit, and then one-shots
you with a blast of fire. The fight is completely scripted but with
a veneer of gameplay. It establishes how battles work and sets up
the main goal of the story: to find the means to overcome Bowser’s new invincible form. You COULD have done this in a cutscene, but
making the sequence interactive instead helps fold new players into the game world quicker,
even if the outcome is predetermined. Other RPGs bring this out a little later in
the game after the player has gotten their bearings. Maybe the main villain hasn’t shown up yet,
but you find a lieutenant of theirs in your way. Final Fantasy IX’s Beatrix has been sent
to deal with you on behalf of the queen. You’ve seen her a few times in cutscenes
by now, and you’ve taken on some powerful monsters so far, so this should be a great,
even match, right? Nah, you suck. She wipes the floor with you. And again later. You’ve got some work to do still. Time for Disc 2. With these impossible bosses, there’s a
trap to fall into. Some bosses who are impossible to beat still
require you to fight well enough to ‘win’ before the scenario ends. Beatrix has HP and still has to be taken down
to 0 before you ‘win.’, or at least you have to let her have 10 turns. Even though the fight ends with her destroying
you all, if you let your guard down and let her beat you within the fight mechanics themselves,
the game treats that as an actual Game Over. When a game has established that some fights
aren’t meant to be won, there’s going to be a nagging suspicion in the minds of
players during other difficult fights. Is this one real? Should I be using items on this? Or am I meant to lose? Because sometimes you are meant to lose. Impossible bosses in a narrative context are
perfect for leaning into the idea of a final fate. Not every story has to end with you overcoming
the odds for an ultimate victory. The final sequence in Halo Reach shows off
what the right kind of fight against impossible odds can do for a story. I wouldn’t call Halo Reach’s epilogue
a ‘boss’ exactly - it’s more of a mini-horde mode type thing - but it’s the culmination
of the unwinnable fight the story has been building throughout the entire game. You and your partner are the last line of
defense against an unending stream of Covenant, and the only objective is to survive as long
as you can. If your partner goes down, the game will display
the ‘Teammate waiting to respawn’ message. That will never happen - the area isn’t
safe and will never be safe again. You’re on your own as your visor cracks. When the end finally arrives for Six, the
game delivers a pitch-perfect moment of self-sacrifice and ties together the conclusion that you
knew was coming, that the series had described and had been building towards this entire
game. It was inevitable, but playing it yourself
makes it hit even harder, no matter that you couldn’t change it. Not every impossible boss has to be about
allegories, though. Sometimes the boss just has like really good
armor or something. It’s less about the story significance and
more about figuring out a way around the bulletproof man. Nothing you do will damage them in a way that
matters. You have to think of something else. Run? Dodge? Lure them into a different kind of trap? One of the major points of an impossible boss
is that it forces players to think differently. They create a chance to redefine what a game’s
bosses can be. Resident Evil 2 remake’s Mr. X is a classic. He’s one of the most beloved unbeatable
bosses you’re forced to avoid. The first third of RE2 takes place in the
Raccoon City Police Station, where you’re exploring the place like it’s a labyrinth,
dealing with zombies, managing resources, and unlocking doors. You get familiar with the station’s layout
over time as you backtrack and navigate through it. Eventually, the station feels like a terrible
second home. The basic zombies aren’t a big deal anymore. You’ve boarded up the windows and cleared
the way. Everything is just peachy. OH NO, ANOTHER ZOMBIE. WITH A HAT. HE'S GOT A HAT. The game throws the Tyrant Mr. X into your
perfect cozy zombie home. He’s an unstoppable walking machine who’s
out for your head. For the rest of the time in the RPD, Mr. X
will be stalking you through narrow corridors, and you can’t stop him. The game becomes something like a navigation
puzzle, where to get around, you’re going to have to effectively juke around him to
get where you need to go. His wide frame and the narrow rooms make it
