Most games nowadays – games with combat especially – feature some sort of boss fight. A brute force test of player skill, a robust assessment of upgrades and augmentations, a cat-and-mouse encounter against an overpowered foe. However, not all combat-centric games rely on this trope. There are tons of great games out there that had next to no boss fights; distinct, memorable, narratively significant encounters, sure, but not something that can be called a true brute force test.
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
There isn’t a heap of enemy variety in Nathan Drake’s first outing in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Mercs and pirate-types aside, the monster-like infected Descendants at least provide a terrifying alternative when they first arrive. Their persistence does start to wain though, but still, the game excels as a piece of cinematic storytelling more than anything, and the Descendants provide a firm narrative backbone to support ultimate final boss Atoq Navarro’s stance that the pathogen which formed the Descendants is far more valuable than any golden treasure. Drake and Navarro’s showdown is more a stand-off than battle; Drake waits for him to reload, edges closer in three movements, a brief bit of hand-to-hand, QTE, done.
Far Cry 2
Yet another excellent game that doesn’t really have a boss battle. It has enemies, of course, some weaker, some stronger, but in a genre where there are at least one or two boss fights, Far Cry 2 stands alone. The assassination of the game’s faction bosses and old lieutenants is rudimentary, with primary antagonist The Jackal – the arms dealer whom your mercenary was originally hired to kill – serving more as a narrative think-piece as the story goes on. He’s someone believed to be bad by profiting from death, but that’s exactly what you do in order to get close to him. A final showdown wouldn’t make sense in this context.
Prey (2017)
Prey (2017) has no boss fights whatsoever. Sure, the substantially dangerous form of Typhon the Nightmare perpetually antagonises the player throughout the game but the fact killing it is optional, either slay or evade, means it can’t be considered a true boss fight. It’ll respawn anyway, whatever you do. The most humungous of all Typhon, the Apex, doesn’t need to be fought in the traditional sense either. There are two ways to kill it: one, self-destruct Talos I, and two, detonate the Coral to destroy the Apex without damaging Talos I. Even central antagonist Walther Dahl doesn’t need to be killed, with distinct outcomes depending on whether you choose to kill or stun him.
Deus Ex
In Deus Ex, you will engage enemies on the elite side of difficulty but the game’s usual fayre of tactical, first-person combat involving stealth, cover, and hit-and-run strategy is consistent with regular hordes of enemies as it is the elite. A principal idea – and a relatively ground-breaking one for the time – in Deus Ex is for the player to spend their time developing their stealth skills alongside augmenting their character’s nano-tech. It’s a system seen today in games like Cyberpunk 2077, a multi-directional upgrade tree that can tune player-characters towards damage absorbing human tanks, weapons specialists, or hacking and lock picking experts. There just aren’t any major bosses with which to test your builds and skills, but Deus Ex still shines as a bright forbearer for dystopian RPGs to this day regardless.
The Last of Us
Another Naughty Dog entry on this rundown. Plainly, the studio just isn’t that fond of boss battles, and this is true of their zombie-ravaged post-apocalyptic survive-a-thon series (the horrifying Rat King from The Last of Us 2 aside). Joel and Ellie’s first outing sees the pair face-off in arena-type locales against overpowered enemies – the bloaters in the school gymnasium and the creepy hotel basement spring to mind – but these are strong, recurring enemies consistent with the timeframe in which the host has been infected, according to The Last of Us lore. The one possible exception in is Ellie’s battle with David inside the burning restaurant. It’s a one-on-one battle of wits, but Ellie at the time doesn’t have any of her inventory so it can be argued this encounter is not a true boss fight.
Max Payne 2
Remedy Entertainment’s bullet-time third-person shooter started out with numerous boss fights; mobsters, in the first Max Payne, who could withstand heaps of punishment. Max Payne’s second entry largely did away with this formula. Leader of the Squeaky Cleaning Company Kaufman was a tougher than usual foe, but still didn’t take too many bullets before going down. The game’s final battle against Vladimir Lem plays out more like a puzzle encounter than a one-on-one fight of brute force. Max must shoot the legs of the scaffolding Vlad is standing on then take out the support of the spire above him before being able to target him directly. The final phase is akin to a boss fight, to be fair, but it’s barely a test.
Red Dead Redemption
Like Naughty Dog, Rockstar are a studio which by-and-large eschew boss battles in their open world games. Red Dead Redemption is no different; there are no major boss fights to speak of. Central antagonists Bill Williamson, Javier Escuella, and Dutch van der Linde whom John Marston is forced into hunting down across the vast Wild West don’t have final encounters resembling boss fights. The only encounter close to a boss fight is Jack Marston’s duel with Bureau of Investigation ringleader Edgar Ross, but this is just a duel – a dishonourable one for Ross – but a commonplace duel all the same. This encounter only has notoriety for the gravitas of revenge attuned to it by John’s son Jack.
Grand Theft Auto IV
The only conceivable boss fight in Grand Theft Auto history is the showdown with Big Smoke in GTA: San Andreas. All other fights, even against central antagonists, are gunfights or chases against narratively significant adversaries, but they’re not stronger than regular enemies. Niko’s final showdown and execution of Pegorino, accessible via the revenge ending option, is a thrilling chase sequence rather than one-on-one boss fight. Prior to this, Niko’s final encounter with major tormentor Dimitri Rascalov involves sneaking through the decks and cargo holds of the Platypus, with a brief cutscene emerging once Niko has wiped out all Rascalov’s goons.
Watch_Dogs 2
Another game with next to no boss-like encounters in this rundown, this hacktivism sequel takes a more nuanced approach to dealing with its antagonists. Case in point, Mark Thruss’s comeuppance comes when player-character Marcus Holloway downloads and releases evidence of vote rigging before election day. Blume Corporation CTO and chief antagonist Dusan Nemec’s downfall comes after Marcus infiltrates Blume HQ and steals data corroborating DedSec’s accusation of Nemec’s wrongdoing. Henceforth he rots in jail forever.
Alien: Isolation
Yeah, you’re probably thinking that Alien: Isolation is a game with a boss encounter; the persistently stalking Xenomorph is surely the boss, right? Well, yeah, maybe. However, there’s no distinct boss battle or one-on-one fighting section to speak of. The Xenomorph, truth be told, is so overpowered, it’s an unkillable nemesis, so dangerous in fact its more prudent to run and hide than face it head on. You’ll only lose.