tough to do. You can stun him with powerful weapons, but
you can’t truly get rid of him until later. You’ll be unlocking doors and dealing with
zombies like before, but now with the ever-present threat of Hat Man pursuing you. Keep an ear out for his loud footsteps, *heavy Mr. X footsteps overhead* and plan your moves accordingly. Any hallway you didn’t clear out earlier
is now a huge problem when you add Mr. X to the mix, and there’s no way to quietly sneak
around the sound-sensitive Lickers anymore when you’re rushing to get away from him. Mr. X works as a great finale for the RPD
section of the game as a test of how well you can navigate and use resources wisely
to get around an unstoppable threat. It’s plenty doable if you know what you’re
doing, but that first blind run is an unforgettable survival horror challenge. You can also use an impossible boss to add
a touch of survival horror to other types of games. Metroid’s mostly an action-adventure series,
but it’s always had a strong sci-fi horror flavor that it dips into on occasion. What’s more sci-fi horror than an unstoppable
robot chasing after you? The SA-X and E.M.M.I. in Metroid Fusion and
Dread fit the bill nicely. In Metroid Fusion, you have to deal with the
X - floating jelly parasites that pose a seriously scary threat. If it touches organic life, it can kill it,
mimic it, and mutate into something even more dangerous. Guess what the SA stands for in SA-X? This one copied Super Metroid-level Samus
Aran and has all of her abilities from that game, like the fully powered wall-cutting
Ice Beam, the Screw Attack, and explosive Power Bombs. It’s a powerful, soulless husk that will
hunt you down without mercy. Not to worry. You’ve got… *ice beam noise* Oh. You’ve got nothing. You’re in no shape to even approach this
thing. Your robot companion emphasizes this from
the start and tells you to stay away from it. If it spots you, don't fight. Just run. You don’t really have a choice. On- and off-screen, it’ll cause chaos - destroying
pathways and unleashing more X-parasites into the other areas of the space station the game
takes place in. Fusion does a masterful job of framing the
threat that the SA-X poses, and the handful of times you run into it are genuinely scary
for a first-time player. But it’s mostly good because of the framing. The actual gameplay involving it is very limited. It can kill you no problem if it gets a clear
shot, but your interactions can only go so far. The few times you encounter it are pretty
short and quite scripted. Its A.I. is rudimentary and easy to mess with
as it does things like run back and forth aimlessly in a hallway. The final showdown isn’t as cathartic as
you might hope, as you just gun it down as quickly as possible. It’s not exactly an easy fight, but it’s
not very dynamic, either. Good thing that framing is great! It elevates the X-parasite threat and is a
very memorable villain, but it would take another couple of decades for Metroid to take
another crack at this type of boss. Metroid Dread’s big hook comes with the
EMMI - robot drones that are nigh indestructible, hacked to hunt Samus down and steal her Metroid
DNA. The EMMI expand on the SA-X concept. They aren’t as scary, but they make up for
it as a much more mechanically interesting threat to deal with. They’re effectively mini-bosses that emphasize
navigation and light stealth mechanics. Most of the areas in the game have an EMMI
unit, and they’re confined to a specific ‘zone’ where they’re found. As you explore the area, you’ll go in and
out of these EMMI zones and will play a game of cat and mouse with the robot in 1-2 minute
chunks. They’ll climb all over the place and can
hear you as you move around. They won’t actively chase you if they can’t
see you, but they will home in on you. When you hear the beep, the EMMI is in the
same room. *EMMI chirps* It WILL find you sooner or later, so you have
to get a move on. Fighting the SA-X didn’t go much beyond
waiting for it to leave a room or a simple chase sequence. Fusion didn’t have much in the way of stealth
or defensive maneuvers, so there was only so much range the developers had to work with
in those sections. Dread is built with evasion mechanics in mind. With the EMMI’s dynamic movement and AI,
you’re bound to confront one at some point, and there are just so many more ways to handle
it. Your different running, sliding, dashing,
wall jumping, and climbing options can come into play. If you’re about to be spotted or want to
sneak by one, you have the Phantom Cloak. At a cost to your movement, you turn invisible
for as long as your stamina bar can hold out and as long as you don’t just bump into
it. You’ll have plenty of close calls, which
is always a thrill. Even if it catches you, you still have a tiny
window to parry, stun the robot, and make a break for it. The parry timing is somewhat randomized and
tough to capitalize on, so you can’t rely on it. There’s 2 chances, and if you miss, it’s
game over, and you zip back to the last E.M.M.I. door you entered, which won’t be more than
a couple of minutes of time loss. Before long, you’ll find the EMMI’s central
unit - these little Mother Brain-looking minibosses that you can dispose of for a temporary powerup:
the Omega Cannon. This powerful Gatling gun lets you finally
face off against the robot head-on, take out its armor plating, and finish it off with
a well-aimed charge shot, bringing an end to the threat and rewarding you with a new
ability. You’ll go through the same process with
each EMMI, but they do become trickier with new powers and tactics that keep you trying
to think one step ahead of an enemy you can’t just blast your way past. The EMMIs are a great test of traversal and
stealth, contrast well with the more run-and-gun elements of Dread, and do a great job of refining
an SA-X-type pursuer boss to highlight the variety of the tools at Samus’ disposal. Other impossible bosses can highlight mechanics
that might get ignored in normal gameplay. They can force a player to dig deep into their
bag of tricks. If you’ve got a boss that you can’t take
down with the Attack command, what else ya got? Early in Final Fantasy VIII, you and your
fellow students are on their big field exam to become a member of the mercenary force
SeeD. Be on your best behavior! You’ve gotta take out the G-army so they… don’t capture a TV tower? Bing bang boom, work your way through the
city, get canonically bored, and head up to the tower. Oop, never mind. You’ve got 30 minutes until the boat leaves. Head back to shore. Whoops, you should’ve beaten up that guy
some more, ‘cuz he has a robot. The X-ATM092 is an unstoppable crabbing machine,
ready to hit your whole party for massive damage. Zell tells you to run, and you should listen
to Zell for once. Not only do you have a timer running, but
the robot can heal itself. And not like in the Curaga way. This guy’s doing it In the cutscene setpiece
way. Way more effective. It’s part of a category of impossible bosses
who can bring themselves back to life somehow. You can defeat them, just not for long. Think the Regenerator in Dead Space, or Nemesis
in RE3. There’s no way to take this thing down. As you flee, the robot will keep pursuing
you and drawing you into a fight every time it catches up, wasting more of your timer
and possibly KOing you if you aren’t prepared. Running back through Dollet is a matter of
desperately trying to get to the next screen before the robot catches you and warning the
dog along the way. OK, so you can destroy the robot if you’re
really, really persistent, but you’re not really supposed to. You get an item but lose both time and an
entire cutscene. A self-healing impossible boss, with the story
beats of defeating the boss and then the revelation that you aren’t actually done with them,
can have a medium-term mini-narrative that feels very different than the usual one-and-done
boss structure. The Dollet town robot is an interactive cutscene
tied to Flee mechanics that players might not feel the need to use very often. The unusual setup turns what would’ve been
a lot of backtracking through streets into a tense chase scene that feels very different
from the usual PS1-era boss encounters and gives cinematic flair to an early chapter
of the game. Impossible bosses are also great fits as puzzle
bosses. You can make an impossible boss who you have
to defeat by doing, or solving, or finding something first. Back to Paper Mario. The series has dabbled with some ‘invincible’
antagonists in a few chapters, where the focus is to collect something that lets you get
through their defenses. The fourth chapter of The Thousand-Year Door
takes place in a haunted house where you take a short tour and encounter a mysterious Duplighost
enemy. After a simple boss fight where he turns into
a purple silhouette of Mario, you get your prize, and the chapter ends. Huh. Kind of short, but whatev… oh. Oh I’m still here. Oh, he stole my face. Somehow the boss has stolen your face, name,
and your entire party. The rest of the chapter is you figuring out
how to undo it all. Whenever you try going back to town, you’re
confronted by the doppelganger, who gives you the Rumplestiltskin Runaround. Guess his name, and you can have your stolen
identity returned. Only catch, the lowercase ‘p’ is missing. He robbed the UI. Even if you already know the name, you can’t
spell it. Brilliant. Since you can’t guess it right, you’re
thrown into an impossible fight that you can only run from until you find the missing P. This involves a bunch of back-and-forths and
light puzzle-solving to find the letter and in the process, the copycat’s true name. You go back, reveal the name, he runs away,
and you corner him to do a proper boss fight. He’s got your stolen moveset as well as
your party members, who seem very unconcerned that Mario has been talking this whole chapter. The chapter boss boils down to a simple lock-and-key
adventure game puzzle, but the setup and writing are great. The puzzle creates a new angle for the boss
and makes for a unique scenario that has become one of the most memorable chapters in the
series. But you know, who labeled all of these bosses
anyway? Is it really impossible, or just very, very,
very hard? The last category is for impossible bosses
that aren’t impossible at all. These are the ones where the game warns you
that they’re impossible, but really the game just doesn’t believe in you enough. You can prove it wrong. This style is great for secret endings, new
game plus runs, and the most hardcore minmaxers, and usually ranks among the game's hardest
challenges. The Dynasty Warriors series has one major
antagonist that the game begs you to avoid. Do Not Pursue Lu Bu. If you’re foolhardy enough to try anyway,
he’ll probably obliterate you. Lu Bu is optional in many of the arenas he
appears in, which gives the designers the ability to really crank up his difficulty. Lu Bu has the range, skill, speed, power,
and morale to blow you up in a couple of seconds. But he’s not invincible. You COULD beat him. As long as you don’t kill his girlfriend
first. Then who knows? It’d be easy enough to make him actually
invincible, where taking him on would be pointless, but the combination of how heavily the game
telegraphs that he’s out of your league, the level of difficulty you’ll find if you
DO face him, and that nagging feeling that you could actually take him down if you were
just better at the game creates a dynamic to strive for, and a pre-built challenge ready
to go on a second or third playthrough once you’ve gotten better at combat. When one of these fake-out impossible bosses
shows up at the beginning of the game just like a threat-establishing narrative impossible
boss, you can play out a lot of fun what-if scenarios. Devil May Cry 5 has a modern classic one of
these in Urizen - a new demonic big-bad so powerful that not even Dante could beat him. What hope do you have as a severely weakened
Nero? On your first run, you’re not likely to
do much more than chip damage before Urizen takes out your whole health bar and kicks
you out of the fight. You’re in no shape to succeed. But defeat isn’t strictly guaranteed. It’s very hard. It’s tedious as hell, but you CAN chip him
down to zero on this very first playthrough. If you persevere, you get a secret ending,
and truly we live in the best of all possible worlds. The fight and secret is intended to be more
of a cool easter egg for a new game plus playthrough when you have your full kit of upgrades, weapons,
and abilities, but if you want it badly enough, you can go for it. Urizen hits all the main categories we’ve
talked about. He works as a narrative opener and stakes-setting
encounter, a very hard mechanical test, and still rewards the most dedicated fans with
secret content. He’s the whole package. Let’s talk about impossible bosses in the
comments. Most of them are unique, so highlight the
uniqueness of your favorites. Impossible bosses are designed for a supporting
purpose. Whether it’s through an ultimate challenge
for those who believe in their skills, a narrative anchor point to cement a villain’s place
in a story, or just a refreshing change of pace to keep the game loop from getting stale,
impossible bosses are great motifs to throw a curveball at just the right time. *chill vibes outro from Final Fantasy VIII*
